The Secret Garden Book Review

I missed a lot of Classic literature while I was reading Sweet Valley High and The Baby-sitters club
in my mis-read youth.  Now, I'm taking advantage of classic children's books during my children's childhood.  I picked up an illustrated version of The Secret Garden at the library to read to my kids.  After a few chapters, I got tired of trying to read aloud in a Yorkshire accent and switched to an audio version.  This was much easier to listen to together, although it was eight hours long.

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I was very excited with the beginning of the book.  I love how Mary begins as an unlikeable, contrary girl.  There were great descriptions of the moor and the gothic mansion at Misselthwaite.  Mrs. Medlock, Martha and Ben Weatherstaff are strong, memorable characters and there is always a sense of mystery.  I am more and more impressed by the importance of mystery in any story.

At some point, I sarcastically thought this book could be described as The Secret Garden: or how every ailment can be cured by going outside.  There is something of a preachy morality tale to the story.  I believe this was popular and, actually, the point of children's literature at the time.  Still, the story is highly enjoyable and charming.

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I'll confess we watched the 1993 film version before we got to the end of the book and my children
lost interest in the ending.  I read it myself and was fascinated by the differences between the film and book endings.  I had seen the film when it came out and greatly enjoyed it.  They did a wonderful job of focusing on the mystery while still staying true to the important themes in the book.  I'm glad I read the book and that my kids have heard most of it, but it was a bit of a challenge in language and length to read to children who are more accustomed to modern novels.

Not As They Appear: Chapter One

Here is another excerpt from one of my novels: Not As They Appear.  A fitting read for an Easter weekend featuring a Narnia-like retelling of Jesus' life.  In my book, he is a polar bear named Joshua.

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My sister Jessica never saw the dragons.  Or at least she claimed she didn’t see them.  I kinda thought she was faking, trying to be cool and popular – but thinking back, maybe she was telling the truth.  She certainly wasn’t the only one who couldn’t see the dragons.

            I remember the first time I saw one.  I woke in my bed, covered in dried sweat, my heart racing.  Terror gripped every nerve, but I couldn’t remember why.  Did I have a nightmare?  If so, I couldn’t remember even a fragment of it.  Perhaps someone had been in my room, but I was too scared to check.

            Then I heard it – the horrid screeching like ten thousand nails across a rock.  Deafeningly wretched.  My heart thumped faster and I forgot to breathe.

            I hid beneath my pillow, but the sound penetrated, barely muffled.  I called out to my mom – our mother, the one we had been fighting over since I was born, until we wore her down to a nervous point.  Our arguments deflated her, though we didn’t know this at the time.

            For once, she did not appear instantly at my door.  Where was she?  I could always count on her at night.  Somehow, she could manage compassion and gentleness in the dark, though she couldn’t face it in the light of day. 

            The sounds continued at least a quarter of an hour and then ceased completely.  Though I was enveloped in panic, this did not translate to my limbs.  They remained frozen in my bed.  When the noises ceased, I finally emerged from my blankets, padded to my window and lifted the blind half an inch. 

            A giant yellow eye stared back.  I screamed, but no sound came out.  The eye seemed to x-ray my heart and soul.  I let the blind drop and bolted back to my island of imagined safety.  I breathed again, tears trapped inside, trembling myself to sleep.

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            The following morning our mother was gone. 

            “Way to go, twerp,” Jessica said over a precariously full bowl of fruit loops.  There were none left in the box for me.

            “What?”  I whined.  “You ate all the cereal.”

            She thrust a giant spoonful into her mouth and grinned at me through the colourful ohs.

            “Yfph mph mopth leeph.”

            I punched her in the stomach and she spit the partially gobbled cereal into my face.

            “You’re gonna pay for that, you little brat.” 

            She chased me around the room and I didn’t even notice our mom was missing until it was time to go to school.

            “Hey, where’s mom?” I poked my nose into Jessica’s room.

            “I told you this morning,” she pulled a brush through her long blond hair.  “She’s not here.  I heard you screaming last night.  You must have kept her awake all night, like you always do and then she decided she couldn’t take it anymore.”

