by Helen Wells
“It’s not a date.” Midge’s luminous hazel eyes flew open. “It’s a business appointment. Now pour out the fudge and we’ll see about the dress. I’ll make the hot chocolate when he comes.”
Cherry did not press her point. If Midge was determined to drown Tom in chocolate and suffocate him in lilacs that was Midge’s business. Tom would have to fend for himself.
In Midge’s topsy-turvy bedroom, Cherry cleared aside a pile of clothes on the bed, put the shoes on the floor, and sat down. “This room looks as if a cyclone had struck it.”
Midge pawed through a drawer searching for face cream. “I feel like a cyclone hit me,” she confided. “Now here’s the dress—” She dived into the closet, but Cherry interrupted.
“First tell me about this ‘business’ appointment. Who is this dream man of yours?”
“Tom Heaton,” Midge said breathlessly. “He’s not mine—yet. He’s been in my class all along, for years and years practically, but I just realized this week that I’m in love with him. I realized it when I knew he was coming here-alone! Because the Student Organization assigned Tom and me as a committee of two. We have to study the lunchroom situation and make a report.”
“What’s the matter with the lunchroom? No lunch?”
“Oh, Cherry, this love was destined to be! Tom is so handsome. Such a gentleman. He hasn’t noticed me yet—romantically, I mean—but I’ve always admired him. All the girls think he’s tops. That good-looking Miller girl thinks she owns Tom but I’ll—”
“Whoa! You mean Tom is coming here in all innocence to discuss—”
“—and here’s the creation!”
Midge whirled into the closet and came up with a creation indeed. It was ruffled rosy faille, made by Midge herself and not made very well. Cherry examined it and forbore saying her young friend would look like a comic valentine in it.
“Midge, this isn’t exactly your style, is it? You’re such a tomboy—you look so sort of dashing in sports clothes—” Cherry struggled. “Wouldn’t your yellow flannel and gold jewelry be more becoming?”
“But Grace Miller wore a dress like this to the school dance and Tom danced three times with her!” Midge wailed.
Cherry pointed out that that was at an evening dance. That Grace Miller was tiny and blonde, while Midge was tall and willowy and of tawny coloring. That Grace’s father and Tom’s father were in business together, and Tom probably had had strict instructions from his parents not to neglect Grace. That, besides, this fussy dress was a mess.
“All right, the yellow flannel,” Midge said bravely, and she hung the creation away.
“I’ll lend you my best perfume,” Cherry comforted her. “I’ll go home, have dinner, and come back here with the perfume around four.”
“No! Please come back practically instantly! I have to rehearse the conversation with you.”
“How can you rehearse a—”
“Cherry, I need you! This afternoon is a crisis in my life!”
Back in her own house, Cherry entertained her parents with an account of Midge’s “crisis.” Mr. and Mrs. Ames thought it hilarious but Cherry sympathized with Midge’s efforts. She was only afraid that Midge was going about it too obviously.
Cherry lingered after dinner to visit with her parents. She hoped they would not mind her spending the afternoon at the Fortunes’ instead of at home. After all, she could be home almost every Sunday, or whatever free day she had.
“Go right ahead, dear,” her mother said. “I hope you won’t mind when I tell you Dad and I have already accepted an invitation for this evening. But I’m leaving a nice buffet supper for you in the icebox. I’d suggest you bring Dr. Joe and Midge here for supper too. That poor man isn’t thriving on Midge’s cooking. Something will have to be done about him, if his health is to improve.”
Cherry thought, walking back to the Fortunes’ cottage with the perfume, that doing something about Midge might be the first step in helping Dr. Joe relax.
That mournful record was playing again when Cherry entered. She turned it off, and set to work dusting the living room, ducking lilacs as she went. Dr. Joe told her that Midge had given him lunch, of a sort. Cherry coaxed him to take a nap, in his room off the laboratory.
“You won’t be safe anywhere except in your own room,” she warned him. “Not until after Tom has come and gone.”
Dr. Joe holed in with books, and the Sunday newspaper. “It’s hard being a father,” he said plaintively.
Cherry found Midge in a state of wild nervousness. She had brushed out her fluffy, light-brown hair over her shoulders and was battling to wind it into curls.
