“Right. An accounting emergency. Someone forgot to file their taxes. They just realized it,” she joked. Her parents both smiled but neither laughed, she noticed.
Ket avoided looking at them. She sat very still and stared straight ahead. She felt something happening deep within, in some silent, invincible place.
She suddenly became aware that a resolution was forming inside, while not in words, in some way she was saying, I won’t be put through this kind of humiliation again! With an effort she kept her face straight and shrugged. “Well, all dressed up and no place to go.”
“Let the three of us go see a movie. I wouldn’t mind getting out tonight,” Roger said quickly. He saw the pain that had flickered across his daughter’s face and wanted to do something to take it away. He knew that her pride had been hurt badly, and anger washed through him. I’d like to tell that Charlie Petrie what I think of him! To treat a young woman like this…! However, he could say none of this, for a look from his wife, who knew him very well, stilled him on that subject.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Daddy. Why don’t you and Mom go? I think I’ll just change clothes and go out for a little drive.”
Watching as Ket walked stiffly out of the room, her parents waited until the sound of her footsteps faded.
“Oh, Roger, I’m so worried about Ket! She’s not happy.”
“I know she isn’t, but I don’t know what to do about it.” His glance moved to the portraits of their three daughters on the mantle over the fireplace. He studied them for a moment and shook his head. “She’s always putting herself down. She doesn’t think she’s as pretty as Carol or Jenny.”
“I know, and that’s wrong. Carol and Jenny have a different kind of beauty.”
“Well, that’s true enough. They look like you. I wish Ket had taken after you instead of me.”
“Don’t say that, Roger!” Lucille came over and put her arm around her husband. “God made her just as she is.”
“I know. I wanted to tell her that, but somehow I never can.”
Shaking her head almost in despair, Lucille said quietly, “It’s something she’ll have to come to on her own. It’s strange, Roger. She’s such a fine girl. So honest and strong in every way. So bright and caring.”
“And such a clear thinker, too! She can read other people, but she’s never really figured herself out.”
Upstairs, Ketura pulled off the dress and tossed it across the room where it landed on the floor in a heap. Such anger was rare for her, but Charlie Petrie’s rejection had stung terribly. She didn’t know why it hurt so much. She didn’t even really like him and didn’t respect him anymore, either. He was such a coward. He didn’t even have the nerve to cancel on her himself, but had left her mother to do it. Who needed a guy like that?
Picking up her dress and throwing it across a chair, she yanked off the shoes and panty hose, then pulled on a pair of comfortable khakis, a favorite blue polo shirt, socks and sneakers. Feeling much better, she grabbed her purse and left the house. She got into her blue convertible, started the engine and put the top down. She’d bought the car used, at a reasonable price, but it was still the most impulsive, frivolous purchase of her life. The aging vehicle wasn’t even entirely reliable, but Ket loved the feeling of freedom she experienced while driving with the top down. The wind ruffled her hair as she pulled away from the house and cruised down the street, and Ket felt all her cares blown away with it.
Fragments of the sunset threw a magenta haze over the west for the summer had brought the long days. Now she drove without thinking, just anxious to get away. Swerving and changing lanes, Ket thought of how her life had been so successful in some ways and such a failure in others. Scholastically, she had always excelled and now in her last months of training for her R.N. she was known at Mercy Hospital as an excellent new nurse. She had always been successful at sports, too, and one tennis pro had told her she could make a living at the game, if she wanted to give her life to it. Ketura had laughed at him. “Tennis isn’t something you give your life to. I need more than that.”
She reached the interstate and as soon as she was clear of the Dallas city traffic, she stepped on the accelerator. As always, as the wind rushed toward her and the road swept by, she experienced that delight in the open car that she could not explain.
She drove for nearly an hour, enjoying her solitude, then finally turned back toward the city. As she sent the car through the darkness, she listened to her favorite station on the radio. It was typical that she would listen to such a station, which played the nostalgia music of the forties and fifties—the famous big bands and the great vocalists of that era. Somehow the music soothed her, and when she got back to Dallas she turned off the highway abruptly and soon found herself at a place she knew very well—the parking lot of the ballpark in Arlington—home field of her favorite major league team.
She parked the convertible, got out and began to walk. There was no ball game that night. The team was on a road trip. The skies had turned a velvety blue-black hue now, and overhead a Cheshire cat moon grinned down at her. The stars were sprinkled liberally overhead, and the air of night felt warm. She moved toward the stadium itself, the home plate entrance, and when she got there thought how different it was here when there was no game. The sound of traffic—of heavy trucks and smaller cars—came to her like a distant hum not unlike that of bees. But here there was a quietness that was almost palpable. Looking up, she walked up to the barred gates and wished that there were a game tonight to take her mind off her ruined evening. She loved baseball and could quote innumerable statistics to the amusement of her father and the displeasure of her mother. “It’s not ladylike,” Lucille always said with a frown. But something about the game—ribald and rough as it was—pleased her.
Finally she turned and began walking over the vacant parking lot, acres and acres of concrete with the tall poles bearing light all around. As she walked her mind returned again and again to the debacle of her date with Charlie Petrie. “I don’t even like him,” she announced aloud, her voice breaking the silence. And she continued to speak aloud as she sometimes did when she was in places where she was absolutely certain no one could hear. “He has absolutely nothing that would appeal to me. He doesn’t care anything at all about the things that I like. He wouldn’t even go to church with me. That’s enough for me to turn him down, but I didn’t! I agreed to go see that stupid movie with him! Why did I do it?”
Abruptly she turned away as if trying to turn away from her own thoughts, but they followed her as she circled one of the huge light poles and meandered around the acres of empty parking lot. But as she did, she faced the truth about herself. “I wanted a date. I wanted some man to like me. What’s wrong with that? Every woman likes that!”
The argument seemed sound enough, but somehow Ket was not happy with it. She turned, shaking her head, and moved back to her car. Instead of getting in, she leaned against it, fixed her eyes on the stadium, thought of the lights and the cheers and the screams of the crowd when one of her favorite players knocked the ball out of the park, and wished again that there were a game. Finally, however, she opened the door and got in. Settling behind the wheel, she said, “I guess I’ve got to face up to it.” She gripped the steering wheel hard until her hands ached, then spoke up firmly, “I’m never going to find a Prince Charming. There’ll be no wedding bells or family for me. I’ll have to fill my life up with other things!”
Overhead she saw the Cheshire cat moon grinning—old silver glowing in the sky—but it gave her no pleasure. Still speaking aloud softly, she argued with herself. “I really should count my blessings. I have so much. I’ve got a good family. I’ve got a good church—and I’ve found a career I love. A lot of women would like to have all of that. And I have India.”
The thought of India washed over her quickly—images of Bombay where she had already made two mission trips with a team of doctors and nurses. Her heart had been touched by that place and