Debutante Hill

by Lois Duncan

  Mr. Curtis nodded in agreement. “All right Nathan. Thanks for coming down. I appreciate it.”

  “I appreciate your calling me. Good afternoon, Brenda—Mrs. Peterson.” With one arm around his wife and the other around his daughter, Dr. Chambers swept them out of the office.

  “He believed me,” Lynn said afterward, in the car on the way home. “I said I didn’t have anything to do with the robbery, and Mr. Curtis believed me.”

  “Of course, he believed you,” her father said.

  “But he didn’t believe Dirk. Dirk said he was innocent too.”

  “Dirk had the wallet,” her mother reminded her gently.

  “Even so—” Lynn tried to put her thoughts into words. “If the wallet had been in my bag, and I had said I didn’t know how it got there, they would have thought twice about it, wouldn’t they? Because I’m Lynn Chambers, because you are Dr. Nathan Chambers, and we live on the Hill? It would have made a difference, wouldn’t it? I mean, they would have listened to me when I said I didn’t put the wallet in the bag, and they would have tried to figure out some other way it could have got there, instead of just taking it for granted that I had stolen it.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Chambers said quietly, “they probably would have.”

  When Dodie came home from school that afternoon, no one had to tell her about the robbery, she was bursting with excitement about it already.

  “It’s all over school!” she exclaimed. “Dirk Masters has been expelled. Mrs. Peterson is being surprisingly decent about it, though. She says that, since she has the money back, she isn’t going to have the police called in.”

  “That is sweet of her,” Lynn remarked caustically. Then she said, “Dirk didn’t take that wallet, Dodie.”

  Her sister looked surprised. “What makes you think he didn’t? They found it in his gym bag.”

  “I don’t care where they found it; he didn’t take it. You should have seen his face when they opened that bag and the wallet fell out! Why, he was just as surprised as anyone else. He looked as though he couldn’t believe it.”

  “They must be pretty sure,” Dodie said, “if he’s been expelled.” She frowned. “There’s some other talk too, Lynn. It sounds crazy, but somebody told me that Brenda was trying to drag you into it.”

  “She was,” Lynn said. “But she couldn’t do it.”

  “Imagine!” Dodie exclaimed angrily. “How could she have the nerve? Aren’t you furious?”

  “No,” Lynn said slowly, surprised at her own words, “I’m not. That’s funny, isn’t it, considering how I’ve always felt about her? But I’m not. I think she actually believed what she said. And—and I kind of respect her for coming out and saying it, with me right there and Daddy and Mother standing behind me. I never thought she had it in her to do something like that.”

  “Well, I don’t respect her,” Dodie said decidedly. “I think she’s horrid. And I’d keep an eye on her, Lynn. Just because she wasn’t able to convince Mr. Curtis, don’t be so sure she is simply going to let the whole thing drop.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly!” Lynn exclaimed irritably, wishing Dodie’s tongue were not quite so pointed. “I’m sick of talking about the whole thing. Let’s drop it and forget about it.”

  She was to remember her sister’s words, however. The next morning, when she got to school, the Hill crowd was assembled in its usual place, just left of the front steps. They were talking when Lynn first saw them. All of them seemed to be talking at once, in the way they had when they were discussing something exciting.

  Lynn quickened her pace, but as she reached them, the talk seemed suddenly to die away.

  Someone said, “Hi, Lynn!”

  It was the signal for everyone to turn toward her. Silence hung heavy and strained over them, an odd, uncomfortable silence for which there seemed no reason.

  “It wasn’t the way it is when they’re all discussing the debutante parties, and I come up,” Lynn explained to Dodie later. “That has happened lots of times, and they just say ‘hi’ and go right ahead. I was sort of on the edge of the group, but I was not shut out of it, if you know what I mean.” She hesitated, trying to keep the hurt from showing too much in her voice. “It was as though they were talking about me—as though they were in the middle of saying something about me, and I walked in on it, and—and—”

  She stopped, not knowing how to describe it. Finally she continued, “I felt as though I ought to say ‘excuse me’ and turn around and walk away.”