“But why not wear it loose and flowing, as you always do?” Cherry inquired. “Don’t you want Tom to recognize you?”
“I want Tom to think I’m pretty”— she flung the hair-brush on the floor and started all over with a comb—“not just that little brat at school!”
“You’d better look and act natural,” Cherry said dryly. “No use trying to be a third-rate movie queen.”
“If you aren’t going to be any more help than this, Cherry Ames, you can go away!”
Cherry forgave her her crossness, for Midge’s hands were actually shaking. Cherry set the perfume down on the dresser.
“Mmm, thanks. Cherry, what do you think of this? I could ask Tom to keep my compact in his pocket—and then I could forget to ask him for it back—and then he’d have to come over again to return it to me! Slick?”
Cherry perched on the foot of the bed and swung her legs. “It’s full of ifs and maybes. No, madam. If you want Tom to come again, don’t trick him into it. He’d resent it. Be so nice he’ll want to see you again.” She thought of her father’s face when he had said “advice to the lovelorn” this morning and she shook inwardly with laughter. But Midge’s upturned, anxious face was nothing to laugh at.
“How can I make him like me?” Midge said very humbly and pathetically.
“By being yourself. Your very nicest self.”
“But—but—s’pose I do, and then he doesn’t like me?” Midge quavered.
Cherry bent and patted Midge’s cheek. “That would only mean that you and Tom weren’t a good combination. Then you’d find another boy. Stop being so desperate. Anyhow, I’ll bet Tom will like you just fine!”
Midge brightened. Cherry examined her sticky fingers. Midge’s face was smeared with face cream. “Hand me that tissue,” Cherry sighed and resigned herself for the rest of the afternoon, while Midge went over and over what she would say and do at the fatal hour of five.
Shortly before five, Cherry prepared to leave. She was going into Dr. Joe’s laboratory, to invite him and Midge to supper, when the doorbell rang.
“Cherry, go to the door!” Midge shrieked. “I haven’t got my jewelry on!”
Cherry obediently retraced her steps through the bower of lilacs, now slightly wilted, and opened the front door.
A pleasant-looking boy stood on the step.
“I’m Tom Heaton,” he said. “Is Midge in?”
“Yes, Midge is expecting you,” Cherry answered, and that was a masterpiece of understatement. “Come in. I’m her friend, Cherry Ames.”
She led him into the living room and they found seats among the lilacs. If Tom was surprised by the purple profusion, he was too well-bred to show it. Cherry chatted with him for a few minutes about his family, whom she knew casually, and about what the high school was like now. Tom was a poised and impersonal boy, Cherry noted. She decided after close watch that he had probably not even noticed the lilacs. He merely seemed to find the room warm and stuffy.
Midge suddenly appeared in the doorway. She looked quite dazzling. Cherry at once excused herself, said she would just speak to Dr. Joe a moment, and then be going.
In the laboratory Dr. Joe was fiddling with slides and his microscope.
“He’s here,” Cherry whispered conspiratorially.
“What’s he like?” Dr. Joe whispered back.
“Seems nice. He—”<
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Just then the key turned in the lock. Midge, wanting no intruders in the living room, had locked them in. There was no back door out from here, either.
Cherry laughed uncontrollably under her breath. “We’re trapped in here!”
That was how she and Dr. Joe became unwilling witnesses—at least by sound effects.
First there was a loud masculine sneeze. Then came Midge’s anxious murmur, followed by a whole volley of sneezes. For several minutes they heard tramping footsteps, heavy objects being moved, water swishing, all punctuated by sneezes.
“The boy is allergic to flowers,” Dr. Joe figured out in a whisper. “They’re moving the lilacs away.”
“Oh, poor Midge!” Cherry gasped. “What next?”
Next came the opening bars of “Do you love me—can you love me—” Dr. Joe winced. The record played straight through. Then, for a long time, two earnest voices labored along. The only word Cherry could make out clearly was “lunchroom.”
Cherry began to despair for Midge’s romance. Then she and Dr. Joe heard a rattle of dishes. Apparently Midge, failing in her frontal attack, was now trying the gastronomical approach. As the dishes clattered, the two voices in the living room grew noticeably more cheerful.
