“I don’t care!” Amy called through the door. “I can always use the other one upstairs!”
“You can,” Peggy answered with a laugh, “if you can figure a way to get Irene the Beautiful Model out. She always goes in at six o’clock, and it would take an atomic bomb to get her out before seven! You’ll just have to wait for me!”
Any further conversation was made impossible by the noise of the water running, and Amy resigned herself with a philosophical sigh, telling herself that it was probably better for Peggy to go first anyway, because she always finished quickly, as if that made a difference, which, of course, it did not.
The timing, however, must have made sense in some mysterious way, because both girls were ready at precisely the same moment. It was at the exact instant that the grandfather clock began to chime softly that Amy and Peggy both stepped from their rooms into the hall and said, in chorus, “You look lovely! How do I look?”
Laughing at themselves, each girl whirled around and showed herself to the other. Peggy’s turn made a wide sweep of her black taffeta dress with its black satin cummerbund smartly making the most of her trim figure. For this special occasion, her first real date in New York, she had put her hair up and skillfully used a little eye make-up. Her long, slender neck was accentuated by a single string of pearls, which were echoed by her tiny pearl earrings.
Amy had chosen to set off her pale, blond beauty with a brocaded dress of dark, lustrous green that seemed to add a green glint to her brown eyes. She wore a delicate, flat gold necklace, small gold earrings and a slim, antique gold bracelet set with semiprecious stones.
As Peggy fastened a hook and eye for Amy (it was located in that one spot that just cannot be reached), the last notes of the clock sounded, followed immediately by the sound of the doorbell.
“That’s Randy and Mal now!” Peggy said. “We’re all so prompt that it’s hardly possible!” She ran down the stairs to answer the door, Amy at her heels, and a few minutes later, the four were strolling down the street arm in arm.
“You sure look beautiful tonight—both of you,” Randy said. “I’m glad that I decided to wear a tie!”
“If you hadn’t, I’d have sent you right home to get one,” Peggy said firmly. “And besides, you did say that we should dress up for dinner and dancing. That is, if you’ll put up with me. I’ve never danced with a professional dancer before.”