Fifteen (5 page)

“Good night, Jane,” he said again, and, turning, started down the steps.

Jane closed the door behind her. Her date with Stan was over. She had had a good time in a miserable sort of way. She was proud of Stan and to be with him was a pleasure, but she had been so awkward about everything and he had been so assured, as if he were used to taking girls to the movies all the time. She wondered if he had enjoyed the evening at all. That he would be seeing her told her nothing. It could mean Stan planned to ask her for another date, or it could mean he would say, “Hi,” when he happened to run into her on the street.

Jane switched off the porch light and the lamp her mother had left on in the living room, and looked out the front window into the night. If only
she didn't feel so dreadfully young! She wished so much not to be fifteen—to be old enough to be casual about a boy and to order coffee instead of vanilla ice cream. Fifteen was such an uncomfortable age to be when she liked a boy like Stan, a boy who was trusted with his father's car sometimes. Well, it was probably all over. Now that Stan had seen how young she was, he could not possibly be interested in another date—not when he was used to Marcy's crowd.

Something shadowy moving in the front yard caught Jane's eye. Puzzled, she peered through the darkness until she was able to separate the moving thing from the shrubs and tree shadows. It was Stan. Stan was still in the front yard! He appeared to be struggling with something in the firethorn bushes on the other side of the steps. The streetlight, obscured by trees, was so dim that she could not see what he was doing. What can he be doing, she wondered, and gasped in disbelief when Stan moved out onto the lawn and she was able to see him more clearly. What she saw could not really be taking place. But there it was. Stan was wheeling a bicycle that he had freed from the thorny shrubs. Now he mounted it and pedaled down the street in the direction of Poppy Lane. Jane stood staring
after him; when he turned the corner she could hear him whistling
Love Me on Monday
. A bicycle! Stan had ridden a bicycle over to her house.

When Jane had partially recovered from her astonishment, she suddenly saw the whole evening in an entirely different light. A boy who rode a bicycle to a girl's house and hid it in the shrubbery while he took her to the movies could not be so sure of himself, after all. Probably he had to be in early too and had bicycled over to save time, and had worried about the Purdys' seeing him before he had the bicycle out of sight. And when he was out of sight he had begun to whistle
Love Me on Monday
, the song Nibley's jukebox had played, so he was happy when he left her. Maybe he was even thinking about her.

A lot of things about the evening came back to Jane—Stan's nervous look when she had opened the front door, his crimson ears (such nice flat ears) when he stepped on the cat's rubber mouse. Maybe the reasons she had trouble finding her left coat sleeve was that he was not used to helping a girl on with her coat. And as for Marcy's crowd, Stan had not lived in Woodmont long enough to know who belonged and who did not. He was
friendly to everyone. Well, thought Jane. Well! Things looked different now, and all because of a bicycle.

“Jane?” Mrs. Purdy's voice sounded anxious as she opened the hall door.

“Yes, Mom?” answered Jane, turning from the window.

“Did you have a good time, dear?”

“Yes, Mom,” answered Jane. “A wonderful time.”

Mrs. Purdy stepped into the living room in her bathrobe. “He seemed like a very nice boy. Did he ask you for another date?”

“No,” answered Jane, and smiled out into the night in the direction of Poppy Lane. “No. Not yet.”

All day Sunday Jane drifted around the house in a happy glow, humming
Love Me on Monday
and hovering near the telephone, because she was sure Stan would call. Monday she stopped humming and hated the telephone, because she was sure he would never, never call. Tuesday he called.

“Hello, Jane? This is Stan,” he said, and to Jane he spoke the most welcome words in the world.

“Hello, Stan,” she answered happily.

“I have to go to work in a little while, but I wondered if I could stop by for a few minutes.”

“I'm sorry, Stan,” Jane was forced to say. “I was just about to leave for a babysitting job.” But of
course she could not let him get away, not after waiting two long days for his call. “Could you—could you come over some other time?” she asked.

“Do you have to go far?” Stan asked.

“About eight blocks.”

“Why don't I come now and run you over to your job?” he suggested. “I have the truck.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” said Jane sincerely, because she was going to see him now instead of waiting for another call.

“See you in about two minutes,” said Stan.

“Mom, Stan is going to drive me to my babysitting job,” Jane informed her mother when she had hung up. Then, fearful that her mother might object to this short ride with a boy, she waited through an anxious moment of silence until her mother answered, “All right, dear.”

Jane flew to her room, combed her hair, decided to change from her yellow dress into a dress Stan had never seen, decided against changing, because she might not have time, and wished her mother were wearing stockings. And all the while she wondered if Stan was coming to ask her for another date.

In a few minutes the red Doggie Diner truck stopped in front of the Purdys' and Stan bounded up the steps.

“Hi, Stan,” Jane called through the open front door. “I'm ready. Bye, Mom.”

“Hello, Stan,” said Mrs. Purdy pleasantly.

Good for Mom, thought Jane; she isn't behaving badly at all, even though she isn't wearing stockings. Seated beside Stan in the Doggie Diner truck, Jane found that once more she felt shy, painfully shy. Stan seemed like a stranger, her mouth felt dry, and she couldn't think of a thing to say.

