by Ava Winters
Amanda was always the most popular young woman at these dances. The town had started to have dances once a month, held at the beautifully designed town hall building that had been built six months prior. It was one of the largest buildings in Albertson and housed the mayor’s and judge’s offices. The post office and telegraph offices were also found in this building.
In the back of the building was a large room, complete with wood floors. Town meetings were held in this room, so it was usually filled with wooden hard-back chairs and tables.
But once a month, on Saturday nights, they were all put away, and a dance was held for anyone who wanted to attend. These dances were for the people of Albertson, but many people were starting to attend from the surrounding area and other towns. Amanda hadn’t missed a dance yet since they had first started holding them.
Because Amanda hadn’t, neither had Luisa.
When the square dance finally ended, the young man gave Amanda a short bow. She stood near him, almost too close to be socially acceptable, and laughed as she looked in his eyes.
Luisa watched as Nick asked her a question, his arm waving towards the band. Luisa knew he was asking Amanda for another dance, but she shook her head and then pranced off the dance floor. Luisa shook her own head as she watched yet another man, Joey, immediately approach Amanda.
As usual, he was immediately able to convince Amanda to dance with him. Luisa wondered what it would be like to have so many men vying for her attention. Would she enjoy the attention that Amanda seemed to encourage, or would she get tired of it after a while?
A few seconds later, Amanda tucked her hand through Joey’s arm as they walked onto the dance floor. The curls in her long, dark brown hair bounced against her back. She laughed at something Joey said, and Luisa could almost hear the joyful sound, over the loud music, from where she stood as the band started another dance.
Luisa only hoped that her friend would be able to keep out of trouble this evening. They had known each other since they were ten years old, and she had spent most of their friendship doing her best to keep Amanda safe.
When they were younger, Amanda had been very adventurous. She would do things like try to ride one of her father’s new racehorses when it wasn’t totally trained for riding yet, or go skinny dipping in the pond that was located on her father’s land in the middle of the night.
One memory Luisa had of Amanda still made her heart clench when she thought of it. When they were both fifteen, a Wild West show had come into Albertson for a week. Amanda had dragged Luisa to watch the show almost every evening. Amanda had been fascinated by all of the acts, but one of them had impressed her the most.
There had been a young girl about their age who had ridden a horse while standing on its back. The horse cantered in a large circle and the girl seemed to control the large animal with only her bare feet.
At the end of the act, the girl had done a backflip off of the horse amid a lot of amazed applause from the crowd, and made a perfect landing on her feet, her arms in the air as she posed in a daintily.
Amanda had been very impressed with this act and s decided that she also wanted to learn how to do this trick.
It had taken Luisa two entire days to talk her friend out of trying to do the same trick with one of her father’s racehorses. When Amanda’s father had found out about his daughter’s antics, and the fact that Luisa had been able to stop her plans, he had begun to encourage the two of them to spend even more time together.
He invited Luisa to share meals with them almost daily. When he took Amanda into a nearby city for shopping, Luisa was invited along. He made sure Luisa had access to her own horse to use whenever she wished.
Although she didn’t officially own the mare, which she had immediately named her Honey for her golden color, and was the only one who rode her.
While they had been in school, Amanda’s father had allowed them to study together. Amanda had been very good with her academics while Luisa struggled. But with Amanda’s help, they both had been able to graduate from the Albertson School at the top of their class.
The only time they had been separated was when Amanda went back East to attend a finishing school for nine months after graduating from their town school. Luisa had been invited by Mr. Wright to attend the finishing school with Amanda.
He had even offered to pay for her tuition as well as room and board. Luisa’s own father had put a stop to that plan, not wanting his only daughter to be away from him for so long. Luisa hadn’t been too disappointed that she hadn’t been able to go with Amanda.
Finishing school had sounded boring and tedious. Besides, she hadn’t wanted to be away from her father for such a long period of time. But she had missed Amanda desperately while she had been gone.
Luisa was jerked back into the present when a young man, Adam Bailey, stepped in front of her, interrupting her memories.
“Miss Wright, would you like to dance?” he asked eagerly.
Luisa frowned at him. She knew that in the dim light of the town hall, Adam couldn’t tell that she really wasn’t Amanda. Part of her wondered what would happen if she agreed to the dance and pretended to be Amanda, at least for a little while. How long would it take for Adam to figure out that she wasn’t who he thought she was?
“I’m not Amanda,” Luisa said, deciding that being honest was the best policy. “I’m her friend, Luisa.”
