She squinted at the ad, then zoomed in to make it bigger.
The Alexandria location was in Old Town, just a few miles up the parkway from Beaverbrook Lane. She’d seen no other ads for a Chevy dealership.
This had to be it.
But as she zoomed in further, doubt dampened her elation, and she slumped in her chair.
Anderson.Could there be a more commonplace last name thanAnderson? It could be the right name but the wrong family.
She took a picture of the ad with her phone, stacked the boxes neatly beside the machine, and went to find the librarian again.
“Progress!” she whispered. “I think her last name is Anderson. Now can I see those yearbooks?”
The librarian smiled. “This way.”
She led Kiersten into another small room lit with overhead fluorescent lights. “We have yearbooks from every high school in Alexandria right here, some of them going back further than others. Both public and private schools. Do you have any idea where to start?”
“She was the valedictorian of her class,” Kiersten said slowly, “and she said something once about ‘good old SMA ...’”
The librarian frowned. “That could be a reference to St. Margaret’s Academy. It was an all-girls Catholic high school back in the 1960s. Then it merged with an all-boys Catholic school in 1990. Today it’s a coed high school called Bishop Ignatius.”
“That could be right,” Kiersten said slowly. “I think she got married the same year she graduated, so she would have been a senior in 1964.”
The librarian moved around the room with precise steps. She knew exactly where everything was. Kiersten wished her home were as organized as this library.
The librarian pulled a volume from the shelf and handed it to Kiersten. “Try this.”
Anticipation warmed Kiersten’s cheeks as she opened the cover. A musty odor rose in the air as she carefully turned the yellowing pages to photos of the senior class of 1964.
A small class, all girls. She ran her fingers under each name. Then she inhaled sharply.
Dorothy Marie Anderson, Valedictorian
A strange pang of recognition pierced her heart. She knew so much about this woman, what she thought and felt, what she ate for breakfast. But she’d never actually seen her face. Until now.
Dottie Anderson looked back at her from the yearbook. Wide, intelligent eyes, high cheekbones. Smooth hair. Cat’s-eye glasses. Not pretty exactly, but dignified, with a quiet integrity.
Kiersten sat down in a metal folding chair and went back to the very first page of the yearbook, working her way through it slowly, from beginning to end, seeking to confirm that Dorothy Marie Anderson was indeed the Dottie who’d penned the diary.
Bingo.
Her fingers brushed a picture centered on a page entitled “Future Homemakers of America Hone Their Skills in Home Economics Class.”
Candid black-and-white photos filled the two pages. Her eyes rested on a snapshot of two girls in a classroom kitchenette, wearing aprons, holding a tray of gingerbread cookies. The caption read “Dottie and Ruby finally catch the gingerbread man.”
She squinted down at the picture. Dottie was a full head taller than her best friend, and thinner. They stood beside a stove, grinning at the camera.
“This is her,” she said softly, looking up at the librarian.
“Now that you have her first, middle, and last name, we can look for her engagement and wedding announcements,” the librarian said.
Kiersten snapped a picture of Dottie’s yearbook photo with her phone, then followed the librarian back to the microfilm machine.
“Do you know what month she got married?”
Kiersten squinted up at the ceiling, trying to remember what she’d read. “She graduated in May and met her husband the day after graduation. She got pregnant on her honeymoon, and the baby was due in October. So she would have gotten married in ...”
“December or January?” the librarian supplied.
