Read Online Love Comes Calling by Siri Mitchell - Free Book Online

the law isn’t meant for people like us. It was meant for the poor, and all those immigrants, people who aren’t able to handle their alcohol like we are.”
    â€œSo then why does it have to apply to me?” Not that I ever would drink alcohol myself. I couldn’t stand the smell. It reminded me too much of Granny’s cough tonic.
    â€œIt applies to you because you’re an Eton. You have to set a good example. You might think we’re old-fashioned, but your mother and I know about college hijinks, so we’ve allowed for some latitude in our expectations. But I know I speak forboth of us when I say we consider this incident beyond the pale. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
    â€œYou’re saying . . . I should do as you say.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œAnd not as you do.”
    Mother and Father exchanged a glance. Father cleared his throat. “You’ve grown up living a sheltered life, so we know this can be difficult to understand. It’s a bit complicated, the way Prohibition works, but trust us when we say that as reasonable adults who practice self-discipline, we understand what we’re doing.”
    â€œBut I don’t? Is that what you’re saying?” I didn’t mean to be testy, and honestly, I didn’t care, but it didn’t seem quite fair. I folded my napkin and put it on the table beside my plate. Then I stood.
    Mother held out her hand as I walked by.
    I put mine into it, and she drew me toward her, putting her other hand to my cheek. As I bent, she kissed me, squeezing my hand before letting it drop. “We just don’t want you to fall in with the wrong element.”
    â€œI won’t.” At least I didn’t plan on it, and I don’t think anyone would quite consider Irene the wrong element, and even if she was, I wasn’t falling in with her. I ought to have just left without saying anything else, but considering the circumstances, I didn’t have much choice. “About the closet . . . ?”
    That warm, rather maternal look in my mother’s eyes sharpened with suspicion. “Yes?”
    â€œWhen the grape juice exploded, you might say it got on most everything.”
    Her brow rose. “And by that you mean?”
    â€œThe grape juice was really quite dark colored, and most of my spring and summer clothes were rather light colored and . . .” I’d done it again. I’d managed to extinguish every bit of lingering affection and replace it with disappointment and despair.
    â€œOh, Ellis.”

    I started my summer off the next day at church, helping the Missionary Aid Society prepare some barrels to be shipped to a church in Manchuria. Mostly it involved sorting through huge piles of clothing that had been collected in spring and separating out girls’ clothing from boys’ and men’s from women’s.
    It made me wish I had some money of my own to donate, but I’d used it all on dresses and movies and ice cream sodas. And even if I hadn’t, I would have been saving it for a train ticket to Hollywood.
    Much of the clothing appeared to have been pulled from trunks in which they’d been stored for ten or twenty years along with camphor and tobacco snuff. It made me want to pinch my nose. I held up a dress. “Don’t you think . . . ?” It was so old-fashioned.
    My mother looked over at me. “What did you say, Ellis?”
    â€œIt’s just that . . . I wondered . . . are these clothes for the missionaries or the Manchurians?”
    â€œI don’t know. Why? Does it matter?”
    I turned the dress round so she could see the high-collared, ruffled front yoke of it. “It might if those missionaries read Ladies’ Home Journal .”
    â€œI should think people who don’t have very much would be happy with whatever they’re given.”
    Maybe. I folded it up and