Free Dancing With Velvet by Judy Nickles Page A

show up.
    Before she got into bed, she hung the dress in the back of her closet and returned the silver slippers to their box. If she hadn’t walked home in them, the soles would hardly be scuffed.
    Sitting on the edge of the bed in her pajamas, she read Kent’s letter again. What had she expected from him? He’d been honest from the beginning about not being free to make a commitment. Besides, what kind of commitment did she expect him to make after they’d met only a few times? Anyway, things have changed. I’m not who he thought I was, and no blue velvet dress and silver slippers can ever make me the same person again.
    She slipped the letter under her pillow. Maybe it’s better this way . I spent fifty dollars on a dress I’ll never wear again. I could’ve had three new outfits for work. Serves me right for being so silly.
    She sat up, plucked the letter from beneath her pillow, and held it briefly against her cheek. Then she got up and tucked it into the box Pete had made for her in wood shop when they were in high school. Her fingers skimmed the polished lid. Another memory put away. Is that all I’ll ever have—memories? What about a life? She got back into bed and switched off the lamp.
    All over. All her bright dreams. They were silly dreams anyway. Kent wasn’t her dream prince after all. Maybe princes didn’t exist, at least not for her.
    He’d been so nice, so thoughtful the way he’d driven her home first, before Veda and Paula. She’d felt so proud sitting next to him at church the next morning. Maybe pride was the problem. Maybe only her pride was hurt.
    She turned over and buried her face in the pillow, trying to quash her thoughts. She and Pete had some good times in high school, but this was different. Kent was different.
    Oh, Kent, why did it turn out this way? Why couldn’t we have had just one more night, one more weekend? Then I could’ve made some excuse about why we shouldn’t see each other again or keep in touch, about why I can’t be part of your dreams.
    She flopped over on her back. Why am I such an idiot?
    For the first time since before Christmas, she dreamed about the blue velvet drape billowing in an unseen wind. But this time, no one came out from behind it…and her beautiful dress hung around her in tatters.

Chapter Six
    Winter dragged on through February and March, cold and wet, the dreariness of the days matching Celeste’s spirits. Her twentieth birthday fell on a Saturday in April. At Coralee’s insistence, she took the bus to Sterling City for the weekend, but she continued to refuse all invitations to return to the dances at the St. Angelus.
    “Maybe you went for the wrong reason,” Veda ventured over lunch one Friday. “I mean, did you go to have a good time or to find a husband?”
    Celeste tried to hide her irritation at the question. “Why do you and Paula go?”
    “To have a good time, that’s all. Paula’s set on that design school in Dallas, and I’m not going to clerk at Woolworth all my life either. We’re not old maids because we’re past twenty, and neither are you. If I meet someone special there, fine, but for now, it’s a safe, clean, good time.”
    “I just don’t want to go back, Veda.”
    “Then I won’t nag you about it, but if you ever do, don’t be afraid to say so.”
    “Sure, I’ll let you know.”
    ****
    “I’m worried about you, Cece,” Coralee told her when Celeste came for another visit at the end of May. “You’re drooping.”
    “I’m all right.”
    “Honey, Kent isn’t the only man in the world, and you only saw him three or four times. You put all your eggs in one basket.”
    “Is that what I did?”
    “I think so.”
    “Maybe. I don’t know.”
    “Maybe after you’d gotten to know him better, you wouldn’t even have liked him.”
    “I guess that’s possible. But he was so nice, Sister. He was nice to me.”
    “You said he was a good dancer and a perfect gentleman, but you’ve dated a lot of boys