Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

"Well, I — " Rock started to say. "And I read," she went on, "that although you are reserved with most people, that you are really very very kind to your true friends, of which you have five — one being an actor, one an actress, one an artist, one a piano teacher and one a liquor salesman." She took a deep breath. "Correct?" "Yes," said Rock. "Except," he said, "I'd just kind of like to make that list a little longer now. . . . Say six friends?" "Oh?" Erika asked. "And who would that be?" "You," said Rock. She looked down suddenly. "What's your name?" he asked. She told him. "Do you live here, in Acapulco?" he asked. "No," she said, "I live in Mexico City." "What kind of work do you do?" Rock asked. She told him. "Did anyone ever tell you," he asked, "that you are an extremely pretty girl?" "Some of the photographers, when I go to pose for pictures," Erika said. "They tell me sometimes." "Do they ever ask you out for dinner, these photographers?" "Sometimes," Erika said. "And do you go with them?" Erika said nothing. "Once in a while?" Still she said nothing. "Will you come to dinner with me?" She looked back up at him. "With y-you?" she asked. "Yes," said Rock. " — When do you go back to Mexico City?" "This afternoon." "I go back tonight," Rock said. "Why don't we make it tomorrow then. Okay? You and me, and a moon like a big yellow tortilla shining overhead." Erika stood suddenly. "Oh please," she said, " — but this is very cruel." "Huh?" Rock asked. "It's not nice, Mr. Hudson, in case you don't know, to tease a girl this way," she said. "To tell lies that you will take her to dinner, to make her begin to think things that will never be." She shook her head, rushed to the end of the raft and dove into the water. "Hey," Rock called. "What's your address?" Erika looked up over the side of the raft. "Thirtieth-of-September Street," she said. "And your phone number?" "No," she said, "I shouldn't have given you the street. And now I won't give you the phone." "Well," Rock grinned, "I'm sure it's in the book. . . . See you, Miss Carlsson. . . . So long." "Ohhhhhh," Erika moaned, "don't, Mr. Hudson. Please don't make jokes. Don't spoil everything for me I have ever thought about you. Please." And she made a quick turn then, and off she swam. ROCK SAT ON THE PLANE that night, doodling with a pencil on the back of his ticket folder. "Erika," he doodled. "E-R-I-K-A." "Who's that?" the fellow seated next to him, an assistant director on the picture, asked. "A gal," Rock said. "A very unusual gal." He told the director the story of their meeting that morning. "She sounds unusual, all right," said the director. "No, I mean . . . there's a quality about this girl . . ." Rock said. "She's very 70 naive, and very smart, both at the same time. She's open; she says what comes to her head. She's not like those other dames I keep meeting, who flirt too much, or laugh too much, or booze it up too much and start telling the sad stories of their lives and who look hurt when you don't cry and drink along with them." "To tell you the truth," said the director, dryly, "this Erika whateverhernameis sounds like just another Grade-A movie fan to me." "Yeah," said Rock, "except there is something different about her." "You going to phone?" asked the director. "Sure," said Rock. "Boy," the director said, "will she be surprised. . ." ERIKA CARLSSON was flabbergasted. She'd gotten the call from him that afternoon, Monday, and she was finished dressing now, waiting. She couldn't believe he'd really come, though. True, that had been his voice on the phone. "Seven o'clock pronto," he'd said. But still, she wouldn't believe he'd really come . . . And if he did, she wondered, that picture of him in the fancy frame on the little table near the piano — should she put it away? Would it look too silly there, she wondered, his own picture, looking back at him square in the eye; and would he think of her as a tenyear-old type, having his picture sitting up there in the living room like that? . . . No, she thought then, why should she put it away? That photo had sat on that PHOTOGRAPHERS' CREDITS The photographs appearing in this issue are credited below page by page: 11 — Irving Antler; 12 — Wide World, Nat Dallinger of Gilloon; 13 — FLO, Vista; 14— FLO, Annan Photo Features; 15 — Darlene Hammond of Pic. Parade. Wide World; 16 — Globe, Gilloon: 18 — Darlene Hammond of Pic. Parade, FLO, UPI. Wide World; 21 — Dick Miller of Globe; 22-25 — Sabine Weiss of Rapho-Guillumette, Roger Rothberg, Paris-Match from Pic. Parade; 26-27 — Ken Hayman of Rapho-Guillumette; 2829 — Birnback Pub. Service; 30-31 — Jim MacCammon of Globe; 32-33 — Lawrence