Fifteen (12 page)

Meow to you, too, Marcy, thought Jane, but she said, “Why not? He could hardly break a date he had made before he met me, could he?”

Marcy looked surprised. “No, I suppose not,” she had to admit.

Score two for me, thought Jane, and said sweetly, “Stan told me all about it.”

“Oh,” said Marcy.

That takes care of that, thought Jane. Good-bye, Miss Muffet. Good-bye forever. “And now if you gentlemen will step aside, I'll be on my way,” she said to the crowd of boys.

The boys parted, and Jane saw Julie and Liz approaching Nibley's. “Jane!” cried Julie in horror. “Are you…you're not—”

“Yes,” answered Jane calmly, “I am.”

“Why didn't you have them delivered?” whispered Julie, when she had reached Jane's side.

“Because they won't deliver anything under five dollars,” said Jane, “and being me, I didn't find it out until it was too late.”

“Don't you want me to go with you?” asked Julie.

“No, thank you, Julie,” answered Jane. Actually, Jane would have been grateful for her friend's company, but she had made up her mind to see this thing through and she was going to see it through without any help from anyone. “I can peek through this, you know. I don't need someone to guide me. But thanks anyway for the moral support.”

“It's a pretty bouquet,” said Julie, “even if it is sort of big.”

“You know, you remind me of Birnam wood,” remarked Liz.

“What's Birnam wood?” Jane wanted to know.

“Haven't you read
Macbeth
?” Liz sounded superior.

Jane stood her ground and refused to let Liz make her feel fluffy and not very bright. “No, I've only had
As You Like It
and
Julius Caesar
,” she answered, and it occurred to her that high school
students, except intellectuals like Liz, always said they had had Shakespeare's plays instead of saying they had studied them.

“You'll get
Macbeth
next year,” explained Greg, making Shakespeare sound like the measles. “This bunch of soldiers broke off a lot of boughs and branches and stuff in a place called Birnam wood and held them up in front of them for camouflage and crept up on Macbeth's castle. It looked like the wood was advancing.”

Jane laughed. “That's me. I'm creeping up on Cronk Memorial Hospital.”

“Say, I'll walk over with you,” offered a boy in a second-year letterman's sweater.

“No, thank you,” said Jane, and smiled at the crowd. “Bye now.”

“Funny, I've never noticed her before,” she heard the letterman remark as she left.

A delicious feeling of satisfaction flowed through Jane as she proceeded behind her flowers toward the hospital. She had been herself, Jane Purdy, and no one else. It hadn't been easy, but it had worked! People turned to stare at her, cars tooted at her, but Jane did not care. She only smiled and went on her way, past the shops, down a shaded street, and up the steps of the Cronk Memorial Hospital.

Inside, everyone—doctors, nurses, visitors—stopped to stare at Jane and to smile as if highly amused. Her ordeal was nearly ended. Jane propelled her bouquet across the lobby to the information desk where, free of it at last, she set the bouquet on the counter. “I would like to leave this for Stanley Crandall,” she said.

The attendant, obviously trying to suppress a smile, flipped through a file of cards. “I'm sorry, but Mr. Crandall was discharged this morning,” she informed Jane.

“So soon?” asked Jane in dismay.

“Yes, we don't keep them long nowadays,” explained the attendant, glancing at the card again. “You can reach him at seventeen Poppy Lane.”

Jane's confidence wavered. “Seventeen Poppy Lane,” she repeated blankly. That was only three blocks away. There was nothing to do now but go ahead and deliver the flowers to his house. If she didn't, Stan was sure to hear about them from the crowd at school and wonder why he had never received them. Stifling a sudden desire to giggle, she picked up her flowers once more. Here goes Birnam wood again, she thought, and advanced behind her bouquet across the lobby, out of the hospital, and down the street toward Poppy Lane.

When Jane reached Stan's block, a stocky little girl about eight years old, who had been roller-skating aimlessly up and down the sidewalk, darted up to Jane. “What are you carrying that for?” she demanded.

“Because,” answered Jane.

“Because why?” persisted the girl.

“I'm taking them to a sick friend,” Jane told the child.

“My brother had his appendix out. He just came home from the hospital today,” the girl informed Jane.

Jane lowered her bouquet for a better look at this child, who had brown pigtails, a dirty face, and Stan's gray-green eyes.

“Say!” exclaimed Stan's little sister. “I'll bet you're taking all those flowers to my brother!”

