BETSY WAS A JUNIOR

Maud Hart Lovelace’s sequel to Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself. Childhood pal Tib moves back from Milwaukee and joins the Crowd, Betsy sets her sights on Joe Willard but he goes steady with Phyllis Brandish instead (twin sister of Betsy’s ex-beau Phil, of the red automobile), Betsy dates “strong silent type” Dave Hunt, and Betsy’s older sister, Julia, starts college at the U of M and brings home exciting tales of sorority rushes, prompting Betsy and seven of her girlfriends to form their own Greek-letter club, the Okto Deltas (the boys then form a matching fraternity, the Omega Deltas). As usual, plenty of madcap fun ensues, but also as usual, Betsy doesn’t accomplish many of the goals she sets for the school year. She neglects her lonely younger sister, Margaret, as well as her studies (there’s a great chapter where Betsy, Tacy, and Tib pull a frantic all-nighter collecting flowers for their Biology herbariums), and the rest of the school is alienated by the cliquey Okto Deltas. Tony nobly refuses to join the Omega Deltas (“They leave too many people out”) and drifts away from the Crowd toward a “fast clique of older boys,” skipping classes, hanging around “a pool hall which had a bad reputation,” and getting suspended for coming to school drunk(!). None of the Okto Deltas are given leadership of the committees organizing the Junior-Senior Banquet, and worst of all, Betsy isn’t chosen to compete against Joe in the Essay Contest, even though the topic, “The History of the Deep Valley Region,” is right up her alley. As in the other books, when Betsy realizes the error of her ways and how far she’s strayed from her ideals, it’s handled realistically, without the smack of “Very Special Episode”:

She wondered whether life consisted of making resolutions and breaking them, of climbing up and slipping down. “I believe that’s it,” she thought. “And the bright side of it is that you never slip down quite to the point you started climbing from. You always gain a little… Gosh!” she thought. “I must be growing up.”

Again, Joe remains in the background of this book, but the glimmers of him that appear are tantalizingly Mr. Darcyish. What bookish girl wouldn’t sigh over this passage?

She always looked forward to English class, both because she liked the subject and because she enjoyed the competition of Joe Willard. They never saw each other outside of school but in English class there was a bond between them. They talked for each other’s benefit sometimes; they sought each other’s eyes when a good point was made; they smiled across the room when something funny happened.

When Joe finds out Betsy hasn’t been picked for the Essay Contest, he lobbies in vain on her behalf. He now works for the town paper as a part-time reporter. And although he’s dating the snobbish Phyllis when he obviously belongs with (and is attracted to) Betsy, Phyllis is never portrayed as an enemy, and Joe’s interest in her isn’t shown to be a character flaw on his part, but an understandable match:

In a curious way Joe and Phyllis were alike. Neither one “belonged.” They were different, Phyllis because rich and Joe because circumstances had always set him apart. He was accustomed to being different and had come to like it…Joe had not been influenced in his choice by the Brandish money or prestige. The fact that Phyllis was so cosmopolitan, that she had traveled abroad and had lived in New York—those things would fascinate him. But most of all, Betsy felt, their “differentness” drew them together.

This doesn’t make it any less satisfying when Joe finally chooses Betsy over Phyllis; in fact, for the first time I wished for a film adaptation of these books just so I could enjoy seeing the climactic, Austen-like scene at the Junior-Senior Banquet played out: Joe asks Betsy to dance—but he’s too late and her dance card is full! She gives him a dance anyway (booting Lloyd, who “only took two because Tib was mad at him”), the next-to-last dance of the evening—but then Phyllis wants to leave early! Betsy watches from across the room as Phyllis and Joe argue and then leave together—but then, just as the music starts for the second-to-last dance, Joe comes running back! And they dance! But wisely, Betsy knows it’s not that simple:

Joe would not, she felt sure, desert Phyllis now, even though they had had a disagreement. He was a fundamentally loyal person. He had been unwilling to humiliate Betsy by leaving her without a partner, and he would certainly not humiliate Phyllis, with whom he had had such a good time all year, by deserting her at the beginning of a gay Commencement week—when she was a senior, too. He would see her through. But maybe, just the same, he didn’t care about her any more. Maybe he never had.

After winning the Essay Cup yet again and participating in a daring school prank, Joe romantically whisks himself off to work in the threshing fields again for the summer, sending Betsy a coy postcard from Texas: “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a good dancer?” And since the next book is called Betsy and Joe, you can probably guess where this is headed.