“Oh, sorry,” Adam stammered. His face flushed in embarrassment as he walked away.
Luisa sighed. She suddenly realized that she wouldn’t have minded dancing with Adam, if he had asked her in full knowledge of who she was.
This was another interesting fact about her friendship with Amanda. They weren’t related at all, but they looked very similar, with dark brown hair, fair skin, and honey- brown eyes.
The only difference was Amanda’s hair was a few inches shorter than her own. They were almost the same height and had the similar hourglass figure. To most people, Lisa was easily identified as herself because she didn’t wear the fancy dresses that Amanda usually wore.
Her dresses were made of simple cotton fabric and sewn by her own hand. Amanda’s dresses were all made to fit her exactly, and she had a wardrobe full of clothing she rarely wore. When Mr.
Wright gave Amanda a new dress, she would only wear it once or twice, before growing tired of it. All of her dresses were purchased readymade or created by someone who designed them just for her.
When Luisa was younger, she had secretly pretended that they really were sisters. But they were of different social classes. Amanda’s father, James Wright, was a renowned Thoroughbred horse breeder, while Luisa’s father was the top foreman for Mr. Wright.
They also had very different personalities. Amanda liked to have fun, laughed a lot, and seemed to be friends with everyone around her. She had an infectious laugh that made others smile.
Luisa was quieter, careful in whatever she did, and had a hard time talking to people she didn’t know very well. In fact, when someone she didn’t know very well did try to converse with her, sometimes her mind would go totally blank, and she wouldn’t be able to think of a thing to say.
It was obvious that the young men in Albertson liked women who were more outgoing, as Amanda was, not someone who was quiet and seemed to fade into the background as Luisa did.
She heard a loud laugh and turned her attention back to Amanda. This time, her friend was standing near the refreshment table, sipping a glass of punch.
Luisa’s eyes widened as Amanda drank the entire glass almost in one gulp and then gave it to a new young man, Eric Davidson, who was standing close to her. He eagerly refilled the glass for her. The punch looked really good and refreshing from where Luisa was standing, and she headed towards her friend to get her own drink.
“Hi, Luisa,” Amanda said with a welcoming smile when Luisa reached her side. “Isn’t this a great dance? I’m so glad we came.”
Luisa smiled back. “It does look like everyone is
enjoying themselves.”
“Do you want a drink?” Eric asked Luisa politely.
She nodded. “Yes, please.”
Eric gave her a glass and Luisa took a sip and almost spat it out before forcing herself to swallow it. The punch had been spiked with quite a bit of alcohol, and it tasted awful.
Couldn’t Amanda taste it? It was obvious she couldn’t because she began to drink her punch again. Luisa leaned close to her friend, intending to warn her about the added alcohol, but paused when Eric held a hand out to Amanda.
“Let’s go dance now.”
Amanda nodded and quickly drank the entire glass before setting it aside. She followed Eric to the dance floor, leaving Luisa behind. Luisa was frustrated with herself.
Why couldn’t she have just insisted that Amanda listen to her for a moment before she walked off with Eric? Now she knew that she needed to really keep an eye on her friend. Amanda never had been able to handle alcohol well and she usually avoided it at all costs.
Things stayed calm for about an hour, and Luisa began to relax again. She even danced a few times herself with young men she had known most of her life.
After her last dance, she looked around for Amanda and saw that she was actually not dancing at the moment. Luisa went to stand by her. She could tell almost the moment she arrived, that Amanda was on her way to becoming very drunk.
“Miss Amanda, would you like to dance?” Yet another young man, Harry Lowe, asked as he gave her a slight bow.
Luisa tried not to roll her eyes. She was aware that Harry had asked Amanda to dance multiple times this evening. Amanda didn’t like the man and had declined each time. Luisa knew that Harry actually made Amanda quite nervous.
He’d attended every dance that had been held and seemed to watch Amanda throughout the entire evening. Even though Amanda had let Harry know, in her own subtle way, that she wasn’t interested in dancing with him, he never took the hints and continued in pursuing her.
Luisa wondered how long it was going to take for Harry to get the message.
“I’m getting a bit tired,” Amanda said with the right amount of regret in her voice. “I’m going to sit the next set out.”
Disappointment spread across Harry’s face and he almost glared at her for a moment before he walking away, but he didn’t move very far. A few seconds later, another man, Peter Cooper, came and asked Amanda to dance.
