WHEN THE door of the Patterson home opened in answer to his ring. Jell Parker was mildly surprised to be faced by a tall, attractive girl in a red dress, tweed coat and black accessories.
"Good evening," he said. "T'm calling for Mike" He knew the girl in front of him was not the beauteous Pat, so be supposed it was an older sister.
"Tm Mike," the girl replied. Jeff made a quick recovery. "Hello," he said. "I see you're ready. I've got my mother's car tonight." He smiled. "No motorcycle."
He was relieved when Mike tripped easily down the front steps beside him, not insisting he meet the Patterson family. Girls' families were an anathema to him. Fathers were always too hearty, mothers were coy, and the small fry reminded him of sticky flypaper, expecting all boys who called on their sisters to come equipped with candy, chewing gum, comic books, dolls, or model airplanes..
Jeff received his second pleasant surprise of the evening when Mike entered the car and took her seat beside him without initiating a conversation. Loquacious girls over whelmed him. He was almost beginning to think that perhaps he had talked to the wrong girl yesterday after the basketball game. This girl not only looked different, she acted different.
Something was on his conscience and he got it off fust. I hope you won't mind if we drive over to Brampton After dinner and the movie. My mother's giving a concert at the Woman's Chub. I sort of promised we'd pick her up." He half faced Mike as he drove along the road lead ing to Chimney Comer. "Is it all right with you?"
Of course," she answered. "I'd like to test your mother. I've heard a lot about her."
Jeff sighed Frankly he was relieved. This girl was not going to be half so difficult as he had anticipated. She seemed good-natured and that was a quality not to be underestimated. Lots of girls might have balked at the idea of interrupting a date to give his mother a lift home.
They reached Chimney Corner without mishap. The hostess said their table was ready. As they walked toward it, Jeff could not help noticing that Mike carried her height well. He liked a tall girl to stand straight and not try to shorten herself by stooping over.
Mike asked him to order for both of them. "I think it would be fun to eat the same things," she said. She seemed to bubble over, showing an interest in the rustic atmosphere of the place, the unusual dishes on the menu, and people around them, and Jeff made another mental note about Mike. "Enthusiastic and natural. She gets a big bang out of everything she does."
He ordered fruit cup, consommé, London broil, baked potatoes, peas, a tossed salad. They'd choose dessert later.
Over the fruit cup, Mike asked him to explain the difference between the Austrian and the Italian techniques in skiing. Over the London broil, he discussed, at Mike's insistence, the schools he had attended. By the time dessert arrived, a baked Alaska chosen with care by Jeff. they were discussing basketball. Or more accurately,Jeff was discussing basketball and Mike was listening with rapt attention.
Jeff glowed, feeling a warmth he had seldom expe rienced in the presence of a girl. He expanded. Everything upon which his eyes happened seemed fine, and those eyes did not fail to include in their appreciation the at tentive girl in the red dress across from him.
The food seemed unusually good tonight. Chimney Corner, noted for its excellent cuisine, appeared to be outdoing itself for the occasion. The conversation he was having with Mike was definitely superior to the talk of most girls. He was not aware that he had done practically all the talking and Mike, the listening, but he was very much aware of the fact that Mike Palicrson seemed interesting and intelligent.
She didn't hog the conversation. She didn't brag. Unlike so many girls he knew, she was always pulling out a mirror and looking into it. The V.I.P. Club must have been given a bum steer in thinking this was a tough assignment, he thought. This girl's no half bad. In fact, she's rather nice!
As she answered a question he had asked, he found himself studying her. She wasn't pretty, that was for sure, but she was lively and she had personality. Her eyes were rather fine, wide-set and blue, and when her face lighted with a smile, she was suddenly attractive.
It's an off-beat face, he thought, but in a way she's even more interesting looking than that very pretty sister of hers.
When it came time to select a movie and Mike insisted that Jeff do the picking, stating that she was sure she'd like anything he did, he was completely won over. This was too much to find in one girl. Good nature,appreciation, sympathy, and finally agreeableness.
He followed her out of the dining room watching her easy, athletic stride. The outdoor type, he thought. That's good. This is the kind of girl I can understand and get along with.
They picked up his mother at eleven o'clock. She came out the stage entrance wrapped in fur, her white hair gleaming in the dark. When Jeff introduced Mike, his mother said, "Hello, Mike. What an interesting name for a girl." "It's not my real name," Mike replied.
"No? What is your name?" "Michel. It didn't seem to suit me."
"Then we should call you Shelley. I knew a Michel in France who was called Shelley. Would you like that?"
Jeff noticed that Mike swallowed hard, but she managed to answer, "If you want to call me that, it will be all right."
"Did you have a nice evening, Jeff?" his mother asked. "We had a swell time. How did the concert go?"
"Quite well. We had a full house. I love to play, but I'm always glad when it's over." Her laugh trilled out and Mike nodded, joining in. Then his mother settled back in silence to enjoy the relaxation of the ride home.
