Summer Awakening — Ann Glasner

Philadelphia Story...

Sitting in the bus, on her way to Philadelphia, Emily Stevens was still smoldering over what her parents had done to her and Ken. How could they separate them just because they thought Emily shouldn't go steady. And how could Ken give in to them and let them ship her off to a girls' club, of all places, for the summer? Emily promised herself she wouldn't like it at all!

It was a promise quickly broken, once she met and made friends with the other girls...Laurette, Mathilda, Nanette. She even found a temporary job as a typist. She also found someone to fill Ken's place--Chuck Smith: dark, exciting, "older"...at least 20! Emily thought it was just a summer romance and nothing more until she discovered Chuck "belonged" to someone else and was asked to give him up forever...

After a family quarrel over her steady relationship with boyfriend Ken, blonde, Emily Stevens -- at her parents' suggestion -- went to Philadelphia to live in a girls' club and work in an office before entering college in the fall.

Just as she was entering the club for the first time, Emily brushed shoulders with an attractive young man carrying a suitcase. She was immediately reminded of Ken, who had listened to her parents' arguments and agreed that their relationship should be broken, and now she began to wonder just what the summer would hold in store for her.

But kindly Mrs. Bartley, the housemother, set Emily's mind at ease, and soon she was meeting her roommates -- lovely Laurette, redheaded Mathilda, friendly Nanette -- who eagerly welcomes her. And it wasn't long before she was happily ensconced as a typist in an accounting firm. Much to her surprise one of the junior accountants turned out to be the man she had seen with the suitcase. Chuck Smith was dark, exciting, and the suitcase belonged to Gloria, one of the club girls and an old friend of Chuck's and before long, he confessed his love for her. Was Emily ready to accept it?