The Luckiest Girl (8 page)

“Now, Katie,” warned Tom, “Luke has had enough trouble with that sentence.”

“You know what we had to cook in cooking class today?” asked Katie. “Mush and breakfast cocoa.” She made an expressive gagging noise. “And right after lunch, too.”

Shelley studied the faces around her. The interview no longer seemed so important. This was one of the things she enjoyed most about living with a larger family. When she became absorbed in a problem, someone else came along with another problem and somehow her difficulty lost its importance. At home all her problems were the center of interest.

Saturday morning after breakfast Tom and Luke went out to work in the grove. Mavis went to her studio over the garage and Shelley decided to run the vacuum cleaner in her room. She even moved the bed and was cleaning in the corner when Katie burst into the room.

“Hi,” said Shelley, switching off the vacuum cleaner.

“Shelley!” exclaimed Katie, who was plainly trying to suppress great excitement. “Come down the road with me. I want to show you something.”

“What do you want to show me?” asked Shelly.

“It's a surprise,” said Katie. “Shelley, you've got to come!”

“All right,” agreed Shelley, to please Katie. “How far down the road?”

“Not very far,” said Katie. “Get a bicycle and come on.”

The two girls, accompanied by Sarge, bicycled down the road that bordered the grove, and as they pedaled, Katie chattered. “I can hardly wait until tonight,” she confided. “The dancing class that meets at school once a month is having a hat dance.”

“A hat dance?” asked Shelley. “I thought a hat dance was a Mexican folk dance where the man
throws his hat on the floor and stamps his feet around it.”

Katie giggled. “Not this kind. It is our regular dancing class, only everybody is supposed to concoct some sort of château to wear and there will be prizes for the best ones,” answered Katie.

Shelley found this statement puzzling. “Oh, you mean
chapeau
,” she said when she had figured out Katie's meaning.

“Well, anyway, a crazy hat,” said Katie. “Mine is a secret. Wait till you see it. I know it will win a prize.”

“Is there some special boy you like?” asked Shelley.

“Could be,” answered Katie mysteriously.

The two girls approached a house that was protected by a windbreak of eucalyptus trees, and as they came near the trees, Shelley heard the sound of sawing.

“Look!” cried Katie triumphantly. “Up there in the wild blue yonder!”

Against the blue sky fifty feet above the ground and half hidden by leaves was Philip. He was leaning away from the tree, his body supported by a lineman's belt buckled around the trunk, his spiked heels digging into the wood. For a moment
Shelley stood staring up, motionless in surprise, before she collected her thoughts and decided to leave quickly before Philip saw her.

From another treetop Frisbie's voice called out, “Hey, Phil! Here's the late Miss Latham!”

Philip stopped sawing at a branch and called down, “Hi, Webfoot!”

“Hi.” Shelley had to answer, but she was sure that Philip would think she had found out where he was working and had deliberately ridden out to see him. She realized now, when it was too late, that she should have insisted upon Katie's telling her what the surprise was. Now, after that silly interview in the paper, Philip would think she was as persistent as—as a bloodhound. Not only had she tracked him down, now she had him treed. Well, she had no intention of sitting there baying at him. “Come on, Katie, let's go,” she whispered.

“No, let's watch,” begged Katie.

“Katie, please!” Shelley's whisper was urgent. Just wait till she got Katie alone! There were a few things she was going to explain to her.

Philip wiped the dust and sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and went on sawing. The branch broke through and came crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust and a flutter of dry
leaves. The sudden loss of the branch made the treetop spring back and forth, and in spite of herself Shelley watched, fascinated. Philip looked so tall and strong up there in the swaying treetop.

“Katie,” Shelley whispered, turning her bicycle around. “You can stay if you want to, but I'm leaving.”

“But you said you liked him.” Katie sounded hurt.

“Katie, you don't understand.” Shelley mounted her bicycle. “I'll explain later.”

“Hey, Webfoot,” Frisbie called from a treetop. “Stick around. Phil wants to talk to you.”

“Aw, shut up, Friz,” Shelley heard Philip say in an undertone.

“Go on, ask her,” said Frisbie.

“Sorry, Friz,” Shelley called. “I have things to do.” She gave what she hoped was a jaunty wave and started down the road.

“Shelley, wait!” Philip yelled, loud enough for the whole countryside to hear. “I want to talk to you.”

This from shy Philip? Shelley hesitated, stopped, and looked back up at Philip, who was working his way down the tree trunk. He had called her Shelley, so perhaps he meant what he said. She felt
confused and, under Katie's interested eye, uncomfortable. Darn Katie, anyway.

“You heard the boy,” shouted Frisbie from his treetop.

