“Elaine, I can’t,” whispered Jean, losing her courage. “He will guess what we are up to.”
“No, he won’t. I’ll do it so he will never guess. Now go on.” After this assurance Elaine said, in a clear, firm voice, “Well, I guess I’ll take some snapshots around school. If they are any good maybe the yearbook can use them.”
Jean did not move.
“Go on,” whispered Elaine.
Reluctantly Jean started toward Johnny. In a way, it must be nice to be like Elaine, who was never bashful, instead of always feeling too shy to do the things she wanted to do. “Hello, Johnny,” said Jean. “I just wanted to tell you it is all right about transportation for the dance. Mother said she would drive us.”
“That’s good.” Johnny grinned down at Jean.
“I just thought I would tell you,” said Jean. She enjoyed standing beside Johnny—after all, she did have a date with him. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Elaine focusing the camera. Jean, who could not think of a thing to say to Johnny, felt her smile grow strained. She glimpsed Elaine holding up the light meter. Hurry, Elaine, Jean thought desperately. Never mind the light meter. Just take the picture any old way.
“Hey, Elaine!” It was Homer who called out from beside a pillar at the top of the steps. “You girls forgot to wind the film.”
Elaine groaned and the crowd laughed. Wouldn’t you know, thought Jean.
It seemed to Jean that the crowd grew every minute. And Johnny would probably guess that the reason she had forgotten to turn the film was that she was flustered because he was watching. At the same time the thought flashed through her mind that Homer must have been standing there taking in the whole performance.
Elaine wound the film and looked into the finder once more.
Jean, suffering because this snapshot had taken too long and attracted too much attention, found herself, like an animal caught in the glare of headlights, unable to move. Snap it, Elaine, she thought. Snap it and get it over with before Johnny guesses what we are doing.
“Elaine, you will have better light if you move out of that shadow,” Homer called from the top of the steps.
Homer, you keep out of this, Jean thought fiercely, as Elaine did as she was told. At least, Johnny seemed unconcerned about it all. It was just possible that he still thought Elaine was taking a picture of the front of the school. Still facing Johnny, Jean turned her eyes toward Elaine to see what was keeping her from taking the picture this time.
At that moment Elaine pressed the button. Jean quickly looked up to see if Johnny had noticed and found that Johnny was smiling directly into the lens of the camera. He had not only noticed, he had posed. Jean’s feelings were in a state of confusion. The snapshot should be a good one—of Johnny, at least—if Elaine had the right distance and had made the right adjustments, but Johnny must have guessed what they were doing. She wondered what he thought.
“This time I’ll remember to turn the film,” Elaine remarked to the crowd, but by this time only Jean was interested.
“Let’s go around to the playing field,” suggested Johnny to the group around him. “Some of the track team is practicing.”
“Good idea,” agreed someone, and the group started to move from the steps.
Does Johnny mean me, too, Jean wondered.
“Coming, Jean?” asked Johnny, as the others started to go around the building.
“Yes,” answered Jean happily. She glanced back at Elaine, whose eyes were saying so plainly, Include me. Please include me.
Johnny put his hand casually on Jean’s shoulder, but Jean’s instant pleasure was spoiled by the longing look on Elaine’s face. Poor Elaine, standing there with the camera in her hands and one side of her hem sagging. It should have been so easy to say, You come, too, Elaine, but somehow Jean could not make the words come out. She felt too insecure with Johnny and his friends to include Elaine. As she walked along with Johnny she tried to catch Elaine’s eye, to receive a glance that would show that Elaine understood her feelings.
But Elaine was busy fitting the camera into its case, the camera that now held the precious impression of Jean and Johnny on its film. It hurt Jean to watch her and she felt ashamed of her own behavior. Elaine looked so forlorn with her hem sagging. Somehow, Jean would have felt better if Elaine’s hem had been straight.
