Belles on Their Toes (23 page)

“But Mother said I could wear all the make-up I wanted to when I got to high school,” said Jane. “I don’t know about all this little girl stuff. Did Mother put you boys up to this?”

“I didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Mother protested. “I don’t approve of make-up, but everyone I’ve seen in high school paints like an Indian. If that’s the way you want to look, it’s your face. See if I care!”

“What everyone else does in high school is old stuff,” Fred explained. “That’s what we’re trying to tell you. Do you want to be a sad apple?”

Jane said she guessed that if she had to be any sort of an apple, she’d rather not be a sad one.

Dan then showed her how she should sit down. He walked mincingly but, with assumed nonchalance to a chair, turned around with a swing of his hips, rose on his tiptoes, sat down daintily with his knees together, and flounced as he adjusted an imaginary skirt.

“It’s that kind of jump you give at the end that gets them,” he explained. “You see you act and dress casually, as if you didn’t know men existed. But really you’re on the ball all the time. And little things like that jump at the end emphasize all of a girl’s best assets.”

Jane tried it, but the boys were far from satisfied. She tried it again, with no more success.

“Don’t jump like someone left a hatpin in the chair,” Dan winced. “I’ll swear, I believe you’re hopeless. Don’t you know how to do a feminine flounce?”

“I did just like you did,” said Jane, beginning to lose patience. “You jumped like something was in the chair, too, didn’t he, Mother?”

Mother, sitting in a corner, pretended she was absorbed in a book, and didn’t answer.

“I’m not supposed to know exactly how to do it,” Dan shouted. “All I can do is give you the general idea. For Lord’s sake, don’t girls have any natural instinct about how to do things like that?”

“If they do,” Jane said hotly, “it’s the first time I ever heard about it. And I’m not going to listen if you holler at me. And I’m not going to dress that way, either.”

She stalked across the room, picked up a magazine, sat down by Mother, and—there was no doubt about it—flounced as she angrily adjusted her skirts.

“That’s it, Jane,” Fred shouted. “Just like that.”

“Just like what?” Jane sulked. “You give me a pain in the neck, all of you.”

“What you did just then,” said Fred, “when you fixed your skirts.”

“I didn’t do anything,” said Jane, “except this.” She flounced again.

“Solid,” Dan agreed.

“Well, why didn’t you say so. Anybody knows how to do that.” She flounced a third time. “The way Dan showed me, you’d need a built-in pogo stick. I thought you were supposed to see light between me and the chair.”

Somewhat pleased with herself, she rejoined the boys for further instruction.

Jane already knew most of the new dance steps, so her brothers weren’t worried about that. But they spent a good deal of time teaching her dance floor behavior.

The boys thought that the most important formula for popularity at a dance was knowing how to act when someone cut in. They said they had seen many a girl who was good looking and a beautiful dancer, but who was stuck most of the night because she had given the impression she didn’t like to be broken.

“It boils down to this, and I’ll admit it’s an art,” said Dan. “You’ve got to make the boy you’re dancing with think you’re sorry that someone is cutting in; and you’ve got to make the boy who’s cutting in think you’re glad.”

Jane said that sounded insincere to her, and she believed a girl always should be sincere, didn’t Mother.

Mother thought that one was safe enough.

“Yes indeed, dear,” she said, coming out from behind her book. “It’s a mistake to be hypocritical.”

“Of course you should be sincere,” Fred agreed. “But you can be glad and sorry at the same time, can’t you? Like when you graduated from junior high?”

“Sorry to leave those infants?” Jane laughed condescendingly. “I was only glad then. But I guess I see what you mean.”

“Sure you do,” Fred soothed her. “You’re a smart chick.”

“Okay,” Jane surrendered. “How do you do it, then?”

Fred and Dan, both six feet and none too graceful, started to dance, and Jack and Bob, not far from six feet and even less graceful, prepared to take turns cutting in.

Mother now gave up all pretense of reading. Her book lay face down on her lap. She had that what’s-this-generation’ coming-to look on her face, and she seemed tensed, as if ready to make a game try at catching the vases and lamps, in case the boys should bump into them.

“Now I’m leading,” Fred told Jane, “and it’s up to the girl to make small talk—about anything at all.”

