Fifteen Read online

  The telephone rang. Stan! cried Jane’s heart, as she stepped on a spool, caught herself on the edge of the draining board, and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” she said, cautiously this time.

  “Oh, hello, Marilyn,” said a woman’s voice. “I just wanted to tell you I went downtown this morning, and Penney’s is having the most wonderful sale of children’s corduroy overalls. You know—the kind with snaps. These were so cute, because the knees were padded and quilted in designs like ducks and kittens, and when I saw them I thought, I must call Marilyn, because I’m sure she’ll want to buy some for Patsy.”

  “Excuse me,” said Jane, her voice heavy with disappointment. “This is not Mrs. Scruggs. This is her sitter.”

  “Oh. Excuse me,” apologized the woman. “Isn’t that funny? I could have sworn it was Marilyn Scruggs who answered.”

  “Could I take a message?” asked Jane, wilted because the call was not from Stan. By now he had started his Doggie Diner route, but he could easily telephone from a drugstore between stops.

  “No, thanks,” said the woman. “I’ll call back.”

  Once more the line was free for Stan. Jane heard the sound of a drawer opening behind her and turned just in time to see Patsy fill both hands with sugar and fling it onto the kitchen floor. She bubbled forth a laugh of sheer delight as she slid her little feet across the floor through the gritty sugar.

  “Patsy!” cried Jane, and then told herself she might as well save her breath. It was her own fault. She should have remembered to replace the yardstick and she should not have turned her back for one instant. She would not think about the telephone anymore. Then it would be sure to ring.

  Somehow Jane managed to pick up the spools, sweep up the sugar, prepare Patsy’s lunch, install her in her high chair, and get her started eating, partly with a spoon and partly with her fingers. With one hand Jane ate a cheese sandwich and drank a glass of milk and with the other she assisted Patsy in finding her mouth, and all the time she wondered where Stan was on his route. The Doberman’s house? The boxer’s house? Or had he reached the gray poodle’s house yet?

  “Blah, blah, black sheep,” said Patsy, dribbling applesauce down her chin.

  “Have you any wool?” prompted Jane.

  Patsy squished applesauce around in her mouth and studied Jane. “No,” she answered, and Jane laughed.

  When Jane finished her own lunch she used both hands to help Patsy get the applesauce into her mouth and find the bunnies in the bottom of her dish. She was about to wipe the little girl’s face with a damp washcloth and find a rag for mopping up the food spilled on the floor when the telephone rang again. This time it had to be Stan. The third time was the charm. Jane snatched up the telephone and said breathlessly, “Hello?”

  “Hello, Jane,” said Mrs. Scruggs. “I’m just leaving the dentist’s office and I’ll be home in about fifteen minutes. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine, Mrs. Scruggs,” answered Jane, disappointed a third time. “Patsy has just finished her lunch.”

  “I want to talk,” cried Patsy from her high chair.

  “Let her say hello,” said Mrs. Scruggs. “She loves to talk on the telephone.”

  With a sigh, Jane plucked the chubby little girl from her high chair and carried her to the telephone. “Say hello to Mommy,” she directed.

  Patsy grasped the telephone with both hands. “I’m fine,” she shouted into the mouthpiece before her mother had time to speak to her. “I’m fine.”

  It took Jane several minutes to separate Patsy from the telephone—the minutes, she was sure, in which Stan was trying to reach her. She dampened the washcloth again under the faucet, and while she wiped applesauce from Patsy’s face and from the telephone she decided Stan might not want to call her at a stranger’s house. Perhaps he was waiting until later in the afternoon, when he was sure she would be at home.

  It was not long before the front door opened and Mrs. Scruggs came in. “Hello, Jane,” she said, snatching Patsy in her arms. “How’s Mommy’s ’ittle s’eetheart?” she cried. “How’s Mommy’s ’ittle s’eetheart? Have you been a good girl while Mommy was away?”

  Patsy laughed and buried her face in her mother’s neck. Mrs. Scruggs set the little girl down and reached for her purse. Jane glanced at her watch and saw that she had been sitting only an hour and a half. It had seemed longer. Mrs. Scruggs handed Jane seventy-five cents and Jane thanked her. The Scruggses, Jane knew, did not have much money for babysitters.