            I moved closer, worried.  “What are you talking about?  You never told me she was gone.”

            She grabbed her backpack and stormed out of the room. 

            “Jessicaaaah,” I keened with the perfect inflection to set your teeth against one another.

            She threw her hands up in the air and turned on me.  I slammed into her by accident.

            “I’m not your mother,” she screamed.  “And I’m never gonna be.  If you made her leave, you’re just gonna have to figure out what to do with yourself.”

She left the house then, turning the key in the lock behind her.  I was four years old.  I’d never been alone in the house before.

            Immediately, the silence creeped me out. I turned on the television.  After two episodes of PowerRangers, I called out:

            “Mo-om!  I’m hungry!”  Nothing happened, which wasn’t unusual.  “Mooooooom.  Moooooooooom!”  I said her name with increasing length and strength of voice. 

            When I tired of this, I wandered into her room.  She hadn’t made her bed.  Nothing seemed to be missing.  Her purse waited on the hook by her door.  I rummaged through it until I found $4.87 in change.  I pocketed the money and stomped back into the kitchen.  Jessica hadn’t finished her cereal.  The colourful circles had bloated and disintegrated into the milk, turning it an awful greenish-brown colour.  I slammed the side of the bowl, spilling the contents onto the table.  I felt some sense of accomplishment.  Then I looked through the cereal cupboard for another box, but could only find a stale box of crispy flakes.  I hated that cereal, but grabbed a few handfuls to tame the knot of hunger and unease in my belly.  After that meager feast, I found a half-full container of grape juice and drank it straight from the jar.  I spilled some down my shirt and a few drops onto the floor.  I swiped at them with my Spiderman pajamas.  Then I found some marshmallows and chocolate chips in the cupboard to round out my meal.  I returned to the solace of the television again, lulled by the high-pitched voices and gun sounds.

            Mom didn’t return, but Jessica came home from school sometime after Handy Manny. 

            “Eeeww!” she pinched her nose when she came in the door.  “It reeks in here.  Mom, I’m home.  Why didn’t you come pick me up?  I had to walk all the way home.”

            “She’s not here,” I pouted from my nest on the couch.  I’d kept the T.V. on all day for company.  I was still wearing my pajamas and the kitchen table was littered with my meal attempts.  There was a pool of spilt milk on the floor, half a piece of greasy cheese on a chair, a pathway of cracker crumbs from the cupboard to the couch and a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich resting on the arm of the couch.

            She lifted up the sandwich between two fingers and dropped it back onto the couch with a look of disgust.

            “What do you mean?  Did she have to run to the store or something?” My sister dropped her backpack onto a clean patch of floor.

            “Nope,” I stared dully at the screen.  “She never came home.  I’ve been here alone all day.”  My nose began to itch with threatening tears and I swiped at it with a crusty sleeve.

            She looked at me, scrunching up her face as if to choose the most important question to ask.  “What’s wrong with her?” she finally said, throwing her hands into the air.

            Jessica took a closer look at the mess and then back to me.  I saw a thread of concern in her eyes, but she shielded it with teenaged irritation.

            “Look at the mess you made,” she shook your head.  “Mom’s going to be totally mad at you when she gets home.”

            That was the last thing I could take.  I yelled and cried at the same time.  Furious and dejected.  I wanted my mother more than ever and I wet my pants after holding it too long.

            “Gross!” Jessica yelled, but she reached out to me and pulled me to the bathroom.  “You’ve got to have a bath.  I’m not living in a house that smells like pee.”

            She turned away when I sat on the toilet.  I stopped yelling, but I couldn’t stop the tears.  The sound of the water filling up the tub was some comfort; a reassurance that all messes could be fixed. 

            She washed my hair with more care than I’d ever imagined she could give.  Of course, her blond curls would have taken a lot of patience, but I took it for love.  At least Jessica would take care of me.

            “Come on, Matt, you can wash your body, right?”  She shoved a bar of soap into my hands, but it slipped out before I could get a proper grip.

            She rolled her eyes and fished out the soap.  “You’re so incompetent.  I’m sure I could wash myself by the time I was your age.”

