Debutante Hill (21 page)

“I told you I would,” Lynn said, getting up. “I want to talk to you.”

“We can't talk here,” Dirk said, “the place is closing. And I don't think you'd especially want to be seen around town with a greasy garage repairman.”

“Of course, I don't mind being seen with you,” Lynn said, her old irritation coming to life again. “Why do you always try to make me seem such a snob, Dirk?”

He did not answer. Instead, he nodded toward a car parked alongside the garage.

“Come on then. I'll drive you home.”

Lynn rose and followed him over to the car. She climbed in beside him, her eyes wide with amazement.

“Is this really yours?”

“Yeah, it's mine.” Dirk could not keep a touch of pride from his voice. “It may be kind of old, but it runs. My boss here got it on a trade-in. He and the other guys have been helping me fix it up, and I'm paying for it every month out of my salary.”

Lynn said, “That's wonderful! And it's a fine car!” She hesitated and then asked slowly, “Now you don't have to borrow Brad's, do you?”

Dirk said, “I wouldn't be borrowing it anyway. Not after his walking out on me, back in the school parking lot, without saying a word to help me. And I thought he was my friend!” He gave a short laugh. “Some friend he turned out to be!”

Lynn said, “That's what I wanted to talk to you about.” She paused, trying to think how to approach the subject. Then she turned, to find Dirk looking at her.

“About Brad?”

“Yes.” Lynn drew a deep breath. “Dirk, did you ever think he might have taken the wallet himself?”

Dirk drove in silence for a moment. When he spoke, it was slowly. “I suppose he could have. He was there already, you know, when I came up. It wouldn't have been impossible. But it was in
my
gym bag!”

“Couldn't he have put it there?” Lynn asked. “Were you watching him—and it—the whole time?”

“I was talking with him,” Dirk said. “I wanted to know what he thought was wrong with his car, before I started working on it. I asked him, and he said, ‘Come on, let's go.
We'll go into that later.' Come to think of it, he was in an awful hurry to get out of there. And then that Peterson girl came around the corner and saw her car door open and gave a shriek like a fire siren, and I turned to see what was the matter with her—” He broke off the sentence and then repeated it, as though hearing himself for the first time. “I turned to see what was the matter! Right then, I wasn't looking at Brad at all!”

“And the gym bag?” Lynn asked eagerly. “Where was the gym bag?”

“On the ground, between Brad and me.”

“Then that was it.” Lynn relaxed against the back of the seat. “That was the moment. Brad had probably just taken the wallet when you came up to him; he could have seen it just from glancing in the window of the car. He wouldn't have had to know there was five hundred dollars in it in order to take it. Then, when Brenda arrived, he knew there was going to be a showdown. When you looked away, he slipped the wallet into your gym bag, so if you were searched, it would be found on you, instead of him.”

Dirk was looking straight ahead, his eyes on the road. . . . He nodded slowly. “Yes, Princess, 1 think you've got it. That's the way it must have been.”

They had been driving along the River Road. Now they came to the corner, and Dirk slowed and turned up the Hill and pulled to a stop in front of the Chambers' house.

He switched off the motor and leaned back, his eyes on Lynn. “Well,” he said, “do you feel like Sherlock Holmes?”

“I certainly do!” Lynn smiled at him. “For goodness' sake, what's the matter? Aren't you happy we've worked it out?”

“Sure,” Dirk answered. “I've been wondering how it could have happened the way it did. I'm glad to get it figured out. But I'm not just panting with joy. It's not like I could do anything about it.”

“What do you mean?” Lynn asked in astonishment. “You can go to Mr. Curtis and tell him about Brad and how it all happened. Once it's all cleared up, you can come back to school again. You're a senior, Dirk; surely you want to graduate?”

