“Hi! How are things going?”
“All right.” Anne hesitated. “Could I talk to you for a few minutes?”
“Of course.” Lynn followed the girl over to the bench they had sat on when they talked before. She sat down, wondering what it was Anne had to say.
Anne sat in silence a moment, as though she were having difficulty framing her words. Then, when she did speak, it was all in a rush.
“I know this isn’t any of my business, and maybe you’ll hate me for butting in like this, but I’ve got to talk to you about Dirk.”
“About Dirk?”
“Yes. I don’t know what happened on your date with him Saturday night. He didn’t tell me, and I don’t expect you to, but I know that when he came in that night he was more upset than I’ve ever seen him. He said it was all his fault, that he had done some crazy thing and he had disgusted you and made you furious. He didn’t say what it was, just that it was foolish and that he was clumsy and stupid and would never be anything else, and then he stamped off to bed.”
“I don’t understand,” Lynn said in bewilderment. “Why would he act like that? We did have a—a kind of misunderstanding—and I was mad, but I don’t see why that should make any difference to Dirk. You know why he took me out; it was just sort of a thing he was forced into. It wasn’t as though he really wanted me to like him or anything.”
Anne said, “You really think that? That he doesn’t care if you like him?”
“Of course,” Lynn asserted. “Why, Dirk hasn’t said one nice thing to me in as long as I’ve known him.”
“Did you ever think,” Anne asked softly, “that he might be afraid?”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“Afraid that maybe, if he did act as though he liked you, you would snub him? Or even worse, maybe laugh at him? Dirk can’t bear to be laughed at.”
“That’s silly,” Lynn said uncomfortably.
She thought, would I have snubbed him? Perhaps. Perhaps I would have. Lynn Chambers, secure in her crowd, Princess of the Hill, being sought after by somebody like Dirk Masters. Perhaps I would have done just that.
Anne continued talking in a low voice.
“You have to understand Dirk, Lynn. He’s not like the boys your crowd usually goes around with. Dirk hasn’t had an easy time. Our mother died when we were little; I was ten and Dirk was eleven. Dirk was Mother’s pet and I was Dad’s. I don’t know why, but I picked up and went on all right. It was hard, but it wasn’t impossible. But Dirk couldn’t. He just sort of went wild. He started going around with a rough crowd of fellows and acting tough and hard, like they did. Then he met this Brad Morgan—”
“I know,” Lynn put in. “I met him Saturday night.”
“Well, then you saw what he’s like. I don’t know what Dirk sees in him.” Anne hesitated and then corrected herself. “Yes, I guess I do know, at that Brad has a car, and Dirk is so car-crazy! Brad is always asking him to work on it with him. Dirk is really quite good at mechanical things like that, and I guess it flatters him to have Brad ask him to help. They have that car so souped up now that it goes like an airplane.”
“I know.” Lynn murmured.
“So Dirk works on the car, and in return Brad lends it to him sometimes. That’s the basis for their friendship—that is, it used to be, but now I don’t know. They’re together so much! I worry about it Lynn. Brad’s not good for Dirk. Last summer they got in trouble with the police, and that’s not like Dirk. He’s a nice boy, underneath. Sometimes he can be so sweet, so thoughtful as far as I am concerned. I just can’t bear it to see him going wild the way he has been.”
Lynn said, “What about your father? Can’t he talk to him?”
“Poor Dad!” Anne shook her head. “Dad and Dirk never did get along too well, even when Mother was alive. Too much alike, I guess; they both have short tempers and get sulky when they’re mad. When Mother died, Dad started working the night shift at the plant; it pays more, and we need the money. It works out all right but he’s hardly ever at home when Dirk is, and when they are there together, they just argue about everything.”
“That’s awful,” Lynn said sympathetically. “An awful situation, and especially for you. But why are you telling me about it? What can I do?”
