“Why don’t you go away?”
“Away like where?” she asked. “Didn’t we kick that around till it got lost, the last time you were home on leave?”
“I kept thinking about it—at the base.”
“I didn’t need to. The family didn’t let me study what I wanted. Couldn’t afford graduate courses. You know that. They hate the very thought that their darling daughter has a knack for science instead of a knack for rich men. So why should I go away, to New York even, and work at something I’d detest, myself? Being a secretary. Or a model. Phooie!”
“Anyhow,” he said, not happily, “you’ll make a damned good Geigerman.”
She ignored the hurt tone. “Won’t I? And doesn’t it burn mother to the core!”
“Does it?” He could understand her relish. Lenore’s parents frightened him, in a sense: they were able to influence Lenore.
“About six weeks ago the Civil Defense people called at our house,” she began. “They gave Mother and Dad a long spiel about how this state is high up on the national list in preparedness and how everybody in Greek Prairie who could, ought to be in the organization.
You can imagine the fascination Mom and Dad had for that! The defense people didn’t stay long; they could see that the senior Baileys were a dry hole as far as public spirit and atomic war are concerned. But they left some pamphlets. And I got reading them one evening when Mother was chewing me out for refusing to go to some beastly Junior League thing, and I saw in the pamphlet that Green Prairie badly needed people who could handle electronic equipment. So I phoned up to see if they’d take women. Well, there is one other woman Geigerman, a schoolteacher, a Mrs. Phollen. So I signed for it.”
“Great. And now instead of going to beastly Junior League parties, you’re out playing air raid—”