Chapter 8
With twenty dollars in a cappella choir stole money saved, Jean decided to splurge. Why not? Her first school dance was an important event, a milestone in her life, and she wanted to look her best for Johnny. She wanted to read in his face the thought that he had never seen her look so nice before. This time there would be no pattern spread out on the study table, no careful planning to get a dress out of half a yard less material than the pattern called for, no struggles to sew in a zipper. This time Jean would take her twenty dollars, go into a shop, and buy a dress ready-made so that she could be sure ahead of time how she was going to look. It was going to be blissfully luxurious to go forth with money in her pocket, money that was going to buy not only a new dress, but a new adventure as well.
However, Jean was uncertain of her own taste in clothes, timid about going into a dress shop alone. She needed someone to go with her, but who? Elaine? She would like to do something to make up to Elaine for the way she had treated her, but Elaine was the kind of girl who shopped with great enthusiasm and somehow bought all the wrong things. Not that this bothered Elaine, who thought nothing of wearing a plaid coat over a print dress. Her mother? No. Her mother was inclined to be a little old-fashioned in her choice of clothes. Sue? Sue, who had had more experience in sewing, had a good eye for smart lines and becoming colors, but Jean was not sure that she would want to go on this shopping trip because she was not sure how Sue felt about Johnny. It was always so hard to tell what Sue was thinking. She had managed a graceful show of pleasure when Johnny had accepted Jean’s invitation, and she had made no further references to the quarrel about whether he would or would not. Probably her thoughts were so full of Kenneth that she no longer bothered even to think about Johnny.
“Sue?” asked Jean from her end of the study table.
“Hmm?” replied Sue from the other end of the table.
“I want to take my stole money and buy a dress to wear to the dance. A dress shop dress,” said Jean. “Would you come with me?”
“I’d love to,” answered Sue, looking up from her books. “Try on lots of dresses, and we will make an afternoon of it. I adore looking at pretty clothes, and it will be lots more fun with money to spend.”
Jean knew what Sue meant. Both girls had often visited shops to get ideas for their own sewing, but without money to spend they had always felt like intruders. They had entered hoping the clerks would all be so busy that they could look at the dresses on the racks without assistance. If a clerk did insist on helping, they managed to invent a reason for leaving. And one of the nicest parts of this shopping expedition would be the companionship of a sister who understood.
Saturday turned out to be an exhilarating day, warm and bright, with an occasional breeze to remind Jean that this was still spring, that summer had not come. A beautiful day, and twenty dollars that she had earned all by herself! Anything could happen. Jean felt like skipping all the way to the bus stop.
When the girls got off the bus, they wandered along the main street, pausing in front of windows, uncertain which store to try first. In some shops the windows were full of house dresses, in others the clothing was too old for a fifteen-year-old girl. “Let’s try Northgate Apparel,” said Sue impulsively.
“Isn’t that pretty expensive?” Jean was doubtful. These days twenty dollars, a lot of money to her, did not seem like much to other people. She knew that from looking at the fashions in Vogue.
“Lots of good shops carry inexpensive dresses,” said Sue. “Anyway, I have always wanted to go in there, so why not?”
“All right,” agreed Jean, who wanted to squeeze every bit of adventure out of her tw
o ten-dollar bills. “What are we waiting for?”
Together the girls pushed open the heavy glass door of Northgate Apparel and stepped onto the thick carpet. The shop was cool and filled with soft music that seemed to come from nowhere. They breathed the dry fragrance of new clothes.
“Remember,” whispered Sue, “try on lots of dresses.”
“I feel like an impostor,” Jean whispered back.
There were few customers in the shop. Several saleswomen, in smart beige or gray dresses with touches of white at the neck, were sitting on chairs at one side of the shop. One of them rose and approached the girls. “Good afternoon,” she said. “May I help you?”
“Well…” Jean licked her lips. Her resolution to try on lots of dresses wavered. This place was much too elegant for her pocketbook. “Yes…I am looking for a—a dress.” When the clerk looked as if she did not quite understand, Jean added hastily, “I don’t mean a school dress or anything like that.” She did not want this woman to think she would come to a shop like Northgate Apparel for a school dress.