“Where to?” he wanted to know. “Sandra's again?”

“Not today, thank goodness.” Jane was able to laugh naturally. “This afternoon it's Joey Dithridge.” She gave an address in Bayaire Estates, the no-down-payment-to-veterans side of town, and Stan started the truck. Jane felt a thrill of pleasure just to be riding beside him. Of course, the Doggie Diner truck, with the back filled with packages of horsemeat, wasn't exactly the same as a convertible; but since Stan was the driver she did not care.

“Is Joey as bad as Sandra?” Stan asked. “She's a handful.”

“No, Joey's different,” said Jane. “He's medium-hard to sit with, but not like Sandra. It's just that he's three years old and into everything, so he
takes a lot of chasing. His mother doesn't keep anything around that he can hurt, and that helps. She's not like some mothers who can't make their children mind but expect a sitter to be able to. I just have to keep pulling him out of drawers and off the backs of chairs and things. Sometimes I can get him interested in trying to fill a shoe box with worms he digs out of the yard with an old tablespoon, and that keeps him busy. Or I can always read him
The Night Before Christmas
.”

Stan laughed. “In August?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Jane. “It's his favorite book.”

Stan stopped the truck in front of the Dithridges', one of the new houses in a long row on a straight street. Few of the houses had lawns, but most of them had new shrubs too small to hide the foundations, and every house had at least one tree, two or three feet high, planted in the space that would someday be lawn. On the sidewalk in front of nearly every house was a little wagon or tricycle. Farther on down the street a bulldozer roared and a cement truck rumbled.

Stan turned to Jane and grinned at her. “I like that yellow dress on you,” he said. “You were wearing it that day when you were with Sandra,
and you looked cute with your hair all mussed up.”

Jane felt herself blush with pleasure. Stan had remembered what she was wearing the first time they met! This was most significant. Now he would surely ask her for a date.

“Hi!” Little Joey Dithridge came running out of the house to meet Jane.

“Thanks a lot, Stan,” she said, reluctantly opening the door of the truck. If they had been riding in a car, she would have waited for him to go around and open the door for her, but riding in a truck was different.

“I'll see you soon.” Stan started the truck. “Don't let Joey wear you out.”

“Good-bye,” called Jane wistfully, as Joey joyfully tackled her around the knees. “Hi, Joey.”

“I'm going to chop you up in a million pieces!” cried Joey.

Jane laughed. “No, you won't,” she answered, “because I'm bigger and I'll chop you up in a billion pieces first.” This was the way she and Joey always greeted each other. Joey laughed delightedly while Jane absentmindedly pried him loose from her knees. So Stan liked her in the yellow dress! But he had not asked her for another date.
He had said he would see her soon. Soon. Jane did not like the word. It could mean anything—an hour or a week or a month. Men were so exasperating.

But Stan did see Jane soon. He saw her the very next day; he came by for a few minutes before he went to work and stayed long enough to drink a Coke. Friday evening he telephoned to ask her to go to the movies again on Saturday. When Jane informed her mother and father that she was going to the movies with Stan again, she noticed her father raise his eyebrows ever so slightly, and an expression (could it be disapproval?) crossed her mother's face. They did not object, but Jane was left with a feeling of uneasiness. She hoped they would not start being stuffy and giving her lectures about seeing too much of Stan (“He's a nice boy, but…” “Really, Jane, I think you are a little young…”) and all that sort of thing—not when everything was going so beautifully. Oh, please, please don't spoil it all, thought Jane, resolving not to mention Stan so much, even though lately it seemed as if his name was always on the tip of her tongue.

“By the way, Jane,” said Mr. Purdy jovially, “I noticed a mysterious bicycle in the shrubbery that
night you and Stan went to the movies. I wonder whose it was.”

“Pop, please don't tease.”

“Tease? Who's teasing?” Mr. Purdy asked.

“Pop, promise you won't ever mention the bicycle to Stan,” Jane begged. “I'm sure he doesn't want me to know he rode it over here.”

“Very mysterious,” said Mr. Purdy. “Very mysterious the ways of the young.”

It was not until Jane and Stan were in Nibley's after the movie that a real problem arose. This time they had a booth to themselves, near the bubbling, boiling jukebox, and Jane did not order a childish dish of ice cream. She ordered a cup of coffee.

“Do you really like coffee?” Stan asked curiously over his chocolate milk shake.

The coffee tasted bitter. Jane added more cream. “Sometimes,” fibbed Jane, bravely taking another sip. She felt less sophisticated than she had hoped she would.

“I don't,” said Stan. “I can't see why so many people like such bitter stuff.”

“Oh, you get used to it,” said Jane, trying to sound convincing. She took another cautious sip.

Someone put a dime in the jukebox, and Stan
looked at Jane across the table. “Next Saturday is the last Saturday of summer vacation,” he said.

“It is, isn't it?” Jane could feel that something special was coming.

“How would you like to go to the city for dinner, with two other couples, to celebrate?” he asked.