When they pulled up in front of the Parker house, Jeff's mother hesitated. "I don't want to spoil the evening for you," she said to them, "but how about coming in for a late snack? Your father's still up."
They had cookies and hot drinks, sitting around the fire. Mr. Parker came out of his study and joined them. Then Jeff's kid brother, Jim, clattered down the stairs in his bathrobe and slippers, complaining that he had been waked up and demanding a hot chocolate.
When Jim was introduced to Mike, he favored her with an intent scowl. "Who ever heard of a girl called Mike?" he asked.
"You did." Jeff shoved a cookie in his mouth. "So keep still."
"Mike's name is Michel," his mother said. "We've decided to call her Shelley."
Jim scowled darkly this time. "Aw, what do you want to do that for?" he barked. "Mike's a swell name. Besides, she looks like a Mike."
"What does a Mike look like?" Jeff wanted to know.
Jim sidled up to Mike and offered her another cookie."She's a good egg," he announced with finality. "I like you, Mike. Don't you go and let them change your name."
Mike was still chuckling over Jim's remarks when Jeff turned his mother's car down the street on which the Pattersons lived.
"I like your mother and father," she said. "And I especially like Jim. He's cute."
"He wouldn't approve of being called cute," Jeff said, laughing. "He wants to be tough. Very, very tough." He paused. "Everyone liked you too, Mike. I could tell." He hopped out of the car and ran around to help Mike out.
They walked slowly up the flagstone path between banks of snow. It was cold and clear, a fine winter night. Jeff felt wonderfully good. He had told his mother the truth. He had had a swell time. He did not know when he had enjoyed himself so much. In the discovery of this new friendship, he had almost forgotten how the evening had begun, the secret skullduggery that had brought him and Mike together.
The door of the Patterson house was unlocked and Mike stepped inside. Before she could turn around to dismiss him with a hasty "thank you" as she apparently intended to do, he followed her in. She stood there watching him, a question in her alert blue eyes.
"Did I do the wrong thing?" he asked. "No, it's cold outside. It won't hurt to get warm,"
He took the measure of her, wondering. He wanted to kiss her. Some girls expected a good-night kiss, some did not. So he stood there wondering. He had a feeling that kissing Mike Patterson would be one of the nicest things that had happened to him in this evening of surprising and extraordinary events. He reached out to take her in his arms.
She drew back. The movement surprised him, not be cause of its element of recoil but because of the expression on her face. She seemed upset and confused, even angry.
Then her words troubled him more than her face. "Was that part of the assignment, too?" she asked. "To get a kiss?"
"What-what assignment?" he stammered. "The V.I.P. Club assignment."
Now it was his turn to recoil. He fell back against the door, feeling for the knob, wanting to run from the house.. But he did not run, he stayed and faced her anger..
"You knew!" he exclaimed. "You knew all the time." It did not matter that he was giving away his secret as signment. All that mattered was what was said here, what happened here tonight, this moment, between Mike Patterson and him.
"Yes, I knew."
"You came along just the same." She nodded, some of the anger fading. "Why did you do it?" he asked.
"I had to. I had to prove something to myself, Jeff."
"I'm sorry." He was stammering again. "I'm-I'm awfully sorry, Mike. How can I explain a thing like this?"
"You don't have to. I came tonight because I wanted to."
He did not ask her what it was she wanted to prove to herself, He felt he had no right.
"I guess you don't want to kiss me good night, Mike," he said.
"It isn't that I don't want to. Jeff." All her anger was gone. "It's just that I wouldn't want a thing like that to be part of a gag." She whispered a quick good night and half pushed him out the door.
His mother was still up when he got back, sitting in front of the fire, her slippered feet stretched out toward
the hearth.
"Hello, Jeff," she said, looking at him. "Or should I say good night?"
He didn't answer.
She went on. "That was an interesting girl, quite natural and refreshing. Jeff. How did you meet her?" Still no answer came from him. "You must bring her to dinner some night. Would you like that, Jeff?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Mother, lay off!".
She jumped up. "Jeff, what's the matter? What's wrong?"
"Everything's wrong. Everything's the matter!" He was bellowing, thinking that by shouting he could stifle some of the outrage that stirred within. "She's an inter esting girl all right. She's a swell girl. But she'll never even speak to me again, so how can I ask her to dinner?"
"I don't understand, Jeff. I thought she liked you very much. Just the way she looked at you."
"The heck she likes me!" He faced his mother, determined to tell her. He had to tell someone or he would explode right here in his own living room.
"I dated her for a gag, Mother. For the V.I.P. Club. Evidently some jerk thought she was a prize wallflower and dreamed up this date as a joke on Mike Patterson and Westbrook High School. The joke's on me instead. Mike found out. Before she even accepted the date, she found out. And she was a good enough sport to come just the same."
His mother's face showed plainly the distress she shared with him. "Jeff," she said, "that's too bad. I'm sorry." "Me too. But being sorry doesn't help," he thundered.
"Being sorry doesn't help anything."