The Nearness of You

October 1952

LILY DENTON STOOD beneath the maple tree in front of her house, an ocean of fallen leaves at her feet. The night sky was cloudy, the moon playing hide-and-seek, and it was breezy enough to make her shiver, forcing her to pull her coat close, stamping her feet for warmth. She worried it might rain. A battered suitcase, painstakingly packed with what she thought she'd need, as well as a few treasured mementos, lay on the ground beside her. A dog's sudden bark startled her and she stepped deeper into the shadows, fearful of being seen.

"This is crazy…" she muttered to herself.

Every few seconds, Lily looked up and down the street, the sidewalks lit by streetlamps, hoping to see the familiar red Oldsmobile, but the road remained empty. There was no point in checking her watch again; she'd done it so many times that she knew it was a handful of minutes past eleven. She had been standing beneath the tree for almost half an hour and was chilled to the bone. Lily hoped that she wouldn't get sick, because the last thing she needed was to—

From the far end of the street, a pair of headlights interrupted Lily's thoughts, making her heart hammer. She bent down and grabbed the suitcase's handle, feeling both nervous and excited. But just as she readied to run to the curb, she saw that it wasn't the Oldsmobile but a dented pickup truck. As it drove past, she once again found herself alone.

Not for the first time, Lily thought about giving up. Her father would likely still be in his office, writing or talking on the telephone no matter the late hour, so she would have to sneak inside, but worry was starting to get the better of her. Even though she'd been planning this moment for months, daydreaming about it for years, Lily had always known it was a house of cards, and that one strong gust of wind would knock the whole thing to the—

The honk of a car's horn startled her.

She stared in amazement as a red Oldsmobile zipped down the street toward her before finally coming to an abrupt stop against the curb.

"Hurry up, slowpoke!" Jane Dunaway shouted out the driver's-side window. "Let's get this show on the road!"

Lily ran to the car, the suitcase banging against her leg. She was convinced that every last person in the neighborhood had been woken, that porch lights were about to come on up and down the street. She didn't dare glance back over her shoulder, certain that her father would be at the window, watching her with an angry, disapproving look on his face.

"Keep your voice down!" Lily whispered fiercely as she opened the passenger's door. "You're going to give us away!"

Jane answered with a loud laugh. "Who cares?" she asked. "No one can stop us now. Throw your stuff in the back and get in!"

Before Lily could even shut the door behind her, the Oldsmobile was already moving, the engine loud as it sped down the street.

"Isn't this great?" Jane shouted over the cold wind rushing in through her still-open window, making her long black hair whip in every direction. She reached over and squeezed Lily's hand. "New York City, here we come!"

Lily managed a weak smile, but she couldn't match Jane's enthusiasm. The reality of what she was doing slowly began to sink in.

She was running away from home.

Hooper's Crossing was located in upstate New York, alongside a crook in the Porter River and nestled among the Adirondack Mountains. The town's name had come from a centuries-old British trading post that had long since burned down. It was a quiet, scenic place; few of its six thousand inhabitants caused much trouble. Victorian houses, complete with white picket fences, had been built on wide, tree-lined streets. Hooper's Crossing was the ideal American town.

But for as long as Lily could remember, she'd wondered what it would be like to live somewhere else.

She'd spent countless hours staring out the window at school, lying in her bed late into the night, walking down Main Street, and sitting in a church pew, daydreaming about other places. Lily had tried to imagine the bustling crowds of a big city, the quiet solitude of a farm or a windswept coastal town. She even fantasized about the exotic life to be had in a city like Paris or Honolulu. She wanted to spin a globe, drop her finger on some random place, and then be instantly transported there. Instead, she never left Hooper's Crossing.

Mostly because of her father.

Morris Denton had been the town's mayor for more than a decade; some of Lily's earliest memories were of her father campaigning for office. In the months and years after the sudden, tragic death of his wife, Morris had thrown himself into his work. He was a tireless advocate, welcoming businesses that created jobs, as well as fund-raising for a new roof over the elementary school and a pavilion in City Park. Morris knew everyone in town by name, from the president of the bank all the way to his paperboy. He'd made it his mission to help his community and, by nearly all accounts, had succeeded spectacularly.

