She thought, as she so often did, of Anne Stephens and Conrad Winter. What a storybook couple. They even looked like the bride and groom on the wedding cake. They were always together. They were exactly the same height. Their eyes were always level, always locked. When they daydreamed, they were staring at each other, so that they seemed quite literally to be on the same wavelength.
The perfect posture, thought Kip.
And I don’t know what it feels like.
And maybe I never will.
Perhaps she was doomed never even to know what a kiss was, let alone love and sex.
We had to take sex education classes, Kip thought, loading the dishwasher. The school was all worried that we’d be promiscuous, and I can’t even get a voice on the telephone! They didn’t need to lecture me on anything.
Desolation so immense it was greater than the thunder that rolled around the apartment building settled on Kip’s heart. It was a despair too great for tears. A sense of failure beyond anything she had ever known.
She tried to tell herself it was just a dance. But it wasn’t true. This was her dance. She had wanted it; she had lobbied for it, she had created it. She had sold it.
It was the first formal dance in over three years. The last time a bunch of rowdy kids got into a bathroom and broke a fixture; water leaked out behind the rear wall and nobody knew it, and this little bit of vandalism cost the school over thirty thousand dollars, because the entire gymnasium floor, with its expensive slick wood, had to be replaced after who knew how many gallons of water settled on it over the weekend.
It was Kip who convinced the administration to let her have a dance, and it was Kip who promised they would have no vandalism because they were such a splendid bunch of kids.
Splendid, thought Kip bitterly. Oh yeah, I’m really splendid.
Dance.
I don’t even know how to dance with a boy. I dance in my own room to the radio. How would it feel to have a boy’s arms around me?
“Phone for you, Kippie,” said her littlest brother. Jamie was four. He drove them all crazy. He was the kind of kid where you wondered how he would reach adulthood, with three brothers and a sister planning homicide every time they were near him. Kip was willing to bet there was no phone call, and if there was, it wasn’t for her. Jamie always got phone calls wrong.
The phone was in the living room. Where her entire family was now stretched out on couches and the floor, arguing about whether to see an old movie on the VCR or watch a rerun of something else on tv.
“Hello,” said Kip to the phone. It’s going to be some other loser, she thought. Some girl sitting home alone and unwanted. We’ll have some horrible depressing conversation. By the time we’re done I’ll be so depressed I’ll want to sit in a closed garage with the exhaust running.
“Hi, Kip,” said a boy’s voice. “It’s Roddy.”
Roddy? She didn’t know anybody named Roddy.
“Roddy MacDonald,” the voice said eventually.
Roddy MacDonald. A boy to whom Kip could safely say she had never given a single thought. He was tall. Did he have anything else going for him? She didn’t think they had ever shared a class or a lunch period; she knew they’d gone to different junior highs. “Hello, Roddy,” she said. Must be something wrong at the high school, she thought. He probably expects me to correct it. That’s me. Good old reliable Kip. She’s boring but she works hard.
“Listen,” Roddy said in a bright, rather silly voice. “I know it’s real late, and all, but I all of a sudden felt like going to the dance after all. I didn’t want to before today and I’ve been thinking about it all day and I heard them saying you didn’t have a date. You want to come with me?”
He heard them saying? Kip thought, her stomach wrenching with humiliation. Who is them? What were they saying?
Oh, poor Kip, here she organized the whole thing and she’s the only one without a date. … Well, what do you expect from a loser like Kip?
She thought she could not bear it, a nobody like Roddy MacDonald calling to tell her local gossip had it she wasn’t worth a date. “It’s seven-thirty,” she said drearily. “The dance is at eight.”
“Yeah. I have a tux. You must have a dress. Want to?”
She scarcely knew Roddy. Go to her formal dance with someone who could be El Creepo? But he could be Mr. Right, too. Kip made a face. Roddy was Mr. Nothing, as far as evidence showed.
Go to the dance after all. Her dance. She tried to weigh the pros and cons. Would it be more humiliating going with Roddy or not going at all?
