and yellow eyes just because no one bothered to talk to me.
I had never been to a dance at the Country Club before but my sisters had told me about them. Almost anyone could go. The people divide into crowds and cliques when they get there, the older ones, when they’re not dancing, sitting at the bar, and the younger crowd at little tables drinking Cokes or walking around outside on the flagstone terrace. It was easy to imagine the girls like Jane Rady out there with their soft formals fluttering in the night breezes, laughing up at fellows in white coats whose cigarettes made bright holes in the darkness.And it was easy to imagine me, too, not ever saying anything smooth, not knowing what to do with my hands and laughing too often in a stiff, self-conscious way, just because I wouldn’t be able to think of the right things to say. Even with a new formal and perfume on my hair I wouldn’t be any different. If I hadn’t been able to do it at Pete’s I wouldn’t be able to do it at the dance. I knew it. Other girls could have fun and get along with boys but I wasn’t
like
other girls.
I turned over, shutting my eyes, trying to sleep, and on my fingers I could still smell the pungent spice of the spruce tree.
It was odd to remember that just this time last night the thoughts in my head had been as pleasant and sweet as warm, thick honey.
Doing the supper dishes next evening, Lorraine and I discussed what kind of a formal I should get, though we knew very well that in the end it would be my mother who would decide. All of us had agreed at supper time that it should be “something young and not too sophisticated.” Margaret had suggested a blue and white sprigged dimity—very quaint and little-girlish, which has just come in at the store—but Lorraine thought something “less ordinary” would be better.
“You know,” Lorraine said to me later, “a girl should always choose something different so she stands out on the dance floor. If you really wanted to do something unusual you should take a very, very long piece of ribbon and tie it in a small bowon the top of your head and let the streamers hang right down to the hem of your skirt. One of the girls at school did that at our spring dance this year. And another had a black net formal so she got some black veiling and wore it on her head with a red rose like a Spanish mantilla—but that would be a little exotic for Fond du Lac.” My sister always knows a lot of original, clever ideas about clothes and even if she wasn’t going to the dance herself she didn’t mind talking about it.
No one had mentioned it out loud, of course, but we had all been hoping someone would ask her. When the older and younger go it’s hard for the middle one to stay home. Lorraine never dates much in Fond du Lac. When she was at college in Chicago she used to go out a lot—at least as much as the other girls. There wasn’t a chance for meeting many boys when you went to a girls’ college with no college for boys nearby. She used to write home about the smooth blind dates she had for school dances and they almost always asked her out again afterward. Somehow the boys around our town didn’t seem to appreciate her—there weren’t many fellows who knew about books and English literature and the things that Lorraine learned in college. Of course, she never said anything about it but in the summertime it is handy to have a boy.
Kitty was outside playing “One, Two, Three, O’Leary” on the driveway and the ball made a pleasant, rhythmic bounce-bounce on the pavement. The man next door was cutting his lawn and between the noise of the lawn mower we could hearMargaret and my mother talking in the back garden. “You know,” my mother was saying, “if you’re sure it isn’t too old looking, I think that blue sprigged should be nice for Angie.”
“You’ll like it!” Margaret assured her. “You and Angie come down to the store tomorrow and she can try it on. It’s the
I had never been to a dance at the Country Club before but my sisters had told me about them. Almost anyone could go. The people divide into crowds and cliques when they get there, the older ones, when they’re not dancing, sitting at the bar, and the younger crowd at little tables drinking Cokes or walking around outside on the flagstone terrace. It was easy to imagine the girls like Jane Rady out there with their soft formals fluttering in the night breezes, laughing up at fellows in white coats whose cigarettes made bright holes in the darkness.And it was easy to imagine me, too, not ever saying anything smooth, not knowing what to do with my hands and laughing too often in a stiff, self-conscious way, just because I wouldn’t be able to think of the right things to say. Even with a new formal and perfume on my hair I wouldn’t be any different. If I hadn’t been able to do it at Pete’s I wouldn’t be able to do it at the dance. I knew it. Other girls could have fun and get along with boys but I wasn’t
like
other girls.
I turned over, shutting my eyes, trying to sleep, and on my fingers I could still smell the pungent spice of the spruce tree.
It was odd to remember that just this time last night the thoughts in my head had been as pleasant and sweet as warm, thick honey.
Doing the supper dishes next evening, Lorraine and I discussed what kind of a formal I should get, though we knew very well that in the end it would be my mother who would decide. All of us had agreed at supper time that it should be “something young and not too sophisticated.” Margaret had suggested a blue and white sprigged dimity—very quaint and little-girlish, which has just come in at the store—but Lorraine thought something “less ordinary” would be better.
“You know,” Lorraine said to me later, “a girl should always choose something different so she stands out on the dance floor. If you really wanted to do something unusual you should take a very, very long piece of ribbon and tie it in a small bowon the top of your head and let the streamers hang right down to the hem of your skirt. One of the girls at school did that at our spring dance this year. And another had a black net formal so she got some black veiling and wore it on her head with a red rose like a Spanish mantilla—but that would be a little exotic for Fond du Lac.” My sister always knows a lot of original, clever ideas about clothes and even if she wasn’t going to the dance herself she didn’t mind talking about it.
No one had mentioned it out loud, of course, but we had all been hoping someone would ask her. When the older and younger go it’s hard for the middle one to stay home. Lorraine never dates much in Fond du Lac. When she was at college in Chicago she used to go out a lot—at least as much as the other girls. There wasn’t a chance for meeting many boys when you went to a girls’ college with no college for boys nearby. She used to write home about the smooth blind dates she had for school dances and they almost always asked her out again afterward. Somehow the boys around our town didn’t seem to appreciate her—there weren’t many fellows who knew about books and English literature and the things that Lorraine learned in college. Of course, she never said anything about it but in the summertime it is handy to have a boy.
Kitty was outside playing “One, Two, Three, O’Leary” on the driveway and the ball made a pleasant, rhythmic bounce-bounce on the pavement. The man next door was cutting his lawn and between the noise of the lawn mower we could hearMargaret and my mother talking in the back garden. “You know,” my mother was saying, “if you’re sure it isn’t too old looking, I think that blue sprigged should be nice for Angie.”
“You’ll like it!” Margaret assured her. “You and Angie come down to the store tomorrow and she can try it on. It’s the
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