Vicki Finds the Answer

Chapter 1 | New York-2-2

“Open the door, please!”

Vicki sprang to the door. Charmion eased through, holding high a freshly pressed, pale-gray satin gown.

“Oh! Lovely!” Vicki exclaimed.

“It was my wedding dress. I decided there was no reason not to use it, so I had it tinted.”

Jean galloped in at that moment bearing a bright red dress. She waved it before them like a cape before a bull.

“They’ll notice me in this! Boy, nobody could miss seeing red—and Cox in it!”

“Just whom,” Charmion inquired with a twinkle, “do you want to notice you?”

“Oh—nobody in particular.”

“Really?” Vicki c****d an azure eye. “You’ve curled your hair, too. First time I ever saw you do that.”

“Next you’ll think I’m eloping—just because I powdered my nose!”

“Are you eloping?”

“No! Unfortunately.”

They laughed and Jean, thinking herself unobserved, blew out a sigh of relief. But Vicki’s enormous blue eyes which saw everything—despite their dreamy air—noted that sigh, too. She impishly started them talking of their escorts for the evening. This was not a matter of individual dates; rather, they were to go as a group, six girls and six boys.

Vicki was glad of the group arrangement, because it spared Charmion’s feelings, and because without it one or two of the girls might not have been asked for a date.

Vicki had another reason for preferring it. She was blessed, or handicapped, by having two admirers, flier Dean Fletcher and the young newspaperman Peter Carmody. Pete complained long and loud that Vicki gave Dean most of her time, and their work did throw Vicki and Dean together a good deal. But she liked Pete too. He amused her because he was full of a wry kind of mischief and did odd things, like keeping a monkey named Bernard Shaw. Vicki giggled at the thought.

“What’s funny?” said Jean Cox.

“Oh, I was just thinking about Bernard Shaw.”

“I don’t see ... Oh, you mean Pete’s monkey,” Jean Cox said. “You know, Vicki, Pete has always liked you, but you’ve never seemed to respond.”

“That’s because Vic likes Dean,” Charmion called from the depths of the closet. “Admit it, Vicki.”

“I like Pete well enough, and I have not gone overboard for Dean, or for anybody,” Vicki stated firmly.

“You don’t appreciate Pete Carmody,” Jean accused her. “I always thought he was fun.”

“Perhaps I don’t appreciate his many sterling virtues, madam. But don’t bother feeling sorry for Pete. He’s not so interested in me as all that.”

“Hmm,” said Jean.

Charmion emerged from the closet. “I propose we all take walks and/or naps, so we’ll be beautiful for this evening.”

Vicki agreed that the best beauty treatment is good health, but she declined to take a walk, even though it meant a promenade along Fifth Avenue with the festive Sunday crowds.

“I’ll settle for a nap instead,” she decided.

The nap turned into a good, long sleep. It was six when Vicki awoke. Charmion and Jean—“those great walkers!”—were fast asleep on the twin beds on either side of her. Vicki shook them awake.

“Six o’clock! The boys are calling for us at eight! And it will take us hours to dress!”

Mrs. Duff insisted on giving them supper first, which they bolted down, too excited to be hungry, then plunged into dressing for a gala evening. Tessa made a major chore of it. She stayed so long in the bathtub, giving herself a facial, that Vicki and Celia threatened to toss her out.

“Next time we take an apartment,” Tessa wailed, as she stumbled out in towels with mudpack on her face, “we’ll get one with two or three bathrooms!”

“I can’t wait that long for a bath,” Vicki said, and got herself scrubbed in a hurry.

Charmion’s fair hair was in a tangle and Vicki patiently combed it out for her. Dot Crowley, who pretended to scorn boys, was so excited that she spilled perfume down the whole front of her dress.

The entire troupe hastily improvised something else for her to wear. After the clock had spun around another half hour, they had the redhead arrayed in Tessa’s extra evening skirt and a lace blouse of Celia’s.

“It’s a tight fit,” Celia cautioned. “Don’t take any deep breaths.”

“Looks better than my own dress,” said Dot, not a bit remorseful at having delayed them all.

Vicki was padding around in her long slip, searching for stockings. The pair she had just put on had a run, and her box of stockings had disappeared.

She found them, after an exasperating hunt, not in the drawer where they should have been, but in the closet resting on her shoe rack.

“Why, Vicki,” Charmion reminded her, “you put the stocking box there yourself, so you couldn’t forget where it was!”

“But I forgot to remind myself to remember. Heavens, is that the doorbell already?”

“Don’t tell me the boys are here so soon! Didn’t any of them get stuck in his stiff shirt?” Jean sputtered.

“If my brother arrives too early,” Tessa shouted from the adjoining bedroom, “I’ll never forgive him!”

Mrs. Duff, closing the door again, reassured them that it was only a telegram for Vicki. Startled, Vicki ran to open it. She hoped there was nothing wrong at home, nor anything to keep her away from tonight’s party. The telegram read: “You forgot your rubbers. Shall I mail them or did you forget them on purpose? Love, Mother.”

