On the way to rejoin her date, she belched. It was loud. She wasn't sure Ken heard it, but half the diners in the restaurant looked at her as she took her seat back at their table. She was embarrassed by the belch, but knew she needed it. It relieved the gas inside her that had been brought on by just hearing from Ken that they would be going to a movie with the actor who most reminded her of the man she most despised; even feared.
After her own performance at the restaurant, Barbara did not have the courage to ask Ken not to take her to the movie. Steeling herself mentally against having another gas attack, or worse, she went along with him to the Bijou in Bakersfield.
After a short Mickey Mouse cartoon which Barbara hoped would last two hours, the feature movie began appearing on the screen in the darkened theater. Squirming in her seat, she almost held her breath.
Going to the movies had always been one of her greatest pleasures. Not that night. She sat with no snacks because in the lobby she had decided on foregoing popcorn or Juju-Fruits, which she always munched on at the movies. She feared they, in combination with seeing the actor who most reminded her of Chet Armstrong, might bring on another gas attack.
Even though Errol Flynn was wearing a very becoming mustache in the action film, as a dashingly handsome British cavalry officer in the Crimean War of the mid-1850s, and Chet was clean-shaven, Barbara was again taken by their resemblance to each other.
She did not know the movie was a hokey mishmash of history. She hardly paid attention to the plot, as she tried not to watch the screen for most of the almost two hours. It made her anxious and jittery, and she found herself turning and smiling at her date often during the next two hours, to reassure him she was enjoying herself tremendously. She accomplished this to a minor degree by focusing on the horses in the film.
The movie finally ended and she had survived the viewing without any new physical discomfort. She thanked the angels who watch over girls who go on blind dates or are forced to endure the torture on dates that she had just lived through.
"We'll do it again," Ken suggested after driving her home to Ma Phelps's. "Sometime when you're more rested."
Not sure that day or night would ever come, she could not help it. Just as he was about to put his lips on hers, she yawned again.