            I smiled at her, hoping to gain more of her care, but I’d apparently reached the end of her tolerance.  She dumped a bucket of soapy water over me, without shielding my eyes.  I hollered in protest and she stood up and crossed her arms across her body in response.

            “Fine, do it yourself then,” she shouted and stomped out of the bathroom.

            I kept up my hollering a few minutes longer, but the bathwater grew cold and I decided to get out.  I didn’t bother pulling the plug.  I wanted our mother to see every step of the trail of dejection she’d left.  I half-heartedly patted myself with a towel, letting it drop to the floor, awaiting her guilty pity.

            I found yesterday’s shirt and jeans and struggled to put them on.  The tag of the shirt tickled my throat.  I picked up a toy, momentarily diverted from my sadness, but a few minutes later, I let it drop to the floor and lay in my bed, trying to fight the burning tears in my throat.  How could my mom have left us alone?  Were we really that bad?

            Some time later, Jessica came in my room and looked at me with a hand on her hip, but she held back the cutting remark I could see she’d been planning to throw at me.  She walked over my toy-littered floor and lay beside me on the bed.

            “It’s been a pretty weird day, Matt.  My teacher was missing and she didn’t even called in a sub.  The principal had to teach us math and he didn’t know what he was talking about.  Then our sub came and she was even worse.”

            I turned to look at her and thought about some of the nice things she’d done for me before.  There was the time she bought me a truck I really wanted from the mall.  She used to play with me if I would let her make all the rules.  Sometimes she’d even hug me at bedtime when I was clean and wearing my pajamas.

            “Where do you think Mom went?” I ventured.

            “I don’t know, buddy.  All the grown-ups at school were whispering about things, but of course they didn’t tell us anything.”

            “Do you think we should call Auntie Margaret?” I asked, using my nicest voice.

            “I don’t want to get Mom in trouble,” she fiddled with a necklace.  “I mean, she deserves it, but it has been a pretty terrible year.  Maybe if we clean up the kitchen, she’ll be back when we’re done and we can all be together again.”

            It was a lofty goal, but Jessica sounded so hopeful that I figured it must be possible.  She helped me out of bed and we tackled the mess.

            Our father had gone to jail two days after my third birthday.  They grabbed him from our house in the middle of the night.  Mom was screaming for them to leave him alone, that he had a family to provide for.  This was likely the cause of my nightmares.  She told us he died a month later.  She didn’t say how.  Her face was ashen-grey, like the soot in our fireplace. 

            Jessica knew more than I did, but mom must have told her to keep it quiet.  When I whined to know more, my sister would take me out of the room as mom slumped into a chair.  I laughed at her once because I thought her shoulders were shaking with laughter.  Thinking back now, it must have been grief, horrible, rolling fits of grief, like the ones I experienced after she left.

           

            Jessica got me a snack after the kitchen was clean and the room was cleared of its musty pee smell.  I sat up on the high stools against our kitchen island, watching her chew her nails.

            “Where do you think she went?” I asked over a mouthful of peanut-butter sandwich.

            “I don’t know,” she said in a distant monotone.  It was so similar to the one our mother used.

            “Why?” I tried, knowing how this question irritated her.

            “I just don’t know, Matthew.  Could you stop pestering me?” But she didn’t storm out of the room like she normally did.

            “Maybe Auntie Margaret knows,” I suggested after another huge bite.

            She sighed with impatience.  “If she knew, she would have called us or come over right away.”

            “Auntie Margaret’s nice,” I wheedled.

            “You haven’t seen her since Dad left.” She bit off a large chunk of nail.  “She’s not so nice anymore.”

            I gulped my milk in the way I knew annoyed her, but she didn’t flinch.  “How do you know?  She sent me a monster truck shirt.”

            Jessica narrowed her eyes at me.  “She told Mom that Dad was a loser,” she spat.

            I stopped chewing in shock.  “What?  He’s not a loser.  He was our Dad.”  My voice rose with incredulity.

            “I know.  She sucks and she made mom really sad.  I’m not going to call her.”