“An afternoon dress, perhaps?” queried the clerk.
“Yes, only I’m not going to wear it in the afternoon,” said Jean, uncomfortably conscious that her saddle shoes were scuffed under their layer of fresh white cleaner. She wanted an afternoon dress to wear in the evening—that sounded ridiculous, but she could hardly say she wanted an evening dress. That did not sound right, either.
“A dress to wear to a dance,” said Sue, taking over. “A school dance.”
“I understand,” said the clerk. “If you will be seated, I will show you some of the things we have that might be suitable. What size do you wear?”
Jean was not prepared for this question. “Well…I take a size twelve pattern, but patterns don’t run the same as dresses. And I always have to shorten the patterns,” answered Jean, and wished she had not. The clerk did not need to know she was not used to shopping for dresses.
“I think perhaps a nine.” The woman looked appraisingly at Jean. “Or even a seven.”
When the clerk disappeared, the girls sat down on two gray chairs separated by a table that held copies of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. “I hope she does understand,” whispered Jean. “Everything looks so expensive.” She took comfort in the thought of her slip, a new one that she had been saving since last Christmas for some special occasion.
The saleswoman appeared with several dresses over her arm, one of which she hung on a stand in front of the girls. It was blue linen with embroidered white flowers scattered across the waist. Jean managed to catch a glimpse of the price tag dangling from the sleeve. The dress cost thirty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. Jean and Sue exchanged a glance that said, Oh, dear, this won’t do at all.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Jean.
The clerk hung a pale yellow dress in front of it. The dangling tag read twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents.
“Well…no,” said Jean, feeling more and more uncomfortable.
Sue was braver. “Don’t you have anything for less?” she asked.
“How much did you have in mind?” asked the clerk kindly.
Jean decided she might as well be honest. If the shop did not have anything she could afford, they could leave, couldn’t they? It wasn’t as though she had no money at all. “I have twenty dollars,” she said. Twenty dollars seemed much smaller than it had before they had entered the shop. “I don’t suppose you have anything for that.”
“Oh, yes. We have lots of dresses at that price. It is the small size that is the problem. Not many people are lucky enough to have a trim little figure like yours.” She smiled reassuringly at Jean. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Jean relaxed. This woman, she felt, really did understand. And it was pleasant to know that she had a trim little figure. She would remember this the next time someone called her Half Pint. A girl wearing a smock appeared and silently removed the dresses the clerk had hung on the stand. “Those dresses are awfully plain to cost so much,” whispered Jean.
“Plain things always cost more,” Sue whispered back.
The clerk returned with a pink dress, hung it on the rack, looked at Jean, and then critically at the dress. “No,” she said definitely. “It won’t do at all. Pastels are wrong for you.”
Jean, who had thought the dress pretty, looked at the clerk in surprise.
“With your coloring you need unusual colors, odd colors that most people can’t wear,” said the clerk firmly.
“I do?” Jean had always liked pink and blue. She remembered the dress printed with pink clover that she had admired in a magazine in the library. Was that wrong for her?
The clerk disappeared once more.
“She’s right. You aren’t the pretty type,” said Sue, and then added hastily, as if she feared she might hurt her sister’s feelings, “I mean you are not the—the fluffy type.”
Jean sighed. “I know what you mean.”
The clerk appeared with another batch of dresses over her arm. “I found these in our patio shop,” she said, and hung a dress of an unusual shade of green, almost an olive green, on the stand. Jean could see that it was a smart dress, but somehow it was not what she had pictured for herself. “Well…” she said doubtfully. “I sort of had a gathered skirt in mind.”
“No, not for you,” said the clerk definitely. “Little girls are so often overwhelmed by too much skirt.” She hung on the stand a pale beige dress of polished cotton with a twisted sash of brown and apricot.
