Catherine hesitated. She looked at Eliza, then back at Theresa. Eliza suddenly felt a nervous niggling in her heart on her friend’s behalf. Clearly Theresa was testing Catherine.
“Thank you, Theresa, but I’d really rather stay outside in the sunshine,” Catherine said finally.
Theresa glowered for a moment, but quickly put on a fake smile.
“All right, then. Enjoy your . . . exercise,” she said, pronouncing the final word as if it tasted sour on her tongue. Then she walked off toward Crenshaw House alone, her head held high.
“Are you all right?” Eliza asked, stepping closer to Catherine as they watched Theresa stride away.
“I’m fine. Sooner or later Theresa Billings is going to have to learn how to take no for an answer,” Catherine said wryly.
Eliza laughed. Then the two of them set off at a sprint for the equipment shed.
“Slow down, girls!” Mrs. Hodge called after them. “You’ll twist your ankles in those shoes!”
But Eliza and Catherine paid her warnings no mind. Within minutes they had mounted their bikes and tossed their Sunday best jackets, hats, and bags on the grass outside the shed.
“Where shall we go?” Eliza asked.
“To Easton, of course,” Catherine responded.
“I thought that was just a suggestion for Alice’s benefit,” Eliza replied, her pulse already racing at the thought of a potential chance meeting with Harrison.
“And yours,” Catherine said.
Eliza avoided her friend’s gaze, instead setting her sights on the spire of the Easton chapel and the other side of the valley. The two girls took off down the grassy hill, bumping along the uneven terrain until they reached the trodden dirt path that ran along the tree line. Eliza slowed her pace to let Catherine fall in alongside her. “Where do you think you would have gone to school, if not here?” Catherine asked as they neared the back of Gwendolyn Hall.
“There’s a day school in Boston called Brighton,” Eliza replied, glancing toward the center of the Easton campus. A pack of boys was playing baseball, but they were too far away to identify. “It offers a better curriculum, actually—more focused on academics than on polite behavior. But my mother thought Easton men would make more suitable husbands.”
Catherine smirked. “I see.”
“What about you?” Eliza asked, swerving a bit to avoid a large rock on the pathway.
“Oh, my mother used to tutor me,” Catherine replied. She gazed off into the distance, toward the quad. “I suppose I’d still be sitting in our parlor going over the classics with her.”
“Your mother taught you the classics?” Eliza asked, feeling a twinge of envy. “I can’t even imagine my mother reading, let alone with me.”
“It’s not as cozy as it might sound,” Catherine replied with a trace of bitterness. “Or rather, you might say it’s a bit too cozy. Stifling, even.”
Eliza suddenly imagined Catherine’s mom as a stern type who never let her daughter play outdoors or leave the family property. Unless, of course, she was taking her to New Orleans in search of witch doctors.
“Parents can be strange creatures,” Catherine mused, as if reading Eliza’s mind.
“Yes, they can be,” Eliza agreed.
There was a sudden crack of the bat, and shouts of “Run!” and “Get it!” came from the boys on the quad. Eliza hit the brakes and placed her feet on the ground, lifting her hand over her eyes to better see the game. Her heart skipped when she realized it was Harrison running for the ball. His cap flew off his head as he raced into the outfield, while Cooper Coolidge—clearly recovered from his spontaneous boil outbreak—rounded the bases at a sprint.
“He’s not going to make it,” Eliza said under her breath.
Then, suddenly, Harrison flung himself forward, making a heroic dive for the ball. Eliza
gasped, and her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Harrison slammed into the grass with his arms outstretched, his glove reaching . . . but the ball landed two feet from his grasp.
Half the boys on the quad groaned, while the other half cheered. Cooper rounded third and headed for home, jumping with both feet on whatever it was the boys were using as home plate.
Eliza’s spirits sunk. “He missed it.”
Catherine eyed her with a discerning glint in her eyes. “But you missed nothing,” she teased.