“Dirk likes you,” Anne said. “He always has, ever since the first time he saw you. If he’s insulting and smart alecky with you, it’s because he’s afraid to show you how he feels. Don’t ever let him find out that I told you this, but he said to me one time, ‘I don’t know why I bother to date the kind of gals Brad runs around with. I don’t enjoy it. I guess it’s because the one girl I ever really fell for would never look at me twice.’ And I asked, ‘Who is she?’ And he kind of laughed, you know the hard way he laughs, but with sort of a broken sound to it too, and he said, ‘You’ll laugh at me, Anne, but I’m going to tell you. The girl who’s about as far out of my reach as any I’ll ever know. Who else but Lynn Chambers, the Princess of the Hill! Crazy, isn’t it?’ And then he laughed again, but it wasn’t really laughing, and I could have cried for him.”
“He said that!” Lynn exclaimed. “Oh, Anne, I didn’t know! I never even guessed!”
She thought about Saturday night and her pretty little speech about how she just liked to be kissed by special people. It was true, of course, but it must have sounded to Dirk as though she just couldn’t stand the thought of his touching her.
Her face burned at the memory.
“So whatever it was,” Anne continued earnestly, “whatever he said or did—and knowing Dirk, I can imagine it was probably something pretty crude—please don’t hold it against him. He needs somebody like you, Lynn. I’m just his sister. He loves me, of course, but a boy’s sister never has much influence over him, especially when she is younger. You could.”
“Do you think so?” Lynn was flattered in spite of herself. The thought of being an influence for good, of having the power to lead an erring boy into the light, was an exciting one. And Dirk, as his sister described him, sounded like a different person from the boy she had always thought of as Dirk Masters. Her mind flew back over the evening they had spent together—the little things—the way he had looked at her, the way he had taken her arm, the sound of his voice as he introduced her to his friends. She wished she could have seen his face when they sat in the parked car in front of her house. Perhaps, if she had, she would have seen something there that would have changed her answer when he asked her to kiss him.
“He probably won’t feel that way now,” she said slowly. “He was awfully angry when we wound up the evening. And today at school, he wouldn’t even look at me when we passed in the hall.”
Anne nodded. “He was probably too embarrassed to look at you. I think that whatever happened Saturday night, Dirk feels much worse about it than you do.”
Lynn said, ‘I’d like to help, but what can I do? I can’t just walk up to him and say, “Let’s have another date and try again.’”
“No,” Anne agreed, “but you could get to know him and be his friend. That is, if you are serious about wanting to.”
“I am serious. But how?”
“Well,” Anne answered hesitantly, “I—well—”
“What?”
“You could come home with me,” Anne said quickly, avoiding Lynn’s eyes. “To spend the night, I mean. You’d be there, and he’d be there, and it would kind of take care of itself. That is, if you do really want to.”
Lynn hesitated. “Well—”
Spending the night at Anne’s house was something that had never occurred to her as a possibility. Anne lived in a different world, a world with Rachel and Clara and the other girls she went around with. They probably all spent nights at each other’s houses, just as Lynn spent nights with Nancy and Holly and Joan, but the idea of going to Anne Masters’—
She thought, what would Nancy say if I did? And Holly and Joan and the rest of them? Mother and Daddy wouldn’t mind, I guess, but Dodie—Dodie would just pop!
The idea of Dodie’s horror brought the touch of a smile to her lips.
“When would you like me to come?” she asked.
Anne raised her eyes and met Lynn’s own with a look of gratitude.
“What about Friday? Would you like to come Friday?”
Lynn thought, Friday. That’s the night of the next debutante party, the steak grill at the Taylors’.
The Taylors’ house was only three lots away from the Chambers. From her room, she would hear the crowd laughing in the Taylors’ backyard, the games, the singing, the music from Holly’s hi-fi. She would sit there all evening, listening to the fun she could not join. It would be wonderful to go some place Friday night, some place entirely different from anywhere she had been before.
“Yes,” she said, “Friday night would be fine. Thank you for asking me, Anne. I’d love to come Friday night.”
6
The school bus dragged to a noisy stop, the door opened, and Lynn thankfully climbed off. She stood on the curb, clutching her overnight bag, while Anne clambered down the steps beside her. They stood together as the bus gave a weary roar and pulled away, to continue its tedious pace down the street.