           I wasn’t hungry anymore.  I pushed my sandwich around the plate, pretending it was a steamroller that could smush our traitorous aunt.

            My sister finished chewing off her nails and wandered toward her bedroom.  I hesitated only a moment before I followed her down the hallway, but her room was locked.  I banged a few times, but didn’t have the energy to keep at it until.  I walked into Mom’s room instead and buried myself under the blankets that smelled like her soap and shampoo.

A Measure of Light Book Review

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Caution: Spoilers
This book is the story of a long, slow suicide. Main character, Mary Dyer, begins as a young girl in England

who falls in love with a glove maker in the 1600s. After they are married, they become uneasy with politics and violence against Puritan believers and so move to America. Here, they find church leadership is even more violent and intolerant and so move from place to place, hoping to live the life they believe in.

In the midst of religious power plays and other insanity, Mary begins a descent in to postpartum depression from whence she cannot resurface. Fortunately, her maid and close friend, Sinnie, is more than willing to take care of Mary's children and home making duties while Mary considers suicide. When she cannot bear to drown herself in the ocean, she turns her goals instead to returning to England. Her long-suffering husband eventually agrees to let her return to care for an ailing family member, but after Aunt Urith dies, Mary searches for other ways to avoid returning to her family and America. She finds her answer in joining the Quakers.

While I had some compassion for Mary in the beginning, she became stranger and stranger throughout the book. I could not relate to her inability to love her children or to accept her husband's patient devotion. I enjoyed learning the history of New England and many historic uses for plants, but the end could not come soon enough. A character who longs to die for half the book just doesn't keep my turning pages. I'm not sure I would have finished the book if it weren't on my book club reading list!  However, I appreciate that this was based on historic fact.  Powning offered good insight into the beliefs and mores of the time and wrote with skill and poetry.

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro Book Review

I read this book in search of Munro's magic.  How does she write such excellent, award-winning short

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stories?  I came up with a few ideas, but I believe the trick of her magic is that one cannot distance themselves far or long enough to decipher just what it is.  The story just yanks you in.

Part of her genius is creating characters who instantly grab your interest and empathy.  Despite their imperfections and weaknesses, perhaps even because of these, they are real, live and breathing.  They have fully-formed beliefs, back stories and values.  They are also situated in tangible settings with sights, scents and sounds.  Even though I read Munro's Lives of Girls and Women over a decade ago, I can still feel the stuffy parlour, hidden thicket and swaying prairie grasses.  Her characters and settings are unforgettable.

However, even more compelling is that I can never guess where her stories will go.  How does she keep the reader guessing?  Reading these ten short stories in a row, I was not able to catch her method, except to know I would be surprised, but also, somehow, satisfied.  This is a gift indeed.

I enjoyed all of the stories in this collection, but two, especially, grabbed my interest.  Fiction was one of my favourites.  I enjoyed the passage of time and the idea of the writer as first one obsessed and then, the one to be obsessed about.  This was fulfilling.  I also loved Too Much Happiness for its seemingly effortless product of research.  I liked that Munro was so intrigued by the life of  Sophia Kovalevsky that she read everything she could about her and then imagined her life into one beautifully-formed story capsule.

Surviving the Rain in a Rain Forest

In all kindness and concern, people warned us that the rain can be a cause of depression while living where we do.  Everyone who lives here has a variety of strategies for dealing with weeks and months of gray skies and rain.  I've been trying to take their advice.  

Some of the ones I like are, go outside anyway.  I've collected various rain gear, not all matching, to allow myself to do so.  I will continue working on my collection so I may one day also look slightly less ridiculous when I get out!  

Another one is to think of all the good that the rain does.  I tried this one out on the kids while we waited for the bus in the rain.  I was impressed with what they came up with. 

I've added my own, probably inadvertently stolen, which is to take pictures on the sunny days to remind myself of what lies beneath.  Here are a few to share on this rainy day.

The lovely Seawall

Flowers in February

Sunny Beach 1

Sunny Beach 2

A sunset on February 8

I'd love to hear some more ideas.  What do you do to chase away the winter blues?

