And all at once, the Bay Shore, which had seemed the dullest place on earth, suddenly was a paradise for Judy. She woke every morning with the sun, smiling, and the family heard her singing in the shower. Even Little Mary couldn't match her. She went around in a dreamy state all day, and spent an hour or two every afternoon in the garden with her guitar. Judy was surprised to find how much she remembered from her old lessons, and she became adept at picking out melodies of popular songs and adding her own variations on them. She even started keeping a notebook filled with songs she had written herself.
"She's a changed girl," said Aunt Winnie wonderingly. "I wonder what on earth has made the difference."
The twins exchanged knowing glances. Their mother was busy with running the household, but everyone else knew that Judy's good mood had coincided directly with Hugh Lilly's daily visits.
He came almost every evening and he and Judy would walk into town together and see a movie, go skating, or just sit together in the little park and talk. At least, Hugh would talk. At first Judy felt so shy that she could barely string two words together—she, Judy! Shy! As shy as Betsey, even, when she had always been the boldest of the two by far. Even Betsey would be able to say something worth listening to. Judy was at once all happiness and all despair. He couldn't like her if she acted so stupid—and yet, he did seem to like her because he kept coming round.
How much older he seemed, though he was Judy's age exactly. (They had found that their birthdays were only a few days apart! Imagine!). He seemed older than Everett, too, though Everett was eighteen while Hugh was only sixteen. He was so serious, so determined about his music, so interested in his books, and yet at times he could laugh until his eyes grew bright and dimples appeared in his cheeks.
Hugh wanted to be a musician. He was a musician. But he wanted to study at Julliard one day. "I can't remember a time when there wasn't music in my life," he told Judy. He had a plan; he practiced every day for four hours, but he also was determined to study hard and make good grades in case his dream didn't work out. He was practical that way and Judy, who had once thought practicality of any sort the worst of all vices, suddenly became admiring of it.
He asked Judy what she wanted to do with her life. "I don't know," Judy said, slowly. She had never really considered it before. When she thought about growing up she had always imagined wearing lots of pretty dresses, drinking martinis in painted glasses, and hosting parties full of heaps of fun and lively gossip. But now she rather thought—well—she admired Suzanne so much. And Suzanne taught music, and wrote articles on music for magazines. She didn't seem to care anything about clothes or parties or chatter. She cared about people. In fact, the only person Judy knew who wore sparkling gowns and drank martinis and wore makeup and gossiped was—well, it was May Binnie.
Suzanne—she didn't seem to have as much time for Suzanne now that Hugh had come into her life. But somehow it was all right. She still ran up to Long Lonely nearly every night and sometimes they repeated their musicale—but often in the middle of things she and Hugh would slip off to watch the stars from the top of Long Lonely Hill. Suzanne watched through the window at the two figures, standing so close. Hugh had his arm around Judy's shoulders and was pointing out Orion's belt.
"I've been jilted," she said, smiling, at Sid Gardiner, as she washed a dinner plate and handed it to him to dry. "I'm lucky you're here, Sid, or I should be left alone entirely."
Sid took the plate from her and their fingers brushed. They both pretended not to notice.
xxxxxxxxxx
On Saturday Aunt Rae phoned up Pat and asked if she might take Betsey shopping in the afternoon. Pat Gordon laughed. "It's really up to Betsey, Cuddles dear." Pat was up to her elbows in a new recipe and so the glamorous Rae Hamilton did not begrudge the old nickname.
"But I really don't need anything," Betsey said, doubtfully, when Aunt Rae put the proposition to her. As a rule, she disliked shopping. Judy adored it, and was usually Aunt Rae's partner in crime. But Betsey didn't—well, she didn't not care about clothes. It was only that she never knew what to buy. Every school year she went down to Miss Ida's dress shop and bought three identical cotton dresses, two kilts, one brown and one green, and a lot of white blouses with Peter Pan collars, and she was set for the school year. Judy had stopped shopping at Miss Ida's years ago.
Aunt Rae tinkled a laugh. "Betsey, dear, if everyone waited until they needed something to go shopping, most people would have very little at all. I want to treat you, and I won't take no for an answer. I'll be over in a jiff. See you soon."
Betsey supposed that there was no choice, when Aunt Rae put it that way.
It was nice to see Aunt Rae—dear, pretty, Aunt Rae, with her golden bob and her large, youthful eyes. Today she was wearing a purple skirt and an orange blouse—a combination that Betsey would have thought garish on anybody else, but on Aunt Rae, it worked. She had a large purple-patterened scarf over her hair and sunglasses that took over most of her face, like Jacqueline Kennedy's. Betsey felt drab and colorless in her pink skirt and yellow shirt—and—well, babyish. She flipped the visor down and studied her face in the mirror as they drove along. So plain. She flipped it back up in annoyance with herself.
"Have you heard from Judy lately?" Aunt Rae asked, as they drove along.
Betsey squirmed, thinking of the pile of letters in her desk drawer. Six of them—all addressed to Everett—and all as-of-yet undelivered. "I had a letter from her yesterday," she said. "She seems to be having a good time."
