Energetic Engagement

Chapter One

"You mean you're sweet on Harvey Ferguson, Virgie? Well, you sure can pick'em," Madge Eames shook her dark brown curls emphatically, then giggled as she gave the lovely auburn-haired curvacious girl beside her an enigmatic look before returning with much ado of concentration to her soda.

Seated together on stools at the drug store luncheon counter during their lunch hour, the two ex-school chums had made an appointment to meet, shop and chat. It had been two years since they were both graduated from the same class at Elmden High, and they had kept in touch with each other since then rather frequently.

Madge Eames and Virginia Johnson were both nineteen, and, judging from the covertly admiring glances of the soda fountain clerk as busied himself preparing a chocolate sundae marshmallow topping, nuts and maraschino cherry for a plump bespectacled girl at the other end of the counter, both were enchanting specimens of girlish pulchritude.

After graduation, Madge had got a job first behind the counter of a five-and-ten-cent store, but was now receptionist for a small advertising agency. Virginia had taken six months of business school to get a good foundaton on typing and shorthand, and then had been offered the fascinating job of private secretary to the assistant sales manager of a prospering import firm only a mile away from Madge's office. It had been Madge who had called Virginia only yesterday, saying she'd stand treat for lunch because it was her birthday, and Virginia had been happy to meet her, for the pretty auburn-haired young secretary was bubbling over with news that just had to be told to one's closest friend.

In brief, Virginia had fallen and fallen hard. A handsome young Canadian salesman for a firm that did a substantial amount of business with Virginia's employers had visited her office a month ago. Her boss had been held up in a conference along with the sales manager, and it had fallen to her to make the young Canadian feel welcome till the two man could emerge an hour later to greet him. He had introduced himself, and Virginia and her had chatted pleasantly, so much so, indeed, that the hour had sped hardly noticed. Before he left that evening, Harvey Ferguson had shyly remarked that he would be in town four days and would Virginia think him impertinent if he asked her to grant him the honor and privilege of taking her to dinner and a movie. She hadn't thought him impertinent at all, and that evening had had a wonderful time.

As soon as he returned to Toronto, Harvey had written her a flattering and gracious letter, expressing his thanks for the cordiality she had extended to him, telling her how lovely and charming he had found her, and hoping that, should business conditions permit, he might see her again soon. She'd at once responded, thanking him for his kind words and saying that she would be delighted to see him again. Ten days later, to her delighted surprise, he had walked into the office, saying that his firm was going to open a small branch office in Clarendon, larger metropolis sixty miles away, and that he would be manager. He'd intimated that he would be needing a private secretary and would pay Virginia at least ten dollars a week more than she was getting at her present job, as well as assume all her moving expenses.

Virginia's parents had died three years before in a plane crash, and she was living with an elderly aunt who, though goodhearted and well-meaning, tended to be rather crotchety, a tendency older people, who live alone most of their lives, tend to become with advanced age. The prospect Harvey held out seemed fascinating, and it was this news -he was bubbling over with when Madge had met her at their favorite lunch conter, where many an afternoon they'd gossiped about boys they had a crush on during their high school days, or met some of those selfsame boys on coke or after-movie dates.

Madge's admiring remark which opens our story was prompted by first-hand inspection; when Harvey had taken Virginia to lunch that day of his return to Elmden and made his offer of a job to to delighted redhead, her chum had been on an errand for one of her bosses and seen Harvey and Virginia together from across the street.

"He's awfully goodlooking," she said now as she finished her soda and shoved the glass away. "But, Virgie honey, wouldn't you be sort of, well, lonesome, moving to another town, even to wore; for a doll like him and more money? You wouldn't know a soul in Clarendon, would you?'

'No," Virginia admitted wryly, "but after being under Aunt Grace's beck and call every minute when I'm home now, it'd be lots of fun to be on my own..I mean, have my own apartment, cook when I wanted to or eat out, go to a late movie if I felt like it and not have to put up with her grumbling. Oh, she's a dear old soul and I love her and she's been wonderful to me ever since Mom and Pop died, but after all, Madge, I'm nineteen going on twenty and I think I'm old enough to live my own life."

"Sure you are, honey. I feel the same way. Only, gosh darn it, my folks still treat me like a baby. Why, only last Saturday, when I got home about one in the morning from my date with Bud Phelps--he's that new gym coach over at Elmden and is he ever a dreamboat!--Mom gave me the dickens at breakfast before we went to church and said I wasn't too old to be spanked."

"She didn't!" gasped Virginia, wideeyed.

Madge nodded dolefully. "She sure did, Virgie. 'Course, I haven't got a tanning from either of them since I was about fifteen, but Mom's just the sort that would forget I'm your age if she took a notion. Imagine coming in after a date with a real dreamboat and then getting paddled for it! I'd just die, I'd be so ashamed if Mom ever did that. So you can see, Virgie, I sort of envy you, being independent and all-but won't your Aunt Grace have fits about your leaving?'

"I suppose so," Virginia pondered out loud, "but then I've been paying my room and board and I figure if I want to have my own place I can earn it. Anyhow, she doesn't really need me, financially, that is. Dad--she's Dad's sister, you know--left her a lot of money in his will, enough to live comfortably, and she's. invested it all pretty safely. Oh, she'd raise the roof, but when. you get right down to it, I don't think she's stand in the way."

"Then you're going to take the job, I'll bet?"

Virginia nodded, her lovely grey-green eyes sparkling.

"You know something else?" Madge continued with a teasing look and smile.

"No, what, Madge?"

"Wouldn't surprise me at all if, one of these days, you invite me to the wedding. I want to be maid of honor. And then you can be at mine."

"Silly! He hasn't even proposed yet, and we've only known. each other a few weeks and had about three or four dates," Virginia giggled, but all the same she blushed vividly, and then began to finish the rest of her neglected and melting chocolate fudge sundae.