Fifteen (7 page)

When everyone was served, Buzz picked up the cruet again and poured some of the soy sauce over
his rice. “Have some beetle juice,” he remarked, as he handed the cruet to Jane.

Telling herself it couldn't really be beetle juice, Jane cautiously poured two drops on her rice. Well, she thought, now I've got to start eating. She watched the others pick up their chopsticks and tried to hold hers the same way. She picked up a few grains of rice, but she could not control the bamboo sticks and the rice dribbled back to her plate. She took a firmer grip and tried to pick up a piece of green pepper from the wonton sauce. It slipped from between the sticks. Telling herself this could not be so difficult—millions of Chinese ate with chopsticks every day, didn't they—she tried again, got a tenuous hold on the pepper, and raised it from her plate toward her mouth. The chopsticks separated and the pepper went sliding down the front of her blouse into her lap.

How awful, Jane thought, as she picked up the pepper with her fingers and slipped it back onto her plate. With her paper napkin she scrubbed at the stain and succeeded only in smearing it through the sheer fabric onto her slip. Miserable, she glanced around to see if the others had noticed. Julie, who had laid down her chopsticks and was surreptitiously tugging at the top of
her girdle, cast Jane a glance of sympathy, which Jane returned. Poor Julie, her girdle was cutting into her waist. Buzz and Greg were eating hungrily, and Marcy, her sun-bleached hair falling against one cheek, was talking to Stan as if she were alone with him.

Jane studied her plate carefully for something familiar that was not dripping with red sauce and that did not look slippery. She settled on what she decided must be the shrimp roll that Julie liked so much. It was made of shredded lettuce, shrimp, and several unknown ingredients covered with a golden crust and cut in bite-sized slices. Concentrating on the shrimp and lettuce and trying not to think what else might be in it, she slipped one chopstick through the crust, bent over her plate, and popped the bit into her mouth. Instantly she was sorry. “Oh!” she gasped as tears filled her eyes, and she clapped her napkin over her mouth. The shrimp roll was unbearably hot.

“What's the matter?” Stan turned away from Marcy.

Jane gulped and sipped her tepid tea. “I didn't know it would be so hot,” she said. Because she didn't want to let Stan down, she added bravely, “It was delicious, though.”

Buzz dipped into the red sauce and held up one of the little brown hands. “What do you suppose this is?” he asked.

“Sh-h.” Marcy giggled. “You'll frighten Jane.”

Leave it to Marcy, thought Jane bitterly. If she wasn't fooling Marcy she didn't suppose she was making the others think she was having fun either. How awful could this evening get, anyway? Maybe someday she would look back and laugh and say, “I'll never forget that awful night a bunch of us had dinner at Hing Sun Yee's in Chinatown.” But this was not someday. It was now and she was miserable. Her head was beginning to ache, she could not enjoy the food, and, worst of all, she felt lonely and left out. Stan talked more to Marcy than to her. Not that she blamed him. Nobody could expect a boy to enjoy the company of a girl who hadn't learned to like Chinese food, who couldn't even pretend enthusiasm, and who spilled things all over her clothes like a two-year-old. Her first grown-up date was ruined and probably her friendship with Stan, too.

Buzz grinned at Jane. “What's the matter, aren't you hungry?” he asked.

Suddenly Jane was piqued with Buzz for teasing
her about flied lice and beetle juice. Maybe Stan was losing interest in her, but she was not going to let Buzz get her down any longer. She looked him in the eye and said coolly, “It's just that your appetite is so big it makes mine look small.”

Buzz seemed taken aback at his failure to get a rise out of Jane, and the others laughed.

Encouraged by Buzz's reaction, Jane went on. “After all, Buzz, if you could eat my seventh-grade cooking samples, I'm sure you could eat anything, even million-year-old eggs.”

This time everyone laughed at Buzz. “Okay, Jane, you win this time,” he said in a way that made Jane wonder how he would try to tease her next.

Somehow Jane got through the rest of the meal. While the others ate heartily, she was able to pick out a few familiar bits from her plate—an almond, a flat green pea pod, a sliver of pork—and convey them unsteadily to her mouth with the chopsticks. She was glad when Tom removed their plates and set down a plate of cookies and brought a fresh pot of tea. The hot drink hurt her burned tongue, but she did not care. The meal was such a dismal failure that nothing mattered anymore. There was no use even trying to pretend. She had spoiled Stan's date—the date he had meant to be so special—and
he would never ask her for another. She looked sadly at him, as if he had already gone out of her life. Dear Stan, it was nice knowing you, she thought, and it was such fun for a little while until I spoiled everything.