Luisa could tell that Amanda was going to accept and touched her arm to try to stop her since Harry was still nearby. She knew that Harry wasn’t going to take Amanda’s obvious rejection well. It would be much better if Amanda sat this dance out.
“I…” Amanda began to speak when Harry made his move.
“I asked her first. She has agreed to dance with me in the next set,” Harry said with a sneer to Peter.
“It doesn’t look like she wants to dance with you,. Peter smirked. “Or you’d be out on the dance floor right now. I don’t know why she would want to dance with such a backward boy as yourself.”
Anger spread across Harry’s face as he pulled his hand back and swung, hitting Peter square in the face. Peter staggered for a moment before he growled and swung back, hitting Harry in the stomach.
“Oh!” Amanda shrieked in disbelief, her eyes wide with fright. “Stop it, both of you!”
Harry and Peter continued to throw punches at each other. Luisa noticed that Harry’s nose had begun to bleed, and he stumbled with the next punch. Peter definitely had the upper hand.
“Let’s get out of here,” Luisa said as she grabbed Amanda’s arm and pulled her away from Harry and Peter. She saw an Albertson deputy move quickly towards the two young men to break up the fight.
“I can’t believe they started fighting,” Amanda said in disbelief. Her words slurred a bit, letting Luisa know that the spiked punch was beginning to do its job.
“I can,” Luisa muttered, but she made sure she didn’t say the words too loudly.
She didn’t want to explain to Amanda that Harry and Peter had felt like they needed to compete for her attention because she had been giving it to everyone else that evening.
“Let’s get out here for a while and get some fresh air,” Luisa suggested.
Amanda eyed the front door and then nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. I don’t know why Harry has kept asking me to dance all night. I am not at all interested in him. All he wants is to get in good standing with my father.”
Luisa thought that most of the young men that Amanda had danced with probably wanted the same thing, but she was wise enough to keep her thoughts to herself.
Amanda’s father was one of the richest and most successful men in Albertson, and she was aware that her friend was considered a good catch. Once they were outside, they stood under a nearby shade tree. Luisa unpinned a brooch that she sometimes wore on her dresses, just above her heart. Inside was a watch and she checked the time in the dim evening light.
She could see that it was almost ten o'clock.
“Let’s head home,” she suggested. “The dance will be over in fifteen minutes anyway.”
Amanda hesitated but then nodded. Luisa breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t know if she would have been able to keep her friend out of trouble much longer if she had insisted on going back into the town hall.
“Why don’t you stay here? I’ll go and get Jed.”
As she walked away to get Amanda’s driver, she half expected to return and find her friend gone, having decided to go back inside “for just one more dance,” before she returned. She could only hope that Amanda would stay put, for once.
Chapter 2
Luisa walked behind the town hall to where all the horses, carriages, and buggies were. Jed was a driver of the Wrights and he had taken them to the dance. As she walked closer, she could see Jed leaning against a nearby tree, enjoying a cigarette. He stood up straight when he saw her.
“Is Miss Amanda ready to go home?” Jed asked as he peered down at her in the dim light.
Luisa nodded. “She is standing near the front of the town hall.”
Jed glanced at his cigarette with regret before tossing it to the ground, snuffing it out with his shiny shoe. He opened the door of the buggy for her, and she slid inside.
A few minutes later, Amanda was also sitting next to her. They didn’t talk for a while as Jed guided the horses towards Mr. Wright’s ranch. Luisa began to wonder if Amanda had fallen asleep. She was leaning back against the buggy seat, her head turned away from Luisa.
“I love these dances, but I’m also getting a bit bored from them,” Amanda murmured in the darkness.
“You always dance almost the entire night each time,” Luisa commented with surprise. “How could you get bored with them?”
Amanda shrugged and then changed the subject. “I think Papa wants me to get married. He’s been acting a bit strange lately, don’t you think?”
Luisa narrowed her eyes in confusion. “I haven’t seen anything strange.”
“It’s fun to dance with all those men, but I don’t want to marry any of them. I’m not ready to get married,” Amanda said, determination in her voice.
“I’m sure your father knows that,” Luisa said, doing her best to comfort her friend, but Amanda’s words sparked thoughts of something that she had been concerned about. She instantly pushed her concern aside to be dealt with later.
Conversation between the two young women stopped. Amanda’s ranch was about a thirty-minute drive from Albertson and the rest of the way was made in total silence.
As they moved along the dirt road, Luisa could see the full moon high in the sky, lighting the way to the ranch. More and more stars began to twinkle in the sky as it grew darker.
