Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1940)

Beginning a stirring new novel of marriage and morals by one of America's most modern authors. Upon this story is based a great film starring Joan Blondell and Dick Powell BY ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS Copyright, 1940, by Paramouy\t Pictures, Inc. IT was over so swiftly that Jerry Brokaw, coming down from the witness stand where she had spoken her few brief words, could hardly believe it. "You made your home with Mr. and Mrs. Holland?" "I — yes, when I was at home from college." "Did you ever upon any occasion hear Mr. Holland use abusive language to your sister, Wanda Holland?" Jerry's chin went up and she stammered a little as she sometimes did when she was shy. It was rather awful, repeating things like this before strangers. "He called her a cheap, common little fool and said she didn't know how to behave herself around nice people." "Weren't you present upon one occasion when he threw a plate at her?" "Yes." Jerry couldn't look at the lawyer or at Wanda as she said it. "He was angry because he said she had no sense of humor because she didn't laugh at his jokes. I didn't, either. S-she threw one back." "But he began the — hostilities?" "Oh yes, he always did." "That's all — thank you," the lawyer said and Jerry stepped down into the almost empty courtroom where no one was paying any particular attention to either her or Wanda and where a number of ordinary -looking men were rustling papers and whispering. Even the judge, who was also an ordinary-looking man, had given Wanda only one long look and then become absorbed in the ceiling. For a moment Jerry stood there waiting, a small figure in a tweed coat and a swagger sports hat. There was something about joint custody of the child and a property settlement out of court and then Wanda took her arm and said, "All right, youngster, let's go." The little house where David and Wanda had lived together for six years seemed strangely silent, empty, and Jerry had an impulse to tiptoe. "You needn't," Wanda said, from the hall mirror where she was taking off her hat and arranging her smooth hair. "Nobody's dead." "I feel funny, to tell you the truth," Jerry said. "It happened so quick. Seemed sort of indecent — I was your bridesmaid, you know." "Quite proper that you should be my corroborating witness then," said Wanda. "I said to David, 'I want a divorce.' He'd begun to bore me all the time instead of just part of the time. That ought to be grounds for divorce in every state in the Union. Seems he'd never even thought of such a thing, but he was too polite to say no. So we're both better off. What's a divorce between friends?" The telephone rang and Jerry answered it. She said, "Hello — oh, hello — oh, sure, we're back, David. Yes, she did. All right, I'll tell her." Wanda, wandering restlessly, said, "What's on his mind?" "Oh, just wanted to know if everything went all right." Wanda came over and put a hand under Jerry's chin. "What'd he say, pup?" Jerry essayed a giggle. "Said to tell you he felt like he'd lost his pet corn." To her horror, Wanda began to cry, gulping, furious sobs, like a child. Jerry put her arms tightly around her sister. The sobs went through her, too, and suddenly she wanted to kill David. Wanda had been such a wonderful wife, so marvelous looking and so well-dressed and so popular. "Not on David's account," Wanda said, wiping away the tears carefully. "Only that's just what he would say. Nothing — clever, or appreciative, or complimentary. Not David. Just a bum wisecrack. He still makes me so mad. Marriage ending like that and I want my divorce all right, but you'd think he'd have some — manners." "And there's Davey," Jerry said. "Just what does this joint custody business mean?" "I get him part of the time and David gets him part of the time," Wanda said. "But he'll be in school now a lot, anyway." "Kind of tough," said Jerry, thinking of her own motherless childhood. IN those early years, the years before the girls had gone away to school and then to college, their grandmother had loomed large. Now she and Grandpa Brokaw lived on a fruit farm down in Imperial Valley. It wasn't much of a fruit farm, at that, but somehow anything that belonged to Grandma B. had importance. Pretty wonderful, when you came to think about it, how she had managed to keep that fruit ranch and make a living out of it in good times and bad. Not that she seemed old. She was a sturdy woman with a fine, upright carriage and snapping black eyes and a weather-beaten face. Under the smooth white hair it gave an impression of enormous strength and self-control. She was a little deaf, though she never admitted it, and she had an uncanny trick of always hearing anything she wasn't supposed to hear. Grandpa understood that ' perfectly. It tickled him. So many things in life tickled Grandpa. They had been married almost fifty years. When Jerry drove up to break the news of Wanda's divorce, Grandma B. was sitting on the porch in a straight chair, looking as neat and clean as new gingham, the big yellow cat Abednego in her lap. Grandpa was in the old rocking chair, rocking comfortably. They were both smoking corncob pipes, but Grandma put "Weren't you present upon one occasion when he threw a plate at her?" Jerry couldn't look at the lawyer or at Wanda as she answered, "Yes" hW