Betty Cavanna Read online

  She didn’t feel ashamed as much as she felt enraged. What good would math ever do her anyway? She didn’t plan to be a bookkeeper or an accountant or even a teller in a bank. She wasn’t interested in business—at least not in that kind of business. She began to imagine what she would like to do, after she got out of college, and she thought it would be something connected with journalism. Reporting for a newspaper, perhaps. A colorful life, an unpredictable life! It intrigued her. She put the pencil down and her eyes became dreamy.

  “Having trouble, Loretta?”

  Abruptly, Mr. Scott’s voice cut through her thoughts. He had paused by her desk and was looking at her askance.

  Rette nodded. Then, suddenly, she turned belligerent. “I’ll just never be able to do math! There’s no use thinking I will.”

  Mr. Scott smiled wisely. “You’re probably quite right,” he said calmly. “With that attitude, you’re licked.”

  Rette looked up, and was alarmed by the coolness of his pale eyes. She didn’t want to make things worse for herself than they already were.

  “It isn’t that I don’t try,” she murmured, then wondered if this were quite the truth. Did she study, or did she simply fume?

  But Mr. Scott had passed on, and Rette had to go back to chewing her pencil. She kept her head bent over her paper and her brow knit in a frown of apparent concentration, but she didn’t really see the figures that crawled in spidery disarray across the page. When she handed in the test paper it was still incomplete, and even the problems at which she had made a second attempt were obviously wrong. Eyes stormy and head indignantly high, she walked out of the room.

  Once in the corridor, with the test at least behind her, Rette tried to forget the whole thing. There was no use facing bad news until it came, she reasoned, and she went down to the lunchroom to join the cafeteria line determined to think of something—anything—else.

  Today that wasn’t hard. The girls who weren’t discussing the coming basketball game with Claremont were still discussing Stephen Irish.

  “Even his name is lush!” Judy Carter said between bites of a tuna-fish sandwich. She had been well launched on her lunch before Rette put down her tray on the opposite side of the table. “And with that voice, he ought to be in Hollywood!”

  Cathy Smith, sitting beside Judy, frowned. “Don’t be silly, Judy. He’s not the movie type at all. He’s too—too masculine.”

  Rette knew that Cathy wasn’t saying quite what she meant. Cathy sensed the flyer’s affinity with the out of doors, and it offended her to hear him wrongly categorized. Rette listened to the argument that followed with interest, but didn’t try to take part. After Judy’s final shrug she changed the subject.

  “Has anybody seen a copy of the contest rules?”

  “I have,” Judy said at once. “I stopped in and picked one up, just for fun. But I haven’t got it here. I left it with my books.”

  Rette was disappointed. ‘What was it all about?”

  “Like Mr. Irish said. An essay of a thousand words. Gosh, a thousand words sound like a lot!”

  “Not too bad,” Rette said. As make-up editor for the Arrow she had counted a good many words. “That’s about four pages, typewritten, double-spaced.”

  Cathy, looking misty-eyed again, was paying no attention to the conversation. Rette half envied her her detachment. It must, she thought, be rather pleasant to just sit back and let the world flow around you like water in a bathtub. Wanting to be part of things so much got rather wearing.

  Just now Rette wanted to know the subject of the essay, but at the same time she didn’t want to sound too interested in the contest. The last thing she cared to invite was an inquiry from Judy as to whether she planned to take part. She wished Cathy would rouse and ask the question for her, but Cathy was a million miles away.

  Finally her curiosity became too great. “What do you have to write about—airplanes?” Rette asked. Her voice, always deep, sounded unnaturally loud in her own ears. It fell into one of those inexplicable pools of quiet that suddenly emerge in a noisy room. It was as though Rette were the only person left talking, and her voice boomed forth with such vigor that Elise Wynn and her crowd, who were eating at the next table, all turned their heads.

  “You thinking of getting into competition with the boys, Rette?” A pretty girl with straight bangs above slanting dark eyes leaned back in her chair and spoke over her shoulder idly.