I don’t want life to do this to me! she cried out against the fate she had drawn. I don’t want to decide between two humiliating things! I want love and romance just like everybody else! Out loud, she said, “I guess I have a dress.”
Her mother almost fell off the recliner arm where she was perched. “Yes, you do!” she mouthed, signaling frantically. “That dress we picked up two months ago! When you first started planning the dance and we thought of course you’d—well, you know—uh—” Her mother’s voice drifted off, unable to find an easy finish.
Kip had left the dress in its bag and stuck it so far in the back of her closet she had actually forgotten about it. Why remember a dress you weren’t going to wear? Actually the dress was too summery for a dreadful night like this—a stab of winter the first week in November. But it was formal, it was pretty, and it was there.
Mentally she pulled straws from a clenched fist to make the decision for her. “Okay,” she said, shrugging. “What time will you be here, Roddy?”
There was a silence. She heard him breathe in very heavily. “Uh,” said Roddy. “Well, see, um. …”
Her little brother Jamie rolled over onto her feet and began twisting up the telephone cord. She smacked him with it and he began to cry. I know how you feel, Kip thought. Life is always hitting me for no reason, too.
“Can you drive?” Roddy said, sounding defeated. “I—uh—I got a speeding ticket last week and my father grounded me.”
I have to drive my own loser to my own dance, she thought. I believe it. It’s my life in a nutshell. “I’ll get you at eight-thirty,” she said.
At least her mother was excited. Mrs. Elliott was up like a shot, screaming, “Gloves! Coat! Somebody heat up the iron! Jamie! Plug in my electric curlers!”
George, Kevin, Jamie, and Pete got up to obey their mother. In the Elliott family you did what you were told or you repented for weeks on end.
Kevin said to Kip, “Somebody actually asked you out? Gosh.”
He turned to George. “Well, I lose the bet, then. I’ll get you your dollar.”
“I’ll kill you both!” screamed Kip, leaping for them.
The boys laughed.
Mrs. Elliott said, “Katharine, you’ll do nothing of the kind. Stand still while I fix your hair.”
“Is this romance?” demanded Kip. “Is this the way it ought to be?”
“No, but it’s better than nothing,” said her mother.
I don’t want to be better than nothing. Better than nothing is lousy! Kip thought. I want to be a ten. A star.
But George was getting out the ironing board, and Pete was bringing the dress, and now she remembered what it looked like, and actually it was very pretty, a good color: dark peach, flushed like the petals of a rose, and suddenly Kip felt pretty good. After all, it might be her night.
Chapter 5
“OKAY,” WHISPERED EMILY TO the thunderous night, “okay, he’s not coming. Half an hour late, no phone call. That’s pretty certain.”
She did not cry. There would be plenty of time later in the evening for sobbing. The important thing now was not to cry in front of her mother. Her mother believed in Spine and Backbone and in Not Yielding to Self-Pity.
Why did I call him? she thought. It’s not the end of the world to miss a dance. Look at Kip. Nobody is more interesting or more fun than Kip, and nobody asked her. And she didn’t cast around trying to find somebody from out of town t
o make up the gap. She didn’t need to humiliate herself like that. Why did I do it?
For a moment her thoughts stuck on Kip. How a thousand boys could look at Kip and not want to go out with her was beyond Emily. Just went to show how stupid boys could be.
Emily’s throat hurt. I’m getting the flu, she thought. But she knew she wasn’t. It was depression, seizing her like a strangler.
Out in her yard the lightning changed texture and shape. It stood still, thickly spreading itself like yellow mist. Emily’s throat closed in fear and she momentarily forgot Matt and the dance. What was out there?
Her mother’s voice wafted up the stairs and through her closed door. “Emily,” she called. “I think he’s finally arrived.”
Car headlights. Trying without much success to pierce the driving rain. Inside her head she was screaming with delight, He came! He’s here! I’m going after all! Her exterior was perfectly calm. She walked firmly to her bedroom door, casually to the top of the stairs, and then, unable to contain herself longer, raced down, and flung open the front door like a kindergartner waiting for party guests.