Book Review: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

I noticed this book in an airport book store over the holidays and was immediately attracted by the title.  It is a book about books with a funny beginning; the perfect fit for any book lover.

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Sara Lindqvist is a 28-year-old woman from Sweden who has recently lost her job as a book store clerk.  Prior to this loss, she traded books and letters with Amy Harris, an older woman from Broken Wheel, Iowa.  She decides to visit Amy and take her first trip to the U.S.  Only, when she arrives, Amy has died.

In a charming and not-quite-believable way, the town of Broken Wheel takes care of Sara and insists she stay in Broken Wheel without allowing her to pay for anything.  Sara feels bad for getting everything for free and searches for a way to repay the town for their kindness and generousity.  The town has been hit hard by the economic downturn and has lost its school and most of its inhabitants.  The only solution is to open up a book store.

This was a very enjoyable book with a fairytale-like setting, characters, beginning and ending.  The author's own love of books is evident throughout and made me want to read or reread the books she referenced.  Jane Austen fans will especially enjoy the chapter Mrs Hurst (Books 4: Life 0).  Speaking of which, this book had great chapter titles.  I appreciate chapters with titles.  I've done this a few times in my writing and it takes more thought and effort than simply numbering chapters.  It can also be rewarding for the reader and writer to find the connection between the title and chapter.

This is a translation from Swedish to English and it was sometimes obvious that the translator is not American.  There are British spellings and turns of phrase that were occasionally jarring in a book set in Iowa.  I noticed things like the spelling of tyres, the reference to a "hob" instead of a stove, and frequent mention of being "mad" when an American would say "crazy".  I also wondered that there weren't more comments on the differences in how Sara spoke or acted based on her Swedish background.  I thought this would be more noticeable in a small town like Broken Wheel.

Despite these tiny irritations, I liked the book and would recommend it to other fiction-book lovers looking for a happy ending.
      

Suspiciously Reserved: Chapter One

Here is chapter one of my novel Suspiciously Reserved: A Twist on Jane Austen's Emma.  In this novel, I retell the story of Emma in a modern, Canadian setting from the point of view of Jane Fairfax.  It was a lot of fun to write, but not without its challenges!  How did such a practical,
intelligent and beautiful young woman end up with the precocious, untrustworthy Frank Churchill anyway?

Chapter One

Talk of the Sea

            “Jane, you must come.  I insist!”  Lori said with sparkling blue eyes and perfectly curled shiny, blond hair.

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            “No, really.  I’d just be in the way.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”  Jane squirmed in her high-necked sweater.  It was a blustery day in the city.

            “If you only went where you were comfortable, you’d stay in your room from morning till night.  Now, come on.  You’ve never been to White Rock.  You’ll love it.”

            Jane sighed heavily.  She’d just been about to start into her favourite novel – Jane Eyre – when her friend came bustling into her room with this good news.

            “Please tell me, why would I love White Rock?  I who dislike all forms of travel?”

            Lori laughed.  “I love you,” she hugged her friend.  “I know you’ll come.  You always make a big fuss over every change in our lives, but you always come around.  I couldn’t ask for a better friend.  Or sister.”

            Jane and Lori’s friendship was nearly a sisterhood.  Jane had lived with Lori since she was nine years old.  Her early life was a sad tale, one she refrained from telling anyone, but which generally got around despite her best efforts. 

            Jane often felt she had a lot in common with the heroine of her favourite book.  Like Jane Eyre, Jane’s parents died when she was only three.  She was then left to live with her Grandmother and Aunt Bates in Tugaske, Saskatchewan.  Of course, they were nothing like Jane Eyre’s hideous aunt and cousins. 

Auntie Hetty was her mother’s sister.  She had never married.  She was sweet and kind, though she talked altogether too much about trivial things.  Grandma Bates was nearly deaf and generally stuck to her chair.  She was frail and often sick and Jane, already a quiet child, grew up in a home where, though she was loved and admired, she learned to be almost invisible.

