style="font-size:15px;"> We danced every dance. He twirled me around the floor. I followed his lead. Had the best time I’d ever had in my life.
After the music ended, Steve took us all to dinner. The service was slow.
“We’re going to miss our deadline,” Midge worried.
“No problem,” Steve said. He called our house mother, Mrs. Smith, who said, “Have fun. I’ll wait up for the girls.”
My life changed that day—April 15, 1955.
Steve managed to see me at least a few minutes every day the next week. For a milkshake. A stroll through the Gonzaga campus. A milkshake. A walk down to the nearby Spokane River. A milkshake.
But by late that Saturday afternoon, Steve still hadn’t called to invite me out that evening. And I thought he was interested, I agonized. I knew I was.
So when, at the last minute, my friend Monica asked if I’d be her boyfriend’s brother’s date to a Gonzaga mixer, I agreed. Not much fun, I told myself afterwards. The only good thing that night had been the root beer float my date bought me afterwards at the A&W.
The next morning I got an early phone call. “How about watching my baseball game today? Afterwards we can take a ride around town. I have John’s car for the afternoon.”
I watched the game. Rather boring. Enjoyed the car ride through the north side of Spokane.
As we were driving back to college down North Wall Street, we saw a sign.
Bern Thera Terrace—New Homes for Sale
I loved houses—had already been planning the dream home I’d move into someday. (Old Boyfriend had been drawing the floorplan for our first place when he decided to quit college.)
Steve and I walked through a two-bedroom model. Daffodils graced a clay pot by the front door. The kitchen had aqua steel cabinets—my favorite color. We both oohed and ahhed.
Steve dropped off John’s car at Wes’s Gas Station (where John worked part-time to feed his three kids and wife), and we took a side trip down by the river. On the way back to my dorm, we stood under a flowering tree for a moment. He bent toward me. Paused. Then kissed me right on the lips. It was magic.
I got back to my room, took out my Smith Corona portable, and began writing. Before dinner, I’d already finished the shell of my term paper. The words sped from my brain to my fingers and onto a blank sheet of paper—as fast as Morse code clicks turn into a telegram.
One evening after dinner Steve stopped by my dorm. “Wanna go for a walk?” he asked.
By that time, I was ready to go (almost) anywhere with the six-footer who was fast becoming more important to me than my studies.
We ambled down Boone Avenue toward Gonzaga, took a left in front of DeSmet Hall and another onto DeSmet Avenue. In those days there were one-family residences lining the north side of the street. As we walked by a story-and-a-half white house, a classmate of Steve’s came out.
“Just want you to know I’ll be voting for you tomorrow, Steve,” the guy said.
“Thanks, I appreciate your support,” my date replied.
And that was how I discovered Steve was running for Senior Class President.
Here I was—a mere freshman, so shy I had a hard time talking to people to whom I hadn’t been formally introduced. And someone so popular he was in contention for one of the most prestigious offices in the college hierarchy was pursuing me.
Wow!
For the past couple of weeks I’d been cataloguing the qualifications I wanted in a husband. Nothing like being prepared, I’d told myself.
I thought of my parents’ marriage.
My daddy was the best father! My girl-friends bragged about him to me. “He’s so handsome!” Julia said. “He’s so patient,” Phyllis confided when Daddy dug her family car out of a snowdrift and never even raised his voice in the process.
But my mother was boss. She’d say “Jump” and he’d say “How high?”
Daddy wasn’t hen-pecked. Just selfless.
Being in a love-hate relationship with my mother, I decided I wanted a “take charge” husband. Did I see a lot of my mother in myself and want to remove that curse in my own marriage? Perhaps. Whatever . . . I’d chosen to look for a leader in a husband.
Is Steve the one? I wondered as we walked hand in hand toward 24 Flavors.
When we arrived, Steve ordered.
“A cherry milkshake for my girl,” he said without even asking me what I wanted.
Hmm, I thought. I liked having a strong man take charge of my smallest want.
The next Saturday night was Gonzaga Prom. Steve arrived at Marian Hall (this time he didn’t assume—he’d asked) with a gorgeous orchid. (It was my first-ever orchid—I was impressed!)
I wore an aqua net and taffeta ballerina strapless formal.
We were double-dating with Steve’s friend Dirks and his date Pat. Any worries I had about going to Prom with an “older man” (Steve was already 21) were quelled. Pat had gone to Glasgow High School—she’d been a senior when I was a sophomore—a nice girl my mother said.
Dirks had the car—he drove. Steve and I got better acquainted in the back seat.
Minutes after we left Marian Hall, Dirks stopped. I looked out expecting to see a big building—The Spokane Club—the prom site.
I saw a big building all right—but the flashing sign in front said Carlton Hotel.
Oh my gosh! I thought. What have I gotten myself into?
I looked at Pat. She smiled at me, as if everything was normal.
We all got out, entered the lobby, got into the elevator. My heart was beating a mile a minute.
I started saying Hail Marys. Silently.
Now I can’t say my mother had warned me not to go to hotels with dates. “Be a good girl” had been the extent of my sex education at home.
But I knew what could happen. There’d been an instance in Glasgow where a local girl and her sixteen-year-old customer were arrested at the Roosevelt Hotel. She was sent to the Montana State Girl’s Reformatory, and the guy ended up in the Boy’s Reformatory in Miles City. They hadn’t been playing tiddlywinks.
