Debutante Hill (7 page)

Taking a deep breath, she turned away from the mirror and went downstairs.

Dirk was sitting in the big chair in the living room, talking to Dr. Chambers. He was dressed neatly, Lynn noticed at once, in a good quality sports shirt and freshly pressed slacks. His hair was combed back from his forehead
with care. He looked clean and handsome and rather nervous, perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair, trying to make conversation. When Lynn came in, he looked up in relief.

“Hello!” Lynn swept down the bottom steps with all the princess-like grace she could muster. “How are you, Dirk? I see you've met my father.”

“Yes,” Dr. Chambers said, rising as his daughter came toward them. “We find we have some acquaintances in common—the Turners. Dirk says they live a few houses down from him.”

“Oh?” Lynn gave Dirk a charming smile. “How nice.”

Seeing Dr. Chambers rise, Dirk got up too, standing uncomfortably with his hands in his pockets.

“Are you ready to go now?”

“Yes,” Lynn said, “all ready.”

Her father gave her a pat on the shoulder and held out his hand to Dirk.

“I'm glad to have met you, Dirk. Have a nice evening and drive carefully.”

Dirk flushed slightly. “I will, sir. Thank you.” Lynn could not remember ever seeing him so subdued.

Once they were out of the house, however, the awkwardness seemed to slide off him and the old Dirk began to reappear. He gave her a flash of the sardonic smile she knew so well.

“You look real neat tonight, Princess! Are all those fancy clothes just for me?”

“You didn't say where we were going,” Lynn answered pleasantly, “so I wasn't sure what to wear. I thought this was a happy medium.”

“That's right I said ‘paint the town' but I didn't say where. Well ...” He hesitated. “What about a movie to start with? There's a good show at the State. Then we can go on from there.”

“Fine!”

There was a car parked by the curb. Dirk walked over and opened the door.

“Climb in. Hope this is classy enough for you.”

Lynn got in, choking down her surprise. The car was a brand new Chevrolet convertible.

She asked, “Is this yours? It's a beautiful car. I've never seen you drive it to school.”

“No, I don't take it to school.” Dirk slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. He seemed anxious to change the subject. “Your dad's nice. I thought he'd be different. It's funny, him knowing the Turner kids.”

“He's their doctor,” Lynn said. “He took care of Mr. Turner while he was alive, and now he takes care of the children. He got the oldest boy a job in a drugstore. He says he's a grand boy.”

“Ronnie? Yes, he's a nice enough kid, I guess.” Dirk turned the car off the Hill Road and drove toward town. “But he's not very smart.”

“Why, Daddy seemed to think he was awfully smart. He makes top grades in school and holds a job and—”

“Oh, sure, he's smart in schoolwork, but that's no test of a guy's brains. There he is, wearing himself out at that darned drugstore every day, all afternoon on weekdays and all day long on Saturdays, and what does he get for it? Thirty dollars a week, maybe. Probably less.”

“Well, thirty dollars is thirty dollars,” Lynn said. “It sounds fine to me.”

Dirk shrugged his shoulders. “It's an awful lot of work for peanuts.”

They drove on in silence until they reached the State Theater.

The movie was the Western that Dodie had suggested seeing. The theater was a nice one. Lynn had been there many times with the girls and with Paul, and she automatically turned down the aisle toward the left-hand middle section where the Hill crowd always sat. She was surprised when Dirk caught her arm.

“Come on, let's sit in the balcony.”

“In the balcony? Why? You don't see nearly as well there.”

“Sure, you do. That's where the gang always sits.”

Lynn hesitated and then turned to follow him up the stairs to the balcony. If by ‘the gang' he meant the older crowd he seemed to run around with, she would just as soon not sit with them. But after all, she was Dirk's guest and it was up to him to say where they would go. Besides, she was going to be a princess this evening, gracious and charming, or die in the attempt!

Once they reached the balcony, Lynn felt as though she were in a separate world. There was a rustle of people moving as they approached, and somebody called, “Hey, Masters, come sit over here! Who's the chicken tonight?”