            When Jane turned nine, her grandmother and aunt came upon hard times and felt they could not do Jane justice in raising her.  They lived in a small prairie town in Saskatchewan and the public school in her area closed down.  Without consulting young Jane, they decided to accept an offer from Mr. and Mrs. Campbell to have her live in Saskatoon.  She could be closer to a good school, arts and culture, and could live with a little girl her age. 

Bill Campbell had been a very close friend of Jane’s father and insisted on providing for her.  Jane had visited them often since her father’s death.  Her father had once saved Mr. Campbell’s life.  He felt he owed his good friend everything he could give.  Besides, they had always been saddened by the fact they could only produce one child and were pleased to have Jane as their daughter’s companion and almost-sister.

            The Campbell’s kindness to Jane was great and they provided her with better clothing and education than she could have had with her grandmother and aunt, but she always felt herself beneath her friend.  Although the Campbell’s treated the two girls as equals, Jane couldn’t bring herself to accept the credit card they gave her for her sixteenth birthday.  She still felt she was an orphan who should provide for herself, and her aunt and grandmother eventually.

            “Oh Jane, won’t it be wonderful to spend time on our own, away from my parents.  I’m sure Trevor will love me better when he can see me as an independent woman.”

            Jane laughed shortly.  “I don’t think Trevor could love you any better if you were the Queen of England.”

            Lori had been engaged to Trevor for almost two years.  They would be married in October.  Her parents had insisted she finish university before she married.  Like Jane, Lori was twenty-one and had graduated in May. 

She’d met Trevor Dixon on holiday in Seattle.  Jane had been left to stay with her aunt and was surprised that Lori would become engaged when she was only nineteen.  She wondered what kind of man Trevor was, but on his several visits to their home in Canada, she realized he was a sweet-tempered, romantic, caring young man; Lori’s perfect match.

            “Mom and Dad would never let me visit him without you.  Sometimes I think they believe you are more responsible than I.”

            Jane hid a smile behind her book.  A child of six would be more responsible that Lori.  Although she dressed stylishly and was always kind and sweet, she lived up to the expectations of her corn silk blond hair.  Jane was constantly reminding her to act appropriately and keeping her from bad decisions.  She only marveled that Lori had the luck to find such a reasonable fiancé while Jane had been away from her.

            “I’m sure that isn’t true,” Jane soothed.  “So, what am I going to love about White Rock?”

            Jane had never been to White Rock, though the Campbell’s had visited six times since Lori’s engagement.  Trevor’s family owned a holiday home in the ocean city.  Jane insisted on visiting her grandmother and aunt when the Campbell’s travelled.  But the idea of seeing the ocean made Jane rather excited.

            “Oh, Jane!  The scenery!  The sand!  The cute little shops!  You will die, absolutely die at how beautiful it is!”  Lori twirled around the room, knocking over several of Jane’s piles of books.  She had collected them since she was six and, now that she was twenty-one, she had quite a lot of piles.

            “Doesn’t it rain all the time?” Jane countered.

            Lori tisked.  “Not all the time.  We had several days last visit without rain.  It was fantastic!  Perfect.  Oh, we’ll need to go shopping for you.  Immediately!  These turtlenecks of yours are so out of fashion.”

            Lori grabbed Jane’s hand and pulled her from her perch on her tidy bed and continued pulling her all the way to Lori’s bright red convertible.

            Jane’s tastes were as far from Lori’s as a sparrow’s to a blue jay’s.  Lori insisted they shop in an expensive boutique downtown.  She tossed armloads of tight-fitting sweaters and t-shirts into Jane’s open arms, which she soon replaced with sweater sets and cardigans. 

Lori emitted a huge sigh of exasperation when they reached the fitting room together.

“Jane Fairfax!  How do you expect to catch a man in any of these outfits?”  She held up a particularly frumpy grey sweater and threw it to the floor.

Jane retrieved it gently.  “That isn’t my intention for visiting White Rock in any way.”

Lori slumped into an oversized leather chair in the corner of the massive dressing room.   “Well you can’t live with Mummy and Dad forever, can you?  You’re already twenty-one.  What will you do when I’m married?”

