I began to feel like a Northrop girl.
I enjoyed a stint as the class humorist. It was a big mistake. The class of 1952, as a senior privilege, had possession of the Senior Room facing Kenwood Parkway, with its second-story windows looking out over the Parade Grounds and the Dunwoody Institute beyond. It was Friday afternoon and girls were sprawled on low chairs reviewing weekend plans and applying lipstick in front of their locker mirrors. Margo, wearing her plaid senior jacket, was playing bridge on the rug in front of the windows. Behind her the wall next to the window was pasted with beer bottle labels collected from parties over the year, a class project we’d all been contributing to. I wandered in, and as I rifled through my locker I heard a question thrown out in a loud voice.
“Okay, answer this one. What is the purpose of the belly button?”
“To separate the upper half from the lower?” came one weak idea. I heard mumbling and a few quips but no more guesses.
What a coincidence! I had recently run across this very riddle in a magazine and remembered it clearly. There was a long pause as everyone thought for an answer. Finally, in the lull, I spoke up.
“It’s for holding salt while you’re eating carrots in bed.”
The room exploded in laughter. From then on I could do no wrong. My response was passed around the school, increasing in weight. I was willing to take on the role of class wit and never revealed that my brief stardom was undeserved. I liked the title of humorist and vowed to take my secret to the grave.
* * *
No way was I going to attend the senior prom. I didn’t know anyone to ask. One afternoon, as we changed out of our gym clothes in the locker room, Peggy and Caroline informed me that a certain Blake boy had not been invited, and they knew for a fact he wanted to go. “Why don’t you ask him?” Absolutely not! I’d never heard of Larry Stockard and didn’t know how I could just call him out of the blue. Girls didn’t phone boys—girls waited to be approached. At an all-girl’s school, however, it was different; girls were required to seek out dates for Northrop-sponsored functions. I said I’d give it some thought. The dance was two weeks away, not much time to ponder.
The following Saturday I sat in my bed, legs drawn up, gazing out the window at the dome of the Saint Mary’s Basilica in the distance. A sheet of paper for a short story lay on my lap, waiting for me to conquer its blank whiteness, to bring it alive. I waited for inspiration to sound the right note. What should I write about? What was really important in the revolving spin of days? The curves of the Basilica held me in their grip and I lost myself in the architectural image, a marble globe around which I could travel in circles and never go anywhere. Like my story.
The phone rang in the hall.
“It’s for you,” came my mother’s voice. I went out to the desk where the receiver was lying on its side. It was Margo.
“Hi, what are you doing?” Without waiting for an answer, “Why don’t you come over?”
“I’m writing. I’m working on a story.” I’d spent the evening before with Margo and we’d walked to Becky’s for pie.
“Oh, you can work on that tomorrow. Do you have anything planned this afternoon?”
“Nothing special. But I’m in the middle of writing this story.” I had been sitting in my room for half an hour and hadn’t written a word, but I counted it as preparation.
“Well then, finish up and come over after. There’s chocolate cake left over from last night and we can watch Ed Sullivan.” Margo had a way of countering any excuses with perpetual counter proposals, but this time I resisted, saying I absolutely couldn’t make it.
An hour later I was on her doorstep. The writing had refused to budge. Almost immediately I heard Mrs. Holt’s voice from the kitchen. “Is that you, Judy? You’re just in time. Come on in and have some devil’s food cake.”
We munched on cake around the kitchen table as Mrs. Holt slipped a prime rib roast into the oven. After a discussion of the upcoming presidential election, all agreeing that Eisenhower would make the best candidate, I followed Margo downstairs to the laundry room. As she began ironing a sun dress I perched on an oak stool. I had to talk to someone! The senior prom was looming and I had to make a decision. Margo was taking Riley.
“There’s this Blake boy,” I began, “looking for a date to the prom. Peggy’s after me to ask him. I’m not going to.”
“What boy?”
“Larry Stockard.”
“Really? He’s cute!” Margo stopped ironing and tucked a lock of stray blonde hair behind her ear. “He’s tall and dark and lots of girls want to go out with him.” The iron resumed it’s back and forth path over the ironing board.
“Tall and cute? Then why is he dateless?” This was formidable. Any inclination I might have had to consider him as a date evaporated. “How good looking is he?”
“Well, he has the dark hair you like so much, and is slender with dark-brown eyes, and is definitely one of the handsome ones. I can’t imagine why he doesn’t have a date already, except that he’s not going with anyone. Our class is so small, with some of us asking boys outside of Blake. Maybe it’s the numbers.”
“I see.” I would have preferred a normal loopy boy, one I could face up to. Maybe there weren’t any boys like that at Blake. This guy was becoming more and more distant, like a star in a far constellation.
“Are you going to ask him?”
“Never.” I tried to turn the conversation to the story I was struggling to write, but Margo would have none of it.
She went on. “Since he wants to go and you want to go—don’t you—?”
“Well—yes . . .”
“Then you’d just better get on the ball and call him,” she declared as she swept the iron over a print apron.