  “Mrs. Scruggs, if anyone telephones for me, would you say I’ll be home in about five minutes?” Jane asked.

  “Of course, Jane.” Mrs. Scruggs smiled understandingly. “Especially if someone is a boy.”

  Jane left as quickly as she could and all but ran home, because she did not want to be away from a telephone an instant longer than necessary. When she entered her own house she found her mother telephoning her grocery list. “A quart of mayonnaise…a large bottle of vanilla…a box of Kleenex…oh, all right, send me two…a large box of oatmeal…yes, the quick-cooking kind…”

  Hurry, Mom, thought Jane. Stan may be trying to call me between deliveries this very instant. He won’t have much time.

  “Do you have any nice cross-rib roasts?” Mrs. Purdy went on. “Good. Send me one about four, no, about five pounds…and a pound of lean bacon…. Let me see. Yes, I think that’s all for today.”

  Thank goodness, thought Jane as her mother hung up. Now Stan could reach her.

  “Hello, Jane,” said Mrs. Purdy, her hand still on the telephone. “I know I forgot something. What could it be?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. It sounded as if you ordered everything,” answered Jane, wishing her mother would get away from the telephone.

  “Oh, I know.” Jane’s mother dialed a number, as if she had nothing to do the rest of the day. “Hello, this is Mrs. Purdy again. I’m sorry, but I forgot the most important item on my list. A pound of lamb liver for the cat…yes, that’s right, we can’t forget him. He’s the most important member of the family. At least that’s what he thinks.” She laughed comfortably before she hung up.

  It’s about time, thought Jane. Now maybe Stan can reach me. She went into her room and pulled her back-scratcher out from under the pile of sweaters in the drawer and tied it to the edge of her mirror once more. She changed into her yellow cotton dress, in case Stan dropped by instead of telephoning, and tried brushing her hair down close to her head to see how she would look with a sleek new haircut. Awful, she decided. Sort of forlorn and underfed. She fluffed up her hair again and renewed her lipstick, carefully outlining her mouth with the lipstick brush. Then she got out her paper sack of yarn and cast on seventy-six stitches to start an Argyle sock.

  “Jane, would you go out and move the hose?” Mrs. Purdy asked. “It’s been running on the fuchsias long enough.”

  “Okay,” said Jane. She left the front door open, in case the telephone should ring, and ran down the front steps. She turned off the water, moved the sprinkler to another corner of the lawn, turned on the water, and ran back into the house. The telephone had not rung.

  As the afternoon wore on, Jane began to feel that something must be wrong. Stan had been delayed on his route. He had had a flat tire. Or, as sometimes happened, the boxer had followed the truck so far he had been obliged to return the dog to its home and tie it up. Or maybe the telephone was out of order. Or the other party on their line was talking. Quietly Jane slipped to the telephone and slid the receiver off the hook. The dial tone buzzed busily in her ear. With a sigh, she replaced the receiver. She wished the line had been out of order. Then she would know why Stan had not called. I guess a watched telephone never rings, she thought gloomily, as she went back to her knitting. Doubt began to creep into her mind. Maybe she had misunderstood. She had not actually heard Stan say he would telephone. Perhaps she had made him so angry he would never call her again. Perhaps—but she could not bring herself to believe it.

  At a quar
ter to five the telephone rang, startling Jane so that she dropped six stitches and tripped on the edge of the rug before she could answer it. “Hello?” She tried to keep eagerness out of her voice.

  “I have good news for you!” exclaimed a man’s voice enthusiastically.

  Jane was surprised. Good news for her? Who could be calling with good news for her?

  “You have been chosen to receive one of our special gift offers of one nine-by-twelve tinted photograph with any order of ten dollars or more at Sherwood’s Photography Studio!” The voice bubbled with enthusiasm.

  “No, thank you. I’m not interested,” said Jane dully, and hung up. He has good news for me, she thought ironically. That’s what he thinks. The only good news she wanted was Stan’s call. The minutes began to drag.

