by Lois Duncan
He didn’t mean to be rude, she thought. He just doesn’t know any better. This must be the way his crowd acts.
As she caught up with him, Dirk took her arm and steered her through the door into the place known as Charlie’s.
The moment she was inside, Lynn knew it was not the kind of place she ought to be in. Charlie’s was a bar, purely and simply, and did not even pretend to be anything else. There was a juke box playing in one comer, a long counter lined with stools, and a row of booths around the outside. There were several people at the counter, and three of the booths were filled. The far booth, over by the juke box, seemed to be the meeting place for Dirk’s crowd, for there were already several couples there. Lynn recognized among them a girl who had been at the movies with them. She and the boy she was with half-rose, beckoning to Dirk, and he turned toward them, drawing Lynn along with him.
“Hi there, Masters! We beat you!”
“You wouldn’t have,” Greta’s date said loudly, “if Miss Chambers here hadn’t thrown a fit on the way. It seems her father forbids her dates to drive at their own rate of speed. He makes them sign a statement that they will keep under thirty-five miles per hour at all times.”
Everyone at the table roared.
Dirk hesitated a moment. Then he said in a rather flat voice, “That’s all right. My dad’s like that with Anne.”
The laughter died a little. One of the boys said, “Oh, come off it, Masters. Your old man doesn’t give a darn what you kids do.”
“He does about Anne,” Dirk said quietly. “Anne’s a good girl, and don’t let me hear you try to make her sound like anything else.” He sat down at the edge of the booth, shoving the boy next to him over to make room, and motioned for Lynn to sit down beside him. “What’ll you have?”
Lynn sat down, feeling out of place in her tan dress and pumps with heels. The other girls were dressed informally. One girl even had on slacks and a tight-fitting T-shirt.
“A Coke,” Lynn said quietly to Dirk, hoping the others would not overhear her and find something else to laugh about.
“Just a Coke?”
“Yes, please.”
Surprisingly, Dirk did not try to talk her into having anything else.
“O.K., a Coke it is.”
He turned away from her to the group, who were laughing about something. One of the girls was telling a story in a high, shrill voice. The boys kept interrupting her to add comments of their own. Lynn thought the story might have been amusing if it had been about people she knew, but, as it was, she did not recognize any of the names or places mentioned, and she could not become interested. The comments from the boys did not make much sense to her, nor did the laughter when the story was over.
The drinks arrived, and she seized her Coke gratefully. With a glass to hold in her hand, she did not feel quite so uncomfortably out of things. To her relief, she saw that Dirk had ordered a Coke, too.
“What’s the matter, Masters?” one of the boys asked. “Don’t tell me you’re on the wagon?”
“For tonight I am,” Dirk answered quietly.
On the far side of the table, the girl with the shrill voice began another story.
There was a clock with flourescent hands over the bar. Sitting, facing it, Lynn thought she had never seen time move so slowly. The stories went on and on in a kind of monotonous hum, first one girl telling one and then another. The boys began to talk about automobiles. Lynn, who was never interested in automobiles, even when Paul was talking about them, transferred her attention to Greta, who was sitting across from her.
Greta caught her eye and giggled.
“Lynn Chambers remembered me,” she said to the girl next to her. “Can you beat that? She remembered me.”
The girl, who was older than Greta and Lynn, frowned in concentration.
“Who’s Lynn Chambers?”
“That girl over there. The one with Dirky. She remembered me.”
The older girl gave Lynn a half-apologetic look. “Don’t worry about her. She gets like this—sort of giggly and silly.”
Lynn said, “That’s all right.”
She took another gulp of Coke, knowing that it was not all right. It was not all right at all. She could imagine the look on her parents’ faces if they should walk into Charlie’s at this moment and find her here with a group like this one. She glanced up at the clock. It was only eleven.
The crowd burst into loud laughter again at something one of the boys had said. Dirk was laughing with the rest.
Then suddenly somebody said, “Hi!”
Everyone turned. The laughter died a little.