Jane felt she might as well admit it. “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

The child's face lit up with excitement. “Gee!” she exclaimed, and darted off, her skates going
ching-chung
against the cement. At number seventeen, she turned and clomped up the steps. “Hey, Mom,” she yelled, as she threw open the front door. “Come quick! Somebody's bringing flowers to Stan, and it's a girl!”

Jane squelched an urge to fling her flowers into the gutter and run. It was too late for that. With her cheeks flaming, she marched bravely up the steps of Stan's house and reached the front door just as Mrs. Crandall appeared. There she was, face-to-face with Stan's mother. From behind her floral screen Jane wanted to faint, disappear in a puff of smoke, drop dead, anything to get out of this awful situation. Instead she stared, as if stricken, over the spikes of gladiolas at this unknown person, Stan's mother.

Mrs. Crandall, a comfortable-looking woman, smiled reassuringly at Jane. “What lovely flowers!” she exclaimed. “And how thoughtful of you to bring them to Stan.”

“I—I meant him to have them at the hospital,” said Jane shyly. “I didn't know he would leave so soon.”

“They don't keep patients long in hospitals after an operation these days,” explained Mrs. Crandall. “Here, let me take the flowers.”

Gratefully Jane surrendered her burden.

“Stan is taking a nap right now,” Mrs. Crandall went on, as if receiving a gaudy floral piece from a strange girl were not at all unusual, “but won't you come in?”

“Well, no—thank you,” said Jane uncertainly. “I think I had better be going home. My—my mother is expecting me.”

Mrs. Crandall smiled warmly at Jane across the flowers. “You must be Jane Purdy,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” Jane admitted, and wondered what Stan had said about her to his family.

“Stan has spoken of you so often,” said Mrs. Crandall. “You must come over and have dinner with us sometime.”

“I—I would love to,” stammered Jane, pleased and embarassed by this unexpected invitation. She only hoped that Stan would be pleased too.

“Boy, does Stan like you!” the little sister informed Jane. “He always shines his shoes for about an hour before he goes to see you!”

“Mitzi!” exclaimed Mrs. Crandall with a laugh.

“Well, he does,” persisted Mitzi. “He says—”

“Mitzi!” Mrs. Crandall's voice held a warning.

Jane felt her face flush even redder. “Tell Stan everybody misses him at school,” she said, and turned to leave.

“Thank you so much for the flowers, Jane,” said Mrs. Crandall. “It was thoughtful of you to bring them to Stan, and I know he'll be pleased.”

“I hope so,” said Jane, more at ease with this
pleasant woman, who looked as if she understood how difficult it was to be fifteen. “Good-bye, Mrs. Crandall.”

“Good-bye, Jane.”

“Good-bye,” called Mitzi, as Jane walked down the steps. “Golly, Mom, did you ever see such a
big
bunch of flowers?”

Jane walked sedately down the street and around the corner from Poppy Lane, but she did not feel at all sedate. She wanted to run and skip and shout. Her ordeal was over. She had not acted like Miss Muffet when the gang from school had tried to tease her. Mrs. Crandall had been friendly and had not laughed at her, and, best of all, she had learned that Stan liked her enough to talk about her to his family. Maybe she had, in her usual way, done all the wrong things, but everything had turned out all right. Maybe that was the way things were when a girl was fifteen. And Stan shined his shoes before he came to see her. His sister said so. Darling Stan in his shiny shoes!

“Hi, Mom,” Jane greeted her mother cheerfully, as she walked into the house.

Mrs. Purdy looked up from sewing and smiled. “Did you have a good day?”

“M-m-m. Good and bad. Mostly good, though.”
Jane lifted Sir Puss from the chair in which he was napping and buried her face in his tabby fur. “How's the old pussy cat?” she asked him. “Hmm? How's the old pussy cat today?”

Sir Puss struggled free and leaped to the floor, where he glared at Jane and then began meticulously to wash himself, as if the touch of her hands had soiled him. “You're a spoiled old thing,” Jane told him, as the telephone rang. “I'll get it, Mom,” she said, and went into the hall. “Hello?” She spoke blithely, for once not caring who was on the line.

“Hi there.” It was Stan.

“Oh—hello,” answered Jane eagerly. It was so good to hear his voice once more.

“I want to thank you for the flowers,” said Stan. “They're sure pretty.”

“I'm glad you like them,” answered Jane. “I wasn't sure whether you would or not. The bouquet turned out to be bigger than I expected.”