“Hey, Jane, wake up!” Jane was nudged out of her thoughts by Buzz, who was passing her the plate of fortune cookies. “Take one,” he said, “and find out all about your future.” She took one and handed the plate to Stan. She should be able to eat a Chinese cookie. She had eaten them many times at birthday parties when she was a little girl.

Marcy broke open her cookie. “Listen to this. I'm going to have a career,” she said. She read aloud from the slip of paper that had been inside her cookie. “‘You will be offered a high executive position with an attractive salary.'”

Stan laughed. “Marcy would rather have an attractive boss.”

“I hate you, Stan,” drawled Marcy, in a voice that told everyone she did not hate him at all. Jane and Julie exchanged a quick look. Marcy and her line!

“What does yours say, Julie?” Buzz asked.

Julie broke open her cookie. “‘Someone is speaking well of you,'” she read, and sighed. “It's probably a dear old aunt.”

“I'll bet it's that boy you met at the mountains,” said Jane loyally. Julie had not met a boy when she went to the mountains with her family, but it would not hurt Buzz to think she had.

“‘You will be called to fill a position of high honor and responsibility,'” read Greg from his slip.

“Congratulations!” exclaimed Buzz. “I knew you'd get to be student body president someday. Hey, listen to my fortune. Marcy isn't the only one who's going to be rich. ‘You will win prizes in contests testing your ability to answer questions.'”

“It doesn't say you'll be rich,” scoffed Stan. “It just says you'll win prizes. Probably a case of toothpaste or a year's supply of detergent.”

“And it doesn't say first prizes,” Marcy pointed out. “Maybe you'll win a pie in the face because you don't know the answers.”

“You're just jealous because you aren't quiz kids,” Buzz said smugly. “What does your say, Stan?”

Stan broke open his cookie and read, “‘Your place in the path of life is in the driver's seat.'”

“Right in the front seat of the Doggie Diner truck,” said Marcy, and everyone laughed.

“I don't expect to make the Doggie Diner my career in the path of life,” Stan told Marcy. “Jane, it's your turn.”

Hoping that her fortune would be a good omen, Jane snapped open her cookie and unfolded the slip of paper. “‘Prepare for a short journey,'” she read.

“All the way back to Woodmont,” observed Marcy, and munched her cookie.

“How short can a journey get?” remarked Greg.

That's right, thought Jane. Prepare for a short journey back to Woodmont and right out of Stan's life. I'll bet Marcy can hardly wait.

“Let's prepare for Jane's short journey by getting out of here,” said Stan. “We still have time to go for a walk through Chinatown.”

When they left the restaurant, they found that fog had settled over the city and was swirling through the narrow streets. Foghorns were bleating and groaning down by the bay. Saddened by the sounds, Jane shivered in her light suit.

“We'll meet you at the truck in forty-five minutes,” said Stan to the other couples as he put his hand on Jane's elbow. “Come on, Jane, let's go window-shopping.”

Should she apologize for not enjoying the Chinese dinner, Jane wondered, as she and Stan strolled up the street together. Too dispirited to say anything at all, she walked beside Stan past the
Chinese shops toward the tourist end of Chinatown. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to think what to say, but tonight she was too heartsick to do anything but wander through the fog.

“Here we are,” Stan said, breaking their silence as he led Jane into a warm shop that smelled of incense. He seemed to be looking for something among the vases and bowls and embroidered slippers, but Jane had lost interest in everything but her own unhappiness. Stan selected a bamboo back-scratcher from several stuck in a brass teapot and handed the proprietor some change.

“Here,” Stan said, offering the back-scratcher to Jane with a smile. “A present for you.”

“For me?” exclaimed Jane in amazement, as she took the bamboo implement and stared at the little hand carved at the end of the long handle. “A back-scratcher for me?”

“Yes, for you. Buying a back-scratcher in Chinatown is practically compulsory, didn't you know? All the tourists do it.”

Jane looked up at Stan and laughed, partly from amusement and partly because she was filled with a wonderful feeling of relief. Stan had bought her a back-scratcher! Maybe he wasn't disappointed in her after all.

“I think there may even be a law that says buying a back-scratcher in Chinatown is compulsory,” Stan went on, and he and Jane laughed together.

They wandered out of the shop and on down the street through the swirling fog, and now Jane was warmed by their laughter. In front of an ordinary American restaurant, the kind with a counter, a jukebox, and half a dozen booths, Stan turned and looked directly at Jane. “You didn't have a good time at dinner, did you?” he asked.

Hot with embarrassment, Jane looked down at the sidewalk. She did not answer.

“Did you?” Stan persisted.

