Jean and Johnny (11 page)

“Only members of the stage crew are supposed to be backstage,” someone reminded Jean.

Jean paid no attention. She had to find Johnny. Now. She tripped over a prop and as she bent to rub her leg, she saw Johnny leaning against the wall in the wings toward the front of the stage, waiting for his cue. While she made her way around the artificial rocks that had been removed from the stage after the Indian number, the cowboys and horses finished their act and after the curtain had been drawn, trooped into the wings.

Jean got around the last rock, stood in front of Johnny, looked him straight in the eye, and in her determination spoke almost belligerently. “Johnny, will you go to the Girls' Association Dance with me?” This was not the way she had meant to sound at all, but at least her tongue was free of the weight of those words she had carried about with her all through rehearsals.

“Narrator!” bellowed Mr. Kohler, from the rear of the auditorium. “We are wasting time! Where is our narrator?”

Johnny grinned at Jean and tweaked a lock of her hair before he answered, “Sure, Jean. I'll go with you.” Then he turned on the microphone and filled the auditorium with his voice.

Jean stood where she was, stunned and elated by her good fortune. Johnny had accepted! He really
had. Johnny Chessler was going to the dance with Jean Jarrett.
Johnny Chessler
. She could hardly wait to tell the news to Sue.

Then, because Jean was conscientious, she turned and climbed around the rocks once more and ran on light feet back to the dressing room to count the bats' fingernails.

The days following the variety show were happy ones for Jean. Sue, who had said with good grace, “All right, I'm wrong,” when she heard that Johnny had accepted Jean's invitation, had another date with Kenneth Cory and had decided that she could, if she really put her mind to it, slipcover her father's chair, which was really terribly shabby. Jean, thinking how the house would look when Johnny came to see her, said that Sue was absolutely right: that chair was a disgrace. Mrs. Jarrett suggested that it might be easier to upholster than to slipcover, because the old cover could be used for a pattern. Sue agreed, and after Mrs. Jarrett had found a good buy at Fabrics, Etc., the two girls and
their mother fell to work on the chair. Mr. Jarrett muttered good-naturedly that a man couldn't even call his favorite chair his own when he lived in a houseful of women, but as long as he wouldn't have anyplace to sit for a few days he had better do something about the cracks in the plaster over the door into the hall, and while he was at it he might as well give the living room and dining room a coat of paint.

Because Jean actually had a date with Johnny now, she felt free to join him and his friends during lunch hour. Johnny continued to meet her outside the sewing room after school and to walk out of the building with her. That week Jean felt she had only one problem, but that problem, unfortunately, was serious. She had no transportation for the dance.

It was not until Thursday evening that Jean found courage to broach the subject to her father. She did not often find her father alone, but this evening Sue, who had done her homework after school, was in the bedroom stitching on the new upholstery. Mrs. Jarrett was in the breakfast nook going through the advertisements in the evening paper and making a list of bargains to be the basis of her weekly shopping list. Mr. Jarrett was in the
living room painting the walls with a roller. It seemed like a perfect opportunity.

“By the way, Daddy,” began Jean, perching on the arm of a chair covered with an old sheet, “maybe you have heard me mention it already, but Johnny is going to the Girls' Association Dance with me…and I wondered if you would mind driving us in the car.”

Mr. Jarrett dipped the roller into a tray of paint and rolled it back and forth. “Jean,” he said, keeping his voice low, “I want to have a little talk with you.”

“Yes, Daddy,” answered Jean in a whisper, as her hopes wilted. Her parents so rarely found it necessary to have little talks with their daughters that her father's words sounded ominous. Without transportation she could hardly take Johnny to the dance.

“Jean, I don't want you running after this fellow, Johnny,” said Mr. Jarrett, running the roller over the wall above the mantel.

“Daddy, the girls are
supposed
to ask the boys to go to this dance.” Jean glanced apprehensively at her father, who was too busy watching his work to look at her. Didn't he understand these things? “The boys can't ask the girls this time.”

“I haven't noticed Johnny taking you anyplace,” said Mr. Jarrett.

“I see him every day after school,” said Jean, “and he came over one Saturday and took me out for a Coke. I told you about that. And last Friday was the variety show, so he couldn't make a date that night. And it wasn't his fault he couldn't come over that time he was supposed to. His father…” Jean's arguments diminished into silence. Nervously she twisted her fingers.

“Would you rather have braised short ribs or shoulder lamb chops?” Mrs. Jarrett asked from the breakfast nook. “They are both on special this weekend.”