“Hold the line a minute, will you?” Stan asked, and Jane heard him say, “Beat it, Mitzi, will you? Can't a fellow have a little privacy once in a while in his own home?” Then he continued, “I just wish I'd been awake when you came over. I told Mom she should have called me. I'm sure sorry I
couldn't phone you last Saturday.”

“That's all right,” said Jane, and then added guardedly, because her mother was in the next room, “I thought you might be mad at me because of what happened that morning. You know. In front of Julie's house.”

“I guess I was sort of mad at first.” Stan's voice was also guarded, and Jane knew that his mother and Mitzi were near. “But that was just because—well, because I wished it was me instead of Buzz.”

“Oh.” It was all Jane could say, and even though she was alone in the hall she could feel herself blush with pleasure.

“Would you mind?” Stan's voice was almost a whisper.

“No.” Jane could barely whisper back, she felt so stifled by emotion.

Then Stan spoke in a normal voice. “I'll be back at school in time for the steak bake and movie at Woodmont Park. Is it a date?”

“Yes, it is,” answered Jane. “I'm glad you'll be well in time.”

“I'll call you before then,” promised Stan. “I'll call you often.”

When Stan had hung up, Jane sat motionless,
smiling dreamily at the telephone. Stan wanted to kiss her! She glanced at the calendar that hung above the telephone and saw that the steak bake was two weeks away. Two long weeks! How could she live that long?

The next two weeks passed quickly for Jane. It did not take long for the story of her walk behind the screen of gladiolas and delphiniums to spread through Woodmont High. Everyone laughed at the story, but the laughter was friendly. And all because I kept my head up during the whole awful thing, Jane thought, and if I had walked down the street cringing with embarrassment, everyone would be making fun of me now. Instead, boys she did not know, even seniors, grinned at her as they passed her in the corridor and called out, “Hi there! Picked any petunias lately?” or “How are things in Birnam wood?” Girls said, “How did you
ever
do it? Didn't you just about
die
of embarrassment?” The
gossip column of the
Woodmontonian
printed an item that asked, “What sophomore was seen hiding behind a floral duck blind on her way to visit what junior at Cronk Memorial Hospital?” Even the faculty must have heard the story, because the football coach and the physics teacher smiled at Jane as she walked down the hall.

Best of all, Stan telephoned every day at four o'clock, and Jane spent a happy hour on the telephone saying nothing in particular, just talking to Stan. She longed for the day when she could see him again, free from the listening ears of her mother and his little sister. She turned over in her mind what Stan had said about wishing he had been the one to kiss her, not Buzz, and she wondered if he would remember on the night of the steak bake. Perhaps he would ask her to walk under the trees along the stream….

It seemed no time at all until the evening arrived and Jane was actually alone with Stan, riding toward Woodmont Park with him in his blue car. He was even better-looking than she had remembered. His profile was clean-cut and his skin a scrubbed golden tan. The evening was warm, and he was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his identification bracelet on
his strong right wrist—a bracelet that he might someday ask her to wear. Jane glanced down at his shoes. Even by the dim light of the dashboard she could see that they had been polished until they gleamed. Jane smiled secretly to herself and felt some of her old shyness return. She had been at ease talking to Stan over the telephone, but now that she was beside him she could think of nothing to say.

Stan took his eyes off the road long enough to glance down at Jane. “This beats walking, doesn't it?” he remarked. “Or riding in the Doggie Diner truck.”

Jane laughed. “It certainly does.”

“You know something?” said Stan. “The first time I took you out, Dad said I had to be in by ten thirty. He wouldn't let me take the car, either. I was worried about how I was going to take you to the movies and get you home and still get home myself. I knew Dad wouldn't care if I came in five or ten minutes late, but it was cutting things pretty close. So I took a chance and rode over to your house on my bike. I rode past on the other side of the street first to see if anyone was looking, and when I didn't see anyone I hid my bike in your shrubbery. I was sure scared somebody would look
out the window and see me. I didn't want you to think I was just a kid who rode around on a bike.”

Jane smiled to herself before she answered demurely, “I knew about the bike. After I turned out the light that evening I saw you pull it out of the shrubbery and ride it down the street.”

“You did!” Stan was astonished. “You knew and you never mentioned it?”

“I didn't say anything, because I knew if you hid your bicycle in the shrubbery you didn't want me to know about it,” Jane explained. “I was glad you rode it over to my house, because then I was pretty sure you weren't too grown-up to like me. You seemed so much older at first.”

“Well, for Pete's sake!” Stan laughed. “And here I was feeling so awkward and thought you had so much poise!”

