Debutante Hill (25 page)

Dirk stood looking at the box a moment and then thrust it into his pocket. “Maybe so,” he said gruffly. “Right now, it doesn't seem possible, but some day maybe there will be.”

The rest of the day passed more quickly, for Ernie came
home from his tennis and sat around talking for a while before he went up to get dressed for the evening, and then Dodie wandered in, and soon afterward Mrs. Chambers was lighting the dining room candles and Rosalie was announcing dinner.

And then, all too soon, dinner was over and the family was breaking up. Dr. Chambers had an evening call to make, and Ernie left in a flash of black tuxedo, to pick up Nancy for the Ball, and after a while Ronnie stopped by for Dodie. Lynn found herself in front of the television set again, while her mother sat in the chair at the desk, going through a pile of bills and totaling the month's household expenditures.

I don't usually mind watching television, Lynn told herself sternly. I don't know why I should feel so restless tonight.

But she did know. Tonight was the Presentation Ball. The knowledge was deep within her, and she could not break away from it or focus her attention on anything else. Tonight was the Ball, and Paul was taking Brenda. Paul would be wearing his tuxedo. She could picture him now, and she could see Brenda with him. Was she pretty? Probably, if she was with Paul. “Sparkly,” Ernie had called her. Well, she was making her debut tonight, her entrance into society. She would certainly be sparkly tonight.

Lynn squirmed unhappily, trying to force her attention on the television show. What were they doing now? She glanced at her watch. Four minutes to eight. The girls were being presented at nine o'clock, so they were probably at the Country Club already. Maybe they were just getting there. Paul would be pulling his car into the parking lot. Now he would be getting out, opening the door for Brenda,
helping her out. The music would be flooding the night, and crowds would be arriving, and Paul would probably be steering Brenda in the back way, so nobody would see her until she was officially presented and came gracefully down the stairs to receive her red roses.

The doorbell rang.

The sound cut through Lynn's thoughts with such suddenness that for a moment she did not know what it was. When it registered, she did not have any particular reaction. After all, there was no one who would be calling on her.

Her mother glanced up with a little frown of annoyance, saying, “Get the door, will you, dear? I'm right in the middle of adding a row of figures.”

“All right.” Lynn rose slowly, stretched and made her way unhurriedly to the door. When she opened it her eyes opened wide with astonishment.

“Paul! What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?” he returned with a grin. “I've come to take you to the dance. Run upstairs and throw on a gown and slap on your eyelashes, or whatever girls do on occasions like this, and let's get going. That is, if you don't mind having a date with a bandaged hand.”

Lynn stared at him in bewilderment. “What are you talking about? Where's Brenda?”

“She's sick,” Paul explained. “The poor kid must have flu or something. She looked kind of pale when I got there, but I thought it was just excitement. Her mother was fussing around so much, it would be enough to make anybody nervous. But then, when we were in the car, we hardly got out of the driveway before Brenda asked me to take her back again. She said she felt terrible.”

“But she couldn't be sick!” Lynn exclaimed. “Not when she's going to make her debut. Why, she'd have to be half dead to miss that, and there was nothing wrong with her when she came by yesterday evening.”

“She said she was sick,” Paul said. “I didn't argue with her. I guess the girl knows how she feels. Her mother had left for the dance herself, by the time we got back, so there wasn't any argument about it.”

“You mean you just left her all by herself in the house?” Lynn cried in horror. “If she's that sick, you should have stayed there and called a doctor.”

“She told me not to,” Paul said defensively. “She said it wasn't anything serious, that she had a headache and an upset stomach and she thought she was getting the flu. She said she wanted to be left alone, to take a few aspirin and go to bed, and if I hurried, I could get over here and pick you up in time to make it to the Ball.” He looked a little sheepish. “I guess maybe that sounded like too good an idea. I didn't argue about it I just said O.K., and got in the car and came over.”

He looked so handsome, standing there in his tuxedo, his blue eyes hopeful, one eyebrow rising a little when he talked. And he was so pleased at the way things had worked out! Looking at him, Lynn felt the worry that had closed around her heart loosen and drop away. There was no question in her mind now about whom Paul wanted to take to the dance. The happiness on his face left no doubt of that.

“It's tough luck for Brenda,” he was saying easily, “poor kid, having to miss her own debut. And it's rotten of me to feel this way, I guess, but darn it, Lynn, a guy wants to take
his own girl to something like this! And now it's worked out so I can.”

A guy wants to take his own girl. There it was, in words —
his own girl
.

