Debutante Hill (6 page)

“I know,” Nancy answered uncomfortably. “It's just—well, Lynn, maybe they think you're not as interested in the old crowd as you used to be. You really do seem kind of aloof with everybody these days.”

“Well, maybe I do,” Lynn said, “but what difference should that make? This is an art club, not a social club. I'm as interested in the art side of the club as I ever was.”

She had walked out of the room after the meeting was over with her head high and her eyes defiant. But she had not gone back.

“I'm just not very interested in the club any more,” she said to Dodie. “Especially when Brenda Peterson is an officer.” Dodie had given her a long, knowing look, but she had not bothered to answer.

 

It was during one of her lonely lunch periods that Lynn had her first conversation with Anne Masters. She had left the cafeteria early and was entering the school building when Anne spoke to her.

Lynn whirled in surprise.

“What?”

“I said hi,” Anne said a little shyly. “I—I wondered how you thought you did on the Spanish quiz.”

“Oh, fairly well, I think,” Lynn answered. “I've been doing a lot of studying lately.”

She turned and looked at Anne. Although she had known the girl casually ever since they had started high school, it was the first time she had really looked at her, and she was a little surprised at what she saw. Anne Masters was not a pretty girl in the accepted sense of the word. She was small and thin, with eyes a little too large in her narrow face and not enough color in her cheeks. But there were other things about her that were quite lovely. There was a clean, honest openness about her face, and a sweet curve to her mouth, and a very feminine daintiness about her movements. She looked back at Lynn and smiled, and there was a quiet friendliness about her that could not be denied.

After a second's hesitation, Lynn came over and sat down beside her on one of the benches in front of the school building.

“How do you think you did?” she asked.

“Oh, passably, but that's all.” Anne wrinkled her nose in an amusing little gesture of distaste. “Spanish isn't my strong subject, I'm afraid. It's funny, because with Clara Marivella living down the street from me, I should speak like a native. Her father's always standing in the doorway and calling things to her.”

“Is Clara's father Spanish?” Lynn was surprised. “I mean, I knew she had a Spanish name, but I thought it was from way back. I didn't know her father actually spoke the language.”

“He and Mrs. Marivella, too,” Anne replied. “Clara says they never speak anything but Spanish at home. Sometimes she'll be chatting away with us girls and she'll throw in a
Spanish phrase without even knowing it. She's so used to speaking it at home that she forgets where Spanish starts and English begins.”

“How fascinating!” Lynn found, to her surprise, that she was really enjoying the conversation. “Why, think how simple Spanish class must be to her! She probably sits there and—”

“Well, hi.” The voice came from close behind her. “Hi, there! Don't tell me the Princess of the Hill deigns to sit here talking to my little sister!”

Dirk Masters stepped around the side of the bench and stood grinning down at them.

Anne glanced up with a flash of anger.

“Dirk, behave yourself! If you can't say something polite to my friends, I'd rather you didn't speak to them at all.”

Lynn's eyes widened in surprise. It was amazing to hear this sweet-faced little girl speaking up without an instant's hesitation to the tough, insolent Dirk Masters. She waited breathlessly for his answering burst of anger, but, to her further surprise, none came. Instead, he grinned at his sister with a kind of pride.

“Simmer down, Sis. Regular spitfire, isn't she?” He turned to Lynn. “I hear you're not making your entrance into society. My sister here isn't going to be a debutante either, you know, but not because she doesn't want to. She wasn't invited. Of course, you don't know what it's like not to be invited to something. When
you
turn something down, it's because you don't want it, not because it doesn't want you.”

His voice was hard, with a deep bitterness.

Anne said, “Dirk, this is ridiculous. There is no reason
for you to make a scene like this about nothing.”

“You think you're so great,” Dirk continued harshly. “You and your superior Hill crowd. My sister would make a classier debutante than any of you.”

Lynn drew back, feeling her own anger rising to the surface. “You don't have to make your rude, nasty remarks to me, Dirk Masters! If you want to talk about the debutante parties, go talk to Brenda Peterson. Her mother is running them, not mine. I don't have a single thing to do with it.”

“And if she did,” Anne put in quickly, “it wouldn't be any of your business, Dirk. Why do you always have to be so rude to people?”

Dirk retorted, “I'm not being rude. I'm just being friendly. I've never had a chance to talk to the Princess of the Hill before. It's a shock to see her mixing it up at our level.” He turned back to Lynn, a mocking light in his eyes. “Well, Princess, since you won't be going to the debutante party this Saturday, how about you and I painting the town together? Or do you think your Hill crowd would ever speak to you again?”

He was laughing at her, baiting her, putting her in a position where she would have to be rude to him in reply.

How bitter he is, Lynn thought.

She raised her eyes and looked Dirk full in the face. It was a handsome face, in a lean, arrogant sort of way. Like Anne, he was thin, and his features were very much like hers, but there was something else too, a kind of hardness that was completely lacking in Anne. His eyes were dark and mocking, and his hair fell forward over his forehead in a careless, rakish way, as though he did not care enough to push it back.

To Lynn's surprise, she felt her heart begin to beat a little faster.

He is handsome, she thought but so tough and insolent and cocky! How I'd love to take him down a peg or two . . . and I know how to do it.

If she had thought, she would never have done it—not really. It was the kind of thing that was fun to think about and to laugh about with the girls, but never, never actually to do. It was with real surprise that Lynn heard her voice saying, coolly and easily, as though it were the least important thing in the world:

“Why, thank you, Dirk, that would be very nice. I'd love to go out with you Saturday night.”

When she thought back upon it later, Lynn decided it was worth it, worth every minute of it, just to see the look of shock upon Dirk's face. He had been standing there grinning at her, waiting to see her wriggle and squirm in an effort to be polite and still refuse his left-handed invitation. Her simple words of acceptance took him completely off guard and left him staring at her in bewilderment.

