We Five by Mark Dunn

a beau—”
    â€œYou do want that for me, don’t you?”
    â€œOf course I do. But the right boy. And you know you aren’t likely to find ‘the right boy’ among a bunch of roughneck Aggies coaxed into attending one of Mirabella Prowse’s wild parties with promises of contraband Canadian whiskey.”
    With a chuckle: “Yes, Mother. You are exactly one-hundred-percent right.”
    â€œHere come Molly and Maggie. And Jane isn’t with them. So they are merely late. Hurry off now, or you’ll all be even later than you already are and have that demanding Miss Colthurst in a ridiculous dither.”
    â€œSometimes, Mother, you’re as awful as Mrs. Littlejohn the way you talk about people.”
    Carrie bounced up from her seat and pecked her mother on the cheek. Mrs. Hale reciprocated. Then she pulled back and pointed. “There’s a smudge.”
    â€œI’ll wear it as a beauty mark. Good-bye, Mother.”
    â€œGood-bye, darling.”
    Mrs. Hale watched her daughter dash across the front lawn to join her friends on their delayed morning march to Sister Lydia’s Tabernacle of the Sanctified Spirit. Maggie and Molly greeted Carrie’s mother with a wave. Mrs. Hale waved back.
    As the three friends moved at a quick clip down the sidewalk, Molly apologized for their tardiness. “Maggie was late and then it got even later when I didn’t go down right away, because apparently this particular morning was one in which she just wasn’t coming up to get me.”
    â€œPerhaps you don’t remember, Molly,” said Maggie, bridling, “that there was a snoring hobo blocking the stairs, and frankly, I didn’t care to wake him. You should have been on the lookout for me.”
    â€œCan we please not hash this all out again?” said Molly. “It’s such a beautiful day. Why ruin it?”
    â€œAs it so happens, Molly, it’s already ruined.” Pause. Importantly: “And it was your father who did it.”
    â€œWell, well, well ! Now you’ve come out with it. And I should say it’s about time.”
    Carrie looked puzzled. “Come out with what ?”
    Molly answered for both Maggie and herself. “My father has asked Maggie’s mother to marry him. Maggie is opposed.”
    Carrie nodded contemplatively. “Well, Maggie, aren’t you generally opposed to pretty much everything ?”
    Maggie stopped in her tracks and seized her hips with both hands. “I may be crabby from time to time, Carrie, but at least I don’t go through life in an absolute drowse the way you do.”
    Carrie glowered. Then she took a deep breath and announced, “I have just the thing to wake us all up. Do either of you have plans for Friday night? Well, of course you don’t. Now here it is…”

Chapter Four
London, England, October 1940
(from Songs and Sirens, by Daphne Rourke)
    Jane, keeping one eye on the shop window, beheld her brother lying splayed out on the couch with the torn upholstery, which mouldered in a neglected corner of the showroom. It was the couch he was supposed to have slip-covered a month ago, but had not. A few hours earlier, Lyle Higgins had collapsed in a drunken stupor not upon his own bed in the back rooms, but upon this very piece of furniture, which was merchandise, which some future customer would sit upon and expect not to be assaulted by the stench of alcohol or old sick. Jane thought about waking him and sending him to the relative comfort of his bed, but why bother? No matter where he dormez-voused, he’d still fail to open the shop at nine. She didn’t know why he even pretended to have an interest in continuing to run the family business when it was all too obvious that all he really wanted to do was drink and play cards and sometimes carouse with members of the opposite sex, though it took a little effort on his part to be halfway charming to a lady and