  Dodie nodded slowly. There was no surprise in her voice when she said, “I can imagine.” Then she asked, “Was Brenda in the group?”

  “Yes,” Lynn said, “she was.”

  As she spoke the words, she visualized the group again; and she felt a sudden wave of understanding, a horrible, dragging wave of understanding, mixed with despair.

  “Yes,” she repeated, “she was. Brenda was in the group. In fact, she was in the very middle of it.”

  13

  It was a long time until spring.

  It was odd, Lynn thought, how quickly spring seemed to come other years. The second semester always passed much more quickly than the first—there were skating parties and the Valentine Hop and tryouts for the spring play, and all the general “we’re-in-the-home-stretch” feeling that came with the second half of the school year. One day it was January, the deepest part of winter, and the very next morning, it seemed, you turned around and there it was—spring.

  This year, however, the days crept by slowly—January and January and more January, and when February finally arrived and began its own long, dragging process, spring seemed as far away as before.

  “I’ve never been through such a long winter in my whole life,” Lynn said miserably to Nancy. “Everybody treats me like I had a disease or something. What’s the matter with them, Nan? What on earth did Brenda tell them?”

  “She didn’t exactly tell them anything,” Nancy said slowly-

  The two girls were walking home from school together. They were together a lot now; it was as though Nancy were trying as much as possible to make up to Lynn for the strained atmosphere she experienced with the others.

  “She didn’t tell anything,” she repeated, “it was more that she hinted. She just sort of said, ‘Isn’t it odd the way Lynn turned up almost as soon as the robbery was committed, especially since I had just told her that morning about leaving my wallet in the car—and the way she stood up for Dirk and said he didn’t have anything to do with it, when he had the money right there in his gym bag? Of course, she never liked me anyway, and she dated Dirk all during Christmas vacation’—oh, you know how she could say it.”

  “And they all listened to her,” Lynn said bitterly. “All the people I thought were my friends. They think I told Dirk about the wallet and then lied for him by saying he didn’t take it.”

  “Well, you did go out with Dirk,” Nancy said helplessly, “not just once, but a couple of times. And everyone knows you don’t like Brenda. I know you weren’t involved in this thing, Lynn, and so do your other friends—your real friends. But it’s actually not so farfetched that you can blame other people who don’t know you so well for wondering.”

  “Yes, they’re wondering, all right,” Lynn said. “I can feel that wonder as thick as a fog wherever I go. I didn’t get asked to the Valentine Hop; I didn’t get a part in the spring play; I didn’t even get elected to the honor club this semester, even though I had one of the highest averages in the class. And the worst part is, Nan, that it isn’t just the people who don’t know me. It’s girls I’ve known and gone around with for years.”

  The hurt was sharp in her voice. Just the day before, she had come into the cafeteria late and carried her tray over to her usual table and sat down beside Joan Wilson. A few moments later, Joan had risen to get dessert, and when she returned, it was to sit at another table.

  Lynn had tried to eat after that, but the food had tasted like meal in her mouth. After a few bites, she had
left the table herself, and when she looked back, she saw Joan returning to seat herself in her old place.

  Not that there weren’t some friendly people left in the class. It was odd which ones they were. Nancy, of course, was still her closest friend, closer than ever, now that the other friends were fewer. Holly Taylor and several of the other Hill girls seemed to go out of their way to be friendly, as though to try to make up for the others. Anne’s friends, Rachel Goldman and Clara Marivella, always spoke pleasantly, and once or twice asked Lynn if she wanted to go to a movie with them or stop at their homes in the afternoon to do homework.

  “I suppose it’s even harder,” Lynn said thoughtfully, “for Anne than for me. After all, Dirk is her brother.”

  Nancy looked uncomfortable. “That’s another thing,” she said, “the way you are seeing so much of Anne. You’re with her all the time these days.”

  “I like her,” Lynn asserted shortly. “I thought you liked her, too. You said so at the beginning of the year.”