  By five thirty Jane knew that Stan had finished his route long ago and was home by now. She had to face the unpleasant truth. Stan was not going to telephone. She could make excuses no longer. She felt tired, let down, worn out by anticipation. Wearily she set the table for her mother, her thoughts still filled with Stan. The happiness she had felt earlier in the day was gone, replaced by doubt and confusion. She laid a fresh napkin at each place. She must have been mistaken about Stan’s set look, the pallor beneath his tan. He had not been hurt at all. He was angry and disgusted with her for having acted like a silly, impetuous fifteen-year-old. And she did not blame him one bit. He had been so sorry about the dance and had wanted her to be the first girl to ride in his car, and then she had acted that way. How dumb can I get, she asked herself bitterly, just exactly how dumb?

  Jane ate her dinner in silence. Sir Puss, who had dry adobe mud clinging to his paws, walked with a clicking sound across the bare floor between the living-room and dining-room rugs.

  “That cat makes entirely too much noise pussyfooting around this house,” said Mr. Purdy.

  Jane responded to her father’s joke with a wan smile.

  Mr. Purdy tried again. “Well, I hear the horse-meat king came to call this morning,” he said jovially.

  “Pop, please!” implored Jane. “Mom, would you excuse me? I really don’t care for any dessert.”

  “Yes, of course, Jane,” said Mrs. Purdy.

  “Now what’s wrong with her?” Jane heard her father ask as she fled the room.

  “The same old thing,” answered Mrs. Purdy. “Love.”

  You’d think people who had been young once would be more understanding, Jane thought, as she sat down on her bed and picked up her knitting. Slowly she pulled out the needles and one by one began to undo the stitches she had knit that afternoon. Apathetically she wound the frayed yarn into a ball. She did not know what to do now.

  Jane wondered what she would do about Stan if she were some other girl. If she were the kind of girl who went to school with her hair in pin curls, she would probably telephone the disc jockey at Station KWOO and ask him to play Love Me on Monday to Stan from Jane. If she were intellectual like Liz, she would probably say that dancing and riding around in a model-A Ford were boring or middlebrow or something, and spend the evening writing haikus for Manuscript. Or if she were the earnest type, she would write a letter to Teen Corner in the newspaper. The letter would begin, “Dear Ann Benedict, I wonder if you could help me solve a problem. Recently I met a boy…” If she were the cashmere sweater type, like Marcy, she would date several other boys and forget Stan.

  But Jane was not any of these girls. She was Jane Purdy, an ordinary girl who was no type at all. She was neither earnest nor intellectual, and she certainly wasn’t the kind of girl the boys flocked around. She was just a girl who liked to have a good time, who made reasonably good grades at school, and who still liked a boy who had once liked her. There was nothing wrong with that.

  All right, then why didn’t she act that way, Jane asked herself, instead of trying to toss her hair around like Marcy the minute she got to ride in a boy’s car with the top down. If she had not been trying to act like Marcy, she would never have closed her eyes and lifted her lips for Buzz to kiss.

  Jane sat toying with the ball of yarn and thinking about Marcy. Why, she did not even like the girl. Not really. She did not like girls who acted bored and who made other girls feel uncomfortable. She liked girls who were friendly and interested in others. Then why, Jane asked herself, did she try to act like someone she did not like? Maybe she didn’t have a lot of sun streaks in her hair or a drawer full of cashmere sweaters, but a nice boy like Stan had liked her once and Buzz had wanted to kiss her, so she was certainly as attractive as most girls at school. All she lacked was confidence. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before.

  From now on, Jane resolved, she would be Jane Purdy and nobody else. She would stop feeling like Miss Muffet around Marcy and she would no longer feel fluffy and not very bright when she talked to Liz. From now on she would be confident. When she saw Stan she would act glad to see him, because no matter what had happened that was the way Jane Purdy felt. After all, Stan had liked her when she was babysitting with Sandra and when she walked through Chinatown with him, and she had been herself both those times. Maybe if she continued to be herself, Stan would like her again. And if he didn’t there was nothing she could do about it. Jane was filled with a wonderful feeling of relief at having made this decision. That was that. Period.

  Jane tossed the ball of yarn onto her bed and, humming the Woodmont High victory song, went into the living room, where she dropped into the nearest chair. “Hi,” she said amiably to her father and mother.

