Monday bloomed bright and clear with a slight feeling of abandonment—no dreams. Jeanne ran out the front door to her father’s half-heard entreaties—”No close standing; don’t even talk close!”—before he returned to the radio news of pamphlet storms and falling bombs. Today was the day Cotillion began.
Jeanne had actually forgotten the time between Sunday evening and Monday morning, trapped as she was with little Suzette in the house when her parents left for an undisclosed errand.
At school though, the entire class buzzed. Paris immediately flitted off to find Louis as soon as they were in the classroom, and Jeanne realized it was to claim him as her dance partner that afternoon. Most of the girls and boys, she saw, had begun to pair off already.
She drifted to her cedar-scented desk an