Dirk turned with the rest of them, and he scowled slightly when he saw who was speaking.
“Oh, hi, Brad!”
The heavy-set boy who stood by the table could not have been more than a couple of years older than Dirk, but there was nothing young about him. His eyes were small and pale and set far apart and there was a look of hardness about him, even when he smiled.
He was smiling now.
He perched on the edge of the seat next to Lynn and leaned across to speak to Dirk. His breath was unpleasant, and Lynn, drawing back with a feeling of disgust, realized that he had been drinking heavily.
“Hi, Masters!” he said in a low, confidential voice. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your girl friend?”
“She’s not—that is—” Dirk looked flustered. “This is Lynn Chambers—Brad Morgan.”
Brad drew back a little so his face was next to Lynn’s. “Hi, there, Lynn. You’re a pretty cute little number. Want to dance?”
Lynn recoiled from his breath, trying desperately to think of something to say. She did not want to dance with this man. More than anything in the world she did not want to dance with him; the mere idea of it made her physically ill. But there was no polite way of getting out of it. The juke box was playing. People were dancing. They had just been formally introduced, and he had invited her to dance, and there seemed to be no polite way to refuse.
She glanced beseechingly at Dirk.
He reached over and put his hand on her arm.
“Not tonight Brad. Lynn and I have to push off. I promised her old man I’d get her home early.”
“One little dance first?” Brad pleaded, leaning across Lynn again. “Don’t be a spoil-sport, Masters. You wouldn’t be having this evening if I hadn’t lent you my car. You can return a favor with a favor, you know.”
“Sorry,” Dirk said shortly, “not tonight.” He got to his feet. “Come on, Lynn.”
Brad shook his head regretfully. “I should be mad at you, Masters, but I’m not. If I had a cute little number like that one, I’d hang on pretty tight myself. Some guys get all the breaks.”
Lynn slid out of the booth quickly. Dirk took her arm and turned back to the group.
“So long, everybody! See you in the funny papers!”
“So long, Masters! Great seeing you, boy! Have fun!” Somebody said, “Good night, Lynn!” Brad said something else, calling it after them in a low voice, but Lynn did not understand him.
It was a relief to be out of the smoke-filled atmosphere and walking across the parking lot to the car. The air was clear and cold. There were stars.
Lynn shivered a little, wishing she had brought her coat She asked, “What did Brad mean about your borrowing his car? Is this his?”
Dirk nodded. He opened the door on the driver’s side and Lynn got in, sliding across the seat to the opposite side.
“Why did he lend it to you? Is he a special friend of yours?”
“In a way.” Dirk got in, shut the door and started the engine.
He backed the car out of the driveway and turned onto the main road. He drove slowly now and carefully.
“He’s not like that all the time,” he said. “Just when he’s been drinking. Sometimes he’s a neat guy. He’s smart. Plenty smart in lots of ways.”
“If he’s so smart,” Lynn said shortly, “why does he let himself get into
the condition he was in tonight?”
“What’s that got to do with being smart?” Dirk asked. “Everybody has too much to drink once in a while.”
Lynn did not answer.
They drove the rest of the way in silence. When they pulled to a stop in front of her house, Lynn knew she should break the silence, but it was hard to think of something to say.
If it had been Paul, there would have been no problem. It was wonderfully easy to say good night to Paul, to say “Thank you for a lovely evening,” and “I’ve had a wonderful time.” But with Dirk it was difficult, because it had not been a lovely evening. It had been strained and uncomfortable and at times very unpleasant. And yet Dirk himself had seemed to be trying to give her a nice time. There had been no sarcasm, no smart-aleck remarks. He had treated her with respect in front of his friends, he had protected her from Brad’s advances and when she was frightened at his driving, he had slowed down as she asked him.
She could feel him looking at her in the darkness. She forced herself to turn to meet his gaze.
“Dirk,” she began, “thank you so much for a nice evening. It was a lot of fun; I had such a nice—”
“Did you?” His voice was low and gruff in the darkness, and there was a touch of warmth in it she had not heard before. “Did you really?”