“You know,” said Jane thoughtfully, when they had finished laughing, “it's funny about bicycles. I never ride mine anymore. For some reason, when you're in high school it won't do to be seen riding a bicycle because you need it to get someplace, but it's all right to ride one for fun if you don't really need to. Like going on a picnic or something.”

“That's right,” agreed Stan. “That's exactly how it is.” They smiled at each other, pleased to have
shared this understanding. Jane was sorry they were going to the steak bake. It was so wonderful to be with Stan once more. She wanted to ride on and on through the warm fall evening.

Stan parked his car at the edge of Woodmont Park and went around to help Jane out. A noisy crowd was gathered under the lights around the barbecue pits, and the smell of cooking steak mingled with the fragrance of the bay and redwood trees. “I'm starved,” said Stan. “Come on, let's join the others.”

“Hello, Jane.” “Hi, Stan, glad to see you back.” “Hi there, Jane.” “Stan, you're looking swell.” The crowd welcomed them.

“Hi, everybody,” said Stan, while Jane smiled happily beside him. Not many sophomores had dates for the junior-class steak bake.

Mr. Degenkalb, a history teacher who was the harried class adviser, was herding the crowd into line beside the barbecue pits where the steaks were sizzling on grates over open fires. Greg and another boy were turning the steaks with pitchforks. Jane and Stan took their places in line and picked up knives and forks and paper plates. Someone served them scalloped potatoes that had been cooked in the school cafeteria and rushed to
the park; someone else put steak on their plates.

“Hi, you two,” said Buzz, who was serving salad. “I'm on garbage detail.”

“Looks to me like you're serving salad,” remarked Stan, as Jane held out her plate.

“You know how salad turns into garbage when it's been sitting around a couple of hours,” said Buzz. “That's why I'm on garbage detail.” He ladled some limp greens onto Stan's plate. “Have some tossed green salad. Take it and toss it into the trash can.”

“Buzz, you're awful.” Jane laughed.

“Come on, Jane,” whispered Stan. “Let's not sit at the tables with the others. Let's go over by the stream.”

Jane's smile was her answer. Now she knew that Stan wanted to be alone with her as much as she wanted to be alone with him. Carrying their paper plates of food, they walked through the carpet of wood sorrel that grew along the bank of the stream and found two rocks near the trickle of water. It was a perfect spot to be with Stan. There was even a full moon rising through the bay trees. Jane sat down on her rock with a sigh of pleasure. It was a beautiful, romantic moonlit night. Perhaps after Stan had eaten his steak he would turn to her and
look deep into her eyes….

“This stream doesn't have much water in it, but at least it's wet,” observed Stan, settling himself on his rock.

“It's the only stream I know of around here that has any water at all this time of year,” said Jane, as she eyed her steak. It was large and thin and overhung the edges of the paper plate. It did not look like any cut of meat her mother had ever ordered from Jake's Market. Jane set her plate on her knees and took a bite of cold scalloped potato. Perhaps if she ate her potatoes first there would be more room for the steak on her plate. She sampled the salad. Buzz was right.

Here goes, thought Jane, and sawed at her steak with her cafeteria knife. Nothing happened to the steak, but the pressure of the knife bent the paper plate. Gingerly she tried another side of the steak. This time she succeeded in separating a morsel of meat, which she put into her mouth. That was her mistake. She chewed and chewed and chewed. From the tables by the barbecue pits she could hear laughter and chatter from the crowd, snatches of song, cries of “Speech!” She was missing the fun, but she didn't care. She was alone with Stan. Alone and chewing.

Stan, too, was occupied with chewing. He gulped, and turned to Jane. “It sure is a beautiful night, isn't it?” he asked softly, and looked into her eyes.

Jane stopped chewing. She hadn't expected this from Stan so soon, before he had finished his steak.

“Isn't it, Jane?” he asked, as if her answer were important to him.

Jane gulped and swallowed her meat whole. “Yes, it is,” she said nervously. The moment was so terribly important. “It's—it's a good cat-fight night.”

Stan looked so startled that Jane immediately regretted the words that had slipped out. “I mean, that's something we always say at home when there's a full moon,” she said, and wished she hadn't. Now she had to go on and explain why the Purdys said a moonlit night was a good cat-fight night. “When Sir Puss was younger he always got into fights when there was a full moon. Now he goes out and hunts mostly. You know how it is. A good cat-fight night is a sort of family phrase.”
Oh
, she thought, why do I have to babble on this way? Stan was looking into my eyes and now I've spoiled everything.