  Rette flushed, disliking the insinuation. “I was just interested,” she muttered lamely. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  “I’m interested too.” Elise Wynn unexpectedly came to her rescue. “What is the subject, Judy? Do you know?”

  Judy nodded, swinging around in her chair. “It’s sort of peculiar—“The Dream of Flying.’” Her eyes met Elise’s. “Can you make anything of that?”

  “‘The Dream of Flying,’” Elise repeated, as though she were tasting the words with the tip of her tongue. She paused, then smiled. “Well, I’d say it would give people a lot of scope.”

  “The Dream of Flying.” Rette didn’t say the words aloud but they spoke in her brain. They sounded evanescent, impossible to capture. She had expected to hear a more concrete title. She wondered who had thought this subject up.

  Abruptly, she said as much.

  “Not Mr. Irish, I’ll bet,” Judy replied.

  “I don’t know,” Cathy murmured; “he might have.” It didn’t seem to occur to her that she was contradicting Judy again.

  This time, to Rette’s relief, Judy had her mouth too full of apple pie to reply immediately, and by the time she was vocal the conversation had swept onward, because the girls at Elise Wynn’s table were making a game of guessing which of the senior boys might compete.

  “Jeff Chandler will, of course. He’s nuts about planes,” Dora Phillips said.

  “And besides,” seconded the girl next to her, “he can write.”

  “Dick Sharp, Larry Carpenter, John Hall—you can practically count them on your fingers. I’ll bet there won’t be more than a dozen entries in all.”

  “I think Dora’s wrong,” Rette said in an undertone to Judy. “I think some of the kids who are Corky Adams’ type will take a shot at turning in a paper.”

  “Corky?”

  Rette nodded. “He was all steamed up about the new airport, even before Mr. Irish spoke.”

  “But—” Judy stopped, shrugged, and shook her head.

  “I could be wrong,” Rette said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  On the way back to her home room after lunch, Rette passed the principal’s office. Larry Carpenter and John Hall were just coming out, openly studying copies of the contest rules. Rette could hear John’s complaining whistle as they turned and came along the corridor behind her.

  “Hey, this is a heck of a subject!”

  She wished she had the courage to turn around to go into the anteroom for her own copy. She wasn’t usually timid, but she didn’t want people asking questions about her intentions. Especially since she didn’t really have any intentions; she was just curious. It would be foolish, she supposed, for any girl to have a serious hope of winning the prize when the natural candidate was a boy. Yet all afternoon, even during the warming-up period before the Claremont game, the thought of the contest continued to tempt her. Only when the referee’s whistle actually blew and the Claremont forward dodged past her to catch a quick pass from side-center did Rette snap back to complete attention to the business at hand.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “...Who are we for?

  Larkin! Larkin!

  Rah, rah, rah!”

  Applause fell sweetly on Rette’s ears during the third quarter of the Claremont game. The balcony of the gym was full, with a generous sprinkling of boys among the girls who usually turned out to root for the Avondale team.

  Rette was playing unusually well, and she knew it. The Claremont forwards were swift and tall, but not many unguarded balls had slipped through the basket, a
nd at the half the score totalled in Avondale’s favor, which sent the refreshed team back to the court foretasting victory.

  It would be quite a feather in the school’s cap to beat Claremont. And it was a personal triumph for Rette that a guard, not a forward, was being cheered. She felt the elation of success, and played all the better. She was glad the Claremont forwards were outstanding. It made the competition keener, more fun.

  Rette was small, for a guard, but she was lightning-quick. She clung to the Claremont forward with the tenacity of a terrier. Here, there, everywhere at once, she was impossible to shake.

  By the fourth quarter Avondale’s lead was substantial, and the coach began putting in second-string players to replace the stars. Rette walked back to the players’ bench reluctantly when a substitute guard came forward. Far from exhausted, she felt that she could play forever. The stimulation of the game made her eyes shine, and her short hair curled in damp tendrils around her face.