“You mean, you think Mr. Curtis will believe me? You think all I have to do is go tell him that somebody else did it and he's going to say, ‘I'm so glad to hear it now everything's all right?' Come down to earth, kid. I could go around yelling, ‘Brad Morgan did it' from now to kingdom come, and nobody would listen to me—only Anne and my dad.”

Lynn felt her happiness slipping away. “But if I went with you, too—if we went together—if
I
told them—”

Dirk was looking at her in an odd way. He asked, “You really believe it, don't you—that I didn't do it? You've believed it all along? You even said so to Mr. Curtis and the others.”

“Yes.” Lynn reached out impulsively and caught his hand. “Dirk, surely we can do
something!”

Dirk shook his head. “No,” he said quietly, “I don't think we can. But—but thanks, anyway.” He leaned across her and opened the car door. “Hop out, Princess. You're home.”

Lynn regarded him helplessly. “Then you're not going to Mr. Curtis at all?”

“What good would it do?” Suddenly, as Lynn started to get out of the car, he tightened his hand on hers. “Look—
you know on the telephone—when you said you wanted to be friends? Did you mean that?”

“Of course.” Lynn said, a trifle impatiently. “Would I have come today if I hadn't?”

“I'm sorry,” Dirk said, “about what I answered. I was mad, I guess, and hurt. Is—is it too late—to change my mind?”

“No,” Lynn told him warmly, “it's not too late.” She gave his hand a quick squeeze and slipped out of the car. “Good-by, Dirk.”

“So long, Princess.”

Mrs. Chambers was in the living room as Lynn entered. She looked up and smiled.

“Hello, darling. You're awfully late getting home from school. Was there a meeting or something?”

Lynn nodded vaguely. “I got involved. You know how it is.”

“I'm glad,” her mother said gently. “I've been worried about you this term. You haven't seemed to take any interest in school activities. Daddy and I were talking last night We wonder if maybe we didn't make a mistake by asking you not to be a debutante. Somehow, proving a point doesn't seem nearly so important if it means your daughter's unhappiness.”

“No,” Lynn said, admitting it for the first time, “you weren't wrong. Some of the finest girls in our class aren't debutantes, and I would probably never have met them if I had been one.”

“Then maybe it has been worth while.” Her mother's face suddenly brightened. “Oh, I almost forgot there's a letter for you. It's on the hall table.”

“A letter?” Lynn was surprised. “I'm not expecting any letters.”

She went into the hall. There, on the table, was an envelope. She picked it up and caught her breath at the sight of the handwriting.

It isn't, she thought unbelievingly. It can't be—

Her hands were trembling as she tore open the envelope and drew out the paper from inside. It was one lone sheet, with the hasty, boyish scrawl slanted across the page in the old familiar way, and as she read it, it was like hearing a beloved voice she had thought she would never hear again:

“Spring vacation starts next month, and I'll be seeing you then.”

The words were like a song ringing through Lynn's mind in the weeks that followed. Only one month—three weeks—two weeks—and it will be spring vacation, and Paul will be home. He'll be home, and he's written me, and he'll be coming to see me, and everything will be all right! Paul's written me, and in only a couple of weeks he'll be home!

She kept the song in her mind at school, when she walked alone across the yard or ate a solitary lunch in the cafeteria, or when she heard the other girls deep in discussion of the Presentation Ball. “Paul will be home!” It rang within her, a hopeful little voice lifting her out of her unhappiness and helping her over her loneliness and making time pass more quickly. “He's written me, and he's not angry any longer, and everything will be the way it used to be!”

And yet at night, when she lay in bed, she was not so sure. She knew Paul so well, the way he was when someone was hurt and needed help. There were so many incidents to remember—the time he had helped Ernie make the football team, the way he had first taken Brenda to the dance
when she had no other escort—Paul Kingsley, defender of the weak, champion of the underdog. It did not mean he felt any great affection for them personally.