Jane looked up at him and shook her head. She had to be honest with Stan. “It was just that it was all so strange,” she said. “I never ate in a real Chinese restaurant before. It wasn't—quite what I expected.”

“I'm sorry,” Stan said contritely. “I should have thought. I remember I felt the same way the first time I went there.”

Surprised and touched by his apology, Jane smiled at Stan. He didn't think she was a poor sport. He blamed himself for spoiling her evening, when all the time she had been worrying because she had spoiled his. “I can't say I enjoyed it, but at
the same time I'm not sorry we went there,” Jane told him. “I guess you could call it an—an interesting experience.”

Stan no longer looked worried. “I've felt that way about things myself,” he said, and glanced toward the restaurant. “I'll bet you're hungry. How about a plain old American hamburger?”

Suddenly Jane was ravenous. “I would adore a plain old American hamburger,” she said joyfully, and went into the restaurant with Stan.

They sat at the counter, and after Stan had ordered a hamburger and a glass of milk for Jane, he swiveled his stool around so that he faced her. “You have little drops of fog clinging to your hair,” he told her.

“Do I?” Jane's hand flew to her fog-damp hair and she glanced at the mirror behind the counter.

“You know something?” said Stan.

“What?” asked Jane.

“You're different from most girls.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You were so swell about having to go in the truck.”

“I was sort of surprised,” Jane admitted, “but I didn't really mind.”

“Most girls would have made me feel I'd spoiled
their evening, because riding to the city in a Doggie Diner truck was beneath their dignity or something. Or they would be like Marcy and make fun of it. But with you it didn't really matter that I couldn't get the car.”

Jane looked shyly down at the counter and ran her finger along the design in the handle of the back-scratcher—the precious back-scratcher, her present from Stan. “No, it really didn't,” she whispered. She picked up the hamburger the waitress set before her and as she bit hungrily into it, her eyes met Stan's in the mirror. Stan was smiling at her.

“Love me on Monday, but don't love me one day. Love me on Tuesday…” Jane sang in a throaty voice as she tossed her schoolbooks onto her bed. She pulled a comb through her hair and, smiling dreamily, paused to run a finger over the design on her back-scratcher, now tied to her mirror with a red ribbon. Then she kicked off her shoes and plopped herself cross-legged on the bed. English and French and math assignments could wait. Jane was knitting Stan a pair of Argyle socks for Christmas.

With awkward fingers she untangled the bobbins of green and yellow yarn and, after reading the directions twice to make sure, began to knit
from a ball of gray wool, “Love me on Tuesday, don't make it a blues day,” she hummed happily, as she thought back over the first week of school. It had been a wonderful week. All her daydreams had come true and, in the matter of locker assignments, had even been improved upon by the administration of Woodmont High. Stan's locker was almost directly across the hall from hers. This stroke of good luck was something not even Jane had dreamed of, and she marveled at it several times a day when she saw Stan across the hall. Another piece of good fortune was that Stan's history class met in the room next to her French class. They even had the same lunch period and although Stan ate with a group of boys and Jane with several girls, they usually met on the lawn toward the end of the period and walked to their lockers together.

This was enough to establish Jane as Stan's girl in the eyes of Woodmont High, and because she was Stan's girl, Jane floated through the week in an aura of joy. She was no longer Jane Purdy, onlooker. She was Jane Purdy, Stan Crandall's girl. She belonged. The other students watched her walk down the hall beside Stan and thought, Jane and Stan…. And she was able to say, “Stan and
I….” Memories floated through Jane's mind. Stan holding the handle of the drinking fountain for her. Stan sitting beside her on the front steps of the school, the golden brown hair on his arms glinting in the sunlight. The touch of his identification bracelet against her wrist as his arm brushed hers in the crowded hall. Stan's greenish eyes smiling down at her as he leaned against her locker, or waited for her outside her French room, or stood in the same line in the cafeteria. Oh, it had been a wonderful week.

Jane paused to untangle the bobbins that dangled from her knitting, and her eyes fell on the first issue of the
Woodmontonian
, which had slipped out of her notebook when she tossed her books onto the bed. Listed in a box in the center of the front page were the school social activities for the semester. Jane put down her knitting and picked up the paper. The list began with a tea to introduce the freshmen to the faculty (thank goodness, she was past
that
stage). Next was an informal dance to be held in the school gymnasium on Friday night, just one week away. This was followed by the junior-class steak bake and movie in Woodmont Park the first week in October, a show put on by all the school clubs in November, and a Christmas formal in December.

