Read Online Lily of the Springs by Carole Bellacera - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carole Bellacera
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gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
September 1952
Louisville, Kentucky
T he clacking of typewriters sounded like a bunch of lovesick cicadas ratcheting up for a long night of courting. I kept my eyes on the hand-out clipped to the stand at the side of my Royal typewriter, and cautiously pecked on the keys.
“Now is the time for all good men to…”
Around me, the other typewriters sounded like they were going a thousand times faster than mine. All the other girls were experts already, I thought, chewing on my bottom lip. My typewriter dinged as it approached the margin, and I slammed the carriage to the left, then continued to type. I reached the end of the paragraph and rolled up the paper so I could read what I’d typed.
Now os rhe rme gor a;gii ,et t’k;
I slumped in my chair. Darn! I’d done it again. Why couldn’t I keep my dratted fingers on the right dadburned keys? Oh, this was impossible!
I clenched my teeth, trying to hold back a frustrated groan. Dadgummit, I was just awful at this! Whatever had made me think I could be a secretary, anyhow? It wasn’t turning out at all the way I’d imagined.
I furtively glanced around at the other girls. They all seemed to be doing just fine. Their long, slender fingers were tapping on the keys, so elegantly, so effortlessly , like they were already professional secretaries instead of students.
I sighed, and my thoughts drifted to home. What was Mother doing right now? It was almost ten o’clock on a Thursday morning. Maybe she’d be putting up apple butter for the winter, which meant she’d probably be frying up some of her scrumptious apple turnover pies. My mouth watered, and I swallowed hard, wincing at the scratchiness in my throat that had been with me since I’d got up this morning. I sure hoped I wasn’t coming down with a cold. That would be just perfect! Trying to type, and having to stop every few minutes to blow my dratted nose.
My mind strayed back to Mother’s fried apple pies. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a bite of one of them right now. Aunt Jenny was a good cook, but she didn’t make down home recipes like Mother did.
Home .
To my horror, tears blurred my vision as the ache of homesickness surged through my chest, as it had almost every day since I’d left Russell County. I might as well just face it; I didn’t belong up here in the city. And I’d known it from the very beginning.
Oh, the first few days had been exciting, with Aunt Jenny driving me all around Louieville, going to lunch in restaurants as fancy as the ones in the movies, and shopping at big department stores like JC Penney’s and Grant’s. It had been an adventure at first. But as soon as school started, everything changed.
The other girls were so different from me. They were mostly city girls and they wore nice clothes and perfect hairdos and seemed so worldly and…s ophisticated !
From the very beginning, I’d felt like an outsider, and that hadn’t changed now that we were in our second week of training. During the breaks, the other girls clustered together as if they’d been friends forever, chatting about the same kind of things my friends in high school had talked about—boyfriends, movie idols, nail color shades. But not one of them had approached me. And I, who’d always been so popular and outgoing back at Russell County High School, had found myself too shy to make the first move. So, I’d spent the breaks alone, sipping stale coffee from a paper cup and pretending to be interested in the latest copy of Life Magazine in the break room.
I inserted a new sheet of paper into the typewriter, and placing my fingers carefully on the correct keys, began to type slowly. Once I fell into a rhythm, my mind began to wander again. This time, to Jake.
My heart twinged. Was he working at the gas station this morning? Or was he still home in bed after a night of drinking with his buddies? My fingers froze on the keys. Maybe drinking wasn’t all he was doing at
CHAPTER SEVEN
September 1952
Louisville, Kentucky
T he clacking of typewriters sounded like a bunch of lovesick cicadas ratcheting up for a long night of courting. I kept my eyes on the hand-out clipped to the stand at the side of my Royal typewriter, and cautiously pecked on the keys.
“Now is the time for all good men to…”
Around me, the other typewriters sounded like they were going a thousand times faster than mine. All the other girls were experts already, I thought, chewing on my bottom lip. My typewriter dinged as it approached the margin, and I slammed the carriage to the left, then continued to type. I reached the end of the paragraph and rolled up the paper so I could read what I’d typed.
Now os rhe rme gor a;gii ,et t’k;
I slumped in my chair. Darn! I’d done it again. Why couldn’t I keep my dratted fingers on the right dadburned keys? Oh, this was impossible!
I clenched my teeth, trying to hold back a frustrated groan. Dadgummit, I was just awful at this! Whatever had made me think I could be a secretary, anyhow? It wasn’t turning out at all the way I’d imagined.
I furtively glanced around at the other girls. They all seemed to be doing just fine. Their long, slender fingers were tapping on the keys, so elegantly, so effortlessly , like they were already professional secretaries instead of students.
I sighed, and my thoughts drifted to home. What was Mother doing right now? It was almost ten o’clock on a Thursday morning. Maybe she’d be putting up apple butter for the winter, which meant she’d probably be frying up some of her scrumptious apple turnover pies. My mouth watered, and I swallowed hard, wincing at the scratchiness in my throat that had been with me since I’d got up this morning. I sure hoped I wasn’t coming down with a cold. That would be just perfect! Trying to type, and having to stop every few minutes to blow my dratted nose.
My mind strayed back to Mother’s fried apple pies. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a bite of one of them right now. Aunt Jenny was a good cook, but she didn’t make down home recipes like Mother did.
Home .
To my horror, tears blurred my vision as the ache of homesickness surged through my chest, as it had almost every day since I’d left Russell County. I might as well just face it; I didn’t belong up here in the city. And I’d known it from the very beginning.
Oh, the first few days had been exciting, with Aunt Jenny driving me all around Louieville, going to lunch in restaurants as fancy as the ones in the movies, and shopping at big department stores like JC Penney’s and Grant’s. It had been an adventure at first. But as soon as school started, everything changed.
The other girls were so different from me. They were mostly city girls and they wore nice clothes and perfect hairdos and seemed so worldly and…s ophisticated !
From the very beginning, I’d felt like an outsider, and that hadn’t changed now that we were in our second week of training. During the breaks, the other girls clustered together as if they’d been friends forever, chatting about the same kind of things my friends in high school had talked about—boyfriends, movie idols, nail color shades. But not one of them had approached me. And I, who’d always been so popular and outgoing back at Russell County High School, had found myself too shy to make the first move. So, I’d spent the breaks alone, sipping stale coffee from a paper cup and pretending to be interested in the latest copy of Life Magazine in the break room.
I inserted a new sheet of paper into the typewriter, and placing my fingers carefully on the correct keys, began to type slowly. Once I fell into a rhythm, my mind began to wander again. This time, to Jake.
My heart twinged. Was he working at the gas station this morning? Or was he still home in bed after a night of drinking with his buddies? My fingers froze on the keys. Maybe drinking wasn’t all he was doing at
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