  “Welcome,” said Mr. Purdy over his evening paper. “Have you decided to join the family once more?”

  “Oh, Pop, don’t be silly,” said Jane.

  “I thought you were going out with the horse-meat king.”

  “Not tonight,” said Jane casually, and picked up a magazine. “I guess the horsemeat king is doing something else.” The telephone rang, but she made no move to answer it. She was not expecting any calls, and she found it restful after the day she had spent.

  “You get it, Jane,” asked Mrs. Purdy.

  “Okay,” answered Jane, and walked leisurely into the hall to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello, Jane?” Julie’s excited voice sounded muffled and far away.

  “Julie, where are you?” Jane asked. “You sound as if you were at the bottom of a well, or something.”

  “In the hall closet at Greg’s.”

  “In the hall closet? What on earth for?” Jane demanded. “And what are you doing at Greg’s in the first place?”

  “Buzz brought me over, and we’re listening to records with a bunch of kids. Their telephone has a long cord, and I just had to talk to you where nobody could hear me, so I took it into the hall closet,” Julie explained. Then she said something Jane could not understand.

  “Julie, I can’t hear you,” complained Jane.

  “It’s dark in here and a coat or something fell down on me,” Julie told her.

  Jane had something she was anxious to get off her mind. “Julie, I am terribly sorry about—what I did this morning. You know what. I can’t talk much now,” she said, aware of her parents in the next room.

  “That’s strange,” Jane heard her father say, “usually she is good for a couple of hours.”

  “It’s all right, Jane,” said Julie. “I mean, after all, Buzz asked me for a date tonight, and that’s what counts. But that isn’t what I called about. Jane, did anybody tell you about Stan?” Julie sounded eager and excited, as if she had important news.

  Stan! What could have happened to Stan? “No. Nobody called. Is something wrong?” Jane asked anxiously.

  “Late this afternoon he was rushed to the hospital and had his appendix out!” Obviously Julie relished breaking this news.

  “In the hospital?” Jane was stunned. Stan in the hospital? He couldn’t be. Not Stan. But he must be, if Julie said so. “Is he all right?” she asked at last.

  “Yes. Buzz talked to his mother a little while ago, and sh
e said everything was fine,” answered Julie.

  “Oh. That’s good!” Jane’s mind was not really on what she was saying. She was seeing everything in a new light. This was the reason Stan had not called! An appendix of all things! He must have been pale under his tan that morning, not because he was angry, not because he was hurt, but because he had a pain in his appendix!

  “Look, I’ve got to go now,” said Julie. “It’s hot in here and the others might miss me.”

  “Thanks for calling,” said Jane absently. “Have fun.” She sat staring at the cover of the telephone book. Stan in the hospital. Stan, pale and still in a narrow white bed, stuff dripping out of a bottle into a vein in his arm, nurses hovering over him, taking his temperature, feeling his pulse…

  And how, Jane asked herself, does Jane Purdy, the confident Jane Purdy, behave when the boy she likes, who is angry with her (she thought—now she wasn’t sure), is in the hospital with his appendix out?

  Chapter 10

  For the next three days Jane wondered what she should do about Stan. She looked over the get-well cards in Woodmont’s stationery store, but neither the sentimental cards adorned with roses and violets nor the cards printed with elephants or kittens and silly verses seemed exactly right for a special boy. She considered sending Stan a note and even wrote on her best letter paper, “Dear Stan, I am sorry to hear about your operation. I hope you get well soon.” Then she sat nibbling the end of her fountain pen. She could not think of another thing to say.

  Jane reread what she had written. It would be the right message, she decided, to put on a card enclosed with a gift. But what gift could a girl send to a boy who had had his appendix out? A book, perhaps, but she did not know what Stan liked to read. She did not want to send something he would not enjoy and then have him feel he had to read it just to be polite. Besides, she did not know how to get a book to a boy in a hospital. She did not want to visit him, because he would probably be surrounded by his mother and father and sisters and a few aunts and uncles and cousins, and he would have to introduce her to everyone and that would be embarrasing, especially if he was angry with her.