When neither Jean nor her father answered, Sue called from the bedroom, “Let's have shoulder lamb chops. Braised short ribs are just stew meat with bones. And don't forget to put soap powder on the list. We are just about out.”

“Anything else you can think of?” asked Mrs. Jarrett.

“Isn't some market having a special on asparagus?” asked Sue.

“I'll see,” replied Mrs. Jarrett. “Asparagus would taste good for a change.”

Shoulder lamb chops and soap powder, at what
was practically the most important moment in her whole life! Jean searched her father's face for some sign that he might give her an affirmative answer to her question. It would be so much easier if they lived in a house big enough for two conversations at the same time….

“I'm not going to have my girls running after boys,” said Mr. Jarrett. “Let the boys run after you.”

Jean stifled an impatient sigh and forgot to whisper. “Daddy, I'm
not
. Just tell me, will you drive us to the dance?”

“How late does this dance last?” asked Jean's father.

And now they had to go into that. “Midnight,” answered Jean.

“Midnight!” It was easy to see that Mr. Jarrett did not approve.

“Daddy, it is Saturday night,” pleaded Jean. “It isn't as though it was a school night or you had to go to work the next morning.”

“It seems to me that midnight is pretty late for a fifteen-year-old girl to be out,” said Mr. Jarrett.

“Not on Saturday.” Jean did not want to argue with her father but she could not avoid it. She wanted a promise of transportation, not a discussion of
proper hours for fifteen-year-olds. Surely this was not one of those times when her father would be unusually strict, the way he was about babysitting.

“Oh, come on, Daddy,” Sue called from the bedroom. “Say you'll drive them. It's just this once.”

Honestly, the walls in the house were practically tissue paper. Nevertheless, Jean hoped that Sue's word would help.

Mrs. Jarrett came into the living room with her grocery list in her hand. “I'll chauffeur them,” she said. “I don't mind.”

“Would you, Mother?” asked Jean eagerly, appreciating the offer all the more because Saturday was Mrs. Jarrett's most tiring day at Fabrics, Etc.

“I'll be glad to,” said Mrs. Jarrett. “I'm eager to know what kind of boy Johnny is.”

If that wasn't just like a mother, thought Jean. Oh, well, never mind. That was the way mothers were, and there wasn't much a girl could do about it. She finally had a promise of transportation, and that was the important thing.

Mr. Jarrett wiped a speck of paint off the bricks on the front of the fireplace. “All right, but she has to be home by midnight. I know it will mean leaving the dance early, but midnight is plenty late
enough for a girl her age.” He still did not look as though he approved.

There are times when it is best for a girl to give in gracefully, and this was one of them. “All right, Daddy,” agreed Jean. She had a date, she had transportation. Let the problem of leaving early take care of itself when the time came. “I'll be Cinderella, but I won't leave my slipper behind, because we can't afford to scatter shoes around.”

Jean felt so lighthearted that she skipped down the street like a little girl on her way to Elaine's house, where she was going to study and keep Elaine company, because the Mundys were going out for the evening. After Jean told Elaine her good news, the girls settled down with their books at the kitchen table.

It was not long before Elaine looked up from her Spanish book. “What a silly sentence. ‘Mary is carrying her cat in a basket.' Any cat I know would jump out before she had gone two feet. It isn't a basket with a lid, either, because there is a picture. By the way—have you forgotten about Saturday afternoon?” she asked.

Saturday afternoon? “What about Saturday afternoon?” asked Jean, unable to recall what it was she was supposed to remember.

“Kip Laddish's personal appearance,” said Elaine.

“Oh—Elaine.” Jean was genuinely contrite. “I completely forgot. I am terribly sorry.” It seemed to her that Kip Laddish had gone out of her life a long, long time ago. It had been weeks since she had even remembered to watch his program.

Elaine looked speculatively at her friend. “Tell me something,” she said slowly. “You don't really want to go, do you?”

Jean hesitated. She and Elaine knew each other too well not to be honest, but at the same time, she did not want to hurt Elaine's feelings. Her hesitation was answer enough.

Elaine's usual exuberance faded. “You don't want to go. I can tell.”

“Elaine…” Jean began, and found she did not know what to say. Going to the personal appearance of a singer who made popular records now seemed like such a childish thing to do that she felt ashamed that she had ever wanted to go in the first place. Why, they had even planned to try to get his autograph—it embarrassed her to even think of that now. However, she did not want to disappoint Elaine, who had given her on Christmas morning an envelope containing a
hand-printed certificate saying that Elaine Mundy promised to give Jean Jarrett one (1) paid admission to the personal appearance of Kip Laddish.

