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Show 10 My efforts to talk up the swimming party seemed doomed. Then came one of those fits of courage that can sometimes seize a shy person. I dared Nell to go swimming with me. Strange as it sounds, I wouldn't have found the nerve if we hadn't been in something like a crowd. Alone with her I wouldn't have done it. But I spoke loudly and brashly in a pause after the needle had stopped scratching out a piece on the Victrola. She took the dare with easy grace and a touch of wit. I recall, however, Immmmm*, how silence fell on the group around the phonograph. Shocked silence. Suddenly the enormity of it struck me: the picture Nada and Thermo must have seen in their minds' eye was a boy and a girl departing into the night, not slyly slipping away but boldly announcing they were going off to undress and indulge in some adventure, swimming possibly being the lesser part. I shook at my own rashness in the unseen glare of averted eyes. But Nell was casually gathering up her swim suit, cap and towel as if unaware of the Victorian conventions that ruled the community. Only a miracle or cowardly flight could save me. The miracle happened. Rose RiveaU, another Thermo girl but not a neighbor of Nell's, broke the silence. She had after all brought her suit. But it was getting small for her now-she'd wondered about showing herself in it. But if we didn't mind. . . .? In the shocked communal quiet, we didn't mind. . .of course we didn't. We were actually delighted. Who says three's a crowd? That was what we wanted all the time, a crowd. . .the more the merrier and all that. |