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Authors: Maureen Daly
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on the cool grass in my new sprigged dimity with the little blue and white bachelor’s buttons pinned in my hair, Jack kissed me and his lips were as smooth and baby-soft as a new raspberry.
The night was so still I hardly noticed the small breeze that brushed past us, as soft and silent as a pussy willow.
That’s the funny thing about Fond du Lac. It isn’t such a small town—we have at least eight churches, three theaters, and a YMCA—but everyone seems to know everything about everyone else. Early Saturday morning Mrs. Callahan called over from her back garden to my mother who was cutting flowers, “Did Angie have a nice time at the dance last night?” and then I saw her walking up her garden path and my mother walking down ours to talk it over.
At noon I heard Margaret on the phone saying, “Why, yes. She had very much fun. He’s rather young but nice, I think.She’s been out with him a couple of times before.” Everyone seemed to know.
Probably if I’d walked into McKnight’s that afternoon girls I had never even met would look up and say to each other, “That’s the girl Jack Duluth has been taking out!” It’s funny what a boy can do. One day you’re nobody and the next day you’re the girl that some fellow goes with and the other fellows look at you harder and wonder what you’ve got and wish that they’d been the one to take you out first. And the girls say hello and want you to walk down to the drugstore to have Cokes with them because the boy who likes you might come along and he might have other boys with him. Going with a boy gives you a new identity—especially going with a fellow like Jack Duluth.
Lorraine and I were talking about it the night after the dance. Jack works late Saturday nights so I hadn’t even hoped to see him. Kitty goes to bed by seven-thirty and Lorraine and I were alone. “It’s different when you go away to school,” she had said to me. “You seem to have a broader outlook. Most of the girls in town here have nothing to think about but fellows—they just get out of high school, work in the dime store or something for a year or two, and then get married. They don’t have anything else to think about!”
She was sitting in her flowered seersucker house coat with her hair twisted in curlers. It was only half dark outside and we were in the living room with the lights off, listening to the radio and enjoying the stillness of the house. I wasn’t really listeningto her—warm, slow thoughts of last night kept brushing through my mind and sending tingles up my spine. “You know,” Lorraine went on, “there are girls who graduated with me from high school who have babies two or three years old already and I’m not even through college!”
I didn’t quite get the connection but didn’t want to say so. By not listening hard I thought maybe I had missed the first part. “Like my date last night,” she continued.
“What about him?” I asked.
“Well, lots of girls in this town would be crazy to go out with him.” I looked at her to see if she was really serious—Lorraine doesn’t usually talk that way. “But,” she went on, “I don’t even care if I see him again or not. He’s a good dancer and everything but I’ve just got other things to do. Of course,” she added with condescension, “it was nice of Art to bring him up, but it wasn’t as if I had to have a date—it’s such a short time since I was in Chicago and I know boys down there….”
We sat saying nothing for a while, me thinking about Jack and she thinking about I don’t know what. Occasionally a car went down the street past the house, its headlights making a sweep of light before it. The dog, Kinkee, came into the living room and stretched out on the rug, settling her nose on her paws with a contented sigh. Lorraine reached over and twisted the radio dial to dance music. “You know,” she said suddenly with unexpected emphasis, “there is nothing I dislike so much as
The night was so still I hardly noticed the small breeze that brushed past us, as soft and silent as a pussy willow.
That’s the funny thing about Fond du Lac. It isn’t such a small town—we have at least eight churches, three theaters, and a YMCA—but everyone seems to know everything about everyone else. Early Saturday morning Mrs. Callahan called over from her back garden to my mother who was cutting flowers, “Did Angie have a nice time at the dance last night?” and then I saw her walking up her garden path and my mother walking down ours to talk it over.
At noon I heard Margaret on the phone saying, “Why, yes. She had very much fun. He’s rather young but nice, I think.She’s been out with him a couple of times before.” Everyone seemed to know.
Probably if I’d walked into McKnight’s that afternoon girls I had never even met would look up and say to each other, “That’s the girl Jack Duluth has been taking out!” It’s funny what a boy can do. One day you’re nobody and the next day you’re the girl that some fellow goes with and the other fellows look at you harder and wonder what you’ve got and wish that they’d been the one to take you out first. And the girls say hello and want you to walk down to the drugstore to have Cokes with them because the boy who likes you might come along and he might have other boys with him. Going with a boy gives you a new identity—especially going with a fellow like Jack Duluth.
Lorraine and I were talking about it the night after the dance. Jack works late Saturday nights so I hadn’t even hoped to see him. Kitty goes to bed by seven-thirty and Lorraine and I were alone. “It’s different when you go away to school,” she had said to me. “You seem to have a broader outlook. Most of the girls in town here have nothing to think about but fellows—they just get out of high school, work in the dime store or something for a year or two, and then get married. They don’t have anything else to think about!”
She was sitting in her flowered seersucker house coat with her hair twisted in curlers. It was only half dark outside and we were in the living room with the lights off, listening to the radio and enjoying the stillness of the house. I wasn’t really listeningto her—warm, slow thoughts of last night kept brushing through my mind and sending tingles up my spine. “You know,” Lorraine went on, “there are girls who graduated with me from high school who have babies two or three years old already and I’m not even through college!”
I didn’t quite get the connection but didn’t want to say so. By not listening hard I thought maybe I had missed the first part. “Like my date last night,” she continued.
“What about him?” I asked.
“Well, lots of girls in this town would be crazy to go out with him.” I looked at her to see if she was really serious—Lorraine doesn’t usually talk that way. “But,” she went on, “I don’t even care if I see him again or not. He’s a good dancer and everything but I’ve just got other things to do. Of course,” she added with condescension, “it was nice of Art to bring him up, but it wasn’t as if I had to have a date—it’s such a short time since I was in Chicago and I know boys down there….”
We sat saying nothing for a while, me thinking about Jack and she thinking about I don’t know what. Occasionally a car went down the street past the house, its headlights making a sweep of light before it. The dog, Kinkee, came into the living room and stretched out on the rug, settling her nose on her paws with a contented sigh. Lorraine reached over and twisted the radio dial to dance music. “You know,” she said suddenly with unexpected emphasis, “there is nothing I dislike so much as
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