“You keep out of this, Friz,” said Philip, unfastening the belt and jumping to the ground.

Shelley hesitated. After the way she had behaved she did not want to appear to pounce on him. On the other hand, she really did want to talk to him—terribly. Philip approached her, and even though he was dirty and sweaty he looked clean and healthy underneath the dirt and more wonderful than any boy Shelley had ever known.

“Shelley, may I come over this evening?” he asked.

When Shelley did not answer immediately, Katie whispered, “Go on. Say yes.”

Shelley did not dare hesitate any longer, because there was no telling what Katie would take into her head to say or do. “Yes, I would love to have you come over,” Shelley answered.

“Swell,” said Philip. “I'll be over about eight.”

“I'll see you then,” answered Shelley, and pedaled down the road. She did not want to linger and appear too eager, especially when she was so excited that her hands would have trembled if she
had not been gripping the handlebars so tightly. She finally had a date with Philip.

Katie rode along beside her. “I knew he would ask you for a date,” she said happily. “I just knew it.”

“Katie—” began Shelley, and stopped because she did not know what to say. It was difficult to scold someone who was so happy for her and she did not know how to explain to Katie that although she was delighted to have a date with Philip, she felt she had done all the wrong things. After all, she was supposed to be a good experience for a girl who had reached a difficult age. She did not want Katie to think a girl should advertise in the school paper that she liked a boy and then go out and tree him. She should try to set the younger girl a good example and so far she had done a poor job. “Katie, it is nice of you to want me to have a date with Philip,” she said tactfully, “but I am afraid he will think I chased him, especially after that awful interview I gave the school paper.”

“But it worked,” Katie pointed out.

“I know,” admitted Shelley, thinking that this was what made it so difficult to explain. “But a girl really shouldn't run after a boy—at least not so he knows she is running after him.”

“I suppose not,” said Katie thoughtfully, as they turned into the Michies' driveway, “but just the same, I'm glad he's coming over to see you. Aren't you terribly excited? I would be.”

Shelley laughed. “Yes, I'm excited,” she admitted in a voice much calmer than the feelings behind it. At the same time she wondered how she was going to keep Katie off the top of the refrigerator.

That evening, as soon as the dishes were washed, Shelley ran upstairs to wash her face and change into a fresh cotton dress, one that she had not worn to school. She brushed her hair, applied her lipstick with care, and because this was such a special occasion, dusted powder across her nose. Glancing at her watch, she was disappointed to find she still had an entire hour to wait before Philip would ring the doorbell. One long hour. She could write to her mother and father, but she felt too excited to sit down with pen and paper. She twirled around to see how far her skirt would stand out. This made it necessary to comb her hair all over again, a task that used up only a few sec
onds of the hour. She sat carefully on her bed so that she would not wrinkle her skirt. Fifty-three minutes to Philip. Fifty-three crawling minutes. How could she ever live fifty-three minutes?

“Mom! Dad! Shelley!” yelled Katie from the living room. “Come and see my hat for the hat dance!”

Shelley, glad of a way to use up part of the fifty-three minutes, went downstairs to see the hat that Katie had spent the afternoon creating in secrecy in the laundry.

Now Katie stood admiring herself in the mirror in the front hall. Upside down on her head was a hollowed-out head of curly chicory so large it covered almost all of her hair. Fastened here and there to the lettuce were radishes and green onions. Sticking out of the back like two enormous hatpins were a wooden salad fork and spoon. The whole creation was anchored by two green ribbons tied under Katie's chin. “I'm a tossed green salad!” she announced.

Tom and Mavis shouted with laughter, and Shelley thought Katie looked like a robust sprite. Luke, sitting in an easy chair with a pile of science fiction magazines on the floor beside him, groaned and said, “Oh, for dumb!”

“Katie, that is priceless,” said Mavis. “How did you ever think of such a thing?”

“I've always thought this kind of lettuce looked like curly green hair,” said Katie.

“Mom, you don't mean you are going to let her go out in that thing, do you?” demanded Luke.

“Of course,” answered Mavis. “I think it is fetching.”

“Well, I think it looks dumb,” said Luke. “Do we have to eat it after she gets through wearing it?”

“No, you don't,” said Katie. “I bought the lettuce and radishes and onions with my own money. I didn't get them out of the salad things in the refrigerator.”

“Come on, green salad,” said Mavis, picking up the car keys from the mantel. “You don't want to be late.”

“Have fun, and I hope you get lots of dances with the right boy,” said Shelley sincerely. If it hadn't been for Katie, she might not be waiting for Philip this very minute.

“He can graze on her hat while they dance,” remarked Luke from behind his magazines.