“I don’t think so. No, I couldn’t do that. Why doesn’t he have a date already? Maybe he doesn’t want to go. Maybe the girls at school just assumed. Maybe he wouldn’t want to go with me? What if he doesn’t like what he gets?”
“Don’t be silly. What right has he to expect anything? He’ll be lucky just to be at the dance.”
“Right. He knows he’s taking a chance. The worst that could happen is that we get to the dance and I never see him again because he’s off dancing with the popular girls. Then what am I going to do? No, bad idea. Here, let me iron for a while.” I jumped off the stool in what I hoped was a decisive move.
“You’ll have your classmates there, you’ll know people. You’ll know me and Riley. Think of getting a new formal dress, Larry bringing you a corsage, the dinner Cat Morris is holding before the dance, the all-night afterglow at Cindy’s afterwards. Think of all you’ll miss. You should go for it.”
Secretly, I was dying to go to my first prom. I watched the iron sweeping back and forth in Margo’s hand, the nonchalant arc of her neck, the air of confidence in the tilt of her blonde head. Finally I caved.
“Okay, I’ll call him. Who knows, he might say yes.” I sat back down. “Next week,” I promised.
“Now, call him now!”
Margo led the way upstairs to the den. I pulled Larry’s phone number from my wallet and sitting at the desk, slip of paper in hand, I stared down at the black rotary phone.
“Well?” Margo waited, folding her arms and leaning against the doorway.
“You go downstairs. I’d rather call by myself.”
“Okay, but I only have four more pieces to iron.”
Finally I dialed. As the phone buzzed I resisted the urge to hang up. Why was this so hard? Of course he would refuse, he didn’t know me. The girls may have thought he wanted a prom date, but they could be wrong. What will I say? I hope he doesn’t answer! On second thought, he must, otherwise I’ll have to do this all over again another time. I’m not up to it! Oh, my gosh.
At last I heard a click and a female voice said hello
.
“Is Larry there? That is, does Larry live there? Larry Stockard?”
A pause. “I’ll get him.”
Another long pause that lasted about an hour.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” I plunged in. “Is this Larry?” Too late to think now.
“Yes.”
“Larry Stockard?”
“Yes.”
“This is . . . I’m Judy Bradford and I go to Northrop and I was wondering . . . a . . . well, I don’t have a date, you see . . . you go to Blake, don’t you?”
“Yes. Did you say Judy?”
“Yes.”
“Do I know you?”
“No, but, well it’s about the Senior Prom.”
“Oh! Yes, my friends are going.”
“Well, I thought you might—need a date. That is, uhh, would you like to go? That is, with me?”
A laugh on the other end. “How did you get my name?”
I told him of the tip received at school.
“Ah, I see. Yes, I would.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Certainly.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“You don’t know me either.”
“Look, I don’t know what I’m saying. I could barely bring myself to call you. I think I’ve asked you something but I don’t know what it is. That is, I’m not sure what I just said.”
Another laugh.
“How about if I ask you?” the sexy voice suggested. “Okay? Would you like to attend the Senior Prom with me?”
Now I had to laugh. “Don’t mind if I do!”
I was downstairs in a flash. “He said yes!” I waved my arm in the air. “He drives! He has a car! He’s got a voice like Gary Cooper!”
Margo nonchalantly replaced the iron in its iron rest and looked up. “That’s great,” she said.
* * *
On the big night, the Woodhill Country Club ballroom was crowded with chiffon and satin formals swishing around the floor in time to the Jerry Landon band. The girls were perfumed and coiffed, the boys tall and confident in their tuxedoes, laughing easily. Larry was polite and attentive while I worried about protocol. Who was to be introduced to whom? On which wrist to wear my orchard corsage? Who would fill out my dance card, and how would I carry off an irresistible, winning chatter?
Larry swung me around the floor with casual nonchalance. I leaned into his arms and felt the rhythm pull me into a warm flow. Thank heavens for Arthur Murray! I danced with Riley, smoked five cigarettes on the porch, and gazed at the other girl’s frosty formals and freshly curled hair-dos and the boys with their easy laughter. Later, Larry and I followed a line of cars to Cindy Appleton’s house, where we curled up on pillowed chaise lounges and watched the other partiers dimly outlined on the lawn come and go. Above us the voices of Frank Sinatra and Margaret Whiting sifted through the shadows. Larry was the cutest, gentlest, most desirable boy I’d ever gone out with. I didn’t mind that he was quiet; so was I. By the time dawn emerged from the horizon, bringing a silver lake into view, we had sunk to a state of inertia. The big night was over and so was school.
And so was my brief encounter with Larry Stockard.
* * *
To complete our academic education and prepare us for the full range of opportunity in the years to come, the seniors would go on to college. The honor girls struck out for Wellesley, Smith, and Stanford. Caroline was accepted at Mt. Holyoke. Margo would be flying out to the far reaches of Maine to Colby, propelled no doubt by the same craving for distance that drove me. The headmaster, Mr. Reed had advised me that Bradford Junior College out East would be a good fit, a small school that focused on the creative arts and social sciences. I selected a large university out west. I envisioned a rugged western countryside, with horses ridden full speed across the fields and a green campus spread out under the white-capped mountains of Colorado.