Lynn felt her face grow hot as she remembered how angry she had been with him for taking Brenda to that first dance. Paul had tried to explain at the time and make her understand that it was not a personal thing. Now she realized, with an ache in her heart, that he had been telling the truth, and that very fact made the joy she felt in his letter fade a little in its light. If he could help other people without really caring about them, he could offer to help her in the same way.

And spring vacation was the time of the Presentation Ball. It was the final week of the debutante year, and everyone was talking about it, even people who had no connection with the debutantes. The whole town would be invited. The party was to be held at the Country Club. Lynn had overheard the plans so many times during the past weeks that she knew each detail by heart—the name of the orchestra that would be hired for the evening, and the way the ballroom would be decorated with gold streamers and fresh spring flowers, and the amount of punch that was to be ordered, and the kind of dresses the girls would wear—all different styles, and yet all ankle length and unrelieved white. The girls would be presented one at a time. They would walk slowly down the stairs at the far end of the ballroom, and their fathers would meet them at the foot of the steps with armloads of red roses, and then, after they had been formally introduced to society, their escorts would come forward and claim them for the first grand waltz.

And Brenda's escort, Lynn thought miserably, will be
Paul. She knew it as surely as she had ever known anything.

But still he said he would see me. He really said it—“I'll be seeing you”—and Paul always meant what he said. Lynn concentrated on that thought, holding it tightly to her when her loneliness was the worst.

When Ernie arrived home, the last week in March, his first greeting was to tell her, “Paul says he'll be over as soon as he gets his gear unpacked.” And still she was not prepared when the doorbell rang, and she went to answer it and Paul was there.

“Hi!”

He was the same as ever, stocky and blue-eyed, and one eyebrow still went up a little when he spoke. The sight of him was so sudden and yet so completely familiar that Lynn stood staring at him, unable to say a word.

“Hi!” Paul said again, rather shyly. He started to step forward and then he hesitated. “Are you going to slam the door in my face?”

It was the same question he had asked after their quarrel, so long ago it seemed. Lynn smiled and found herself giving the same answer she had then.

“No, of course not. I never slam doors in people's faces. Come in, Paul.”

They stood awkwardly in the hall a moment, and then Lynn said, “Come on into the living room and sit down.” She found her heart was beating wildly. Trying to cover her confusion, she said the first thing that came into her head. “You look fine. You must be having a good time at college. I even think you've grown taller.”

“Well, you look like you've lost weight.” Paul was giving
her critical inspection. “You're too thin. Have you been sick?”

“Not recently.” Lynn answered, seating herself on the sofa and motioning him down beside her. “I had a round of flu at Christmas time, and I guess I haven't snapped all the way back yet. And—and, as Nancy wrote Ernie—things haven't been too easy at school. ”

Paul nodded. “So I understand. What is this crazy thing about anyway, Lynn? What started all this mess?”

“Well, you've heard about the robbery.” Lynn said uneasily. “I was right there when it happened, and then, afterward, when I stood up for Dirk, everybody sort of thought—that is, they assumed—I'd been mixed up in it somehow. There wasn't any proof of it, of course, so I wasn't actually accused; it just made everybody uncomfortable with me. I don't know exactly how to describe it—it—it just—”

“Why, that's ridiculous!” Paul's blue eyes were dark with anger. “Who in the world would ever start a rumor like that?”

“I—” Lynn faltered. “I don't know.”

“You do too know, Lynn Chambers, and if you're not going to tell him, I am!” Dodie stood in the doorway, her own eyes blazing. “It was Brenda Peterson, that's who! She's been insisting that Lynn told Dirk about the money being in the car, and she's been talking everyone else into believing it too.”

“Brenda? But Brenda wouldn't tell a deliberate lie to get somebody else in trouble,” Paul said. “I'd swear she wouldn't; she's not that kind of a girl. If Brenda spread a story like that she must really have believed it herself.” He
raised his eyes to meet Lynn's. “What is your connection with this Masters fellow, anyway? Are you—are you in love with him?”