In the driveway sat a very old-fashioned car. Perhaps fifty or sixty years old, it had running boards, shiny brass fittings, and tall old-fashioned wiper blades that moved in a stately way over a nearly vertical windshield.
The driver’s door opened. A dark figure hunched down and sped toward her, slipping on the flagstone steps, catching himself and taking all four porch steps in one great boyish bound. She held the door, pressing herself against it to give him room, and when he was in, and she had pulled the door and latched it against the force of the wind, she looked into the face of Matt O’Connor and got the shock of her life.
Matt O’Connor was the best-looking boy she had ever seen. Even better-looking than Con. Thick straight black hair ran with water. Matt shook his head like a puppy. A big goofy grin covered his whole face; his eyebrows lowered, his eyes crinkled nearly shut, and his lashes were squashed to nothing. The grin diminished slightly, and became more mature, and then it faded, and before her—very wet—stood an old-fashioned illustration of Total Happiness.
But I always know whether a boy is cute, thought Emily. She kissed him spontaneously, and it was easy, and it was fun, and neither of her parents commented. I rate all boys on a scale of ten, thought Emily. And here I sat with this boy for five hours, laughing like mad the whole time, and I forgot to rate him. The one boy I’ve ever asked out—I didn’t give him a rating. I believe he could be a nine point five. He is darling.
“I kept getting lost,” Matt said. “You told me your house would be hard to find, but you forgot to say that tonight you planned to have electrical wires down so I’d have to take a detour.” He produced a massive black umbrella, which he held out for Emily to take. It was closed.
She giggled. “Maybe you’d be drier if you opened it,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “Umbrella’s for you. That’s because I’m so gallant. Your dress is great. My mom said I had to bring white flowers because I was too stupid to ask what color your dress is, so we’re all set. They sure are smelly. Gardenias. Mom said gardenias are perfect and only a jerk would call them smelly.” He laughed. The laugh spread over his face again and she watched in delight as the dark features crinkled closed, relaxed, and returned to position.
“Your mother calls you stupid?” she said.
“Sure. I never pay any attention to her. Listen, we’re late. We gotta get going.”
Emily marveled. Maybe a lot of parents said things like that and other people just shrugged. She would have to try shrugging. It certainly worked for Matt.
Emily’s father stood at the glass storm door and stared almost reverently at Matt’s car. “What year is that?” he asked Matt. “Nineteen twenty-eight? Thirty?”
“Nineteen thirty-two Ford,” Matt said proudly. “First year they had a V-8 engine.”
“Is it yours?” said Mr. Edmundson, as if he could not bear to think that a seventeen-year-old boy would possess a car like that.
“Of course not,” Matt said, laughing. “It’s my grandfather’s. He collects old cars. Always has. He said for a formal dance I could borrow it. If anything happens to it, he’ll kill me, so you don’t have to worry about Emily, Mr. Edmundson. We’ll be the most cautious drivers in the entire state, because when my grandfather kills a person, it’s for good.”
Matt had a capacity to sound like a nut and yet like the most sane person in the room. Emily felt herself falling in love with him. She let herself fall. It was like tipping over, and being caught in the net of Matt’s presence.
Matt turned to Mr. Edmundson. “When do we have to be home?” he asked. To Emily he said, “My mother says she’ll kill me if I break your parents’ rules.”
“You people certainly go in for murder,” observed Emily’s father, but he was grinning. He’s impressed by Matt, Emily thought. And when her father went and got her coat, and held it for her like a gentleman, she realized something even more surprising. He was impressed with her—his own daughter. It took Matt to accomplish it. Emily felt a brief flicker of resentment, but there was no time to think about it, because Matt was opening the door for her to run to the car.
“Actually,” said Matt, “the wind’s blowing too hard to open the umbrella. It’ll turn inside out and be ruined and then I’ll be in trouble for that, too.”
“Oh, no,” she giggled. “Your family kills over umbrellas, too?”
“Sure. Listen, just pull your coat over your hair and we’ll run.”
They ran.