“Yes,” Lynn said, hoping she sounded convincing.
“Then what about kissing me good night?”
“Kissing you good night!” Lynn stared across at him, trying to see his face. Surely he was not serious. “But, Dirk, this is our first date. Besides, I don’t just kiss everybody good night. Not just to say thank you for a nice evening! It has to be special, to mean something.”
He was silent a moment and then he laughed, a funny, hoarse little laugh. When he spoke again, he sounded like the old Dirk.
“So you think you’re too good, is that it? Too good to kiss Dirk Masters. This whole evening has been kind of a joke for you, hasn’t it? Lynn Chambers, Princess of the Hill, going slumming.”
“Why, no,” Lynn exclaimed, “that’s not true! It wasn’t like that at all!”
And even as she said it, she felt a flush of guilt because it had been like that. Exactly as he said it.
“Oh, no?” Dirk slid forward across the seat until he was beside her. He put both hands on her shoulders and she could feel his warm breath against her face. “Well, you’re not any better than I am. Not one bit better, and your wishy-washy Paul Kingsley isn’t either. I bet you kiss him, don’t you? No being coy or pulling away from him.”
“That’s different,” Lynn whispered, wondering desperately how she could get away from Dirk and out of the car with his hands so strong on her shoulders. “Paul and I—well, Paul is special—he’s—”
“Yeah. He’s from the Hill.”
And then he kissed her. It was a hard kiss, a determined kiss from a boy who had kissed girls before. There was nothing tender about it, nothing of the gentle awkwardness of Paul’s first kiss the night he had asked her to go steady. Lynn had lifted her own face then and kissed him back, with a singing inside her and a glow of happiness that was almost too much to bear. There was no singing in her now, only a kind of terror, a longing to get away.
When Dirk finally released her, Lynn was trembling with anger.
“There,” Dirk said, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “Did your Hill boy friend ever kiss you like that?”
“No,” Lynn said, “and if he ever had, I would never have spoken to him again.”
She opened the car door, slid through it and slammed it behind her. Without even a glance over her shoulder at the boy in the car, she ran up the porch steps and into the house.
5
When Lynn arrived at school the following Monday, the news was there before her. It was a muffled buzz all around her, a horrified whisper following her through the halls and into classrooms. “Lynn had a date with Dirk Masters! With Dirk Masters!”
Nancy was the first one to mention it. It was at the end of home room period, when they were free to talk for a few minutes before the bell. She turned around in her seat in front of Lynn’s. She looked troubled.
“Is it true that you dated that Masters boy?”
Lynn was surprised. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Well, Joan’s brother went to the movies Saturday night and said he saw you with him. That he had hold of your arm and that there was another couple with you, that terrible Greta something-or-other who sits in the back row of English class and some other boy. Lynn—” she hesitated, searching for the right words—“you don’t have to do that, you know.”
“To do what?”
‘To date boys like that. I mean, it’s tough about this debut business. We all wish your dad would let you take part in it and we feel mean not having you to our parties. We like you just as much as ever, Lynn. You don’t have to prove anything—”
“I’m not proving anything,” Lynn said irritably.
“Yes, you are. You must be. You’d never date a horrible boy like that if you weren’t I—” She put an uncertain hand on her friend’s arm—“I know it must be hard, being out of things and having all the Hill boys at the parties so there’s nobody left to date, but just remember that Paul is going to be home soon. It will be Christmas vacation before you know it. You don’t have to date boys like Dirk when you’ve got Paul.”
“I know,” Lynn said, with a sigh. “I know, Nan, and I guess you’re right. I was just trying to prove something. Don’t worry, I won’t be going out with Dirk again.”
“Well, good,” Nancy said with satisfaction. She was silent a moment, and then she asked slowly, “What was it like?”
“What?”
“Dating Dirk. How did he act? Did he get fresh?”