Suddenly the phonograph burst forth into the hot classic, “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” The unmistakable crashes of jitterbugging shook the locked laboratory door. This violence went on for forty minutes, while Dr. Joe paced up and back like an angry tiger.
It was twilight when the front door slammed. A second later, the key turned in the lock and Midge released them. She leaned in the doorway, completely worn out.
“He loves to dance,” she panted. “And he ate up every crumb of the refreshments! And he wants me to be his partner in the dance contest next month! Ohhhh!”
“Does he love you, can he love you, will he love you?” Dr. Joe grunted. He got up and stretched. “Is you is or is you not—Bah!”
“Good for you, Midge,” Cherry said hastily. “Come over to my house now. It’s late and your poor Dad needs his supper. You and I’ll talk while we’re getting it on the table.”
At home, Cherry turned on all the lamps in the downstairs rooms. She urged Dr. Joe to rest in the big leather chair, in the softly lighted living room. The elderly man was tired after his all-day ordeal. But he asked Cherry to wait a moment, although Midge had already headed for the kitchen.
“My little girl is growing up, Cherry.”
“We-ell, if you’d call fudge and jitterbugging grown up,” Cherry answered.
“But a romance—her sudden, intense interest in a young man—”
“A high school boy,” Cherry gently corrected.
Dr. Joe sighed. “No, my dear. Midge is growing up. I’m going to lose her one of these days. Of course I want her to—to—”
“Don’t worry so far in advance.” Yet Cherry did feel sympathy for Dr. Joe. He seemed quite bewildered at Midge’s sudden maturing. He was trying pathetically to do or feel whatever was best for the girl. He looked very much alone.
“You rest now, Dr. Joe,” Cherry said softly. “I’ll call you to supper in a few minutes.” She went on out to the kitchen.
In the big white kitchen Midge was helping, in her own fashion. She had taken the pickles out of the icebox and was sampling them.
“If you want to help,” Cherry said, rescuing the pickles, “you might take that bowl of flowers off the dining-room table, please, so I can set it.”
“In my good dress?”
“Very true. Well, make a pitcher of ice water.”
“Might splash my dress.”
“All right, slice this bread, lovebird.”
But the lovebird stood dreamily and watched Cherry take cold cuts and potato salad from the icebox and arrange them on platters. Finally she said:
“Cherry, I’m so happy.”
Cherry looked up and her black eyes softened. Her young friend did look very happy. “Well, hurray.”
“Isn’t he a darling?”
“Yes, he seems very nice.” Cherry collected china and silver on a tray, and trotted into the dining room. Midge trailed after her.
“Isn’t he handsome?”
“Yes, very. Get the napkins, will you?”
“And doesn’t Tom have lovely manners?”
“Scrumptious. Three napkins, please. Napkins!”
Cherry got the napkins herself, then returned to the kitchen, made coffee, cut the cake.
“Get out the butter, Miss Fortune.”
But Midge only picked off bits of icing and gazed into space. “Tom,” she murmured, and sighed. Without warning, she bolted.
Cherry smiled to herself and went on working alone. Perhaps Midge was not too young to feel very seriously. Perhaps Midge possessed depths which Cherry had never seen. Perhaps Midge was to be—
The radio suddenly shrieking jazz knocked all such thoughts out of Cherry’s head. She heard that familiar crashing, too, and Dr. Joe’s loud protests. The neighbors would be protesting next! Cherry ran into the living room.
“Midge, what a racket! Please—”
“I was only practicing so I can dance in the contest with Tom.”
“She was only driving me to perdition! Did I say grown up?”
“You don’t want me to win the contest—and Tom!”
Cherry switched the radio off and tried to calm two ruffled people.
“Love is fine but it’ll ruin both of you! Now, please, please, wait quietly. Everything’s practically ready.”
Cherry almost ran, getting bread and butter and water on the table, then decided hurriedly to heat some soup. There was a suspicious silence from the front rooms. When she went to call the Fortunes, no one stirred.
Dr. Joe was asleep in the big chair. Cherry hesitated. But he looked so exhausted she did not disturb him.
