Claire spent New Year"s Eve with her extended family and her parents" friends.
She would rather have joined Josie and company. Their plan was to ring in 1923 at midnight in a grand way with dancing, the pop of champagne corks, paper hats, and roll-out whistles.
Claire"s mother wouldn"t have any of that, especially the champagne.
"We"re going to recognize the new year in a respectable way, not with all that obscene music and liquor. It"s an abomination, that"s what it is." She had declared it, and that was that.
Claire spent the evening helping with the dinner her mother and the cook had spent hours preparing, entertaining her little cousin, Charlie, and answering a hundred questions from the grownups before finally fleeing to the quiet of her room and books.
At work on the first Monda
