Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

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Circle Size: Girl's Sizes 7, 8, 10. 12, 14 are 5 for $2.75 Junior Miss Sizes 9, 1 1 , 1 3, 1 5 are 5 for $3.75 Women's Sizes 12 to 20 and 38 to 44, 5 for $3.75 Extra Large Sizes 46, 48. 50, 52 are 5 for $4.75 □ Check here to save C.O.D. fee. Send full amount with 2 5? postage. 90 Q Please FREE CATALOG send iHEL FOR FAM1 send Name Address City FOR FAMILY Q I wish to be an agent. Send details. [__C|ty Zone State existed, until she'd already told Lennie she'd be delighted to marry him. It was a Friday. She'd come to his apartment to practice cooking, and had turned out some scrambled eggs that she was pretty proud of. She'd tossed a salad with a wine vinegar dressing, and there was a melon in the refrigerator. And then, as they were eating, he sprang it. "Terrific eggs," he said. "Wonderful. When are you going to quit your job? We're getting married in two weeks and you don't want anything hanging over." "What was that about quitting my job?" "Of course you're not going on working." "I'm not?" "That was understood. You don't have to work after we're married — and I wouldn't want you to." "Let's get this straight," said Leila slowly. "I've got a career that I'm proud of, and I'm going to work." "Not and be married to me." They stared at each other stonily across the table for a long moment, and then she stood up and pushed back her chair. "I'll see you some time," she said, "if we happen to meet." And she marched out of the apartment, took a cab home — and, still seething, packed her suitcase, and went to visit friends in Connecticut. By Sunday night, she was desolate. Until now, she had cried only at night, in her lonely bed. But on Sunday morning she'd run into a girl friend, and told her all, and had had a really good cry. "I'm a fool!" wailed Leila. "I'll never amount to anything anyway, and I love him, and now I — boo-hoo. . ." "So you're a fool," said her practical friend. "Call him up and tell him so." "B-but I couldn't do that — " "There's a phone over there." When his apartment answered, a secretary said, "He's not here, Miss Martin." Leila was about to hang up in despair when the secretary suddenly came to life. "Miss Martin! I'm sorry, he's been trying to call you all weekend. If you'll just hold on, I'll get him on the other wire." And a minute later she heard his voice. "Hello?" she said softly. "Where've you been?" he said. r»y the time they met in a small cafe just off Fifth Avenue on Fifty-second Street, she had almost recovered. She was, at least, looking her best. He'd preceded her. As she sat down she started to speak, but he held up his hand. "I've got something to say to you," he announced. "Politeness demands that you let me speak first," she said firmly. "I've decided that, if career or future or anything else in this world should interfere with my marrying you, they can all go out the window. So. Now, if you want to speak—" "I was only going to tell you that you could have any career you want, if you'd marry me." They sat for quite a long time, then Lennie said, "Want to take it back?" "Never." "Me, too. Then what's next?" "We've both given in," she said happily. "Maybe we could go along on that basis. I could give in to you, and you might sometimes give in to me. Frankly, you can be the boss, when it comes to a deadend. I love you enough to think you'd be a good boss. How about that?" "How about that?" Lennie said, and kissed her soundly. A week later they were married, with the Martins — now persuaded — in attendance. And they rounded it all off with two wonderful weeks in Havana. For the first four months after they returned to New York, they lived in Lennie's bachelor apartment and rented a house in Connecticut for weekends; and Leila had a chance to look around and decide on how she would operate in her new part-time job of housewife. She would have a twice-a-week maid to come in and clean, but the rest of the work she would do herself. Lennie had explained that he liked to eat at home, and she wasn't about to tell him that her experience as a cook was the sketchiest. She'd often watched her mother at work in the kitchen, and in Leila's opinion there was nothing to it. For their first dinner at home she broiled a steak, tossed a salad, baked two potatoes, and poured some cherries and brandy over some French ice cream. She had candles on the table, and wine, and she'd always been able to make good coffee. It was a superb dinner. The next night, when she had decided to try her hand with fish, he brought home a couple of friends. She took this in stride. After all, what was there special about cooking fish? She had a lot of halibut, and she treated it the way her mother prepared sole. However, she did get off-schedule on the rest of the meal and arrived late at the table, after the others were already well into the halibut course. "Delicious!" they all told her, and, smugly, she took a bite. . . . bhe tasted disaster. Whatever she'd done to that halibut, it had been the worst possible approach. She took another bite, and almost gagged on it. She looked at the set smiles of her guests, and at Lennie's resolute expression. Tears started running down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry," she gasped, "it's just terrible!" "It isn't, either," said Lennie, manfully scooping up a second portion. "It's fine!" Later, after the guests had made an early retreat, Lennie put his arm around her in the kitchen and gave her comfort. "If anything was the least bit wrong," he assured her, "it must have been with the halibut, not with your cooking." And he was very tender all the rest of the evening. That night, after he was asleep, she lay awake, trying to figure what she'd done wrong. Finally she sighed softly and closed her eyes. "I may not be able to cook fish," she thought, "but I found and married a good man." She was still of that opinion seven months later, when we spent an afternoon together. In fact, she was "radiant," "starry-eyed," and every other cliche ever used to describe a girl in love. She was, as is usual in such cases, even scared. For instance, Leila had learned that even Lennie's honest criticism of her made a difference for the better in her life and career. "He said something so simple to me, I didn't pay any attention to it at the time," Leila said. "I was putting my hair up in curlers, as I'd done every night since I was twelve, when he said it. 'You look horrible in curlers.' " She blinked her long, thick, real eyelashes. "What could I answer? I had straight hair. It had to be curly tomorrow. The curlers were the only answer." But, not so. "God gave you straight hair," Lennie said, "and a narrow face with small features. When you surround this with masses of curls, it only makes your face look smaller, less significant. For heaven's sake, drag your hair back from your face and, if it's straight, let it be straight! It's you, just as you are — and why not be yourself?" In tears, the next day, Leila went to a hairdresser, had those unmanageable homemade curls chopped off. The result — to everyone's surprise except Lenny's — was perfectly enchanting. Her narrow, gay, mobile face seemed to come alive, achieve new dimensions. And,