Saturday Night

August 5, 1986
On the night of the Autumn Leaves Dance, five girls have different hopes or worries: Beth Rose wants, just once, to be beautiful; Anne, gorgeous and popular, is afraid her boyfriend will leave her when he finds out she's pregnant; Emily, who's never had a boy like her but has invited one to the dance, wants to be loved; Molly, a ravishing flirt who snares a Harvard man, decides to steal the spotlight; Kip, who planned the entire dance, just wants to attend, even if it means going with dull Roddy. A thunderstorm complicates mattersEmily and her date save the victim of a car accident and don't get to the dance until much later; Anne loses her boyfriend but finds lovewhen he comes back to her; schemer Molly has an awful night with her drunk college man; Beth Rose and Kip both get a glimpse of their own happy endings, or beginnings, with romance. Cooney weaves all these plots in, out and around one another with a skilled hand. Not relying on stereotype, she sharply delineates each character, giving all of them enough pain and anguish to make their situations believable, with just enough froth and fun.