  “I know I did,” Nancy agreed. “And I still like her. But I don’t think you’re smart to be seen with her so constantly. She’s Dirk’s sister, and if you seem to be awfully friendly with her, people are naturally going to think you are with Dirk, too. And that can’t do anything but make the situation worse.”

  “I like Anne,” Lynn said stubbornly. “And I like Dirk. And I don’t believe he did this thing. But you think he did, don’t you, Nan?”

  “Yes,” Nancy answered truthfully, “I think he probably did. But I believe that you don’t think he did, and that’s what matters.” She slipped her arm through Lynn’s. “I have a good idea. Why don’t you come over tonight and hear my new batch of records? I bet you haven’t even heard the one you gave me yourself for Christmas. And we could try our luck with home permanents and really make kind of a ‘hen evening’ of it, the way we used to.”

  “Tonight?” Lynn looked surprised. “Isn’t tonight the debutantes’ Valentine party? I thought they were going to have it a week early, to keep it from coinciding with the school’s Valentine Hop.”

  “No,” Nancy said, “the school is having theirs early, so it won’t get in the way of the debutantes’. Not that it would matter, because the debutantes aren’t planning to bother with the Hop, and most of the boys don’t want to go to two Valentine parties in a row, so nobody will be at the school dance, anyway.” She shook her head. “And it’s a shame, because those school dances used to be lots of fun.”

  “They certainly did,” Lynn said, remembering the dances she and Paul had been to the year before. And with the thought of Paul, a whole raft of memories flooded over her—Paul wearing a tuxedo and a much-too-short haircut, awkwardly handing her a box with her first corsage in it. Paul dancing the way only Paul danced, with that smooth dip after each turn which made dancing seem more like flying. Paul holding her hand as they walked away from the gym afterward, with music still floating soft and sweet in the night behind them, and the feel of his hand, hard and warm, around her own, the expression on his face when he turned to look down at her.

  Lynn gave her head a little shake to make the memories go away, but they clung, and her throat tightened, and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

  “Not tonight,” she said quickly to Nancy. “Thanks anyway, but I don’t think I can come over tonight. Another time, maybe.” And she turned away.

  Her parents did not know about the cloud hanging over her. They knew something was wrong. They knew her well enough to see that she was not happy, and she realized that they worried about her, but she could not bring herself to tell them what the matter was. Mrs. Chambers thought she was brooding about Paul, and Dr. Chambers was sure it was a general letdown following the flu, and he kept plying her with vitamins and iron pills.

  Of course, Dodie knew, but she was not too sympathetic. “The way you stood up for Dirk,” she said, “you really brought the whole thing on yourself. Why do you have to keep saying he didn’t do it when everyone knows he did?”

  “But he didn’t,” Lynn insisted.

  “Well, if he didn’t,” Dodie said impatiently, “who did? The wallet was taken—you can’t deny that. Somebody took it out of Brenda’s car and put it in Dirk’s gym bag. Who did it? And why?”

  Lynn was startled. For all her insistence on Dirk’s innocence, she had not once carried the question far enough to ask herself who was guilty. But now, hearing it put into words, the question sprang clear and sharp to the front of her mind, as though she had been thinking about it constantly.

  And, just as suddenly, she had an answer. “Brad!”

  “Brad?” Dodie looked at her in surprise. “Brad who?”

  “Brad Morgan.”

  “Who on earth is Brad Morgan?” Dodie asked in bewilderment. “I haven’t heard anybody mention him in connection with the robbery.”

  “But he was there,” Lynn said. “Right there, all the while things were going on. And then he left. He never offered to stay with Dirk or gave him any support; he just walked out. And he was supposed to be Dirk’s friend.”

  “But why,” Dodie asked, “would he put the wallet in Dirk’s gym bag? That seems like a crazy thing to do. And why wouldn’t Dirk have seen him do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Lynn said slowly. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  Now that she had a definite project in mind, Lynn suddenly found the whole situation less depressing. She went to bed that night and, for the first time in weeks, slept soundly and contentedly.