“Yes,” Lynn said, “sort of, at the last. He was pretty nice the rest of the time.” She changed the subject with an effort. “How are the debutante parties coming? How was the dinner dance?”
“Oh, fine!” Nancy’s face brightened. “It was more fun—you just can’t imagine! You know what a lovely, big house Joan’s folks have. We ate in the dining room, a formal affair, with everyone in dinner dress and candles on the table and the best silver and china, and they served—let’s see—” She wrinkled her nose in an effort to remember. “Cornish hen, I think it was. And wild rice and peas cooked with mushrooms and fruit salad and a gorgeous ice cream thing for dessert. And after dinner we went into the living room and they had everything cleared and the room was decorated to represent the end of autumn—rust and gold and brown. And we danced—”
“Was there an orchestra?” Lynn asked, interested in spite of herself.
“No. Joan said they talked about it, but her father thought that would cost too much. As it was, the dinner must have cost a small fortune, with twenty girls and their dates.”
“I should think so!” Lynn exclaimed. Suddenly a thought struck her. “Who did Brenda Peterson bring as a date?”
“I didn’t know him. Some boy from out of town. A cousin, I think.”
Lynn laughed heartlessly. “That sounds about right for Brenda. I guess she couldn’t get any of the other boys to take her.”
Nancy frowned. “That’s not fair, Lynn. You know as well as I do that there aren’t many surplus boys in the senior class—that is, suitable boys. Brenda hasn’t been dating much, so naturally it’s hard for her to latch on to one now. And everyone has to have an escort to these affairs, or they just don’t work out.” She gave Lynn an odd look. “You don’t like Brenda at all, do you?”
“Do you?” Lynn countered. “She’s always seemed such a blah little thing, I didn’t think any of us were especially fond of her.”
“That’s true,” Nancy admitted. “But now—I don’t know—I’m beginning to think maybe I didn’t give her a good chance before. Her mother lords it over her so much, it’s hard to get to know what she’s like underneath. These parties are the first chance I’ve had to really talk to her, and you know, sh
e’s not half bad. I think she could be a pretty swell girl if it weren’t for her mother.”
“Maybe,” Lynn said reluctantly. “I don’t know.” She knew that her dislike for Brenda was unreasonable and had come into being only recently. For some reason, it seemed as though Brenda’s entering the crowd and Lynn’s leaving it had come simultaneously. It was as though she had been replaced by Brenda, as though, if Brenda were not there, she would be missed more by the others.
Which is ridiculous, Lynn told herself sternly. She saw that Nancy was on the verge of saying something else, and she was relieved when the bell rang and the chance for conversation ceased.
It was, however, not the end of the whispers about her date with Dirk. Several of the other girls mentioned it, playfully, but with a layer of seriousness underneath. Others seemed to let the conversation drag a little, as if they hoped she would fill it in with some details about her Saturday night. In the cafeteria, Rachel Goldman caught her eye and smiled, so did Clara Marivella. Anne’s crowd too, it seemed, knew about the date, but they seemed to like Lynn better for it.
Dirk himself did not look at her at all. Lynn passed him once in the hall. She was sure he saw her; he really could not help it because he was walking directly toward her, but had turned his head slightly in passing, as though he were not aware she was there.
She was relieved in a way. She had certainly not been looking forward to talking to Dirk after their embarrassing parting. But she was peeved, too, in a way that she could not explain.
He could at least say hello, she thought irritably. After all, he’s not the one who should be mad. If anybody’s going to snub anybody, I’m the one who has the right to do it.
It was after she left the cafeteria and started into the main building for her usual study time that she saw Anne. She was standing alone by the door to the building, and when she saw Lynn coming, she stepped forward to meet her.
“Hi, Lynn! I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Oh?” Lynn was surprised. She had somehow assumed that if Dirk was angry with her, Anne would be, too. Or perhaps it was the other way; she herself was angry with Dirk and, therefore, part of her feeling spilled over onto Anne. But now, looking at the girl, with her sweet mouth and honest brown eyes, Lynn felt any irritability slip quickly away.