Dirk took her arm and steered her down an aisle to a group of seats where some young people were sitting. Straining to see them in the darkened theater, Lynn thought she recognized one of the group as the plump, blonde girl who sat in the last row in English class, but she was not sure. She did not think she recognized any of the others.

Dirk steered her into an empty seat and sat down beside her. To her relief, he did not introduce her with any of his sarcastic remarks. He merely said, “This is Lynn Chambers.”

“Lynn Chambers!” Lynn may not have known the crowd, but they seemed to know her. “You mean
the
Lynn Chambers! Well, for crying out loud, Masters, you're mixing with royalty!”

The plump girl gave Lynn a shy smile.

“I'm Greta Burly. You probably don't know me, but I'm in your English class.”

“Of course, I know you,” Lynn said politely. “You sit in the last row.”

The girl beamed. “Why, I never thought you noticed!”

The boy she was with threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. “Hey, either concentrate on the picture or on me. Save your female jabber till later.”

Lynn turned her own attention to the picture. It was difficult, for despite what Dirk said, the balcony was far from a choice spot for viewing. Everyone in the balcony seemed to be smoking, and within a few minutes, Lynn felt her eyes burning. Behind them, several couples were giggling, and, after a moment, there was a muffed sound that Lynn glance over her shoulder in alarm. She turned back again, her face burning.

Beside her, Dirk chuckled. “What's the matter, didn't you ever see people kiss each other before?”

“Not in public like that,” Lynn whispered back scornfully.

“Well, kid, you're learning new things every day.”

With an effort, Lynn focused her attention on the
screen and managed to keep it there through the rest of the picture, determinedly ignoring all sounds from the seats behind or to the side of her.

It was a relief when the picture ended and they got up to leave.

“Where are we going now?”

It seemed they were now part of the gang. Everyone assumed they would be going somewhere together.

Someone suggested, “What about Charlie's?”

“O.K., fine.”

Dirk said, “I've got a car tonight; we'll meet you over there. Anybody want a ride?”

The boy who was with Greta Burly said, “Sure, we'll ride with you. I want to see that buggy make some time.”

They stumbled together down the stairs from the balcony, shoved and trampled by the masses of people moving in the same direction. And then, a few moments later, they were in the car, Greta and her date in the back seat, and Lynn beside Dirk in the front. She said, “Where is Charlie's? I don't think I've ever heard of it.”

“It's a good place.” Greta said. “It's where all the gang goes.”

Dirk swung the car out of the city traffic and onto the River Road. He began to drive fast. The wind sang past the windows. The boy in the back seat gave a crow of delight “Say, this is the greatest! Don't you wish you had a buggy like this?”

But
isn't
it Dirk's? Lynn thought in surprise. She watched the needle creeping across the speedometer with apprehension. Fifty-five . . . sixty . . . sixty-five. She thought, I won't say anything. Greta and her date are in the car just
as much as I am. I'm not going to be the one to be a coward about this.

Seventy . . . seventy-five. The wind was a wild shriek on all sides of them.

Lynn glanced beseechingly at Greta in the back seat, but she could not see the girl, only a blur. Then she heard a whisper, a muffled giggle. She realized that Greta and her date were not noticing the speedometer any more; they were too wrapped up in each other.

Lynn turned back to see the needle at the far right of the speedometer. She gave a gasp, all her pride leaving her in a sharp surge of panic.

“Dirk, please! Please slow down! We'll all be killed!”

Dirk glanced down at her. He was grinning.

“Scared, Princess?”

“Yes, I'm scared,” Lynn gasped. “Please, please, Dirk, don't be so crazy! You promised Daddy you'd drive carefully. You know you did!”

There was a giggle from the back seat as Greta evidently came up for air long enough to catch this remark.

“He did what?”

“He promised my father he'd be careful driving.”

Greta's date leaned forward. “Hey, did you really, Masters? Did the doc sit you down and give you a book of instructions before he let you take his darling daughter out?”

