“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“There’s not much to tell. It was fun, that’s all.”
“That’s not a very good description. Your mother and I went to considerable trouble to get you to this dance. We’d like some report on it at least.”
She knew from his tone that he was angry, but she didn’t know what caused the anger and why it should be directed against her. “I’m sorry if I kept you waiting, daddy.”
“You didn’t.” He’d been waiting for three-quarters of an hour, but it was not her fault. He had come early deliberately, because it was her first dance and he was as uneasy about it as she was. He had sat in the car, listening to the chaos of laughter and music coming from the gym, imagining the scene inside, and Helen in the very center of it, bright and gay in her gypsy costume. When at last she came out, alone, with that stiff, sullen look on her face, disappointment rose up and choked him so that he could hardly breathe.
“Did you dance with anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
She didn’t want to lie but she knew she had to, and she did it well. Without hesitation she described some of the boys she’d seen dancing with Evie and gave them names and invented conversations and incidents.
She talked all the way home, while her father smiled and nodded and made little comments. “That Jim sounds like a real cut-up.” “Too bad the Powers boy was shorter than you.” “Now, aren’t you glad we made you go to dancing school?”
Later, when she kissed him good night, he gave her an affectionate little pat on the bottom.
“I’ll have to watch out for you now, young lady. One of these days I’ll be driven out of house and home by those little idiots hanging around.”
“Good night, Daddy.”
“I forgot to ask about Evie. Did she have as good a time as you did?”
“I guess so. I was too busy to pay her any attention.”
She went to bed, half-believing in her own lies because her father’s belief was so complete.
The following day the dean of Helen’s school, who had been one of the chaperons, telephoned Mr. Clarvoe. She wanted, she said, to check up on Helen and see if she was all right, she’d been so unhappy at the dance.
Nothing was said at dinner in front of Verna and Douglas, but later Mr. Clarvoe called Helen into the den and shut the door.
“Why did you lie, Helen?”
“About what?”
“The dance.”
She stood, mute, scarlet with humiliation.
“Why did you lie?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it had been just one lie — but it was a whole string of them. I can’t understand it. Why?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing of what you told me was true?”
“No, nothing,” she said with a kind of bitter satisfaction, knowing he was hurt almost as much as she was. “Not a word.”
“All the boys — they weren’t even real?”
“I made them up.”
“Helen, look at me. I want the truth. I demand it. What really happened at the dance?”
“I hid in the lavatory.”
He stepped back, as if the words had struck him across the chest. “You hid — in the lavatory.”
“Yes.”
“Why? For God’s sake, why?”
“I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
“My God, why didn’t you phone me? I’d have come and taken you home. Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I was too — proud.”
“You call that pride? Skulking in a lavatory? It’s almost obscene.”
“I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” she repeated.
“What about Evie? Was she with you?”
“No. She was dancing.”
“The entire evening, she was dancing and you were hiding in the lavatory?”
“Yes.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“She was popular and I wasn’t.”
“Going off and hiding like that, you didn’t give yourself a chance to be popular.”
“I wouldn’t have been anyway. I mean, I’m not pretty.”
“You’ll be pretty enough in time. Why, your mother is one of the prettiest women in the state.”
“Everyone says I take after you.”
“Nonsense, you look more like your mother every day. What on earth put the idea in your head that there’s anything the matter with your appearance?”
“The boys don’t like me.”
“That’s probably because you’re too stand-offish. Why can’t you try to be more friendly, like Evie?”
She didn’t tell him what he should have known for himself — that she would have given anything in the world to be like Evie, not just at the dance, but any time, any place.
His anger, which in the beginning had boiled out like lava, was now cooling, leaving a hard crust of contempt. “You realize, of course, that I’ll have to punish you for lying?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sorry you lied?”
“Yes.”
“There’s only one true test of penitence. If you had a chance to repeat the lies, knowing you wouldn’t be found out, would you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It would have made both of us happier.”
It was true and he knew it as well as she did, but he shook his head and said, “I’m disappointed in you, Helen, extremely disappointed. You may go to your room.”
“All right.” She lingered wanly at the door. “What about my punishment?”
“Your punishment, Helen, is being you, and having to live with yourself.”
Later in the evening she heard her parents talking in their bedroom and she crept down the dark hall to listen.
“Well, heaven knows I’ve done everything I can,” Verna said. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“What about my idea of giving her a big party, inviting a bunch of boys?”
“What boys?”
“We must know some people who have boys about her age.”
“I can think of exactly two, the Dillards and the Pattersons. I loathe Agnes Patterson, and besides, the whole idea of a party wouldn’t work.”
“We’ve got to think of something. If she goes on like this she may not even marry.”
“I just don’t understand you, Harrison. For years you’ve been treating Helen as if she were about four, and now suddenly you’re thinking about her marriage.”
“Are you blaming the situation on me?”
“Someone’s to blame.”
“But never you.”
“I,” Verna said righteously, “am bringing up Dougie. The girl is the father’s responsibility. Besides, she takes after you. Half the time I don’t even understand her. She won’t speak out, let anyone know what she’s thinking or how she feels about things.”
“She’s shy, that’s all. We must find a way to get her over her shyness.”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing, I think we should encourage her relationship with Evie. The girl’s a good influence on Helen.”
“I agree.” There was a silence, and then a sigh. “What a pity we didn’t have a girl like Evie.”
Barefooted, shivering with cold and fear, she trudged back to her room and got into bed. But the walls and ceiling seemed to contract, to press down on her until they fitted her like a coffin. She knew then that her father had been right. This was her punishment, to be herself, and to have to live with herself forever, a living girl inside a locked coffin.
She lay awake until morning, and the emotion that was strongest in her heart was not resentment against her parents but a new and bitter hatred for Evie.
She did nothing about this hatred. It was buried with her inside the coffin and no one else knew it was there. Things went on as before, with her and Evie, or almost as before. They still shared a crush on the science master with the romantic eyes, they wrote notes in their secret language, and exchanged clothes, and food from home, and confidences. The difference was that Helen’s confidences were not real. She made them up just as she’d made up the boys, and the incidents at the dance, for her father.