“What?”

“I said thank you, I'd love to go out with you Saturday. What time will you be by for me?”

“Why, I—I—” Dirk's smile was gone now. “I didn't mean—that is, you—you don't really want to go?”

“Of course, I want to go.” Lynn said sweetly. She knew she should back out now; it was the perfect moment for it but she was too amused by Dirk's discomfort to let the situation drop. “How about eight o'clock? Do you know where I live?”

“Sure,” Dirk said, “I know where you live. But your folks. What will they say? They don't even know me.”

“They'll meet you,” Lynn said, “Saturday night.”

The bell rang, announcing the end of lunch hour and the beginning of afternoon classes. Lynn got to her feet for she knew she could not have continued the conversation a
single moment longer without bursting into laughter and ruining the whole effect. Seeing Dirk embarrassed was so completely out of character!

Now she gave him her brightest smile and joined the crowd moving into the building.

It was funny. Terrifically funny then—and it would have been even more so if there had been someone to share it with, but she could think of no one to tell. Nancy, Joan, Holly—they would all be horrified. A date with Dirk Masters! Why, it was as far out of the question as dating Satan himself.

And the more Lynn thought about it, the less amusing it began to seem to her. Yes, she had succeeded in disconcerting Dirk. The last thing in the world he had ever expected was that he would find himself dating Lynn. But a boy like Dirk would resent being put on a spot. If he had been bitter and resentful of her before, what would he be like now?

The question was not a comforting one.

I never should have gone on with it, Lynn thought. Why didn't I slip out while I could? Now I'm committed, and there's not much I can do about it.

She had not meant to mention the date much beforehand at home, but she was forced to because of Dodie who, for the first time in her live, asked her if she wanted to go to the movies.

“It's a good show,” she said, “a Western. Good reviews and everything.”

Lynn could not believe her ears.

“You want to go to a Western? How come? You never liked them before. And if you do want to go, why aren't you going with Janie?”

Dodie shrugged. “I don't mind a Western once in a while, and I thought you—well, I just thought maybe you'd like to go. It really doesn't matter to me one way or the other.”

Lynn thought, did Mother ask her to go to the movies with me Saturday, in order to give me something to do to keep me from thinking about the dinner dance? It was not like something her mother would do. And yet there did not seem to be any other answer. She and Dodie never went to the movies together.

“Thanks,” she said now, “but I can't. I've got a date.”

“A date?” Dodie said in surprise. “Who on earth are you dating, with Paul away at college and all the eligible fellows at the debutante dance?”

“Dirk Masters.”

“Who?” Dodie stared at her in amazement. “You're joking!”

“No,” Lynn said, “I'm not joking. I really do have a date with him. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?”

“Why, he's a juvenile delinquent!” Dodie exclaimed. “He's already been in trouble a couple of times with the police. He's wild and he runs around with a terrible crowd. How can you possibly—” Then, suddenly, a look of understanding crossed her face. “Oh, I see what you're doing. You can't date the Hill fellows because they're all at the deb parties, so you'll date the other extreme. Let Daddy meet Dirk once, and he'll be begging you to get back with the old Hill crowd again.”

There was admiration in her voice at the cleverness of the plan, but a note of contempt, too.

“It's smart, Lynn, but it doesn't sound like you.”

“Why, that wasn't my idea at all!” Lynn protested. But even as she said it, her mind slid along Dodie's words, seeing the possibilities. She had not consciously planned for her date with Dirk to have this effect on her parents, but perhaps it would, at that. And if it did, certainly she would not be sorry.

When Saturday evening finally arrived, Lynn found herself dressing with as much care as she had ever shown on her most exciting date with Paul. She had selected her tan wool dress with the three-quarter length sleeves and gold belt, the dark brown suede pumps with medium high heels. It was a good outfit, simple and striking, and she hoped that Dirk, who had never seen her except in a school dress or a skirt and sweater, would be overwhelmed.

He's always making remarks about my being as snooty as a princess, Lynn thought, brushing her blonde hair back into a shining pony tail. Well, all right, let him see what it feels like to date a princess. I'll be just as gracious and charming as can be, the way a real princess always is with her subjects, but I'm going to dress in good taste and look like the kind of a person I am, not like the flashy girls he's probably used to dating.

She finished dressing just as the doorbell rang.

He's here!

And it was then that Lynn realized that, underneath, she had been half-expecting Dirk to back out of their date. She knew he had not meant for her to accept—that the whole situation was not at all what he wanted. She had not talked to him since he had asked her. She had passed him in the hall every once in a while, but he had always avoided her eyes and never once stopped to speak to her, to confirm
their date. So, although she had dressed carefully for this evening and was, for all practical purposes, expecting him to arrive, she would not really have been surprised if he had not.

Now, with the sound of the bell, came the realization—he's here! He's actually here!

And with it came a wave of panic.

It was like nothing she had experienced with Paul. Oh, she had been excited about dating Paul. When Paul rang the bell, she felt a quickening, a leap of happiness, a kind of singing inside. But never panic. Paul, even when she first met him, was dear and familiar because he was very much like Ernie and the boys Ernie went around with. Paul's father and Dr. Chambers were in Rotary together. Paul's mother was in Mrs. Chambers' bridge club. She knew Paul—the kind of places he would take her, the way he would feel about things, the things he would talk about—because they came from the same world.

Dirk did not.

But I can't stay here all night, Lynn told herself firmly, giving herself one last look in the mirror. Tonight may be perfectly horrible, but at least it is just one evening. You can stand anything for one evening. I was foolish to get myself into this, but four hours from now it will be over and I'll never have to look at or speak to him again.