Vicki sat down in relief. But Charmion prodded her to get ready. She brushed her silver-blonde hair into a halo, spread a big handkerchief over her coiffure, and slipped into her dress. She emerged with not a hair out of place. Another dab of powder on her nose. The corsage of tiny silk rosebuds tucked into her belt. Perfume. Bag. Gloves. There, she was ready.

She went out into the living room where all six girls were congregating.

“You look exquisite, Vicki!”

“We all look pretty special!”

Celia wore a bouffant, puff-sleeved dress that managed to suggest southern moonlight and jasmine. Tessa was expectedly theatrical in slim, tight-sleeved, perfectly plain white, striking with her mane of dark hair. Dot, gingerly striding around in the borrowed lace blouse and skirt, looked positively handsome. A bombshell effect was what Jean Cox had achieved. The best surprise was Charmion, touchingly lovely in the gray gown. They all complimented Charmion, admired one another, and hoped their escorts would approve, too.

“Fortunately none of our colors clash,” Vicki observed. She turned on one toe to make her dress float.

“It’s raining,” Mrs. Duff grumbled. “Girls, ye’ll have to wear overshoes.”

“We’d as soon wear long red underwear!” they overruled her.

The six of them settled down in the living room, careful not to muss skirts, to wait for the boys to arrive. Dean, Pete, Tessa’s brother, two of his friends Don and Jerry, and a second young co-pilot, Bill Boyd, were coming. Except Bill, they all frequently dropped in at the apartment, to dance to radio music and raid the icebox—and to be shooed home by Mrs. Duff promptly at ten.

Five minutes went by.

“Aren’t they ever coming?”

“My perfume isn’t going to last.”

Vicki sneezed and applied her handkerchief. “Oh, dear, now the powder’s off my nose.”

“Vicki!” Mrs. Duff called. “Wear your overshoes!”

Another five minutes went by. The girls fidgeted.

“Are you sure this is the right evening?”

“Maybe Dean and Bill were called out on flights!”

Charmion pointed out that, after all, it was not yet eight o’clock.

The doorbell rang. They jumped. Mrs. Duff admitted Dean Fletcher. He poked his head in and said, “Well, just look! And they can fly, too.” Vicki went into the hall with him, to get him a coat hanger. “Nice timing. I would have to be the first one to get here.”

“Do not fear. I shall protect you!”

Dean smiled down at her out of serious gray eyes. “How are you, Vic?”

“Very well indeed.” She watched the young airman as he hung away his coat. Open admiration would not have done, for the thoroughly masculine Dean—one of five brothers and no sisters—embarrassed easily. He was a nice-looking boy, rangy, with a long stride, and a flier’s clear, steady, impersonal eyes.

“All set for tomorrow morning’s new run?”

“I can hardly wait. But I don’t, know what route it’s to be! Dean, do you know?”

“Sorry.” But he grinned.

Tessa’s brother Bob, with his friends Don and Jerry, arrived next. The girls had dubbed them The Three Bears because of their varying heights—“medium, tall, and out of sight.” They were still in college, nice boys, good company, and given to turning highbrow unless squelched. Now, they refused to part with their coats.

“We’ll be starting right out anyway. We have tickets for the ice show. Where are Pete and—what’s-his-name?—Boyd. That’s an eight-thirty curtain.”

“Sorry we couldn’t take you to dinner. But we’re going to the Fountain Room for dancing and supper after the show.”

The girls exclaimed with delight. Dean went off in a corner with Bob, presumably to discuss the evening’s arrangements. Tessa tried to listen in, sister-fashion, but Bob chased her away.

Bill Boyd rang their doorbell. He was a husky blond boy with a wide grin: he looked like a football player. None of them knew him very well, but Dean had invited this co-pilot and vouched for him. Bill seemed a little shy, in the face of all the rapid, introductions, and Vicki went to his rescue.

“Hello! I’m the one named Vicki. How come I’ve never seen you out at the airfield?”

“Different schedules, I guess. But I’ve seen you.”

“Have you? Well, say hello next time.”

Bill Boyd grinned. “I’ll wave, too. Say, I hope I can dance well enough to suit you ladies.”

“If you really get stuck, I’ll teach you, sir.”

“That a Hoosier twang I hear in your voice, Vicki?”

“I’m from Fairview, Illinois, pardner.”

“Kinnickkinnick, Ohio, ma’am.”

“There’s no such place!” Vicki challenged him, “You’re making it up!”

Bill chuckled. “There is too such a place. Just above Chillicothe, a few farms and a creek. One of the farms is my family’s.” He was still chuckling.

“No such place, she says! It’s an Indian name.”

They shook hands, laughing. Vicki had a new friend. And Bill Boyd seemed more at ease.

The last one Mrs. Duff admitted was Pete Carmody. He was the complete extrovert, with a rakish air. Vicki sometimes wondered if that air and his cherished, carefully battered old hat were not Pete’s attempts to glamorize his role as reporter. His eyes sparkled as he saw all the gay gowns. Jean, to Vicki’s surprise, went to receive him. But Pete was not permitted to take his coat off.

“Get your coats on, everybody!” Bob directed.

“Don and I’ll go downstairs and corral some cabs.”