“I know how it is.” Elaine smiled ruefully. “Things are different when you have a real boy to think about. Not that Kip is unreal, exactly, but for us he might as well be somebody we imagined.”

“I'll go with you, Elaine,” said Jean. “I just forgot, is all.”

Elaine shook her head. “It wouldn't be the same now that you have Johnny.”

Jean could not deny the truth of this. And she was glad she no longer wanted to stand in line with a lot of giggling girls to see a singer who needed a haircut. It seemed a silly waste of time and money. Why, I have gone through a stage, thought Jean triumphantly. I must be growing up.

Elaine, who was never disheartened long, seemed to perk up. “Now the trouble is, I owe you a Christmas present.”

“Oh, Elaine.” Jean laughed. “That's all right. It's enough that you wanted to take me.”

“No,” said Elaine seriously. “I'll think of something to take the place of a ticket for the personal appearance.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Jean and then,
because she wanted to change the subject, asked, “Have you heard from any pen pals lately?”

“A letter from the English girl, Cynthia,” replied Elaine. “She wants to know if we have many skyscrapers in Northgate.”

Jean giggled. “I wonder if the Pacific Insurance Building counts.”

“Or there is the Medical-Dental building,” said Elaine. “That is five stories high, but I don't think either one of them exactly scrapes the sky. Cynthia also wants me to describe an American drugstore. She has heard they sell everything and she wants to know if they really do.”

“You could tell her that the Low Cost sells Easter bunnies, garden hose, and split-leaf philodendron. That ought to answer her question,” said Jean, thinking that she had been too busy sewing on stoles and dreaming about Johnny to write letters. “I haven't heard from any of my pen pals lately.”

“I wonder if they have Easter bunnies in England,” remarked Elaine. “Cynthia also sent a snapshot of herself. She was standing in what looked like a park, holding her hand out to a deer.”

Snapshot—Johnny, ran Jean's thoughts, because any subject could remind her of Johnny. Johnny,
the Boy Whose Snapshot I Would Most Like to Carry in My Wallet.

“I guess I should send her a snapshot of me, but I don't have any recent ones,” said Elaine, “except that one Dad took of me when I was wearing my shorts at the mountains last summer and I look like Ichabod Crane or something. Oh, well. Don't forget we are supposed to be studying.”

Jean bent her head over her book, but an idea was stirring in the back of her mind.

“Ah, this is better,” remarked Elaine, and began to translate, “‘Here comes John's dog. The cat jumps out of the basket. Run, run, cat.' I knew that cat wouldn't stay in a basket.”

“Elaine, if we had a camera I could take your picture,” suggested Jean. The idea was taking definite shape. “Cynthia might like a picture of you taken at school.” The idea was now ready to hatch. “Lots of people take cameras to school in this good weather, and I could take your picture during lunch hour when everybody is outside milling around. And then—maybe we could sort of casually snap Johnny's picture. I mean—if you wouldn't mind. I would love to have his snapshot and I would pay for the film developing out of my stole money.”

“And then you could carry his picture in your wallet.” Elaine took it from there. “And leave your wallet open accidentally on purpose so everybody could see that you are carrying Johnny's picture in it!”

“Well, not exactly,” said Jean. “Everybody knows that I don't really know Johnny that well. But I would like to have his picture to keep in my corner of the mirror.” For some inexplicable reason Jean felt that owning a snapshot of Johnny would help her to feel more sure of him.

“You don't have to pay for anything. The picture will be my Christmas present to you,” said Elaine enthusiastically. “I'll take Dad's good camera, if he will let me, and we'll take a good picture.”

Since the girls were supposed to be studying, the implications of this remark did not strike Jean until the next morning, when she stopped for Elaine on the way to school. Elaine came to the door with a camera in a brown case slung over one shoulder. Over the other shoulder she carried a tripod. “I have the light meter in my pocket,” she said.

“Oh, Elaine, not the tripod,” protested Jean. “Nobody takes a tripod to school.”

“We want to take a good picture,” Elaine pointed
out. “This is your Christmas present.”

That was the trouble with Elaine. Her cooperation was too wholehearted. “But I don't want Johnny to think we planned to take his picture,” Jean explained. “It wouldn't look casual if we have to set up a tripod and everything. I would rather snap his picture quickly when he wasn't even looking.”

“Well—all right.” Regretfully Elaine left the tripod behind. “He usually hangs around that urn by the front steps after he eats his lunch. Maybe we could catch him then.”