Jane often worried about this herself.  Surely Lori’s parents would tire of her once she was no longer necessary for entertaining their daughter.  She had dreamt of living on her own, renting an apartment or travelling abroad, but all this required money, which she had very little of.

“I’ll get work.  Don’t worry about me.”

“But you don’t want to live all alone?  How would you manage?”

More and more, Jane had begun to think she would manage just fine.  Uninterrupted days and nights would be a change, a change she could imagine herself enjoying.  Not to be dependent any longer – what a concept!

“Really Lori, I’ll be fine.  I just want to be warm in White Rock.  I’m going as your friend, not as a woman on the prowl.  I’m more interested in sightseeing, really.”

Lori threw up her hands.  “Fine!  I’ve tried.  But don’t come crying to me when you’re an old maid.”

She left Jane to try on her garments in the fitting room alone.  Jane took a deep breath of precious freedom.

Jane had a bachelor’s degree in education.  After the summer, she planned to begin substitute teaching.  Jane knew she would be too busy with wedding preparations to begin teaching full time.  The clothes she bought now would need to work in the classroom as well as on her travels. 

After a year of substitute teaching, she planned to teach up north – where she imagined she would find peace and serenity.  Jobs were plentiful and the pay was good.  In a few years, she could return to the south and buy a little place of her own.  Plus, she could send money to her aunt and grandma.  This was her focus for now.

Jane tried on a black sweater with some grey pants.  The pants were too big, so she reached for a smaller size.

Besides, Jane had never been in love.  Boys in high school had asked her out a few times, but soon labeled her “frigid” when she continually said no.  That had suited her.  She was embarrassed by Lori’s frequent entanglements. 

Though Lori wasn’t necessarily pretty, she was outgoing, bubbly and had money.  Her boyfriends seemed content enough to have someone agree to date them, until she found someone more interesting.  Lori’s romances had always been exciting and brief.  Yet the boys didn’t seem to mind her breakups.  Jane assumed there was no great love lost on either side.  Now that Lori had Trevor, Jane recognized they loved one another.  She doubted such a thing could happen to her. 

“Jane!” Lori pounded on the change room door.  She sounded very excited.

“I’m almost done.  What is it?”

“You have to see this dress.  It’s so perfect for you.  Come on Janey, open the door.”

Patience had never been one of Lori’s strong points.  She continued knocking on the door until Jane zipped up the pants she was trying on and finally let her in.

“Okay all ready,” she said.

Lori squealed.  “Jane!  Look at his.  Can you believe how absolutely, utterly fantastic this dress is?”

Before Jane really had a chance to look, a blur of red was tossed into her hands and Lori left the room saying,

“I expect to see you wearing that in exactly two minutes, Miss Fairfax.”

Jane held the dress out from her hands and was stunned by the intricate beadwork and beautifully cut lines.  The dress was weighty in her hands, substantial.  She placed it gingerly on a hook on the wall to get a better look.  She gasped when she saw the price tag.

“Lori!  I can’t afford this!” 

“Ja –ane,” Lori said like she was rolling her eyes.  “I have my credit card.  You need a dress for White Rock.  I insist.  If you don’t buy this one, I’ll just keep bringing you more until you agree to one.”

Jane shook her head and unbuttoned her blouse.  She sincerely doubted she would let Lori buy her this dress, but there was no use fighting.  Lori was as stubborn as Jane was private.  But when the dress was on, Jane was amazed at the way it fit her tall thin frame.  The colour brought more life to Jane’s face than she’d ever seen.  Her grey eyes and delicate skin were perfectly emphasized and though Jane had never before owned such a bright colour, she couldn’t deny that she looked beautiful.

“Aha!” Lori trilled when Jane opened her door.  “Just as I suspected.  PERFECT!”  She hugged Jane close and laughed merrily.

Jane had to agree with her friend.  She had never wanted a piece of clothing so badly.

“I don’t need to bring you any more dresses, do I?” Lori asked coyly.

Jane shook her head.

Lori clapped her hands excitedly.  “I knew it!  Didn’t I Jane?  Oh, what would you do without me?”