“It’s Now or Never” (instrumental)
Listen to this chapter, “Preparation Day.”
Morning dawned, and soon the crowds thronged into the Youth Congress building again. Without even a simple “goodnight” or “good morning” from Allen, Julie felt completely confused. Was it just that Allen was tired and not feeling too well last night?
But at breakfast, even though they talked, an invisible but thick cloud hung between Allen and Julie. And soon thereafter, he disappeared again with a nonchalant, “And I’ll see you subsequently!”
A strange, unwelcome sense of freedom came over Julie. Bill Johnson has to be here, someplace. Those girls from Garden Grove had said that the Garden Grove fellows were staying at the Lafayette Hotel. Perhaps after morning devotion…
“Which discussion group are you going to?” Peter asked when they had finished praying.
“How about the one on ‘Sound and Communication’?” Julie suggested.
“Say, that sounds pretty good! Where is it?”
Julie looked at her program. “Supper Room, Lafayette Hotel.”
The discussion group was excellent, but there was no sign of Bill. “Call for him at the desk, please, Peter?” But Bill was not there. Defeatedly, Julie walked back to the Sports Arena with Peter.
“Youth on Parade!” Floats, drill teams, tumbling! All the best of it from the schools and colleges! For two and a half hours Julie forgot herself and enjoyed it all. Darlene and Sandy were there. And Peter and Bob and Sandra. It was only during supper that Julie gave in to that lonely, sick feeling as she ate with Bob and Sandra.
“What is wrong with him?” Sandra asked Julie. “This isn’t right; we four should be together, like at Christmas. Doesn’t he realize what he’s doing?”
“I don’t know,” Julie said helplessly.
Bob shook his head. “That Allen! He’s been cold to us, too—all day. I can’t figure him out.”
“Confidentially, Julie, don’t you still love him?” Sandra, who spoke so tenderly, was so much in love.
Julie stared straight ahead at nothing. “I don’t know, Sandra. I just don’t know.”
At the evening meeting, when the long row of ministers marched onto the platform, Allen stood among them, tall and straight. Julie’s heart swelled with pride as he stepped up to the microphone to offer prayer for a thousand youths. She hoped no one saw her gently dab her eyes with a Kleenex. For a fleeting instant, how she wanted to fall into Allen’s loving arms and cry on his broad, soft shoulder and confess everything! Maybe tonight, back at the Carsons’, friends of Mrs. Macintosh where the Riverdale youth were staying. Maybe she just needed to say a few sweet words, give him a soft smile with all the genuineness of meaning it used to hold, and seal it with one brief kiss—just maybe it would melt him.
She confided these feelings in her understanding “big brother.” “Oh, Bob, what should I do?”
Bob frowned a little at the idea of a “brief kiss.” That wasn’t like Bob. Maybe he didn’t really understand.
“If he’s only discouraged because he thinks I’m stuck on Bill,” she tried to explain, “then all it’ll take is a little lovin’ to pep him up. But if he really doesn’t love me—” Her voice choked.
“I know,” Bob tried to encourage, patting her hand lightly. “Julie, I love you very much, and I don’t want my ‘little sis’ to be hurt—by Allen or anyone!” He looked at Sandra and then back at Julie. “You’re a part of us, Julie.” And Sandra, too, smiled.
“Compromise,” was Bob’s last word. Julie knew what he meant.
But it didn’t seem to be that simple. Back at the Carsons’, everything was so cozy and informal, and soft music spun on the stereo. But the wall between Allen and Julie was thicker and higher. They talked, but Julie soon found herself to be the one keeping the conversation going. This wasn’t right; something had to give—and soon.
Again Julie went to bed, so frustrated and uncertain. In the darkness, she reached for the letter she had written just a few days before. She didn’t really intend to give it to Allen, but now she wondered if she shouldn’t. In her mind she reviewed some of its contents:
“Dear Allen,
“I’ve been thinking—a lot—lately, about, well, just things. Things the way they are now, the way they used to be, and the way they perhaps will be or could be.
“Frankly, it didn’t happen at all like I expected it to. In the first place, I never expected the miracle of falling in love to happen to me, at least, not so soon. And, I’ll have to admit, there were doubts in my mind from the very beginning…
“Love can survive distance and time, but only as there is mutual association, be it only the togetherness of postal communication. Need I say more? But no one is to blame. Excessive letter writing, which was not prompted by the warmth of an inner flame, would have been only a farce. Perhaps it was as Fate—or Providence—designed that it should be…
“I don’t know how you feel, what you think about when you find a moment of quiet rest from your studies, your socializing, your job, because I have no way of knowing. But it really isn’t important for me to know, now.
“I know we were once very much in love. When our love began to die, who can say?… It’s clear that our minds are on many different interests and that our hearts are not ready to settle down. No one is hurt, and that is how it should be, for Nature has merely taken her course.
“You and I will always be friends, yes, more than friends—Christian cousins, sharing the kinship of our inheritance. But the flame of love—the kind of love that draws a man and a woman into one sacred being—is nearly extinct. And, in its burning, it left no more ugly scars of passion, of hatred, of neurotic reminiscence.
“Whether, in the years to come, a divine spark will, for the third time, rekindle and glow with a new celestial brilliance is beyond our finite comprehension. God only knows why our love for each other is not the same. We can only in faith trust the Omniscience and praise His wisdom. ‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
“Goodbye, dear Allen—goodbye.“
For a long moment Julie debated inside. Surely it was only fair that he know how she felt. Still, she had no way of knowing just how he would react. Just as the clock was striking twelve, Julie, at the point of sheer mental exhaustion, fell into a troubled sleep. And the letter fell from her hand and dropped out of her wearied mind.