“Sure, I know,” said Stan, applying his knife to his steak. “At our house we always call a clear windy day a good drying day. Where we lived in the city there was so much fog Mom always had a hard time getting the washing dry, and almost every morning she would look out the window and say hopefully, ‘Maybe today will be a good drying day.'”

I guess that ought to take care of the weather for a while, thought Jane, and attacked her steak once more. As she sawed away, she glanced at Stan to see how he was managing and found him watching to see how she was cutting her meat. All at once the humor of the situation struck Jane and she began to giggle.

Stan relaxed and laughed. “Why don't we just pick it up and gnaw?” he suggested.

“I don't know how else we can manage,” agreed Jane, and took her cold steak in both hands. She was careful to tear off a small bite in case Stan should look into her eyes again. Resolutely she and Stan chewed.

“At least tonight we know we're eating meat,” said Jane. “That night we had dinner in Chinatown I didn't know what anything was. We had just walked past one of those herb shops that
has all those weird-looking things in the window and a grocery store that had a tub full of snails, and my imagination went to work. And I wanted to be so sophisticated, too.”

Stan laughed. “I knew you weren't having a good time, but I didn't know it was that bad.”

Jane chewed thoughtfully. She really had changed since that night in Chinatown. Tonight, only a month instead of ten years later, she could look back on that dinner at Hing Sun Yee's and not only laugh, but admit to Stan she had tried to be sophisticated. And the first time she had a date with Stan she had been so nervous she could scarcely eat a dish of vanilla ice cream, and now look at her. Here she was, sitting on a rock holding a tough piece of meat in her hands and gnawing at it—and laughing about it.

“Look at the lovebirds over there by the stream,” Jane heard someone on the nearby path say. She winced, and hoped Stan had not heard. He appeared to be concentrating on chewing. Jane considered the size of her meat and the time it took to chew each bite. At this rate, if they were going to finish their steaks, they would have to take them along to the movie.

“I give up,” said Stan at last, setting his plate on
a rock and wiping his hands on his paper napkin. “This is too tough for human consumption. It's tougher than Doggie Diner meat.”

“It certainly is,” agreed Jane, as she searched for her paper napkin. She could not find it, so she set her plate aside and surreptitiously wiped her fingers on the edge of her slip. When she looked at Stan he was rubbing one finger back and forth over the name plate on his identification bracelet.

“Jane…” Stan looked into her eyes.

Jane felt her heart begin to pound. Nervously she moistened her lips.

“
There
you are!” shouted a voice behind them. It was Buzz, with Julie beside him. “What are you trying to do? Hide? We've looked all over for you.”

“Hi,” said Stan, with no enthusiasm at all.

Jane flashed her best friend a Julie-how-could-you look, which Julie returned with an I-know-but-what-could-I-do expression.

Buzz sprang onto a rock and with a sweeping gesture of his right hand proclaimed, “What is this atomic age we live in? May we by simply touching a button or turning a knob—”

“This isn't your public-speaking class,” interrupted Stan.

“No, but it's a good place to practice,” said Buzz
in his ordinary voice, before he continued eloquently, “How can we prepare ourselves for what lies ahead?”

“Come on, Buzz,” said Julie. “We can prepare ourselves for the movie by finding seats.”

Buzz ignored her. “Today's generation can be the salvation of tomorrow,” he announced with a sweep of his hand.

Darn Buzz, anyway, thought Jane. He's doing this on purpose, because he knows Stan and I want to be alone.

Stan glowered at Buzz. “Come on, Jane, let's find a trash can for the remains.”

“‘Four score and seven years ago—'” said Buzz. “What's the matter, Stan? Don't you like my public speaking?”

“No, I don't,” said Stan.

“I'm cut to the quick,” said Buzz cheerfully. “Mr. Chairman, members of the faculty, and fellow students. I stand here before you today to ask you to consider the merits of adopting a twelve-month school year for Woodmont High School.”

Jane gave Julie a do-something-quick look.

Julie flashed Jane an I'll-do-the-best-I-can look. “Come on, Buzz,” she said. “The movie is about to
start. Let's go and find good seats before they're all taken.”

“Let it start,” said Buzz. “I found out what it's going to be.”

“What?” Julie asked.

“The John Quincy Adams Story,”
said Buzz.

Julie groaned. “Not really! Why did they have to go and choose something like that?”

“Probably because it is pure, high-minded, and educational,” answered Buzz.