Chapter 6
Nancy (April 1957)
...
"You're sending me away?" Nancy muttered as she stood before her father in the middle of his study. He sat at his desk and did not in the slightest look upset with the news he was delivering to his daughter.
"It's a year-long program," her father said. "One year where you will learn to be ladylike. You'll come out of it a better woman! A woman prepared to be a wife and mother. It's very well-rounded, Nancy."
Her heart dropped further. "I don't want to go."
"Well, you don't have much of a choice. You run around with hooligans and you refuse to learn proper manners here at home. You desperately need to have a change of scenery and get away from that Lonnie."
"We broke up." Nancy's face flushed.
"Oh?"
Nancy nodded while trying not to cry. "He's marrying someone else." She crossed her arms.
"See? Something a common rat would do. Use you up just to break your heart."
"He broke up with me because of how hard you are on him."
"Well see, another excuse. Not man enough to handle his future in-laws? You're better off without a man like that, Nancy."
"Do I still have to go?"
Her father scoffed while he poured himself a glass of scotch. He sat the bottle down on his desk and the sound of the glass bottle hitting the mahogany snuffed out the silence in the room. "Of course you still have to go. You're getting too old for these games. It's time you grew up."
"You can't make me go. What does Mother say about this?"
"Your mother agrees! She attended this school before it relocated to the hotel. It's very prestigious and your mother is proud that you are waking up and thinking about your future."
"When are you planning to get rid of me?"
"In a month. In May. And we're not getting rid of you, Nancy. For Pete's sake. You'll return in a year and you will debut. Like we talked about."
"Of course," Nancy laughed, "the debutante party meant to further place distress on my shoulders."
"Not a party, Nancy. A wonderful opportunity to find suitors. You need a husband. No daughter of mine will go without a proper husband and die alone!"
"This is crazy." Nancy wiped the tears from her eyes.
Her father slammed his palm on the desk. "This is not crazy! You need to stop this foolishness. Lonnie has proven to you that he is not nor will he ever be good enough. This is your chance to prove yourself. It is your chance to make something of yourself! Did you think I didn't worry about you running around with Lonnie? What if you would have gotten pregnant, Nancy? A bastard child to a worthless father. Imagine?"
Nancy couldn't hold back anymore. She burst into tears as she stood in the middle of the study. Her father pushed himself up from his desk and stepped over to her to hug her.
"Now, now," he calmly said as he patted her on the head. "It didn't happen. It didn't happen. You're lucky. Think of it that way, sweetheart. You're lucky!"
Nancy sobbed into his shoulder. "It was never like that with Lonnie. I'm not going."
Her father gritted his teeth. "You'll have plenty of time to argue but the fact of the matter is you are going. That is final."
Nancy pushed him away and stormed out of the study. She slammed the door and her father made his way back to his desk to finish his drink.
Nancy quickly paced to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She leaned back against the door and continued to cry as she slumped to the floor. She felt the ache in her heart grow stronger. It was bad when Lonnie left her and this additional news was enough to shatter her. It did. She cried. She skipped supper. And then she cried some more through the night. In the morning she heard a knock on her bedroom door and the sound of her mother's voice.
"Nancy? Baby? Why don't you join us for breakfast?"
Nancy didn't get up from her bed. "No, thank you."
Her mother opened the door and peeked inside the bedroom. The curtains were still drawn shut and Nancy appeared disheveled. "Are those the same clothes from yesterday? You slept in them?"
"So?"
"What do you mean by that, Nancy? You look like a train wreck. Your hair is a mess and your makeup is smudged."
"No one is even here to see me."
"That doesn't matter, Nancy. A woman should look presentable at all times. You look like you had a night on the town and hopped from bar to bar. From boy to boy!"
"Mother!" Nancy threw a pillow at her mother.
"Don't act like I don't know what you were up to with that Lonnie fellow!"
Nancy rolled over and pushed herself up in bed. She stared daggers at her mother. "And what do you possibly think I was up to with Lonnie? Hm? Tell me because I would love to know the details of things I never even did!"
"Don't lie to me."
Nancy was in disbelief. "I am not lying. Lonnie was a wait-until-marriage kind of guy!" She pulled the duvet cover over her and fell back into her bed. "You and Father make terrible assumptions."
"Are they assumptions?"
"Of course they are!" Nancy screamed.
The room went silent. Her mother walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open, letting the sunlight pour into the dark bedroom.
"Well, I'm glad they were only assumptions then. But you can't blame your father and me. We are only looking out for your best interests, Nancy."
"I don't want to go, Mother."
"You have to, baby."
"Please, can you just leave me alone? I would like to be alone." Nancy pulled the covers over her head.
Her mother quietly walked out of the bedroom and shut the door behind her. Nancy rested in bed for a moment before carefully getting up to shut the curtains her mother had opened. After pulling them closed, and blocking out the brightness of the sun, Nancy wandered back to bed and did not come down for breakfast.