He was also a loving father, indulging Lily in clothes and books, whatever he could afford to provide. He championed her education, encouraging good marks at school. Morris had tried to broaden his daughter's horizons; he bought tickets to concerts, introduced her to everyone-who-was-anyone around town, and had once taken her to Albany to meet the governor.

But to say that Morris Denton was protective of his daughter would have been the understatement of the century.

When Lily was little, Morris had picked out what she could wear, had told her what to eat, where she could go, and especially what kids she could be friends with. No detail was too small to escape his attention. Any disagreement was met with a lecture that might last an hour. No matter how much Lily cried or argued, her father always won, not because Morris was mean or shouted at her, but because he believed so strongly in his convictions that he couldn't be persuaded. Deep down, Lily knew that her father had been trying to do right by her, that as a widower he didn't have a spouse to go to for advice, but all throughout her childhood, she'd felt smothered.

Even now that Lily was twenty-one, her father continued to meddle. When she'd wanted to move out, to find a place of her own, Morris had discouraged her. When she suggested going off to college, he'd gotten her a job at the library instead. Worst of all, Lily was convinced that he had chased away romantic suitors, men who might've asked her out on a date. No one was good enough for his little girl.

Because of Morris's standing in Hooper's Crossing, nothing was going to change anytime soon. The only way she could leave was in her dreams.

And so Lily had been caught off-guard the afternoon three weeks back when Jane had leaned against the library's front desk and asked in a soft voice, "Want to run away to the big city with me?"

Jane had been Lily's best friend since kindergarten. Her father owned Dunaway's Department Store and was one of the friendliest people in Hooper's Crossing. But while Jane's two younger sisters flew straight as arrows, she liked to dance to the beat of her own drummer. Jane had never been afraid of a little trouble. She had been the first among their classmates to skip school, to take a sip of alcohol and puff on a cigarette, and she always seemed to have a hemline shorter than what was considered acceptable for a young lady. She certainly wasn't shy when it came to flirting, laughing, or voicing her opinion. Any one of these reasons should have been enough for Morris to order his daughter to stay far away, but because of her father's standing in town, he reluctantly gave the girl a pass.

So because Jane could be prone to big, impractical plans and flights of fancy, Lily had laughed off her question. "How about tomorrow?" she replied with a smile. "I'll have to check my calendar, but I think I'm free."

"I'm serious," Jane said. "As soon as I have a little more money saved up, I'm gone. I want you to come with me."

Lily knew that Jane's reasons for leaving were different from her own. For one, she was a knockout, the sort of beautiful woman who could turn a man's head halfway around his shoulders just by walking down a sidewalk. With her friend's long black hair and sharp feminine features, Lily had always expected Jane to end up in Hollywood making movies or be on a billboard advertising clothes or cigarettes. Running off to New York City was likely a step in that direction. Jane believed that Hooper's Corner was holding her back from bigger and better things.

She wasn't the only one who felt that way. Lily knew she wasn't as attractive as Jane. Sure, her shoulder-length blond hair was curly and her eyes a sparkling emerald green, but whenever she looked at her reflection in her bedroom mirror, what she noticed was the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the soft curve of her cheeks and chin, details she thought made her look a bit childish. Lily didn't think she was an ugly duckling, but if she was standing next to Jane, few people would have thought her to be a swan. Still, Jane's offer was the opportunity Lily had been waiting for, a chance to finally escape her father's controlling ways.

In the end, it was an offer she couldn't refuse.

"I'll go," Lily had answered.

For the next few weeks, they'd made plans while talking on the telephone or meeting during Lily's lunch breaks at the library. She withdrew her savings from the bank, hoping the money would last until she found a job. They wrote out lists of what they wanted to take, crossing out some items while adding others; at first, Jane simply didn't understand why she couldn't take all her wardrobe. Everything was meticulously packed in the suitcase she then stashed in the back of her closet, though she constantly worried that her father would somehow find it. But he hadn't and the days kept ticking by until finally it was time to go.

