The Luckiest Girl Read Free

mother’s eyes, as a homely, rather ridiculous boy.
    Jack was next. Shelley had liked Jack the first time he asked her for a date and her mother liked him too. Shelley liked him the second and the third time she went out with him, but by the fourth date, when everyone assumed they were going steady, Shelley found she did not like Jack nearly so much as she thought she had. And then it was too late. Now she wished some other girl would have to listen to him say, “Penny for your thoughts,” every time there was a lull in the conversation.
    â€œSo many girls don’t have anybody,” Mrs. Latham was saying as she rinsed the electric coffeepot, “but you have a good-looking boy with nice manners who comes from a good family.”
    For the first time that morning Shelley faltered inher determination. Her mother was right. So many girls stayed home on Saturday night and pretended to have fun playing records or looking at television. So many girls tried to make one date sound like half a dozen when they talked to one another at school. Lots of girls would be eager to go out with Jack. Even Rosemary, her best friend. Everybody said that Shelley was so lucky to have such a nice boy to take her places, that she and Jack made a cute couple (cute couple—she detested the phrase!)…and where would she find another boy to take his place? All the boys a girl would like to know were either going steady or they were the exasperating kind who were more interested in sports or studies than dates.
    â€œI’m going to cut some roses for the table,” said Mrs. Latham, removing her apron. “Maybe you would like to arrange them.”
    â€œAll right, Mother,” agreed Shelley, who enjoyed flower arranging. She went into her room and began to make her bed. She tossed her pillows onto a chair and smoothed the sheets, and while she worked she carried on a mental conversation. Good-bye, Jack…no, I’m not mad at you—I’m just not going out with you anymore. In her imagination, while she pulled up the soft blue blankets,Jack answered, But golly, Shelley…Jack always said, But golly, Shelley, when she said something that worried him. Then she would say—what? I’m sorry, Jack, but you bore me stiff? No, a girl could not say that to a boy who had, in his own way, tried to give her a good time. Shelley pulled up the quilted chintz spread. There must be a way out. There had to be and soon, too. If she were seen with Jack during the first few days of school, everyone would assume she did not want to go out with any other boy and then her junior year would be just like her sophomore year—a series of Saturday nights each like the one before and the one that lay ahead.
    â€œHere are the roses,” Mrs. Latham called out from the kitchen.
    â€œAll right, Mother.” Shelley went into the kitchen, where she found a tangle of roses on the draining board. She began to strip the lower leaves from the stems and drop them into the Disposall. The roses were among the last that would bloom that season and the colors, pink and red, yellow and white, showed that her mother had cut most of the blooms from the bushes to have enough for the table. Because she had so many colors to work with, Shelley decided to make a bouquet ratherthan a formal arrangement. She found a blue bowl and a frog in the cupboard and was sorting out the roses with the longest stems for the center of the bouquet when the doorbell rang.
    â€œIt must be the parcel service,” remarked Mrs. Latham, and went to the door. She returned in a moment with a suit box, which she laid on the draining board while she snipped the cord with her garden shears. She removed the lid, pushed aside the tissue paper, and lifted out a pink raincoat with a black velveteen collar.
    â€œMother!” cried Shelley in dismay.
    â€œA surprise for you,” announced Mrs. Latham gaily.
    â€œBut Mother—” protested