A Lovely Night A Lovely NightELLIE HAD TO GO TO CAROLYN’S BIRTHDAY PARTY, and it was there that she got kissed.
Ellie was scared about going. Her mother had sewn up a pretty white dress with a blue sash for her. Okey said it would have to get her through every party for the next seven years. But that’s all he said.
On the day of the party the whole house took to making Ellie beautiful. The older girls knew that it would be Ellie’s first boy-girl party, and they remembered things Ellie didn’t know about. Since Ellie was youngest, they seemed to feel obliged to do all they could for her.
Right after breakfast Eunice made Ellie wash her hair then sit at the kitchen table while Eunice rolled it up with Dippity-Doo. Ellie’s hair had never been rolled up before and she worried she might look like her mother’s friends when it came down—all puffed out and stupid. Eunice pulled on Ellie’s hair too hard and brought tears to her eyes. The Dippity-Doo began to remind her of Vaseline. Then she wondered if the hair would stick like glue to her scalp.
“You better not make me look foolish, Eunice,” she warned.
“You look foolish enough already. You don’t need no help there,” her sister said. “I’m trying to make you look like a girl, Ellie.”
Ellie made a face. Eunice’s idea of looking like a girl was looking like a beautician, and Ellie didn’t trust her.
Once her hair was set and covered with a net, Ellie was handed over to Wanda. Wanda brought out a tray of fingernail polishes and spent thirty minutes fixing up the skin around Ellie’s nails—which Ellie didn’t know ever needed fixing—and putting a coat of three different kinds of polish on them.
“Now sit there and blow at them a while,” Wanda instructed.
Ellie blew for a few seconds, then stopped. Her head had started itching and she stuck a finger underneath a roller to get at it.
“No!” Wanda screamed. Ellie jumped, Wanda grabbed her hand, took one look at the wandering finger, then screamed again.
“Ellie, you fool! Look! You smeared all the polish. You even got hair in it!”
Ellie looked at her lumpy nail.
“Does that mean I’ve got pink hair now?”
Wanda groaned and did the nail all over again. Then she blew Ellie’s nails dry and even scratched Ellie’s head for her when it itched. Wanda was clearly serious about her work.
Linda loaned Ellie her heart locket and Martha gave her a bangle bracelet. Ellie’s mother had agreed to let her wear nylons, so the sisters checked and double-checked their panty hose and found the pair in the best shape. But they belonged to Eunice and the material gathered in big folds around Ellie’s ankles, so they had to look again through Linda’s and Martha’s, because those girls were shorter.
The party was set for seven o’clock, and at six o’clock Ellie was sitting quietly on the edge of her bed, her hair all fat and curly (pressed down with barrettes as far as possible), her nails pink, her neck bearing a locket and her wrist a bangle. The white dress with the blue sash lay beside her.
Ellie’s mother put her head in the room. The other girls had already gone off to their Saturday night events, and the house was empty but for the two of them and Okey.
“You’re gonna be late, you don’t hurry,” Ellie’s mother warned.
Ellie nodded.
“You need some help?”
Ellie shrugged her shoulders and kept looking at the floor.
Her mother came into the room.
“Well, stand up and let’s get that dress on you. Okey’s waiting to drive you on over there.” She picked up the dress, but Ellie didn’t move.
“Well, Ellie, what is it?”
Ellie bit her lip, keeping her eyes down, and said, “I’m nervous.”
“About what?”
“Ellie, there’s nothing in the world to be nervous about. All them kids are your friends. Won’t be nobody there you don’t know. It’s time you started going to parties.”
She tapped Ellie’s head.
“Come on now, put your dress on. Okey’ll start spitting if you’re late.”
Ellie stood up and slipped into the dress her mother held. The sash was tied. She stood in front of the mirror, seeing in it nobody she knew.
“Now, if that don’t look mighty pretty,” her mother said. “Don’t know what you’re worried about. You got to grow up sometime, Ellie.”
Ellie pulled on Martha’s nylons then buckled up her patent leather shoes.
“Mama …” She looked at her mother with begging eyes. “Do I have to go?”
Her mother raised one eyebrow and put her hands on her hips.
“If you don’t go to this party after I made that dress … well, you sure won’t be going to any parties, girl, while you’re living in this house. Now get your tail on out of this room.”
Ellie did it. Okey hardly looked at her as they climbed into his truck. They rode together and didn’t talk.
When he pulled in front of Carolyn’s house, Okey reminded her to get a ride back with Debbie Meadows’s mother. Ellie nodded her head. She looked at Carolyn’s brick house, all lit up and scarier than any place she had ever been.
“Well?” Okey said.
Ellie didn’t move.
“Go on, girl,” he said. “I reckon Carolyn’s itchier than you.”
Ellie’s eyes lit up.
“I bet you’re right!” she answered. And she climbed out of the truck and went to rescue Carolyn.
The living room was full of boys and girls sitting stiff on chairs along the walls. A record was playing. Balloons hung everywhere. And Carolyn stood biting her nails by the refreshment table.
It was a mystery to Ellie later how everyone finally started having fun. But they did. They started dancing. They ate cake and potato chips and triangle sandwiches. The boys took off their jackets. And some of the girls in heels even took their shoes off so they could dance better, and so they wouldn’t be a foot taller than every boy in the room.
And many of them played their first game of spin the bottle.
It was Carolyn’s older brother, who was helping with the party, who brought out the bottle. There was a lot of blushing and giggling and sweaty hands. But everyone was willing to play. Even Ellie, though she knew she’d allow only a cheek kiss to anyone.
She had gone through three or four cheek kisses when Harold Johnson spun her. Harold had taught Ellie how to swim at the lake the past summer, so she wasn’t worried when they went into the other room alone.
But Harold grabbed her and headed for her mouth. Ellie’s eyes got big and she pushed him away.
“Wait a minute! Come on!” Harold said.
“No!” Ellie pushed him again.
“Lordy, come on, Ellie.” Harold grabbed both her arms so she couldn’t push him.
And he kissed her. Right on the mouth. Maybe for five seconds. He let her go and grinned at her.
“See?”
Ellie was dizzy for the rest of the party. Her insides were floating and she found she couldn’t take her eyes off Harold. She hoped they’d play another kissing game, but everyone wanted to dance.
When Ellie got home, her sisters were still out, but her mother was up. Ellie knew not to ask her where Okey was on a Saturday night.
“Well, how was it?” said her mother.
“Okay.”
“Your curl all fell out.”
Ellie put her hand to her hair. She’d forgotten what she looked like when she left home.
“Well, Mama, I was dancing.”
Her mother looked surprised.
“Dancing?” she repeated.
“Uh-huh.”
“Well.”
Ellie went into the bedroom and closed the door. She didn’t want to take off her dress just yet. And she especially didn’t want to wash her hands. Because Harold had been wearing some kind of cologne and somehow the smell had got on her hands. She lay back on her bed and covered her nose with them.
She was still dizzy. Her insides were still floating.