An informal dance a week away. Jane read the story in the left-hand column of the paper, which told about the dance: music by Bob Starr and his All-Stars, a girl singer who had made a record that was tenth place on the Hit Parade, the members of the ticket committee and the decorating committee. Dreamily Jane went on with her knitting, unaware that she was working yellow wool into her pattern when she should have been using green. She saw herself circling the Woodmont High gym floor in Stan's arms and she would wear…She did not know what she would wear, but she was sure of one thing. She had enough babysitting money to buy a pair of shoes with real high heels, beautiful airy shoes—heels, thin soles, and wisps of leather to hold them on her feet, shoes so light she would scarcely know she was wearing them as she whirled in Stan's arms.

Of course, Stan had not actually asked her to go to the dance yet…. Jane dismissed this detail from her mind. When a boy sees a girl every day and takes her to dinner in the city and buys her a back-scratcher and notices the fog on her hair, naturally he asks her to go to the first school dance. He just hadn't got around to it yet. And this time maybe he could take the family car.

Just before dinner on Saturday the telephone rang.
“Arf-arf!”
barked Mr. Purdy. Since the night Jane had ridden to the city in the Doggie Diner truck, he had taken to barking every time the telephone or doorbell rang.

“Pop! Really!” protested Jane good-naturedly, as she went hopefully to the telephone. Honestly, the things that amused her father!

It was not Stan but Julie who was calling. “Jane, guess what!” Julie was in an obvious state of excitement. “Buzz asked me to go to the dance next Friday!”

“Julie! Did he really? How perfectly wonderful!” Jane was happy for her, not only because Julie was her best friend but because now she and Stan could trade dances with Buzz and Julie and perhaps see less of Marcy and whatever boy she chose to go with. Somehow, Jane did not like to think of Stan's dancing with Marcy.

“Stan has asked you to go, hasn't he?” Julie wanted to know.

“Not exactly,” said Jane cautiously. “Not yet, but I'm seeing him tonight. We're going to the movies.”

“And Jane,” Julie went on, too engrossed in her own anticipation to notice Jane's hesitation,
“Buzz's dad says he can take the car that night!”

“What wonderful luck!” agreed Jane.

“If Stan can't get his car maybe we could double-date,” Julie suggested.

“That would be fun,” answered Jane, “but I hope he can get the car.”

That evening on the way to the movies and afterward at Nibley's and on the walk home, Jane waited for Stan to mention the dance. He was unusually talkative and told her about the different dogs on his route—the pair of Dalmatians that waited for him and the boxer that chased the truck so far he often had to give the dog a ride home—but he did not mention the dance. Oh, well, thought Jane, that's how men are. He's probably taking it for granted. She found it very pleasant to be taken for granted by Stan.

By Monday morning it was impossible for any student to ignore the fact that Woodmont High was having a dance on Friday night. Posters in the shape of autumn leaves and footballs appeared on every bulletin board, banners were hung across the halls, and a reminder to get your tickets now, one dollar per couple, was printed in the daily bulletin. When Stan walked across the hall to Jane's locker to say hello, she said, “The dance committee must
have put in a lot of hard work over the weekend to get all these posters up.”

“It sure did,” agreed Stan. “Well, so long. I've got to pick up a reserved book at the libe before class.”

Jane stood with her hand on her locker door, looking uncertainly after Stan as he made his way through the crowd in the direction of the library. It almost seemed as if he had been in a hurry to get away from her when she mentioned the dance. Naturally he was in a hurry, she told herself. He didn't have time to stand around talking when he had to go to the library, check out a book, and walk downstairs again before first period. Still…

“What are you looking so wistful about?” asked Liz Galpin, who had been assigned to share the locker with Jane. Liz was also a member of Manuscript. She submitted pieces entitled “Life and Death: a Dialogue” or simply “Haiku.” A haiku was a Japanese poem that had seventeen syllables. When Jane tried to write a haiku it always turned out to have sixteen or twenty syllables, never seventeen.

“Was I looking wistful?” Jane answered lightly. I didn't know it showed, she thought. There was something about Liz, with her dark-rimmed glasses and her hair chopped off any old way, as if
it didn't matter how she looked, that made Jane feel fluffy and not very bright.

“You looked positively lovelorn,” said Liz as she stowed a couple of thin books, poetry probably, in their locker.

“It must be something I ate,” answered Jane, trying to look bored like Marcy. She closed the locker, snapped shut the combination lock, and was about to go to her first-period study hall when she saw George, the old family friend, coming purposefully toward her.

“Hi,” she said, wondering why he was taking the trouble to cross the crowded hall to speak to her.

“Hello, Jane,” he said. “How about going to the dance with me Friday night?” He spoke rapidly, as if he were anxious to get the words out of the way.