He was laughing, and Greta was too, as though it were the biggest joke in the world.

Lynn felt her face growing hot with fury. She waited for Dirk to come up with a similar remark, but he did not. Instead, to her surprise, he took his foot off the accelerator and let the car coast to a slower speed. Then he turned to
the right, into a driveway, and came to a full stop in front of a small lighted building.

“Here we are . . . Charlie's.” Dirk threw open his door and got out Lynn waited a moment to see if he was coming around to open hers, and when he did not she opened it herself and climbed out slamming the door angrily behind her.

Of all the rude things, she thought almost as irritated as she had been about the speeding. Why, Paul would never in the world get out of a car and walk off, leaving me to trail along by myself. It's just not the way a boy acts on a date.

Then she realized that Greta too was climbing out of her own side of the car and shutting the door behind her. The two boys were standing together by the front of the car, waiting for the girls to join than.

Lynn felt her anger diminish slightly.

He didn't mean to be rude, she thought. He just doesn't know any better. This must be the way his crowd acts.

As she caught up with him, Dirk took her arm and steered her through the door into the place known as Charlie's.

The moment she was inside, Lynn knew it was not the kind of place she ought to be in. Charlie's was a bar, purely and simply, and did not even pretend to be anything else. There was a juke box playing in one comer, a long counter lined with stools, and a row of booths around the outside. There were several people at the counter, and three of the booths were filled. The far booth, over by the juke box, seemed to be the meeting place for Dirk's crowd, for there were already several couples there. Lynn recognized among them a girl who had been at the movies with them. She and the boy she was with half-rose, beckoning to Dirk, and he turned toward them, drawing Lynn along with him.

“Hi there, Masters! We beat you!”

“You wouldn't have,” Greta's date said loudly, “if Miss Chambers here hadn't thrown a fit on the way. It seems her father forbids her dates to drive at their own rate of speed. He makes them sign a statement that they will keep under thirty-five miles per hour at all times.”

Everyone at the table roared.

Dirk hesitated a moment. Then he said in a rather flat voice, “That's all right. My dad's like that with Anne.”

The laughter died a little. One of the boys said, “Oh, come off it, Masters. Your old man doesn't give a darn what you kids do.”

“He does about Anne,” Dirk said quietly. “Anne's a good girl, and don't let me hear you try to make her sound like anything else.” He sat down at the edge of the booth, shoving the boy next to him over to make room, and motioned for Lynn to sit down beside him. “What'll you have?”

Lynn sat down, feeling out of place in her tan dress and pumps with heels. The other girls were dressed informally. One girl even had on slacks and a tight-fitting T-shirt.

“A Coke,” Lynn said quietly to Dirk, hoping the others would not overhear her and find something else to laugh about.

“Just a Coke?”

“Yes, please.”

Surprisingly, Dirk did not try to talk her into having anything else.

“O.K., a Coke it is.”

He turned away from her to the group, who were laughing about something. One of the girls was telling a story in a high, shrill voice. The boys kept interrupting her to add comments of their own. Lynn thought the story might have
been amusing if it had been about people she knew, but, as it was, she did not recognize any of the names or places mentioned, and she could not become interested. The comments from the boys did not make much sense to her, nor did the laughter when the story was over.

The drinks arrived, and she seized her Coke gratefully. With a glass to hold in her hand, she did not feel quite so uncomfortably out of things. To her relief, she saw that Dirk had ordered a Coke, too.

“What's the matter, Masters?” one of the boys asked. “Don't tell me you're on the wagon?”

“For tonight I am,” Dirk answered quietly.

On the far side of the table, the girl with the shrill voice began another story.

There was a clock with flourescent hands over the bar. Sitting, facing it, Lynn thought she had never seen time move so slowly. The stories went on and on in a kind of monotonous hum, first one girl telling one and then another. The boys began to talk about automobiles. Lynn, who was never interested in automobiles, even when Paul was talking about them, transferred her attention to Greta, who was sitting across from her.