  The same sense of stimulation accompanied her all the way home. Dusk was blurring the harsh outlines of winter when Rette left the gym, and under its cover she could ride her bicycle the scant mile to Cherry Tree Road without special concern for whom she might meet. She hummed as she wheeled along, standing on the pedals to increase her speed, still imbued with a feeling of power and of glowing well-being.

  “We beat Claremont!” she announced the minute she reached the house.

  “Good for you!” her mother sang out from the kitchen. “Tell Gramp. He’ll be pleased.”

  “Beat ‘em?” Rette’s grandfather was already asking, as he came shakily down the stairs with one gnarled, thin hand clutching the banister. “Beat ‘em, Rette? Yep? That’s fine!”

  Gramp always exulted with Rette in her victories, always sympathized with her in defeat. She could have no more loyal and interested supporter, and she knew it. “Tell me all about it,” he insisted, lowering himself with the care of age into the chintz-covered wing chair.

  Rette ran to him, laughing, and laid her smooth red cheek against his forehead. “Don’t rush me,” she teased, wrinkling her nose. “Wait till I get off my coat.”

  “And while you’re giving Gramp a play-by-play description would you like to lay a fire?” Mrs. Larkin said from the doorway. “We’re having Tony’s birthday dinner tonight, you know.”

  “With presents at the table the way we used to when you were young?” Gramp asked hopefully.

  Mrs. Larkin nodded. “Yes, indeed.”

  Gramp sighed reminiscently, and Rette could see his interest in the game fading. “I remember when Nancy was just about your age,” he said, looking after his daughter. “She was going to a party on the night of her birthday, and her beau sent her a box of flowers from the florist. What is it you call it now—a corsage? I’ll never forget the look in her eyes.” He hesitated a moment, then said thoughtfully, “I wonder if that could have been George?”

  Rette laughed. “Probably not,” she said as she wadded newspaper to tuck under the kindling. “You’ve always said Mother had lots of beaux!”

  “She did too!” Gramp insisted proudly. “A mighty pretty girl, your mother was.” He looked at Rette and added in a shrewd stage whisper, “But no sweeter than you.”

  “I’ve got to wrap Tony’s present,” Rette cried, jumping up. “I’ll tell you about the game after dinner, Gramp. All right?”

  Gramp nodded. “I guess it’ll keep.” He called after her, “Get the box that’s on my bureau, Rette, while you’re upstairs.”

  By six o’clock everything was ready. The chocolate cake, nesting in a fluff of white icing, reposed on the kitchen cabinet. A small heap of boxes lay on Tony’s place mat, Rette’s book, the bulkiest, at the bottom. New candles graced the low candelabra, and hothouse snapdragons, testimony to the fact that this was a party, were arranged with tasteful frugality in a low white bowl.

  Rette, upstairs, was running a comb through her hair when Tony and her dad came into the house together. She could hear Tony’s approving comment when he spotted the cake.

  “Boy, Mommy, that looks good enough to eat!”

  Rette smiled to herself, amused by his use of “Mommy.” When Tony was extra pleased about something, the old, boyish appellation always slipped out.

  She dusted her short nose with powder, searched in vain for her only lipstick, then bit at her lips to redden them and clattered blithely downstairs.

  “Hi!” she called from the landing. “I’m glad it’s your birthday, Tony. We’re going to have a real feed!”

  “Rette!” Her mother pretended to be provoked at such slang.

  Tony sniffed. “I saw the cake. What else?”

  “Roast beef.” Rette told him nothing his nose couldn’t discover. “Boy, do you rate!”

  “Try going away for a couple of years. You’ll rate too.” Tony grinned up the stairway at Rette, then winked slyly.

  “Quiet!” his mother called as he had anticipated. “Rette will be off to college soon enough.”

  “Too soon,” said Gramp from the depths of his chair.

  “Much too soon,” agreed George Larkin, tossing his hat and gloves to the closet shelf beside Tony’s. “I’m the guy that’s got to put up the dough.”