A creak from the porch swing told Midge’s where abouts.
“I have no appetite,” Midge sighed from out of the shadows. “Food! How disgusting. Who could eat when they’re all swoony with love?”
So Cherry left Midge alone too.
Cherry sat down to supper all alone. Then she noticed that she herself was yawning over her plate, really tired.
“Romance a la Midge! It certainly is wearing.” With a grin she reflected, “Poor Tom Heaton. I only hope he has a strong constitution!”
CHAPTER VII
First Test
JIM WAS BETTER. IN FACT, ALL OF ORTHOPEDIC WARD HAD perked up. By nine o’clock this April morning, with sun and clouds playing tag outside with the wind, Cherry’s patients were bathed, fed, and doing their exercises.
“One—two, three, four-and-a-one—two, three, four,” chanted the Reconditioning Officer, a sergeant, from the middle of the room.
All around him, the wounded men were trying their best. The bedridden cases were raising their arms or legs where they lay—Jim and the two fliers. Even Matty prone in his body cast worked his arms. Hy Leader in his wheel chair stretched and puffed away. The ambulatory cases stood beside their beds and exercised—George Blumenthal and the Orphan, Ralph Pernatelli with his unwieldy arm cast. The boys seemed to like it, Cherry noticed. It visibly toned them up.
“Keeping count, Nurse?” the Reconditioning Officer called to Cherry.
She held up her chart and pencil. “I certainly am!”
Every soldier who did his Physical Therapy exercises earned four “birdies” a day for five days a week. A birdie was a caduceus with a P.T. on it. Twenty birdies—a week’s exercising—earned a two-day pass. With this goal, and with the tonic of teamwork, the men worked away enthusiastically.
“Everybody earned four birdies today!” Cherry announced as the exercises were finished. She was proud of these mens stamina and spirit.
“Nice going,” the Reconditioning Officer told the men. “I’ll have you taking five-mile hikes sooner than you think. All right, play ball!”
The sergeant tossed a big light basketball to Hy Le
ader. Hy threw it at the Orphan, the Orphan sent it to George. George missed but ran after it and hit it across the aisle to Jim. Jim tossed it gently to Matty in the next bed. Matty hurled it down the room to Ralph, who fumbled but grabbed it. Back and forth between forty beds, the ball flew.
“Who won?” asked the young chief nurse of the ward, when the game of volleyball was over. “Lieutenant Ames, please get the fellows ready now for Occupational Therapy.” She herself went on writing out charts and reports.
Cherry, aided by a medical Wac and a very young girl assistant, went around the ward. She insisted that the patients lie down and rest quietly for ten minutes after their exercise. Then they all were given milk and a quick look-over to see that they were all right. The advanced patients went off to the crafts shops to work.
Now the Occupational Therapy instructor came in. She was a pleasant, firm person in Army uniform and highly trained. Coming along to help were two Red Cross ladies, in gray dresses and floating gray veils, carrying big boxes of supplies.
“Good morning!” said the O.T. officer. “Ready to work?”
The patients sat up and accepted the materials distributed. Only a few were enthusiastic, and a few were resigned—but all were determined. For though no one felt a burning interest in making thonged leather wallets or weaving a bath rug, these activities reconditioned injured muscles and helped the men get well.
“I have something new this morning,” said the Occupational Therapist. “A factory owner near by offers to hire those of you able to make small radio parts. You’ll be paid for the work, of course. A man from the radio factory is on his way to show you how. Who wants to try?”
A clamor went up. Everyone wanted to earn and be self-reliant. Not all, however, were yet healed enough to tie together these tiny wires and screws and spools. There were disappointed faces—mutterings of “Well, by next month I’ll be able!” And they fell to work on the knitting needles and printing blocks with a vengeance. “At least we won’t lie around like vegetables!”
For the next hour the ward was a busy, comparatively quiet room. Cherry like the other nurses helped the patients, carrying out the instructions of the O.T. instructor. Cherry took Ralph Pernatelli’s stiffened hand, which extended from his plaster cast, and gently fitted it around modeling clay. Then she moved her own hand over his into the clay.