Jane could feel the blood rush to her face. She had been so engrossed in Stan that it had never occurred to her anyone else might ask her to go to the dance. By this time she thought it was obvious to everyone at Woodmont High that she was Stan's girl. But apparently it was not obvious to George, who was probably so busy with his rock collection and his chemistry experiments that he hadn't noticed. That was George for you—oblivious,
buried in science, with that lock of hair sticking up as usual.

What an awful situation! How perfectly awful! Jane ran one finger down the louvers on her locker and stared at the floor while she tried to think what to say that would not hurt George's feelings yet would leave her free to go to the dance with Stan. She had to choose her words with care. Going to the dance with George was out of the question. Loping around the gym trying to appear two inches shorter than she was, when she had dreamed of whirling in Stan's arms in her first high heels! It was impossible.

If she said she already had a date with Stan she wouldn't be telling the truth and George might know it. If she said she was busy Friday evening and then George took another girl to the dance and she turned up with Stan—well, that wouldn't do either. But she couldn't just stand there. She had to say something. “I—I'm sorry, George,” she said at last. “I already have a date for Friday night.” And she told herself she did—almost.

“Well, okay. Some other time maybe.” George's face was as flushed with embarrassment as Jane's.

He knows, thought Jane miserably. George had guessed that she didn't want to go with him and
that she didn't really have a date. He might be oblivious about a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid.

They stood facing one another, Jane ashamed to have hurt George's feelings and George embarrassed to have his feelings hurt, uncertain of what to say next, until the sound of the first bell clanging through the hall rescued them.

“See you around,” muttered George, and disappeared into the stream of students moving toward their classrooms.

Well, I don't care, thought Jane defiantly. I do have a date—sort of. And anyway, she had always suspected George's mother made him take her out, because she was an old friend of the family; his mother probably told him she was a sweet, sensible girl. But Jane did care. Because she had hurt the feelings of someone she liked, she felt uneasy and uncomfortable all the rest of the day. On the way home from school she walked past the shoe store without stopping to search the windows for the dancing shoes she dreamed about—the delicate shoes with heels, soles, and mere wisps of leather to hold them to her feet. Darn Stan anyway.

By Tuesday morning Jane was cheerful again. This was the day Stan would mention the dance.
He had just forgotten—men were so absentminded about such things—and had been carrying the tickets in his wallet all the time.

As usual he crossed the hall to her locker and said, “Hi, Jane.”

“Hi,” she said, and waited.

“Old Hargrave is really piling it on in math,” he said. “I thought I was going to be up all night on his assignment.”

Plainly Stan was not thinking about the dance, and yet Jane did not see how he could forget it when the whole school was plastered with banners and posters and cardboard autumn leaves.

Later in the morning a girl in Jane's algebra class remarked wistfully, “I suppose you're going to the dance with Stan.”

Jane smiled and said nothing. A smile could mean anything.

“Of course you're going to the dance with Stan,” said another girl, in the cafeteria during lunch period.

“Could be,” said Jane. “I hope they're serving lemon pie today.”

“You're sure lucky,” answered the girl. “I wish a new boy would turn up for me.”

Jane realized the situation was getting compli
cated. She could not honestly say she was going to the dance with Stan, and neither could she say she was not going with him. Her pride would not let her admit to anyone that she had not been asked. It would be all over school in half an hour. Everyone would talk and wonder. The boys would think she wasn't any fun on a date and the girls would start inviting Stan to parties and asking him to help them with their math. And what would she be doing? Drinking Cokes with the girls on Saturday nights.

It was while she was playing volleyball during her gym class that Jane made up her mind that she could not stand this uncertainty any longer. A few minutes before, while she was changing into her shirt and shorts in the locker room, two girls had asked her what she was going to wear Friday night. Waiting her turn to serve, Jane decided that when Stan walked down the hall with her between sixth and seventh periods she would bring up the dance once more and find out for certain whether she had a date or not. She was sure she did—well, pretty sure—but she wanted to hear Stan say so himself. Satisfied that she had at least made a decision, Jane gave the volleyball a vicious whack that sent it out of bounds.

That afternoon when Stan met Jane outside her French class she said gaily,
“Bonjour.”

Stan grinned at her,
“Onjourbay,”
he answered. “French pig Latin. How's that for class?”

Jane laughed, but her thoughts were fixed on bringing up the subject of the dance. Her mouth was dry, and all the gay, casual remarks she had composed during her French class had slipped away from her. If this continued much longer she was sure to flunk everything. Only a few minutes ago she had not bothered to look up
colère
in the vocabulary and had translated
“Il était emporté par sa colère”
as “He was dragged away by his collar” when it should have been “He was carried away by his anger.” The laughter of the class still rang in her ears.