"I don't doubt it," Aunt Rae said, parking neatly and getting out, swinging her handbag over her shoulder. "There's no place more enchanting than the island. Well, any news on 'the Great Romance?'"
That is what Aunt Rae called Everett-and-Judy. Betsey sometimes expected that Aunt Rae was not as disapproving of Everett as mother and father. Aunt Rae said that most girls had to fall in love with someone entirely unsuitable at least once in their lives, so that they could know The Real Thing when it came along. But mother had only pointed out, gently: "You and I didn't, Rae."
"I don't know how it's going," Betsey said, truthfully. Judy's letters, which had been full of Everett at first, had tapered down to nothing. She hadn't mentioned him at all in her last. Betsey could only suppose that poor Judy had given up home and fancied herself quite abandoned. She wondered what Judy would say if she could see those letters she had sent hidden away in Betsey's drawer.
"Alas, the course of true love never did run smooth," Aunt Rae quoted, and then she laughed. "Here we are, Betsey, and where would you like to go first?"
"Well," said Betsey, "I'd like to pick up some notebooks, for school…"
"Notebooks! We're not shopping for notebooks today! You're going to be a junior this year, Bets—and that means spring formals and winter socials—not to mention Little Mary's wedding at the end of summer. I want to get you a lot of nice things to wear."
"Oh, no!" cried Betsey, in consternation, but Aunt Rae was already headed toward the Hip Shop, a bright colorful boutique full of bright, colorful clothes. It was one of Judy's favorite stores. Betsey did not know quite how to say that she didn't shop here—would be much more comfortable at Miss Ida's. So she only followed Aunt Rae into the shop.
There was loud rock and roll playing over the speakers, and a couple of girls were flicking through a rack of minidresses and exclaiming over them. Aunt Rae marched right up beside them and pulled out a teal-colored outfit.
"This is your color, Betsey," Aunt Rae said. "Look how delicious it is!"
Betsey fingered the short skirt a little uncertainly. "It's awfully short…"
"Nonsense!" Aunt Rae said crisply. "You're young and you have the legs for it. Betsey, darling, don't take this the wrong way—but you can't go on wearing these little round-collared things. You are a beautiful girl, no matter what you wear—but if I've learned anything in my life it's that people do look at what's on the outside, before they look in. It's true—a sad truth—but true. People will never bother getting to know how adorable you are if you hide under a bushel all the time. And people don't want to know someone who doesn't make an effort."
Betsey stood in the store and blinked back tears. Aunt Rae did not mean to hurt her. And she was right. It was only that sometimes being told things very plainly hurt a little.
"Now," said Aunt Rae, putting an arm around her and hugging her close, "What do you say: do you like this lemon color or the blue?"
"Blue," Betsey said, squaring her shoulders. "And—and Aunt Rae…?"
"Yes?"
"I—I wouldn't mind trying on the pink, either."
"That's my girl!"
When they left they had a huge bag full of skirts and dresses—white jeans and little fuzzy angora sweaters—a sleek strapless rose gown with silver heels—headbands and Keds and handbags and a gay, cheerful necklace of orange beads that brought out just the merest reddish tints of Betsey's dark hair. "And now, makeup," said Aunt Rae decisively.
They found another shop and spent an hour with a cosmetician, who showed Betsey how to put just the littlest blue shadow at the corners of her eyes, to make them bigger and bluer, how to dab mascara on the tips of her lashes and a little pale pink gloss on her lips. When Betsey turned to the mirror she almost didn't recognize herself.
"Why, I look like Judy!" she cried.
"You are identical twins," Aunt Rae pointed out, grinning.
Betsey threw her arms around her aunt. "Thank you, dearest of Aunt Raes," she said. "You were right, and—and…"
"And?"
"And…well, I feel…it might sound silly, but I feel…as though my outside and my inside match, now."
Aunt Rae hugged her tight and said, "You're beautiful through and through, Elizabeth Gordon."
At home Betsey ran up to her room and changed into her new white shorts and a loose blouse patterned all over with different-colored polka-dots. She slipped her feet into her new white Keds, and dropped the orange beads over her head. Another dab of lipstick—and she grabbed the packet of letters from her desk drawer.
"Where is the child going?" Hilary asked, as Betsey flew by him and out the door.
"I don't know," said Pat, a little confusedly.
Hilary looked at the little retreating figure and back to his wife. "Pat," he said, "That was Betsey—wasn't it?"
"I—don't—know," said Pat again, and she laughed.
Betsey ran all the way to the library and climbed the stairs to the reading room on the second floor. There was Everett, just where she had thought she might find him, his black hair shining as he bent over his book. Betsey threw the packet of letters down before him.
"These are for you," she said triumphantly, and felt immediately as though she had shed a heavy, weary load. Everett blinked up at her with dark eyes and she smiled. She didn't feel bashful at all, even though she had hardly ever spoken to Everett before—even though he was handsome. Devilishly so! But Betsey did not blush, or stammer, or look away. Oh, Aunt Rae had been right—what a difference a little confidence made!
She walked home, and there was a new bounce in her step.