A Flickering Light by Jane Kirkpatrick Page A

toward the dirty wheels. “You’re odd, Jessie.” It was, though, one of the things Jessie liked about her friend. She saw the world straight on, while Jessie could supply the slants.
    “I’m an odd duck who makes a noisy quack,” Jessie said. “So why would your brother care whether I joined you or not?”
    “He likes a challenge. He’s going to own his own farm one day, you’ll see. Come along. I’ll go back and tell your ma that you’d like to join us.”
    “No!” Jessie was certain her mother wouldn’t appreciate Voe’s speaking for her. “I’ll finish up here and then come down to the beach if I can, but only for a little while.”
    Voe shrugged and headed off.
    Jessie locked the door behind her, then worked a little longer, cleaning up the cast-iron sink Mr. Steffes neglected. Now she really did need a bath! She closed up and fast-walked toward home. Selma said she walked like a shore bird, taking quick-quick steps. But Selma had long legs, and Jessie had to take three to her one to keep up, even though Selma was four years younger.
    On the way home she decided that she wouldn’t ask to go to the lake at all. Jerome Kopp wasn’t someone whose interests she wanted to encourage. He’d once noted that her name had different meanings and told her that jessy meant to give someone the “worst licking of their life.” “Give them jessy!” he’d shouted when two boys at school were fighting. She was aghast that her name could be used like that!
    The truth was, none of the boys at school nor the brothers of the girls she’d worked with at Kroeger’s had interested her in the least. They acted silly in the presence of girls, pushing one another and bragging. Lilly’s beaus were gentlemen, but Lilly kept finding things wrong with each suitor who came her way. “I have high standards,” Lilly told her mother when her mother suggested that some young man’s interest ought to be encouraged instead of pushed away.
    “Such high standards might keep you under our roof for longer than you’d like,” her mother had told her. Lilly didn’t let such words distress her, not even when they came from her mother, though Jessie thought she’d made those comments after a boy of particular interest stopped calling. Lilly seemed sad after that, and then she’d gotten, well, irritable, a state she was constantly in, it seemed to Jessie.
    Jessie took a petal from Lilly’s vibrant flower. She had high standards too, and Jerome Kopp didn’t match them, not that she’d speak such truth to his sister. Instead, she’d go home, rinse her hair with henna to bring out the shine, and take a sponge bath. The air was so humid. Then she’d read to Roy or, better, let him take his time to say whatever he wanted without anyone else’s interrupting.
    A low roll of thunder caused her to look up. Swirling dark globs of cloud promised a downpour. At least it might cut the sticky heat. She turned the corner where she could see her home and nearly groaned when the porch came into view. There stood Voe and Jerome, along with several others of the “collection,” as her father referred to Jessie’s chums. They sat on the porch steps while Lilly and Selma rocked on the swing. Her parents leaned at the porch balustrades. Roy sat off to the side.
    She sighed.
    “There she is!” Voe said. “Hurry up now. Your ma says you can come with us. We’re going to play Old Mother Wobble Gobble, so bring lots of hair ribbons and handkerchiefs.”
    “Not too many,” Jerome said. “I’m going to give you jess—” He stopped himself. “I mean I’m hoping to get me a cherry in that game.”
    Clara, one of the girls in the crowd, laughed. “There’ll be no kissing, Mrs. Gaebele. Jerome’s just a big tease.” Ma had frowned with Jerome’s boast, and Jessie didn’t think Clara’s words had reassured her. Good, maybe they’d forbid her to go. But they said nothing.
    “It’ll take me a while to get ready,” Jessie stalled.