Read House Party for Free Online Page B

own. The car rolled majestically up Fifth Avenue. The next stop would be for Kathy Ames.
     
    Kathy had never felt so gawky and foolish and outclassed in her twenty-nine years of feeling gawky and foolish and outclassed. Sitting on the jump seat next to her brother, Paul—naturally slobbering old Fang had to sit on a comfortable seat—Kathy could feel her neck reddening under the scrutiny of Claire Devine.
    "I said where does this gentleman live, Katherine?" Uncle Ned repeated shrilly. He always found Kathy a perfect lump of a girl. No style whatever.
    "Oh, I—I'm sorry, Uncle Ned," Kathy quavered. "It's on East Fifty-eighth. Just off Sutton Place. I'll tell you the building when we get there, Sturgis. I'm terribly sorry."
    Kathy looked hopefully at Paul, but Paul wasn't looking at her. He was too enchanted with Claire Devine.
    So that's why I haven't heard from him for six solid weeks, Kathy thought. She twitched on the jump seat, trying unsuccessfully to arrange her skirts. In doing so she snagged a stocking and she was conscious of her petticoat peeping out. Kathy could cry. Just cry.
    Now let's see, Kathy said to herself. What are the things I've done wrong so far? One: Instead of making a queenly entrance, I was sitting out in front of the Save-the-Trees Society like the poor little match girl with my suitcase on one side of me and Mother's groceries on the other. Nothing quite so stylish as a paper sack of cheese and brioche, is there? Two: I threw my own baggage up on top, like a lady wrestler, instead of letting Sturgis do it. 'What are servants for, Katherine?' Damn Uncle Ned! If he's such a fine old gentleman, why can't he be decent to me instead of making me look like a hick in front of Paul's girl?
    Three: I was all smiles and gushes and blushes—like the old maid relative I practically am—when Paul introduced me to la Devine. Four: I tried to kiss Paul and Uncle Ned and set that nasty dog to barking. Five: My rear stuck out when I did it. Six: I'm dressed like a milkmaid. This little cotton looked so cute at Peck's sale. Cute! Nothing like whirly-girly skirts when you're almost six feet tall and twenty-nine-going-on-thirty and sitting on a jump seat. Why can't I look like she does?
    "What's the matter, Kathy old girl, you getting deaf?" Paul smiled. "I asked who you were bringing out over the Fourth."
    "Oh. Why, Paul, he's just a man I met at a cocktail party. His name is Stone. Manning Stone. He's quite nice, really." There, Kathy told herself, that sounded casual enough. That's the way Miss Devine would have said it
    "What's he do, Kath?"
    "Oh . . . Why, he—he writes. He works at home, mostly.”
    What's he do, indeed! He does something to me that no other man ever did before. He makes me feel tiny and short and girlish and cuddly because he's so very tall and worldly and masterful. He makes me feel beautiful because he's so very beautiful. He makes me feel like Cousin Felicia instead of the goalie on the Chapin hockey team, because he's such a gentleman. He makes me want to go out and buy a lot of dresses I can't afford—forty-dollar bathing suits and that sort of thing—and shoes with four-inch heels.
    I don't know one other thing about him except that he picked me up at a party and took me out to dinner and we've been seeing each other every night since and I cook for him and he wants to be my lover, not my pal —like all those other boys—and I think he wants to marry me.
    Paul, Paul, can't you hear what I'm saying? Can't you feel it? Manning Stone. M-A-double N-I-N-G Stone. Paul, listen to me!
    "Manning Stone? Manning Stone, Katherine?" Uncle Ned was saying. "Funny, I could swear . . . Well, makes no difference. One runs into so many names in eighty-odd years, doesn't one, my dear Claire? I may call you Claire?"
    "I want you to, Mr. Pruitt."
    And, Paul, Kathy heard her brain shouting, he loves me, he really does. And I want everything to be perfect this weekend. I want you to help me; pretend