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Show FICTION j A RIDE IN THE DARIc1i mllE headlights of the blue coupe flashed on in the driveway. Joyce, who had been watching from an upstairs window, reached hurriedly hur-riedly for the coot lying on her bed. As she slipped into it she made a last quick survey of the room to see that she had not forgotten anything. any-thing. By the door her neatly packed suitcase stood ready, and even now the room had that deserted, impersonal imper-sonal atmosphere a room acquires when its occupant goes away. Her heightened emotions threw an unnatural clarity over the familiar famil-iar scene. Little things she had not noticed for weeks sprang suddenly Into focus. A silly little horn hanging on the dresser was a reminder of a dance Terry had taken her to while they were still in college. He had kissed her that night for the first time. The photograph stuck in the edge of the mirror: Terry with a horrible grimace pretending to clutch her throat as she knelt in supplication in the sand.- That had been taken the day the gang drove out to Three Tree Point for a picnic. "How young we were'" she thought wistfully. "How terribly, carelessly young! And we'll never be young like that again!" She shivtred and drew her coat closer around her shoulders. For tonight was the end of her girlhood, the end of the careless, silly yean. After tonight nothing would ever be quite the same again. Better, perhaps. per-haps. Oh yes far, far better! But not the same, ever again. She caught her breath In sudden panic, and for one horrible, hor-rible, despairing moment she thought, "I don't want to go through with It! I'm afraid!" Then with a laughing sigh at her absurdity, she shook the mood from her and hurric 1 out of the room without looking back. Safely In the car with her suitcase suit-case tucked under her feet, she relaxed comfortably against the shoulder of the young man behind the steering wheel "Look, Terry, there's a new moon tonight. Is that a good omen, do you suppose?" "I hope so, darling." He looked tenderly down at the delicate oval o her face, childish mop of brown curls and the small hands folded carefully in her lap. "Oh, Joyce," he exclaimed abruptly, abrupt-ly, "don't you think we should have told your mother after all? Are you sure that you want to do It this way?" "Hush, Terry.'! She patted his knee. "Let's not go into that again. It's too late, anyway. You know Mother, she thinks I'm still a baby! She wanted us to wait at least another year." "She might be right at that," Terry replied uncertainly. "Maybe you are too young." "Nonsense!" She shook her curls emphatically. "A girl Vnowa when she's ready. Wasn't it lucky Mother decided to go to California when she did Everything worked out beautifully. Now she needn't know a thing about it until it's all over. "Darling," her voice grew pensive. pen-sive. "Why do you suppose it 's that middle-aged people can't seem to remember what it's like to be young and in love? Don't they remember the beauty and the relentless re-lentless urgency? Don't they know that there has to come a time when you've got to have it all and even everything is not enough?" Her voice faltered, and in the silence between them the words were like dark wings beating. Terry reached down and took her hand in a hard grip. "Joyce, dearest!" he whispered. They were silent then, ond the moon-bathed landscape sped past as his foot pressed hard on the gas pedal It was early spring, and the cool night air blowing in through the car window had the restless, exciting smell of new growth. At last they were out of the country, coming into the suburbs of a town, where street lights dimmed the moon and houses stood in dark huddled rows. Terry slowed the car, then suddenly sud-denly pulled up to the curb and turned to the girl beside him. His arms went around her and his head bent down to hers. "I love you, Joyce," he said against her soft hair. "Are you afraid of tonight?" She thought flectingly of the moment In her room when she said goodbye to her girlhood, but that moment was passed, swept away by tho tide of new emotions. "As long as you love me, Terry, she replied simply, "I'm not afraid of tonight or afterwards." It was quite true; she felt strong now, and confident, ready for anything the future fu-ture might hold. He kissed her gently and the car moved forward again, slowly now as though the future had become too precious for any risk. A brightly bright-ly lighted building loomed before them, and Terry stopped again at the foot of a flight of stone steps. He picked up her suitcase and stepped out of the car, then turned to take her arm. Joyce looked up eagerly at the words cut over the entrance to the building: "LAKEWOOD MATERNITY HOSPITAL." HOS-PITAL." She smiled at her husband gravely, grave-ly, reassuringly, and together they started up the steps toward the welcoming lights. I "How young we were!" she thought wistfully. "How terribly, carelesly young! And we'll never be young like that again." I |