“Oh, be quiet,” said Katie cheerfully, as she went out the front door. She was too happy to be annoyed by anything her brother said.

Shelley rather envied Katie her puppyish excitement. She was excited too, but at sixteen a girl had learned to be more cautious about letting her feelings show until she knew for sure that a boy really liked her.

“Now, Luke,” said Mavis. “Shelley is to have the living room this evening if she wants it.”

“Okay,” said Luke without looking up.

Shelley smiled to herself. Not only was Philip coming to see her, she was going to have the living room all to herself when he came. This time she would not have to cringe inside, the way she always had when she introduced a boy to her mother and father and could feel them looking him over, wondering what his family was like and what his father did and what time he would bring her home. This time was going to be different.

Shelley was restless when Mavis and Katie had gone. Tom went outdoors and she was left alone with Luke. She glanced at the clock and wandered around the room, reading titles in the bookcase, picking up magazines and laying them down again. She wondered if Philip would walk or come in a car and what they would do when he arrived. Making a date with Katie present was not very satisfactory, because a boy naturally would not like to
discuss the details with a younger girl hanging on every word he said. Whatever they did, she wanted more than anything for him to have a good time so that he would ask her out again and then again. It would be such fun to have dates with a boy all the girls wanted to know and especially during basketball season. She would go to all the games, and when Philip scored, everyone sitting near her would look at her and think, There's Phil Blanton's girl, and she would go on cheering just as if she wasn't aware that everyone was looking at her….

Shelley hummed to herself, nibbled at a hangnail, sat down. She wished Luke would hurry up and leave the room. It was not like him to spend the evening reading when he could be working on his motorcycle. And she still had Katie to worry about. If Katie came home and climbed up on the refrigerator again, perhaps she should look her straight in the eye through the glass in the transom and say, “Well, if it isn't Katie!” Maybe that would embarrass her enough to make her scramble down. There were, Shelley decided, a number of advantages to being an only child, after all. She hoped that Tom would not suddenly announce that this was a good night to wash or iron. It
would never do to ask a star basketball player to help with the Michies' laundry.

Shelley looked at her watch again, stood up, read a few more titles in the bookcase, wandered across the room, and picked up one of Luke's science fiction magazines.

“Luke, why do you read this stuff anyway?” Shelley asked, hoping to draw his attention from the story so that he might think about leaving.

“Because I like it,” answered Luke, not looking up from his magazine.

Because she had to do something to fill the dragging minutes, Shelley read a few sentences to herself, giggled, and began to read aloud with exaggerated expression. “‘The sun beat down on the asteroid. Sweat stood out on the lean jaws of Brad Conway as he stared at the dials of the transmutor. In thirty seconds…in twenty seconds…in—'”

“Aw, cut it out,” said Luke, looking up at last.

Amused that she had finally caught Luke's attention, Shelley dropped the magazine and picked up another, which she opened at random and began to read. “‘The spaceship left the planet and was only thirty light-years into the galaxy when Captain Rowley felt the controlcomp go dead in
his hands. Automatically he glanced earthside in the telescan—'”

The magazine was snatched from Shelley's hands. “You cut that out!” ordered Luke, so fiercely that Shelley was taken aback. These stories, which were funny to her, were not funny to him.

“I guess I was just surprised to see you reading, is all,” Shelley faltered. “You're usually working on your motorcycle.”

“Aw, Mom's right,” said Luke morosely. “I'll never get it to run.”

So that was what was bothering Luke. He was discouraged about his motorcycle. “Yes, you will,” said Shelley, wanting him to succeed. “I know you will get it to run sometime.”

The twirl of the doorbell was so startling to Shelley that she felt as if everything inside her had stopped. Philip! He had come and now she felt completely unprepared. Nervously she ran her hand over her hair and smoothed her skirt. What on earth would she say? She moistened her lips and with a hand chilled by nervousness, opened the door. Philip really was standing on the doorstep.

“Hello, Shelley,” he said.

“Hello, Philip,” answered Shelley. “Won't you come in?”

As Philip stepped through the door, Shelley saw that Luke had disappeared with his magazines. Uncertainly she asked Philip to sit down. She sat down on the opposite end of the couch. She found she could not look directly at him and so, instead, she stared at the toe of her shoe as if it were some strange new object she had never seen before. It was ridiculous to feel so embarrassed, she knew, and for a moment she could not understand why she felt that way. A first date was usually a little awkward but not this awkward, although, of course, none of her other first dates had been with Philip Blanton. Then Shelley realized she felt awkward because she was alone with him. Always before, the first moments had been spent introducing the new boy to her mother and father. She had never enjoyed the introductions, but at least introducing a boy had given her something definite to do for those first few moments. Now she was face-to-face with Philip, alone and on her own. She almost wished Tom would appear and say it was a good night to iron and why didn't they all pitch in and help?