Schiller; 34-39 — Barbara and Justin Kerr; 40-41 — Zinn Arthur of Topix. Wide World; 42-43 — Topix; 4447 — Birnback Pub. Service: 48-49 — Keith Byron; 58 — Lawrence Schiller. table for three years now, and it would continue to sit there. Yes, she made up her mind, it would stay. . . . The doorbell rang suddenly. She heard his voice. "Hello in there," he called. "Oh my goodness," she whispered. She patted her hair. She adjusted the strap of her dress. She began to walk towards the door. Midway she stopped, turned, ran back to the little table near the piano and shoved the picture into a drawer. Then, once again, she walked towards the door. She opened it. He stood there, grinning. He held flowers. He'd really come. "Hi," he said. "It's just like in the movies," Erika wanted to bust out and say. So she did. THEY WENT OUT that night and they had a fine time. Rock saw right off that what he liked best about Erika was what he'd figured; she wasn't like the other girls he'd known these past couple of years. She didn't talk about careers — his, or hers. She didn't ask about Doris Day, and Kirk Douglas, and Jane Wyman, "and what are they really like, all these people you've worked with?" Best of all, she didn't wait for that moment that invariably came, that quiet moment towards the end of the evening, when that one big question most always came: "I know it must be hard for you to talk about it . . . but how has it affected you, your divorce, I mean; how have you felt these two years since you and your wife broke up? Have you been lonely — terribly, terribly lonely?" . . . Instead, Rock noticed, the things Erika talked about were things that happened to interest them both. Music. Art. Books. The sea. People. What kind of thing makes people tick. . . . He liked this about her. He liked this fine. . . The next morning, Tuesday, he picked Erika up and drove her out to the studio. She watched him shoot a scene. When it was over, and as he led her to lunch. Rock asked, "What did you think of all this?" "The watching-you part was fine," Erika said. "But the repetition, the same things over and over again, to me it's a big bore." Rock roared with laughter. "Shouldn't I have said that?" Erika asked. "Never change," said Rock. . . . They went to dinner again that night, and the following night, and the night after that. On the Friday, since Rock had no work-call that day, they got into a car and drove out to the Jardines Flotante, the floating Gardens, where they spent the day sitting in one of those gardeniabedecked gondolas, holding hands, sniffing in the perfume around them, talking some more, and some more. On the Saturday, on a sudden urge, Rock bought two plane tickets to Acapulco, where they spent the afternoon on the beach where they'd met, the night dancing. On Sunday afternoon, back in Mexico City, they went to the bullfights. And it was in fact after the fights, and as they were leaving the arena, when Rock told Erika about the conference he had to attend, called that morning for late that afternoon. "On a Sunday?" Erika asked. "When a picture's on location." Rock said, "they're liable to call 'em at three in the morning. . . . Come on," he said then. "I'll get you a cab, you can go home and change. And then tonight." he said, "tonight, Erika. do you know what I'd like to do?" "What?" she asked, as they continued walking. "Something very special," Rock said. "But we're always doing something special," Erika said. "I mean special for you," said Rock. "Other nights I'm the one who's been suggesting places to go, things to do. Tonight I want you to take your pick." Erika was silent for a few moments. "Well?" Rock asked. "Well," Erika said, finally, "what I would like very much to do — " She shook her head. "No," she said, "it's really not at all proper in this country . . . And I don't even know if it's proper in yours." "What's that?" Rock asked. "I was thinking," said Erika, "that maybe you might come to my apartment for dinner. I would like to cook for you, you see, and — " Rock interrupted her. "It's a date," he said. "And" — he took her hand, he winked — "if it's any good, I may just come again. I've got another week here, and I'm getting darned tired of eating in restaurants all the time . . . So" — he smiled— "for your own sake, Erika, you'd better not make it too good." "I'll try," she smiled back. IF EVER A GIRL has tried hard not to make a good meal for her man, her name was not Erika Carlsson. For those two hours between the time she got home and the time Rock was to come, she puttered around her kitchen like half a dozen Waldorf chefs in one. Rock liked a big fruit cocktail to start? She made a big fruit cocktail. Rock liked scallopine with