  “Such language!” his wife scolded. “How do you ever expect me to persuade Rette to speak properly?” She stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, and shook her head.

  Rette chuckled, ducked away from her father’s attempt to rumple her hair, and went over to the fireplace to touch a match to her carefully constructed fire. She loved the family badinage, which always seemed especially bright when they were all together on such special occasions as this. She was glad there were no guests for dinner, because now there could be no possible cause for strain. She liked home best when everyone felt agreeable and relaxed.

  Tony, when he saw the roast beef, elected to save the opening of his gifts until the dessert course. “There were times in the Army,” he said, “when I used to dream about roast beef. It would get so I could smell it.” His grin became sardonic. “That always woke me up.”

  Gramp sat, straight-backed, on his chair. “I used to dream about it too, right here at home” he said, and everybody laughed.

  Rette had a second helping, and so did Tony. Gramp refused and had to be coaxed. “You know you want it,” Rette told him. “Or are you afraid of getting fat?”

  Finally the cake was cut, and Rette’s father, with unexpected ebullience, led off in singing the old nursery song,

  “Happy birthday to To-ny,

  Happy birthday to you!”

  Everybody joined in, Mrs. Larkin with a sweet contralto, Rette tunelessly but with enthusiasm.

  Gramp capped their efforts by wheezing: “Stand up! Stand up!” until Tony arose and with mock seriousness took a bow.

  “And now you’d better open your presents,” Gramp said.

  Rette sat smiling while the old man hovered over the presents, pleased to be part of the festivity, childlike in his desire to get to the climax of the celebration. She loved Gramp with a tenderness that was occasionally overwhelming, but it never failed to alarm her to see how people can revert—growing bigger and bigger in mind and stature until maturity and then shriveling up and becoming quite simple and childish again in age.

  Tony fell in with Gramp’s game and obligingly rattled the small box on top close to his ear.

  “Can you guess, Gramp?”

  Rette sat back and watched her brother, intensely proud of him. Tony was such a marvelous sport, to indulge an old man’s whimsey this way. She watched his eyes, gray-blue like her mother’s and compassionate, and an indefinable emotion made her throat ache. No boy she had ever met could compete with Tony! He had everything—masculinity, courage, deftness—and then this quick, understanding courtesy that brought the smart of tears to her eyes.

  Gramp was in seventh heaven. He rattled the box too and pretended to guess, but deliberately guessed wrong. Then Tony untied the cord and opened the package
to draw out a wallet of polished reptile.

  “Say now!” He ran his fingers over it. “That’s the stuff!” He read the card. “‘Mother and Dad.’” Then he looked up with sincere pleasure. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Just what I needed,” mimicked Rette, to inject a note of foolishness and avert any threatened sentimentality.

  Tony looked at her with assumed sternness. “It is.”

  Next he opened a tie from a thoughtful relative, and then Gramp impatiently handed him the box Rette had brought down from his bureau. Tony made a special ceremony of the unwrapping, and Gramp stood by almost as full of pleasure as he was of years.

  It was another tie, blue and gray—not a pattern that Tony would have chosen to wear with his youthful, tweedy clothes. Rette knew at once that it was all wrong, but never by a flicker of an eyelash did Tony admit it. His enthusiasm sounded utterly genuine, and his thanks warmed Gramp as he went back to sit down in his chair beside Rette. The old man smiled at his granddaughter happily, and she smiled back at him.

  Then Rette’s attention returned to Tony. He was opening the last package now, her book. She waited anxiously, because she’d know whether Tony was pleased. He couldn’t fool her.

  He laid back the paper and read the title aloud. “Wind, Sand and Stars.” Then he opened the book to the flyleaf, where Rette had tucked a card.

  “Say, this is the book by that flyer—” He looked at his younger sister and tested his pronunciation of the name. “Saint-Exupéry. Didn’t he lose a leg in the war?”

  Rette shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then she added, “Tell me if you’ve read it.”