Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

x>ut this to them, a few weeks after ; chosen to repre few so she said no more Now it happened tfc this incident. Diane 1 sent her school's Y two-week internatioi : called A;;.:~ai" hundred miles away. At Asilomar. Diane found herself rooming in a large barrack with some forty other girls, girls from all over the world: Xegro girls, blonde-barred, girls with almond-shaped eyes: rich girls, poor girls; all sorts of girls. "They're such a terrific group." she wrote home one day. "and we're having the best time. We swim and hike and play croquet and checkers and things. And we go to Chapel every night right after supunderstanding arr.or.g the people o: the world. And it's so interesting and wonderful I hope it never ends." The two %veeks passed quickly, however. And finally one night, the night before all the girls were to say good-bye to one another and leave for their homes, a last service, candle-lit and beautiful, was held in the Chapel. Join LIZ at the happiest birthday of her life in next month MODERN SCREEN on sale March 3 a revelation ot a ki Too sad to join th well meeting at the she went off alone I beach, to walk, an vately this time. She prayed, first would have a safe j be traveling all Hiffea came to Diane, her girls in a faren hall of the camp, night, down to the 3 pray again — pri LrSme". ^Thev'll it 'ways, to all difsase keep the skies ferent places ... So p] clear and the oceans cairn and. please, keep the railroad engineers and bus-drivers wide awake." Next she prayed that two of the girls — "Babette. from France, with her terrible cold from too much swimming: and Yukiko. from Japan, with that swelling on her big left toe from the crab that bit it" — recover, quickly. And then she prayed for herself. Tlease." she said, "from all that I have experienced here I know that there is something I should have learned, something to keep with me for the rest of my life — but honestly, honestly, I don't know what that is exactly. And if You could just — " It was at this point that Diane stopped as she noticed, ahead of her, a bench, right there, in the middle of the beach — and a wooden plaque behind the bench. She looked up at the plaque and tried to make out the words that were carved on it. From a Sermon of John Donne. 1624. she read. And then she read the words below: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Diane read the words again, and again. And. finally, she sat and she looked out at the water, the ocean, dark and endless. And, thinking about the words she had iusi read, she said to herself: "That's it — isn't it? That's what I've learned here, being with all these girls, girls from all corners of the world — girls of different colorings, religions, backgrounds — was that people can live together, get along together, love one another, if only they try — that none of us can five alone, either individually or in cliques, and exist as islands, entire of ourselves?'" She could feel her face flush as the word cliques repeated in her mind. She remembered her group back home, the cliquishness of it. how she had once objected mildly to tbig cliquishness, how she'd kept silent about the matter after she'd been called ""nice girl — oh so nice girl." "Well" Diane murmured to herself now. "T was wrong, I made a mistake not talking up. I made a terrible mistake acting so weak, so cowardly . . . But I tell you this. That come tomorrow and I'm back home Im — Tm going to have a talk with every girlfriend of mine and tell them exactly what I think about their attitudes. And no matter what they call me — let them call me anything they want — I'm going to tell them about Asilomar. About girls living together the way we did here. About the complete absence of any kind of prejudice here. About the real good friends we all became here . . . Yes sir. Im going to tell them all about it. Exactly what I should have said that other rime!" And she nodded. As she nodded now. this night years later, remembering her thoughts on that bench that night — remembering, too. her mother's questions, the questions that had prompted all this: '"You're made mistakes before in your life, Diane, haven't you? And learned by those mistakes, too — didn't you?" '"But this mistake, this mistake."' Diane -sked herself, suddenly. " — have I learned anything from this? Running off and going to New York, leaving my home, my family, the life I knew. Running out on everything. My home, my family . . . Denny.' She closed her eyes as the name came to her mind. Denny — so tall, so handsome, so good, so loving. Denny — so concerned that night, six long months ago. when they'd sat together at the hamburger joint, over a couple of cups of coffee, and Diane had told him she'd decided to go away. "How long have we been going together?" Denny had asked after he'd heard "Four years, going on five," Diane had said. "And in that time," Denny had asked, ""have I ever told you you were doing the wrong thing? About something big? Some "I guess not." Diane had said. "Well Fm telling you now. that you're doing the wrong thing, and about a big thing." . he'd said. "Why. Diane, just tell me whv in the world do vou have to go to New' York?" "'Because. Denny," she'd said, "for the tenth time — I want to be an actress. And to be a good actress you've got to have training on the stage. And there are very nakes your lashes look as long as they really are! PERMANENT DARKENER FOR LASHES AND BROWS soft, dark I uxuriant--»rithout mascara! 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