Dinner in the city! White tablecloths, courteous waiters, things cooked with mushrooms and herbs, flaming desserts! What on earth would she wear? “I would love to go,” Jane told Stan, and at the same time she was sure her mother and father would never let her. But they had to, Jane decided. A date for dinner in the city was too important to miss. Jane was filled with a glorious feeling of confidence as she looked across the table at Stan. A boy did not ask a girl to go to dinner in the city unless she was somebody extra special.

“Greg and Marcy want to go and so does Buzz Bratton, only he hasn't asked a girl yet,” Stan went on.

“It sounds wonderful,” said Jane, although she was disappointed that Marcy was to be included. Buzz Bratton, she had known all her life. He was a small, wiry, black-haired boy with a crew cut, and now that he was a junior in high school Jane classified him as the yell-leader type. When she was in
the seventh grade and he was in the eighth, he used to wait for her after school on cooking-class day—not to walk home with her, but to chase her and snatch whatever she had cooked and was taking home for her family to sample. After devouring her baked stuffed onion or chocolate cornstarch pudding, he always pretended to have terrible pains in his stomach. However, now that he was older he might be fun on a double date, Jane conceded, if only he didn't tease. A girl shouldn't hold a baked stuffed onion against a boy forever.

“Dad said I could have the car that night,” Stan continued.

At last they were going someplace in a real car, Jane thought ecstatically—or rather they were going if her mother and father weren't stuffy and old-fashioned about it. Well, if they were, she would have to talk them out of it. She would plan her campaign carefully.

“We thought it would be fun to have dinner in Chinatown. I used to eat there a lot with my folks when we lived in the city. Do you like Chinese food?”

Jane set down her empty coffee cup and hastily revised her picture of dinner in the city. “Yes, I do,” she answered, because now that she had managed
to get the coffee down, she was sure she would enjoy anything when she was with Stan. She tried to remember if she had ever eaten any Chinese food. Yes—once when she and her mother went shopping in the city, they had ordered lunch at a department store tearoom, and chop suey had been on the menu. Or maybe it was chow mein. Anyway, something slithery that Jane did not remember clearly.

That night, after she had watched Stan take his bicycle out of its hiding place in the firethorn bushes, Jane lay awake, tense from coffee and excitement. Her thoughts whirled like confetti in the wind—Stan handsome in a white shirt and tie arriving in a car instead of a truck…riding in the front seat beside Stan…sitting with him in a Chinese restaurant fragrant with incense (at least she thought a Chinese restaurant would be fragrant with incense; she wasn't sure)…their eyes meeting across the teacups. The Chinese did drink tea. That she was sure of. How wonderful it was going to be! Now she was really grown-up, mature, sophisticated, a young woman with a dinner date. A dinner date with Stan.

Long after she should have been asleep, Jane's thoughts were interrupted by the peculiar muffled
cry of a cat that has been successful in the hunt. Sir Puss had caught another gopher, Jane realized, and as she lay listening to his insistent cry, she knew he would not be silent until he had received the praise that he felt was his due. Mr. Purdy raised his bedroom window, and through her own window Jane caught a glimpse of his flashlight playing on the cat. “My, that's a big one,” Mr. Purdy complimented him and, satisfied, the cat was quiet.

The interruption started Jane's thoughts spinning in another direction. She had to evolve a practical plan for persuading her mother and father to let her go to the city. Sunday breakfast was the best time to bring up the matter, because it might take her all week to win the argument. She would state that she was going to the city for dinner, as if it had never occurred to her that there would be any question about her going. Then she would overcome their objections one by one. “But Mom, you said yourself he was a nice boy.” “But Pop, he does drive carefully.” “But Mom, of course he's a good driver or his father wouldn't let him take the car.” “But Mom…” “But Pop…” Over and over again.

On Sunday, however, Jane did not find the right moment to broach the matter to her
mother and father. She waited all day, as alert as a cat at a mouse hole; but late in the afternoon, when she thought the moment had come and she was about to pounce on it, friends dropped in. They were persuaded to stay for supper and then lingered until Jane had gone to bed.

On Monday Stan called to say that Buzz did not have a date, and did Jane know another girl? After thinking it over, Jane decided to ask Julie, because she felt guilty about having seen so little of her since meeting Stan and because Julie was also fifteen and would not make Jane feel uncomfortable. Jane waited until her mother was out of earshot to telephone Julie and extend the invitation.

“Oh, Jane! Dinner in the city—how marvelous!” Julie squealed with delight. “Mother and Dad have simply got to let me go!” Julie chattered happily on about how absolutely heavenly it would be to have a date with a boy who wasn't an old family friend, even if he was a little short, and how she was simply mad about Chinese food, especially since it wasn't fattening, and did Jane plan to wear a hat, because if she did Julie didn't know what she would do. Then, after pausing to catch her breath, she asked, “But Jane, how did you ever talk your family into letting you go?”

Jane sighed. “I haven't. That's the awful part. I haven't been able to talk to them together yet and anyway, I'm scared to bring it up.”

“I know,” sympathized Julie.

“If your folks will let you go,” said Jane, “I'm sure mine will let me go.”

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” said Julie.

“Keep me posted,” said Jane, not very hopefully.

“I will,” agreed Julie. “And phone me the instant you talk them into it.”