Jean knew that this was her dress. It was not at all the sort of dress she had planned to buy, but she knew at once that it was right for her. “Oh, yes,” she said happily. “That is—if it doesn’t cost too much.”
“It is only seventeen ninety-five,” said the clerk, “and it just came in today. We think it has a lot of style for the price.”
The girls followed the clerk to the fitting room. “It has to fit,” Jean whispered to her sister. When the clerk had left them alone, Jean slipped out of her dress and slid the new dress on over her best slip. When Sue pulled up the zipper for her, Jean faced three views of herself in the mirror. Even though the skirt was too long and her scuffed shoes looked even more shabby, she was completely satisfied with what she saw. “I love it,” she said ecstatically, and twirled around for the joy of watching three reflections of the dress in motion. “It is so simple and—”
“Becoming,” finished Sue.
“Of course it is too long.” Jean knew this was not a real obstacle.
“We can shorten it ourselves,” said Sue. “Alterations are terribly expensive.”
Jean ran her hands over the polished cotton. “I suppose…” she hesitated, not wanting to say the words, but feeling that she should. “I suppose we could make it for a lot less.” They could, but it would not be the same.
“We could,” agreed Sue, “except I don’t think we could find a pattern like it. Or any material exactly that color.”
Jean smiled gratefully at her sister because she had answered this argument for not buying the dress.
The clerk swept aside the curtain of the fitting room. “Why don’t you come out and look at yourself in the big mirror in the daylight?”
Jean’s resolution to try on lots of dresses was completely forgotten. She knew she was going to buy this dress, but she could not resist walking out of the fitting room in it. She was even more delighted with the dress in the daylight. In front of the big mirror Johnny’s words, “How’s the cute girl?” ran through her thoughts. Now she wondered why she had been surprised to hear him speak the words. She was attractive. She did not need Johnny to tell her. In the reflection she noticed another clerk and a customer glance at her and then pause to look more closely. They, too, recognized that the dress was becoming, that she was an attractive girl.
Jean could find no reason for prolonging this satisfying moment. “I’ll take the dress,” she said, smiling radiantly at the clerk.
“You have made a w
ise choice.” The clerk returned Jean’s smile. “A flared skirt is right for you. You would be lost in a lot of gathers.”
I’ll remember that, thought Jean gratefully, and I’ll remember what she said about color, too.
“And if you don’t mind my making a suggestion,” continued the clerk, “some linen pumps tinted to match the brown in the sash would set the dress off.”
Pumps with heels to make her look taller! If only Jean had enough money.
“I’ll lend you the money,” said Sue, reading her sister’s thoughts.
“Would you?” Jean was touched by her sister’s generosity. Since it was settled that she was taking Johnny to the dance, Sue wanted her to look her best and to have a good time.
“I hope you have a wonderful evening,” said the clerk, when Jean had taken off the dress and paid for it. “I know there won’t be a sweeter-looking girl at the dance.”
“Thank you,” said Jean, flushing with pleasure as she accepted the box containing the dress that she had earned with her own hands.
The girls left the shop and walked down the street to Belmonts’, the shoe store that advertised free tinting of shoes. They chose a pair of linen pumps that made Jean, who had never worn high heels before, feel as if she were going to pitch forward on her face. When the salesman assured her that the shoes fit correctly, she opened the box from the dress shop and carefully matched the sash to the right shade of brown on the salesman’s color card. The shoes would be ready for her to pick up two days later.
“That will give me time to practice walking in heels,” Jean told Sue, as they left the shoe store. Then she gave a sigh of pure happiness. A date with Johnny, a pretty new dress, and high heels—all at the same time. And most wonderful of all, now she really believed that she was attractive. The world was brighter, her footsteps lighter. It had been such a happy afternoon that she was reluctant to let it end. “Sue, let’s splurge some more,” she said impulsively. “I’ll treat you to a Coke at Snow’s—if you will lend me twenty cents.”
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