“The only small talk I’d make if you were my partner,” said Dan, “is to warn you that if you didn’t put your right hand up higher, I’d leave you in the middle of the dance floor. You wolf you.”

Jack stepped up and tapped Fred on the shoulder.

“Remember, Jane, I’m playing your part,” Dan explained. “Up to now, you’ve been following your partner. Now you lead just enough so you swing him around, and your back’s to the boy who cut in.”

Dan swung Fred around.

“Only it’s not absolutely necessary to kick him like that when you swing him,” said Fred, rubbing his shins.

“Now,” Dan continued. “See, my back’s toward Jack. He can’t see what I’m doing. So I look at Fred and I frown a little; I’m disappointed our dance had to end.”

He wrinkled his forehead and nose, and made a hideous moue at Fred.

“See?” Dan asked Jane. “Now he thinks I hate to see him go. And he’ll be pretty sure to come back and dance with me again.”

“The hell I would,” said Fred. “After that last look, I believe I’d run to the locker room and see if anyone had a drink.”

“Then,” Dan ignored him, “you separate from your partner. But notice you still hold his hand. Just before you let it go, you give it an intimate little squeeze, like this.”

Dan and Fred both squeezed, with all their might. They were always testing their grips, Indian wrestling, and putting their elbows side by side on a table to see which one could make the other bend his arm.

The handshake ended in a tie, and they let go.

“Now you turn around,” said Dan, somewhat red of face but still intent on his instruction. “Your back’s toward your old partner. Now you face your new partner, and your eyes light up. You’ve been rescued. You’ve been looking forward all night to this particular dance. You glide into your new partner’s arms”—he stumbled into Jack’s—“and you say …”

“Not yet you don’t,” Mother interrupted, and she was so intent her book toppled to the floor. “You’ve got to be careful to dance a few steps from your old partner, first. You don’t want him to hear you, do you?”

Dan let go of Jack, and all of them turned with new interest to Mother.

“How did you know that?” Fred asked. “You’re completely right, but—why they didn’t even cut in at dances when you were a girl.”

“They didn’t cut in,” said Mother, “but they came up to your chair where you were sitting with your old partner. I always danced away a few steps from the chairs, and then I said …”

“Who’s being hypocritical now?” Fred hooted.

“What was it you said, Mother?” Jane giggled.

“Nothing, I guess,” Mother said primly, leaning over to retrieve her book. “Nothing that would interest this generation.”

“Aw, come on, tell us,” Jane insisted.

“Well,” Mother blushed, “when it was your father, I guess I said something like, ‘Why Mr. Gilbreth, imagine finding you here. Where have you been keeping yourself all evening?’”

“Was that before or after you were married?” Jane asked.

“Oh, both,” said Mother, now apparently intent on her reading.

“And where had he been keeping himself?” said Jane, refusing to let the subject drop.

“What’s that, dear?” Mother asked, as if she hadn’t been paying attention.

“Where had he been?”

“Your father? Never very far away, dear,” Mother smiled. “Not down in the locker room.”

JANE’S DEBUT
at high school was a success, and Jack and Bob informed her she had passed the opening day scrutiny. Besides Jane, only a handful of seniors had worn bobby sox clothes. But the handful was composed of girls who admittedly set the fashions, and there was no doubt that the new style would take hold.

Fred and Dan returned to Brown and Pennsylvania, respectively, and Jack and Bob continued the grooming of their youngest sister.

She was to be friendly with everybody, including sad apples and teachers. She was to learn the names of everyone in her classes, and to speak to them by name when she passed them in the halls. She was to be a good student, without giving the impression of studying too much. And she was to keep her face, hands and nails clean, even if it meant going to the girls’ room between every class.

“There’s nothing worse than a dingy looking girl,” Jack told her. “So don’t think I’m minding your business if I see you in school and tell you to go wash yourself. I’ll just whisper it.”

“How about dingy boys?” Jane protested.

“Why Bob and I always look just like we stepped out of a bandbox,” Jack smirked.

“I don’t know about that,” said Jane. “But if you did, you must have been playing the drums.”

“Nobody notices how boys look,” said Jack, cuffing her fondly. “And nobody cares whether boys are popular in school.”