Matt jerked the passenger door open and helped her in. The car was much higher off the ground than anything she’d ever ridden in, and it surprised her to have to climb up to get in. Matt raced around, slipping in a puddle but not falling down, and flung himself in next to her. They sat laughing, dripping, and shivering.
“Whew,” said Matt. “I’m soaked. We’ll take a long slow route to get to the high school so I can dry off a little. Otherwise I won’t make a good impression on your friends.”
Emily burst out laughing. How incredible that Matt could worry about making a good impression. What other impression was he capable of? “Everybody’ll be just as wet,” she pointed out. She touched her own hair. “Oh, it’s soaked, too,” she wailed.
Matt looked confused. “Your hair is perfect,” he said, hardly glancing at it, and he started the engine.
The seats in the 1932 Ford were leather, and very cold. The cold seeped through Emily’s thin coat and her dress to her skin and she shivered. “Slide over against me,” said Matt. “Body heat does wonders, you know?”
Emily did not know. But she knew she wanted to find out, so she slid over and sat next to him.
“This car doesn’t have seat belts, Emily. My grandfather got all uptight about us driving because he thinks it’s dangerous. I had to promise nine hundred times to drive carefully. But just don’t forget if we do have an accident that there’s nothing hanging onto you.”
Matt smelled of wet wool. Like sweaters and mittens. What could he be wearing that had such a distinctive scent?
Lightning leaped ahead of them, thunder following it so quickly and so loudly that it drowned out Matt’s next sentence. Emily closed her eyes and shivered in spite of all efforts to stop herself.
“You don’t like lightning?” said Matt.
“I hate it.”
“I love it when the thunder makes everything tremble. Primitive,” said Matt. “Strong. Wild.”
“It’s going to kill me someday,” Emily told him. “I feel it in my bones.”
“Not in my car,” said Matt, patting her knee, and then leaving his hand there, warming her through the velvet, and making her tremble with something other than fear of lightning. “The only thing you have to worry about is the distance between the car and the high school front door,” he said. He began teasing her about her destiny. “Maybe you have a rendezvous with lightning on the school steps,” he kidded.
br /> “Don’t even joke about it. It’s not funny to me. It makes me sick inside to think about lightning. I’m not sure how afraid of lightning I am, on a scale of afraid-ness, but I think I fall into the category of phobic on lightning.”
“I kid about everything,” Matt told her. “Don’t worry, Emily. I can’t have you roasted before the dance. Who’ll I dance with then?”
They both laughed.
“You look beautiful,” Con said softly.
Anne looked at him in the dark of the car. Streetlights swept shadows over and across his face, and as he turned to smile at her, his features were unknown and mysterious. She could just barely keep from crying. “Thank you.” She thought, Did Mother prime him? Or is he learning at last?
Maybe it really is at last, she thought.
Con took her hand. “You’re freezing,” he said. He turned up the heat and redirected all the vents so that warm air poured over her. “Have to take care of my girl,” he said, grinning sideways. He drove with one hand, something she hated because it was dangerous … and yet loved, also because it was dangerous.
Maybe that’s why I like sex, she thought. Danger.
They arrived at the high school.
In one great, eerie flash lightning illuminated the building. Three stories high, brick, with white columns set into the brick over the wide granite steps. A storybook high school, with its modern expansion safely hidden out back. I love the building, Anne Stephens thought. It’s my life. And this is autumn of my junior year. What about senior year, what about. …
“We’re here,” said Con unnecessarily. He leaned over and kissed her and in his eyes she could see his love: It was there, clear and true. “I knew you’d look great in that dress,” he said, “but I didn’t know you’d look this great.”
His words came awkwardly. She knew they were his own, not her mother’s tutoring.
Now, Anne thought. Now when I can see that he loves me. She cleared her throat. “Con?” she said.
“Yes. Here’s the doorman. You go inside under his umbrella; I’ll park the car and be in in five minutes.” Con undid her seatbelt, the doorman opened the door and took her arm. She was out of the car, on the doorman’s arm, and Con had driven off.