Lynn glanced at her watch. “Four-thirty! My goodness, does it always take you an hour to get home?”
Anne nodded. “Sometimes more. The bus makes another trip before this one, and we have to wait for the second load. You’re lucky living a couple of blocks away from the school. I feel as though I spend half my life on that creaky old school bus, either going or coming.”
“What about Dirk?” Lynn asked. “Doesn’t he ride it too?”
“Sometimes. Most of the time, though, he goes off after school with some of the fellows. Today, I saw Brad sitting in his car in the parking lot so I guess he was waiting to pick him up.” Anne turned down the sidewalk. “Ours is the third house on the right. Can I help you carry your bag or anything?”
“No, thanks,” Lynn answered. “I don’t have anything in it except a toothbrush and pajamas.”
She fell into step with Anne, glancing around at the neighborhood with veiled curiosity. She had often wondered what kind of district Dirk lived in. She had pictured a tenement type area, with bars scattered here and there and tough-looking boys in black leather jackets lounging around on street comers. That was what the poorer areas of town always looked like in movies. Now she was ashamed of herself in the light of what she saw.
True, the neighborhood she was now in was not to be compared with the Hill. It consisted of rows of very small houses, crammed closely together. Facing the street were rows of unpainted porches; and in tiny, unplanted front yards, dogs dug holes and old men sat and rocked and little children roughhoused. It was clearly a poorer section of town and quite different from the lovely residential areas, but there was nothing evil about it. In fact, it looked quite friendly.
Anne, seeing her interest, said, “There’s Clara’s house, over there, the one with the old lady sitting on the porch. That’s her grandmother. She doesn’t speak anything but Spanish, so nobody can talk to her, but she doesn’t miss a thing that’s going on along the street.”
“Do any of the other kids from school live here?” Lynn asked.
“Well, I guess you know Ronnie Turner lives over there where the three little children are playing out front. I hope they didn’t wear your sister out yesterday.”
“What?” Lynn stared at her. “Wear who out?”
“Your sister. Her name’s Dodie, isn’t it?”
“Yes—Dodie,” Lynn answered in bewilderment. “You mean Dodie was over here yesterday? For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Goodness, I don’t know,” Anne said. “I didn’t talk to her. I just noticed Ronnie arrive in that old rattle trap Ford he drives and let Dodie and the little kids off at the house and go off again. She took the kids inside. I thought you knew all about it.”
Lynn could not believe her ears. “Are you sure it was Dodie?”
“Why, I think so.” Anne dropped the subject as she turned up the steps of one of the houses. “And here we are—home. I know it’s not anything compared to your house, but I’ve tried to make it nice. I do hope you like it.”
She spoke with a touch of pride in her voice, and, as she entered, Lynn could see why. The small living room was so clean that the walls fairly sparkled. There were several cheap scatter rugs on the floor, but they were a soft moss green, and the ancient sofa and armchair were covered with the same soft color. There were bright print curtains hanging crisply at the window, looking as though they had only recently been starched and ironed, and on the walls were several gay street scenes, done in water colors and nicely framed in natural wood. There was a bowl of yellow straw flowers on a card table before the window.
“I don’t have a sewing machine,” Anne said, “but I made the curtains and slipcovers in Home Economics class. You should have seen me lugging those darned slipcovers back and forth on the school bus! I had to fit them almost every night, to make sure I was doing them right.”
“You mean you made the sofa cover yourself?” Lynn exclaimed. “Why, Anne, you’re a positive genius! I never knew anybody before who could make slipcovers. And those water colors are charming. Where did you ever find them?”
“I painted them,” Anne told her simply.
“You painted them yourself!” Crossing the room, Lynn stood gazing at the pictures with a critical eye. “They’re wonderful, so gay and full of life! I’ve always loved to draw, but I could never do anything like these. Why on earth aren’t you in the Art Club?”
