Why did no one tell me life could be this? As if they had been hiding from him that, instead of Puritan hard work and failed get-rich schemes, promises broken and pointless battles waged, life could be sequins and song. He felt he had been lied to from the Pilgrims on down. The secret had been kept from him like a mad aunt locked in the basement, and now a neighbor had innocently set her loose—and she was wonderful! He understood everyone was wrong about life, and if they were wrong about that, then they could be wrong about him.
