Ladies Choice
PART 4
Dan had walked out of the
barn just in time to see Nat and Nan heading off for a walk together. “Stink.
He’s gonna beat me,” he told himself.
He ran into the house to find Bess.
Bess was in the parlor reading a book.
“Bess, hi,” Dan greeted her.
“Oh, hi, Dan,” she smiled
sweetly.
“Mind if I join you?”
“If you wish,” she laid her
book down on the table. “Did you want
something?”
“Oh. I just thought that maybe, you know, we
could…talk,” he finished.
“Talk,” Bess nodded. “About what?” she batted her eyelashes at
him.
“Oh, I don’t know. Anything.
Painting, music, that book, how wonderful you look, maybe the dance,” he
listed off some things, ending with the most important.
Bess however caught the ‘how
wonderful you look’ part of the list.
“Why thank you. This is a new
dress. Mother just bought it for me.”
“Oh, yeah, I thought it
looked new,” Dan lied. He hadn’t really
noticed the dress.
“She got me a new hat and
new gloves to go with it. I’ll have to
show them to you sometime.”
“Oh, sure I’d love to see
them sometime,” he began getting impatient.
“I could go get them
now…well, no that wouldn’t work. I have
to wear my hair up to wear the hat.”
Dan rolled his eyes as Bess
continued to talk about her clothes. He
wasn’t getting anywhere with her.
“Hey, Mrs. Riley?” Nick said
to his wife as she sat down on their bed that night.
“What do you want, Mr.
Riley?” Jo smiled, but didn’t look at him.
“What I want is to go to the
dance Saturday, but I’d like to have a date.”
Jo turned around to face
him. “A date.”
“Yes, a date.”
“I’m sure somebody will ask
you,” she crawled in bed beside Nick. She reached over to turn the lamp down.
“Hey,” Nick grabbed her arm
before she could extinguish the light.
Jo looked back at him. “Ok, Ok.
If I ask you to go to the dance with me, will you let me turn the light
out so that I can go to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Will you go to the dance
with me?”
“I’d love to.”
“Goodnight,” she turned the
light off. The darkness hid the big
grin that had formed on her face. She
could sense Nick’s confusion at such a strange way of asking him. She couldn’t help it; she started laughing.
“Why, you…” he began
tickling. “You sure know how to make
these kinds of things memorable.”
Jo was laughing so hard from
the tickling that she couldn’t speak.
Nick quit tickling her and leaned down to give her a goodnight kiss.
Tuesday morning came. As Dan and Nat walked up to the schoolhouse,
Dan asked, “Any luck?”
Nat nodded, “No, she got
interrupted. She was just about ready
to ask me. I just know she was.” He turned to look at Dan. “Any luck for you?”
“No, I spent an hour before
supper last night listening to her talk about her clothes. Not once did she bring up the dance.”
“Look’s like we’re both losing
so far,” Nat commented as they walking in the schoolhouse door.
Tuesday had gone by and
Wednesday came, but the boys still hadn’t gotten an invitation to the dance
from the girls. Nan had tried again on
Tuesday to ask Nat, but they had gotten interrupted when Asia asked Nan to set
the table for supper. Bess, on the
other hand, hadn’t even tried to ask Dan.
“Here, let me help you with
that,” Nat walked up to Nan and took the wood that she was carrying into the
house from her.
“You don’t have to,” she
said.
“I want to,” he gave her his
adorable smile, and they headed inside to put the wood in the wood box. They walked back outside and sat down on the
front porch steps together.
Nat decided to get right to
the point, “You know that dance is Saturday.
Were you planning on going?”
“Me?” Nan squeaked, her
nervousness coming back.
“Yes.”
“Oh, me. Uh, yeah, I was
thinking about it.”
“Oh,” was all he said.
She was quiet for a
moment. “Uh, Nat?”
“Yes,” he looked at her.
Nan opened her mouth to ask
the question.
“SHE ASKED ME!!! SHE ASKED
ME!!!” Tommy came running toward the house.
“ELIZABETH SWANSON ASKED ME!!!” he plowed in between Nat and Nan and ran
into the house all excited.
Tommy had just broken the
mood. Nat wasn’t very happy, but Nan
starting laughing. Nat finally saw the
humor in the situation and started laughing with Nan.