Sometimes Jane thought it was more trouble than it was worth, especially when the two boys said she might begin to put on weight, and so started taking her desserts away from her. But she had to admit they had been right about the clothes, and she suspected they knew what they were talking about on other things, too.

She started having movie dates at night, on weekends. Mother didn’t disapprove, and Jack and Bob were elated. The boys wanted to make sure, though, that no one got the wrong idea about what sort of a girl she was, so they always told her just what time she was to be home. Usually, to make sure there was no misunderstanding, they told her date, too. When the date saw the size of her older brothers, and was informed that they’d be waiting up for Jane, there was little or no argument.

“Even Cinderella could stay out till midnight,” Jane would complain to Mother. “Jack and Bob make my dates bring me home by 10:30.”

“Your father wouldn’t let Anne go out at all at night, unless he went along as a chaperone,” Mother comforted her. “You don’t know how lucky you are to have such liberal-minded men in the family.”

“Good night, that was a generation ago. Times have changed!”

The first dance of the school year was a junior-senior-alumni affair, held during the Thanksgiving holidays. It was unusual for girls in the tenth grade to be invited—in fact none of our girls ever had been asked until they had become juniors.

But Jane’s special popularity course had brought results. She had invitations from a junior and two seniors. The boys told her to accept the junior, since he had asked her first. The word always got around, they said, if you turned down an early invitation to accept a later one.

Fred and Dan were home for the holidays, and they and the younger boys agreed to go stag to the party, to make sure Jane wasn’t stuck on the dance floor. Each of the boys also enlisted the aid of four or five friends, all of whom seemed willing, even eager, to cooperate.

Right from the start, Jane was broken more than any other girl. Her hand squeezes as she left one partner, and her pleased smiles as she started off with another, apparently became important factors as the night wore on. Because even without her claque, she was undeniably getting a rush.

Then Dan cut in, and found Jane near tears.

“He kissed me,” she whispered indignantly. “I slapped him as hard as I could, and he just laughed and kissed me again.”

Dan roughly shoved away two boys who were trying to cut in.

“Beat it,” he growled. “She doesn’t want to dance with you.”

“Those weren’t the ones,” Jane whispered, as the boys retreated.

“I don’t care,” said Dan. “You’re not going to dance with anybody until we teach you some more.”

He signaled Fred, Jack, and Bob, and then guided Jane out onto a porch.

“Who did it?” Dan asked. “I’m going to show him whose sister to make passes at.”

“A boy named Ned Morris,” Jane told him. “He’s a senior. I hope you fix him good.”

Fred, Jack and Bob joined them on the porch, and Dan explained the situation.

“He’s in my class,” said Jack, “so I get to whip him. Right?”

Dan and Bob said that was right, but Fred disagreed.

“We spent a whole summer teaching her to be popular,” he warned, “and now you want to undo it all. Nobody’ll take her out if he thinks he’ll have to end up by fighting us, in case he gets romantic.”

“It’s really our fault,” Bob conceded dramatically. “We taught her how to be attractive, but we didn’t teach her how to turn it off.”

“I slapped him good,” Jane said. “I thought that would turn it off.”

“Worst thing you could do,” said Fred, shaking his head. “It’s our fault, all right. We’ll keep a close eye on things for the rest of the night, and don’t you let anybody else take you off the dance floor.”

MOTHER WAS ASLEEP
when Jane and the boys returned home from the dance, but she heard them and came down in her bathrobe to help them raid the icebox. Jane wasn’t upset any more, and she told Mother with considerable detail about the rush she had had.

“You’re lucky to have so many brothers to help you get started,” Mother said, looking proudly at the boys. “You boys have been mighty sweet to her.”

“I’ll say,” Jane agreed excitedly. “And what do you think, Mother, tonight they’re going to teach me about kissing.”

“I think that’s fine,” said Mother, “and it’s not every girl … They’re going to teach you about what?” she shouted.

“About kissing,” said Jane.

“I won’t have it,” Mother announced flatly. “I try to be modern. I didn’t say a word when you were showing her about handsqueezes and things like that—things most girls don’t know until they’re in their twenties.” She raised her voice again. “But I won’t have any lessons in that. The very idea!”