“I would be but—” Anne shook her head. “Oh, you know as well as I do that the Art Club belongs to the Hill crowd. It’s more a social club than one devoted to art, isn’t it?”.
Lynn nodded. “I suppose it is, really,” she admitted slowly. “I never thought of it that way before, but it is pretty much all the crowd from the Hill. That shouldn’t make any difference, though, Anne. Not one of them can paint like this.”
“It does make a difference, just the same,” Anne said. “You know it does. I could go in there with my little paintings, and everybody would say, ‘Aren’t they clever?’ and I’d still be just as much out of things as ever.”
She spoke with no bitterness. Anne seemed to be a person incapable of bitterness. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned into the little hall. “Come on, I’ll show you where we’ll be sleeping tonight. You can unpack your things.”
Lynn followed her through the hall into a tiny room. It was not really meant to be a bedroom—it was more like a pantry or a snug storeroom—but there was a bed in it, and Anne’s deft touch had made it into a dainty little boudoir. The one small window was bordered with fluffy white material and the walls were painted pale blue. There was a checkered blue and white spread on the bed and a little gray chest of drawers with a mirror over it against the other wall.
“Not even room for a chair.” Anne apologized, laughing, “but I guess we can sit on the bed. Dad and Dirk share the bedroom. They’re never in it at the same time, though, because of Dad’s working the night shift. Which reminds me, I’d better get his dinner ready. He goes to work at six.”
She left Lynn to unpack her pajamas and other overnight things and lay them out on the bed.
Alone, Lynn glanced around the tiny room, wondering how Anne had managed to make such a charming place for herself out of what was no more than a cell. On the walls were more of the attractive water colors but these were softer scenes, little landscapes in blues and greens and golds. Lynn examined them more closely, her admiration growing.
I’d love to have some like these for my own room, she thought, but I don’t know how to ask for them. Of course, I’d want to pay Anne for her work, and yet it would be awkward to offer her money.
She turned to follow her hostess out to the kitchen.
In the hall, she encountered Anne’s father, emerging from the bedroom. He was a short, stocky man, with faded blue eyes and a heavy way of movi
ng. Lynn quickly introduced herself, thinking that Anne and Dirk must both take their looks from their mother, for there was nothing of Mr. Masters in either of them.
Then, to her surprise, he smiled at her, and it was Anne’s sweet smile that flashed from his weathered face.
“Lynn Chambers, huh? Well, I’m glad to meet you, Lynn. It’s good to have Anne bringing her friends home with her. I wish that boy would do the same, but he seems to prefer to meet his pals on street corners.”
He went on down the hallway and Lynn joined Anne in the kitchen. She stood as close to the wall as possible, trying not to get in the way as the other girl moved deftly about in the small space, preparing dinner.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yes,” Anne said, “you can fix the salad. The greens are wrapped in a towel in the refrigerator.”
Lynn opened the refrigerator door and took out the damp towel which held the salad ingredients, trying not to look surprised at how empty the refrigerator was. The Chambers’ refrigerator was always overloaded with food for snacking—apples and plums and ice cream and Cokes and all manner of other things. Rosalie saw to that. The Masters’ refrigerator contained the basic necessities—milk, eggs, margarine, some bacon and cheese—and a few covered jars.
Lynn shut the door and laid the salad greens on the counter.
While she cut up tomatoes and lettuce for a salad, she noticed how quickly and efficiently Anne went about her chores, putting peas on to cook, brewing tea, frying hamburgers. The meal seemed to fly together at her touch.
“Do you always do the cooking?” Lynn asked, greatly impressed.
“Almost always,” Anne said, flipping the hamburgers onto the plate. “We eat sort of oddly because of Dad’s working hours. He goes to work at six, so we have an early dinner. He gets off at two in the morning, so I leave a supper ready in the refrigerator for him to eat then. He’s always asleep when Dirk and I get up, so we eat breakfast and leave the dishes for Dad to do when he wakes. He fixes himself a lunch, or breakfast, or whatever you want to call it, around ten. Then he has an afternoon job, working part time in Mr. Hendricks’ Grocery Store.”