The Books: Nice Girl Like You (Norma Johnston)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA fiction:

Next book on the shelf is Nice Girl Like You (Keeping Days Series) by Norma Johnston. Fifth book in the Keeping Days series.

Sometimes I feel like a crazy person during my early morning excerpt ritual.

So to anyone out there who is reading this:

This book, the 5th in the series, was actually my favorite one of all – and for some reason, I never owned this book – so years went by until this past February when I suddenly thought about it and tracked it down again. I haven’t re-read it just yet but I’m a strange little collector like that – I just like to HAVE it … so that if I ever DO feel like re-reading it, I will be able to IMMEDIATELY. (To the gentleman who hates my capitalization habit and was so rude about it – your head is probably popping off RIGHT NOW, isn’t it??)

So what I remember about this book is: We skip forward in years. The 4th book in the series (Mustard Seed of Magic) takes place in 1902. Tish, the heroine, the whiny heroine, is 15. Now, in this book, we are in 1917. WWI is going on. We’re focusing in on the same Sterling family, only on the younger generation. The new “star” of the series is Saranne – who is Bron’s daughter. Tish, now a grown woman, and a war widow with a son, does come back into the story. She has been living in England and she returns to America, after her husband is killed. Tish is a writer, I believe (what a surprise) – and she’s now all sad and serious and widow-y.

Meanwhile: the main thrust of the book is how Saranne (the “nice girl” of the title) befriends Paul Hodge – widely known to be the “bad boy” in town.

But there’s a secret about Paul Hodge. He has been raised unaware that his big sister (in her 20s – and now a silent film star – the Mary Lou Hodge of the earlier part of the series) is actually his MOTHER. So the kid was shot in the foot before leaving the gate. But he has a bad reputation – because “he’s a Hodge, and they’re all bad” … but Saranne ends up seeing another side of him … and befriends him … and it’s a huge scandal … and they end up kissing under a willow tree (a la East of Eden) and she wears middy blouses and there’s red white and blue bunting on the city hall and it’s all very evocative and I just ate that shit UP when I was a teenager. I was DYING to wear a middy blouse and be innocently patriotic and have long hair in a braid. I wanted to LIVE in Meet Me in St. Louis.

Anyhoo. Here’s an excerpt.

From Nice Girl Like You (Keeping Days Series) by Norma Johnston.

Paul kissed me. No, I’ll be honest: we kissed each other. I started to ry some more. He took me in his arms and we clung together, and then wordlessly, awkwardly, we went back to the house. Gram and Gramp were home, and dinner odors were coming from the kitchen stove.

“You’d better both stay for dinner,” Aunt Tish said. She was still wraithlike, but more serene. “You still haven’t had a chance to work on Shylock’s lines.”

Paul telephoned home; he was terse, and spoke in tones we could not hear. I telephoned, and when I got finished telling Dad about the fracas with the reporter, he had Aunt Tish get on the line and give particulars so he could call the paper as her lawyer.

“Just to forestall further attempts or charges,” she said, hanging up.

Katie came home from the library, looked at Paul and me oddly, but didn’t pry. Nichola came downstairs, cuddling the puppy. “He’s called Paul Anthony.”

Gram darted a sharp look at Aunt Tish, whose face went still with pain. Paul saw it. “That’s quite a mouthful. Why don’t you call him Antonio, like the character in our play?”

Nichola shook her head. “He’s Captain Paul Anthony, of the Royal Air Force. I’ll make him a jacket with an insignia like Papa’s on it, and then nobody will dare to call him German.” She hugged him tightly.

She followed Paul around like a shadow, and Paul was very kind to her. He was good with children. “You should have had younger brothers and sisters,” I said, striving to sound natural.

“I guess I was enough of a shock to my parents. Sixteen years after my sister Mary. Ma’s always saying she hadn’t bargained on raising a second family.”

We had felt so — right, together, without pretenses or defenses, in the little private world beneath the porch. Here among the others, everything was different, strained.

We ate, with Gramp and Uncle Peter providing casual conversation, and Aunt Melissa bustling in at last, her head spinning. Leslie had been accepted for Officers’ Training Camp, and they were making plans for a military wedding. “In June, Mama. Leslie doesn’t want to wait until his training’s over, because he could be shipped out right away.” That sent Gram into the expected tizzy, but amid all the excitement four were silent. Me. Paul. Tish and Katie, watching us.

Paul and I went into Gramp’s study to work on his lines, but that only made things worse. Paul was forgetting what he’d known before and cussing beneath his breath, then turning red, and I could not sound natural to save my soul.

Paul saw me home in silence, acting as if he half hated me. When we reached our house I stopped at the foot of the path, well out of the pool of light coming from the door. “We didn’t get much work done on your lines.”

“I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“You didn’t! It’s my job to help, and besides, you were a lifesaver, and you know it. I don’t know what Letitia would have done –” I stopped. “Honestly, I feel like a Gramophone record that’s gotten stuck! Paul Hodge, how long is it going to take you to believe you’re good to have around?”

“Probably never. And it’s not part of your job to convince me, so don’t think you have to.”

“Hasn’t it registered on you that I want to? That it’s right?”

I meant his being in the play, helping Aunt Tish and Nichola and me, but all of a sudden the words referred to a whole lot more. We stood, staring at each other. It was Paul who spoke, and his voice was ragged.

“A whole lot more’s happening than we bargained for, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.” Another stillness. I groped for words. “I’m sorry. It was awful tonight, and I didn’t help.”

“Don’t worry,” Paul said brusquely. “I won’t embarrass you. You can just go back to where it hadn’t happened.”

“We can’t go back. And I don’t want to.”

“You do have guts, dont you?” Paul said huskily. He took my hands in his and bent towards me. I thought he was going to kiss my mouth again, but he just pressed his lips against my forehead gently. And went, in silence.