Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [83]
“Just wonderful,” Dorothy told him, “loving every minute of it, she says.”
“And how is young Robert?”
Dorothy shook her head. “I’m afraid young Robert is having romance problems, compounded by a slight case of mistaken identity.”
Claudia Albetta was not the only one that year to make a similar mistake. When Betty Raye found the unsigned valentine that had been slipped under her door that morning she had seen Bobby in the kitchen the other day and assumed it was from him. Bobby wondered why she had kissed him for no reason. Other than the box of candy from Doc and Dorothy, it was the only valentine she got that year.
Another Graduate
THE TIME BETWEEN February and May seemed to fly by for everyone except Bobby. To him, three months felt like ten years and by the end of the school year he was like a wild animal ready to be let out of his cage. Dorothy did manage to get him into his good suit and a bow tie for Betty Raye’s high school graduation. Dorothy wanted to be sure that everybody made a big fuss over her that day. The entire family was there, including friends like Monroe, who came along to help. They all yelled and applauded loudly when her name was announced and Jimmy even whistled. Dorothy was worried about her not being as popular as some of the other students and since the Oatmans could not be there, Dorothy wanted her to feel like she was not alone and know she had people who cared about her. After the graduation exercises were over, they were all standing around congratulating her when two girls walked up and asked Betty Raye if she was going to the party over at Cascade Plunge. “I don’t think so,” Betty Raye said, and before she’d thought it out Dorothy said, “Oh, Betty Raye, you don’t want to miss your senior party. Why don’t you go—I’ll bet you’d have a lot of fun.”
“Yeah,” said one girl, “you don’t have to have a date. You can go with us if you want to.”
“I’ll take you if you want me to,” Bobby said.
The girls did not wait for an answer. “If you change your mind, call us.” All the way home Dorothy had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything more but she managed. She had promised Betty Raye that she would never have to do anything she did not want to, but she still hated the idea that Betty Raye was not going tonight. She had not gone to the senior prom, either. One boy had asked her but she’d told him she could not dance, so he’d asked someone else. On prom night she’d stayed home and worked on her scrapbook. She had not seemed to mind but all night Dorothy had felt just terrible about it—and now the girl was missing the big senior party as well.
Later, everybody else was out on the porch and Mother Smith and Dorothy were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. Dorothy said, “I feel so sorry for her I just don’t know what to do.”
“Why, did she say something about her parents not being here today?”
Dorothy shook her head, “No . . . it’s not that. She never says anything about that. It’s just when I went in her room earlier she was sitting all by herself working on her scrapbook while everybody else is out having fun.”
“Maybe she enjoys working on her scrapbook.”
“Do you know what she puts in it? Pictures of houses that she cuts out of magazines.”
“Houses . . . why houses?”
“Because she says that’s what she wants more than anything else.”
“Movie stars I can understand but houses, that’s a new one. What kind of houses?”
“Just little houses. She must have over a hundred pictures pasted in there.”
“Is that why you feel sorry for her?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I get the feeling she’s always sad about something. Not on the surface but deep down inside of her and I don’t know what it is.” Dorothy looked away and her eyes filled with tears. “But sometimes when I look at her she looks just like a little lost dog, wandering around all alone in the world, and it breaks my heart.”
Mother Smith reached in her pocket and handed her a Kleenex.
“Sorry,” said