  The first thing Lynn did when she got to school the next morning was to look for Anne. “Where,” she asked, drawing her into a comer, “can I find Dirk?”

  “Dirk?” Anne looked surprised. “Why, at work, I guess. He has a full-time job at Burton’s Garage. Dad knows the man who runs it, and he talked him into taking Dirk on, even though he was expelled.”

  “Is that the garage on 40th Street?”

  Anne nodded. “You know, it’s funny, but Dirk’s been like a new person since he was expelled from school. He’s angry about it, of course—at the school and at Brenda and Mrs. Peterson—but he’s not angry at himself. He holds his head up and looks you in the eye and says, ‘I’m not a thief and nobody’s going to turn me into one, just by saying I am.’ It’s a way Dirk has never acted before. And he’s changed with Dad.”

  “He looked so surprised to see his father at school that day,” Lynn said. “He never expected him to come.”

  “Dad’s been wonderful,” Anne said. “He’s never once questioned Dirk about anything. In fact, when Dirk tried to tell him he hadn’t done it, Dad just said, ‘I know you didn’t, Son,’ and changed the subject. And he is so proud of Dirk’s job at the garage. He calls him ‘a working man’ and acts as if Dirk quit school because he wanted to, not because he had to.”

  Lynn said, “I want to see Dirk. I want to talk to him.”

  Anne looked troubled. “Must you, Lynn? Things have worked themselves out pretty well for us, considering. It’s hard, of course, but your seeing him couldn’t make it any easier. All it could do would be to stir things up all over again. Wouldn’t it be better just to let it rest?”

  “No,” Lynn answered decidedly. “What I have to see Dirk about is important. I think he’ll want to talk to me when he learns what it is.”

  The next afternoon, after school, instead of walking home along the River Road and up the Hill, Lynn caught a bus toward town and got off at Burton’s Garage.

  A mechanic in coveralls was sprawled on the ground, half under an automobile, doing something to it with a wrench.

  “Hello,” Lynn said tentatively. “Can you tell me where I can find Dirk Masters?”

  The mechanic turned and looked up at her, and Lynn caught her breath sharply at the sight of the thin, dark face and the familiar shock of dark hair curling forward over the forehead.

  She exclaimed, “Oh! Oh, I didn’t recognize you in your work clothes.”

  Dirk’s surprise was eve
n greater than hers. He stared at her in silence for a moment. Then he asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “I want to talk to you,” Lynn answered awkwardly. Now that she was actually face to face with Dirk, she found she did not know exactly what to say to him. She had forgotten how terribly angry he had been with her the last time they had talked. Now she remembered, and the memory was not a pleasant one. She felt uncomfortable.

  “Please,” she urged.

  Dirk asked, “What about? We don’t have much to talk about, you and I.”

  “We do have something to talk about,” Lynn contradicted him. “The robbery.”

  “I’m a working man now,” Dirk said. “I don’t get off till five o’clock.”

  “Then I’ll wait.”

  “It’s only three-thirty. You can’t just stand here an hour and a half.”

  “There’s a bench over there,” Lynn said. “I’ll go sit on it and wait for you. It will give me a chance to get some studying done.”

  The afternoon passed slowly. Lynn opened her Spanish book and went through the vocabulary, slowly repeating the words to herself. Every once in a while she would raise her eyes and glance around until she located Dirk. When he said, “I’m a working man,” he had meant it, because he was indeed working, and hard. He finished the job he was doing when Lynn came in, and an older man, evidently his boss, joined him on the ground, to examine the car. A few moments later, he got up again and gave Dirk a good-natured whack on the shoulder. It was a man-to-man gesture, and Dirk straightened up and looked pleased and turned briskly to start work on another car.

  Watching him, Lynn thought there was nothing defensive about him when he was like this, working at something he was interested in and being treated as an equal by other men. It made him seem almost like a man himself. In fact when five o’clock finally came, and Dirk slowly crossed over to her, she felt an odd shyness in his presence, as though she were going to have an interview with a stranger.