As usual I got my way. Luckily, after Dad appealed directly to the president of the school. I was admitted despite borderline grades. The next fall I would enter the University of Colorado.
* * *
Recently, as I leafed through the navy leather-bound yearbook labeled 1952, I came across notes scribbled by my fellow seniors at graduation those many decades ago. The entries, written in typical back-slanted script, were full of effusive declarations of friendship, pleas that I call, that we get together over the summer, keep in touch at college. Cat Morris, an Edina girl who would also be attending the University of Colorado, wrote a warm note hoping that we would be fast friends at UC and saying that she was looking forward to getting to know me better.
I didn’t believe any of this.
The truth was that although I’d been happily caught up in the whirl of senior year, except for Margo I hadn’t formed steady friendships with the other girls, didn’t know their families or how they felt about anything, and hadn’t caroused with them on weekends or over the summers. That last, lingering summer at the lake with Margo remains an empty blur. Our classmates had disappeared into the future. Maybe the distance between our neighborhoods was too great, or other lifelong friendships and family ties too insular, or Margo and I too insular. We were young and unaware, buried in our own lives, no one thought of such things, least of all me, who spent the days dreaming of enchanted ships and faraway lands.
One yearbook entry that caught my eye was from Audrey Noe:
Dear Judy,
Even though I was unfriendly in tenth grade, I hope I made up for it later. It’s been wonderful knowing you and especially doubling with you. My advice to you for next New Year’s Eve is to BE CAREFUL! unless I’m there to take care of you. I hope to take you riding some more in my limousine this summer so you can laugh at it. Good luck, Brad. Be good. Love, Audrey
Here was a real person reaching out! Maybe the last three years hadn’t been such a misfire after all.
Part III: Making the Collegiate Run
Chapter 11: Mountains to Climb
The cool September air nipped at my back as I walked along the sidewalk in a brown tweed suit tucked at the waist and alligator heels, carrying a russet leather purse. Around me I heard the click-click of high heels as a stream of girls dressed in suits and gloves perused their maps and peered at the house numbers for the first stop on their schedule. The novelty of the old three-story brick and stone houses lining the streets, the excitement of a new experience, and the conviction of being on my way to bigger and better things, propelled me briskly along.
I caught a glimpse of Mom waving from the Buick as it headed up the hill and back to Minnesota with Dad at the wheel. I gave a desultory wag of my hand. Mother held great hopes. We had shopped carefully for the sorority parties I would be attending during the week prior to the opening of the university year, and my room at Sewell Hall was full of new clothes in the 1952 style—saddle shoes, plaid wool skirts, pullover sweaters, and dress outfits with matching jackets. Other rushees, freshmen like me, following little maps from street to street, headed for the old three-story sorority houses scattered around the edge of the campus.
I felt a rising wariness as I climbed up the wide steps of the first big house where a bevy of girls gathered on the front porch. My curiousity was tinged with anxiety. There was something overwhelming in the clamor of smiling sorority girls who greeted us profusely and ushered us through the house—a spacious living room with picture windows and gilded mirrors, a long upstairs hall leading to white, sun-filled bedrooms—every girl’s home away from home.
Each day I marched with a new flotilla of girls from house to house, reception to reception, where we were led to sunshine rooms and treated to cups of fruit punch and tea cakes. Once I caught sight of Cat Morris across the street, heading toward a different house. That evening she and I compared notes in a flurry of expectation. Our entire year
, possibly our entire college experience, hinged on the course of these events. It was in these contained sorority house we would live, find our friends, and make our home for the next four years.
If I hadn’t been so nervous, I might have enjoyed it. The air of extroverted confidence that surrounded me everywhere was difficult to match. Mine was the only uneasy face in a sea of beaming, self-assured optimists. With each introduction I stumbled, trying to discover what to say and how to say it.
At the end of the week I received several bids. The sororities wanted to take a second look. I picked the top-rated one on campus and tossed the rest out.
My return visit to the Kappa Gamma house included a formal sit-down lunch, where the sorority president enlightened us on the history, academic honors, and charity partnerships of the house. This was followed by coffee served buffet style from sterling coffee and tea sets. We carried on the usual conversations: What did you do this summer? Not much. I kept twisting my napkin into a spiral rope. This was not fun.
After a final screening the flood of applicants was narrowed to those who had been deemed acceptible. Girls flocked to the mail room, anxious to pick up their invitation bids. The day of truth had arrived. We had been appraised and now we would be found wanted or wanting.
I was found wanting. My mailbox was empty. No final bid. Everyone else seemed to be twirling and hugging and running out to notify relatives and friends. I stood glued to the floor.
Shuffling slowly back to the dorm room, leaving a cacophony of high voices circling in the distance, I threw myself on the bed. The scent of an apple on the desk a few feet away produced a wave of nausea. My head was buzzing. My hand as I rubbed it across my face felt like an icy appendage, as if it belonged to someone else. Why had I been rejected? I looked presentable, was polite, agreeable, privately schooled. What could possibly be lacking?
A Penny a Kiss Page 17
