Dream When You're Feeling Blue Read Online Free PDF

watched the birds for a while, then reached in her pocket for her hankie. She blew her nose loudly, and it honked, and the girls smiled in spite of themselves. “It’s awful,” Maddy said then, and Kitty nodded.
    “I just don’t know what to do. My mother won’t get out of bed. My father sits at the kitchen table and stares. Just…stares. Bobby’s coming home for the funeral, and I don’t know if he should go back. One’s enough, isn’t it?”
    “One’s enough,” Kitty said, and then she sat quietly, holding her friend’s hand until she stopped crying.
    Finally, Maddy took in a long breath and said, “Okay. I’m okay now. Thanks for coming out here with me, Kitty. I think I’ll just…I think I’ll go home. I’ll make Ma some soup; she’s got to eat, and she likes my cabbage soup. Or I’ll just…I’ll just be there. I’m not ready to go back to work yet.”
    “Take your time. And if you need me to do anything for you, let me know.”
    “There are some invoices on my desk. If you could—”
    “I’ll do them right away.” Kitty hugged her friend and then watched her move in and out of the shade of the trees, walking slowly toward home. All over the country, this just kept happening. And over and over again, Kitty had to straighten her back and remember why. It probably wasn’t right to say so, but this was how she felt: at home, bombs were falling, too.
    She started back for the office. After lunch, she’d tell the girls about her ring, she’d show it to them. They needed good news, too. Did they ever.
             
    THE BELL OVER THE DOOR at Munson’s Jewelers tinkled gaily when Kitty walked in. It was as though it, too, wanted to join in the excitement of what she was about to do. So much for the remark Kitty had overheard Julian make to Michael recently: “I’d like to see any quail try to put the bite on me!” All the pressure men felt to try to avoid being “trapped.” And all the pressure women felt to trap them! You couldn’t look at a ladies’ magazine without being beaten about the head with the message that if you weren’t engaged you were nothing. The ad Kitty had looked at most often said, “She’s lovely! She’s engaged!” and she wasn’t even lovely! Kitty had stared and stared at the woman’s face (she looked a little stuck up, too), and thought,
How come
she
got a ring?
Something Bob Hope had said on the radio was going around: “You know what a husband is, don’t you? A bank account with pants and an empty stomach. Easy to catch one, though, all it takes is a flashy car with a bear trap for a bumper. Your only competition is twenty-three million other women—and the draft board.” Another joke going around said they were beginning to draft scarecrows. Well, Kitty didn’t have to worry anymore.
    She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and across the top of her forehead was a thin line of perspiration. She had walked to the store so quickly she’d nearly tripped over the last curb. She’d tell Julian that, in her letter to him tonight.
Jeepers, hon, I was in such a hurry I nearly fell flat on my face on my way over to Munson’s. But it would have been worth it to take a tumble for the incredibly beautiful ring that now sits on
that
finger!
She’d say something like that. The diamond was bound to be big; Julian would never settle for anything under a full carat. It might even be two carats! She’d say he needn’t have done that, but then she’d say how happy she was that he did. She’d heard that if you caught a diamond in the light the right way, you could cast huge rainbows on the wall. She’d wait to do that until her sisters could see it with her. They’d be so excited for her, and they’d love her ring, Tish especially. No stone could be too big for Tish. Louise might think Kitty’s large diamond was crass, but she’d have to admire its great beauty. Everyone would.
    Around her parents, Kitty would be more subdued. Already she