Lynn caught at the words and hugged them to her, and it was with her own answering happiness that she found herself able to smile at him and shake her head and say, “No, Paul. It didn't work out this way. Brenda made it work out.”

He looked at her without understanding. “What do you mean? I told you, she's sick.”

“No, she isn't,” Lynn said quietly. “She's no more sick than I am. She knows you are just taking her because her mother asked you to, and she's giving you an out. She's pretending she's sick to give you a chance to take me instead.”

“But why would she do a thing like that? I've taken her to dances before because her mother asked me to.”

“But Brenda didn't know it then,” Lynn explained. “She knows it now because Dodie told her. I was sorry about it, but I never guessed she would do something like this. I never knew she had that much initiative!” She paused as the picture formed in her mind. “Good heavens, Paul, can't you visualize the scene when Mrs. Peterson gets home tonight, after Brenda doesn't turn up at the Ball? A whole year of preparation for Brenda's debut, and then she stays home and goes to bed instead!”

“I didn't think Brenda ever stood up to her mother,” Paul said. “Especially not about something important.”

“I didn't either,” Lynn said slowly. “You know, I think maybe Brenda has a lot more to her than I ever gave her credit for. I think—” and the thought was such a new one
she was astonished to hear herself putting it into words—“I think maybe, when I got to know her better, I might like her. I might really like her very much.”

“Oh, she's a nice kid,” Paul said easily. “I've been saying that all along.” He gave Lynn a worried glance. “What do you think I ought to do? Call her mother?”

“Oh, for goodness' sake!” Lynn exclaimed. “That's the last thing you should do. That would make an issue of the whole thing.”

“Well, do
you
want to call Brenda—”

“No,” Lynn answered decidedly, “that would be even worse. The only thing for you to do is to get back in your car and drive over and pick her up again. You'll still have time to make it by nine o'clock, but don't wait here until she's changed her clothes and taken off her make-up.”

“But what if she won't go?”

“She'll go,” Lynn assured him. “You
make
her go, if you have to pick her up and carry her out to the car. Tell her she's nice to be so noble, but not to be silly about it. She's started this debutante thing, and she's got to go ahead and finish it.” She smiled. “Only say it in a nicer way. You'll know how to do it.”

“But—” Paul was staring at her. “But what about you? You want to go to this thing yourself. I know you do. And I want to take you. Brenda's made her choice, so why don't we just let her stick by it?”

“Because Brenda has had so little,” Lynn said quietly, realizing it fully for the first time, “and we have so much.”

And now, because she did not have to let him go, she found she could do it without any pain. She was Paul's girl.
Paul's girl! It was a singing inside her, a quiet shining joy that could not be dulled. Paul would always help people and stick up for people and be nice to people, because that was the kind of person Paul was. But it had nothing to do with her being Paul's girl.

They walked out to the car together. The night was dark, and the sky was heavy with stars. There was a brisk wind blowing up from the river. It was not a warm wind, winter was too recently over for that, but there was a freshness to it and a crispness and a smell of spring.

They paused a moment by the car. Paul reached out in the darkness with his good hand and found hers.

“Oh,” he said casually, “I almost forgot I have something of yours.”

“Of mine?” Lynn was surprised. “What is it?”

And then she felt the ring in her hand, round and hard and smooth, still warm from Paul's finger.

“That is yours,” he said gruffly, “isn't it? I think maybe you lost it some place.”

“Yes,” Lynn answered softly, “it's mine. It's good to have it back. I—I'll take better care of it this time.”

Paul got into the car.

“I'll see you tomorrow then,” he said. He hesitated, as though there were more he wanted to say, and then he gave her hand a squeeze and released it. There was time ahead for saying things.

“Yes,” Lynn agreed, “tomorrow.”

She did not watch the car drive away. She turned instead, and went into the house.

Copyright © 1958 by Lois Cardozo. Copyright renewed 1986 by Lois Duncan.

All rights reserved.

 

 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Duncan, Lois, 1934-

Debutante Hill / Lois Duncan.

Originally published in New York by Dodd, Mead, 1958.

Summary: In the 1950s, when the society families of Rivertown decide to launch their daughters in an elaborate debut season, beautiful Lynn Chambers is delighted until her father refuses to let her participate in this display of snobbishness and Lynn finds herself ostracized from the community in which she grew up.

eISBN : 978-1-939-60107-0

[1. Debutantes--Fiction. 2. Social classes--Fiction. 3. Belonging (Social psychology)--Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)--Fiction. 5. Love--Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.D9117De 2013

[Fic]--dc23

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