Bravely Shelley looked at Philip and was
rewarded by the lopsided grin. Encouraged, she said, “I was certainly surprised to see you up in that tree when Katie asked me to go bicycling this morning.” That would show him that she had not intended to track him down.

“You saw the firm of Blanton and Gerard, Contractors, at work,” said Philip. “We were cutting some of the branches before they got big enough to overhang the house. Eucalyptus is brittle in hot weather and sometimes the branches fall.”

“Aren't you scared to climb such a high tree?” asked Shelley.

“No,” said Philip. “I like it. I feel so sort of—well, I don't know—free, I guess, when I am up there.”

“Do you get many jobs cutting branches?” asked Shelley, who until now had known only boys who earned money mowing lawns or washing cars.

“Some,” answered Philip. “Friz and I cut trees, too, if they aren't too big. His dad lets us use his chain saw and we cut them up into fireplace lengths and then split them. You have to split eucalyptus wood as soon as it is cut or it gets too hard.”

“You do?” said Shelley, admiring Philip and
thinking that the sunburn on his nose the first day of school must have come from splitting wood under the California sun.

Conversation died. Philip and Shelley both looked down, looked at each other, and looked away, embarrassed that their eyes had met. For the first time Shelley noticed that the old clock on the mantel had an unusually loud tick.

Shelley could think of no way to revive the conversation. She had to do something, but what? The television set was not working and the Michies had not bothered to have it repaired. They did not have a record collection. Feeding a boy was always acceptable, but it was too early in the evening. Maybe she should suggest making fudge, the way teen pages in magazines recommended girls should entertain boys. They would have to wait for the fudge to cool and that would take time. But somehow Shelley did not feel she could ask a star basketball player to step into the kitchen to whip up a batch of fudge the minute he entered the house. Lots of boys she had known at home would make fun of a girl if she made such a suggestion. They would laugh about it by the lockers in the halls at school. Shelley did not really think that Philip, who was so reserved and had such nice
manners, was that unkind, but she did not want to suggest something he would merely be polite about. She wanted him to enjoy himself because she wanted him to come back. Why,
why
hadn't she thought of this problem before he came?
Tick, tick, tick
went the clock relentlessly. She had wasted the whole afternoon floating around in a happy glow wondering what she should wear when she should have been planning something to do.
Tick, tick, tick
. Precious minutes were slipping away.

Shelley was actually relieved when the front door opened. Mavis entered, and she was no longer alone with Philip.

“Good evening, Mrs. Michie,” said Philip, rising to his feet.

“Hello, Philip,” said Mavis. “Shelley, I'm going out to my studio to work until I pick up Katie at eight thirty. And by the way, there is a table tennis set in the bottom drawer in the dining room. It fits on the dining-room table.”

Saved, thought Shelley, saved from the awful ticking of that clock. “Would you like to play table tennis?” she asked Philip.

Finding the set and clamping the net to the painted table gave them something to do, and
while they worked Shelley thought of the mahogany dining table at home and how carefully her mother always wiped up the pollen that fell on its polished surface from the flowers in the centerpiece. They could never have played Ping-Pong on that table.

Shelley and Philip selected paddles and began to warm up with a few practice strokes. Philip served to Shelley, who missed. She had to get down on her hands and knees to retrieve the ball from underneath the table and as she got up, she bumped her head. She hit the ball back to Philip but it missed the table. Philip caught it easily in his hand and quickly served it back to Shelley. This time she managed to hit the ball into the net. Philip expertly scooped it up with his paddle and hit it toward Shelley once more.

This time I'm going to do it right, thought Shelley with determination, and swatted the ball as hard as she could. It flew across the net, hit the table, bounced up against the ceiling, dropped to the floor, and rolled into the kitchen, where Philip had to lie on his stomach on the floor to retrieve it from under the refrigerator.

Shelley laughed nervously. A star athlete, and she was pitting her skill against him. Shelley
Latham, the girl who took physical education only because it was required.

Philip served to Shelley a ball so gentle that she was able to return it. “Let's start playing,” he suggested, and served another easy ball for Shelley to return.

The restrained game continued, the ball bouncing gently back and forth across the net. Twice Shelley missed and had to chase the ball into the hall, and once she overshot the table with her serve and Philip had to poke the ball out from under a chair with his paddle. Shelley was filled with humiliation. The county's star basketball player playing a ladylike game for her sake, letting her win points. He must be bored stiff.

The game finally ended with Philip winning, 21–18. “Your serve,” he said, starting another game.