That afternoon, Lily had gone to the cemetery, to her mother's granite tombstone where she'd talked and cried, often at the same time. Sitting on the grass, watching leaves fall from the nearby trees, she spoke of her hopes and fears, attempting to explain herself to someone who couldn't reply. Later, back home, she'd written her father a letter. In it, she tried to tell him why she was leaving, to make him understand. The crumpled pages scattered on the floor around her were a testament to how hard it had been to find the right words. At the end, she had told him not to worry, that she would write when they reached their destination, and that she loved him. Just before she snuck out, she placed the letter on her pillow; when Morris realized that she was missing, he would quickly find it.

This was a new beginning, the very thing Lily had always wanted.

So why did it feel so wrong…

Jane steered the Oldsmobile through the quiet neighborhoods. Rather than take the shortest route out of town, she turned onto Main Street as if she wanted one last look at the place before leaving. Staring out her window, Lily watched the familiar sights roll by: Will Burton's barbershop, the post office, Sally Lange's bakery, the Hooper's Crossing Bank and Trust, as well as the library in which she'd spent so many hours. On the corner opposite the movie theater was the business Jane's father owned and ran, Dunaway's Department Store.

"There's a place I never want to see again," her friend said, frowning as they drove past. "If I had a nickel for every box of mousetraps I unloaded, screwdriver I priced, or can of tomatoes I lined up on a shelf, there'd be enough money for us to fly to the city."

"I always had a soft spot for the candy counter," Lily replied. "Your dad always had the best lemon drops."

Jane shook her head. "Maybe so, but no candy is worth sticking around here," she said with a wink. "There's better where we're going, anyway."

Main Street ended where it ran into City Park. Wooden booths in various stages of completion lined the sidewalks under the streetlamps. Homemade banners advertised NEW YORK'S TASTIEST APPLES, WOOL SWEATERS—STITCHED TO YOUR SIZE, HAND-CARVED BIRDHOUSES, and dozens of other goods. Strings of lights, currently unlit, had been wound into tree branches and stretched toward the pavilion in the center of the park, the very one Lily's father had been instrumental in having built; in a matter of days, musicians would play and the park would overflow with hundreds of people, many dancing under the stars. The Hooper's Crossing Fall Festival, an annual event that drew people from hundreds of miles in every direction and culminated in a Halloween night party and parade where almost everyone wore a costume, was about to begin.

"Aren't you going to miss this?" Lily asked as the Oldsmobile finally left town and headed for the highway.

"The fall festival?" Jane replied.

Lily nodded.

"Not in the least."

Lily couldn't help but laugh. "You make it sound like the worst thing in the world! You've had lots of fun there over the years!"

"All right, so it hasn't been all bad," Jane admitted a bit reluctantly. "Remember, that's where Jake Conroy kissed me behind the bandstand."

From there, it was as if the floodgates had been thrown open on their memories of growing up in Hooper's Crossing. Driving out of town, they reminisced about days long past: the summer afternoon they'd dared each other to jump off the bridge into the Porter River, both of them screaming the whole way down; Martin Bradley's ninth birthday party when Katie Sharp had eaten too much cake and gotten sick all down the front of her new dress; the shiveringly cold February day when Jane had caught Dave Cooke, the projectionist at the movie theater, shoplifting tins of hair pomade from her father's store. But even as laughter filled the Oldsmobile, Lily felt a strange sadness settle over her, and no matter how hard she tried to shake it off, it refused to let go.

On the road ahead, the car's headlights illuminated a large sign announcing that they were leaving Hooper's Crossing. It quickly loomed before them, its colors bright, then vanished and all was dark.

And something inside Lily cracked.

"Stop the car," she said, the words quiet and mumbled.

When Jane didn't respond, still talking about the time Matt Hoskins had forgotten the words to "Silent Night" during his solo at the school Christmas concert, Lily repeated herself, this time loud and clear enough to be heard.

"What for?" Jane asked. "Did you forget something?"

"Just pull over!" Lily snapped, the sharp sound of her voice surprising even her, her heart racing faster than the speeding car.

Jane did as her friend asked, guiding the Oldsmobile onto the road's shoulder and pressing down hard enough on the brakes to make the tires slide in the soft gravel. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, the only sound the ticking of the car's engine.