Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

the area he mentioned. “Here? Why . . . no . . . absolutely not . . . ouch!!!” n After I’d yelped, he poked and prodded some more himself. id “Sandra,” said he, “we’d better get you home. You have the mumps.” w I just looked him straight in the eye m and said in a very dignified manner, “Oh, doctor, you must be mistaken. I feel fine, it Besides, mumps are for kids.” h | He replied, equally as dignified, “Even adults of sixteen can get them, although,” ir he smiled, “it’s very rare. You have the , mumps. Go straight home and I’ll call 1 your mother and tell her what’s to be 0 done.” e a TV J hat they did was to put me to bed. VV Mother found an old flannel nightgown that she hadn’t worn since we f left New York. It’s kind of turquoise with 1 wisterias climbing all over it and when Mother generously offered me this heirloom, what could I say but “no”? It didn’t do any good. She calmly slipped the tent over my shoulders, wrapped an ugly flannel rag around my neck and then i handed me some white bobby sox to keep j my feet warm. I looked in the gilt— I framed mirror and my face looked puffy even to me. My eyes looked a little red, too, but that might have been because I i was crying. I climbed into bed. “Mother,” I gasped, | “what have you done to the mirror? It’s so distorted.” | I guess I’d been swathed in flannel for j about two days when Mother staggered | into my bedroom with a load of packages all wrapped up in peppermint-striped paper and tied with fat red bows. I I “I’ve brought something new for you to wear in bed,” she announced. And she opened the package. “Where,” I demanded, “in Hollywood did you ever find a flannel nightie?” Mother sniffed, “Paris says flannel is the thing this year.” I slipped the wrappings off the first package and opened it. There, carefully folded with tissue paper, was a lovely j pink silk bedjacket, with a lace trimmed peter pan collar and ruffled sleeves. For fun she added a multi-striped top sheet with pillow cases to match. I felt better already. Next time a friend of mine is sick, I’m going to buy her one of those happy-looking pillow cases. It’s better than penicillin. After I and the bed were all dressed up, Pom Pom, my pomeranian, and Melinda, my white poodle, jumped back up on the blue blanket where they’d been since the first moment I went to bed. “Don’t worry,” the doctor had told me when I worried that they’d catch the mumps, too. “Your quarantine doesn’t apply to dogs, they’re immune.” I was terribly relieved to hear that, ’cause I’d have been but real lonely if it hadn’t been for Pom Pom and Melinda. You see, just the exact week that I got sick some very good friends of Mother’s arrived from the East. We’d made so many plans to take them around and show them Hollywood and I just couldn’t let Mother give up all those plans even though she offered to. I told her to go ahead, I could fix my own lunch. Besides, while mother was gone, I could get on the phone and call my friends in New York. After the first long-distance call I made, to my best friend in New York, Loma Gillin, I decided it would be better to do my long-distancing while Mother was out. Because she complained so about the money, said it would have bought two tickets there and back. I’d felt so much better when the operator had put the call through and I heard Loma’s voice at the other end. “Hi, Lorna,” I said. “Gosh, it’s good to hear your voice. Did you see the papers? Isn’t it the worst? . . . No, I don’t feel too bad, the only thing is I’m quarantined, absolutely isolated, can’t see a living soul except for Mother and the doctor. And just when I was going to have a vacation and go to a premiere and ... I know only children are supposed to get the mumps. I’ve been in bed four days already, and I’ve got another ten days to go. And I haven’t been to the movies for four whole days! The longest ever. What? Oh, yes, I’ve seen just about every last show they have on TV. . . . You did? Well you’ll never guess what happened to me. I finally got to meet Rock Hudson. Dreamy! . . . Lorna, if Don Ameche hadn’t invented the telephone I don’t know what I’d do. “Oh, here’s Mother. More bouillon I think. “Mother, I’m talking to Lorna. Want to j say hello?” Mother put the cup down, said Hi to Lorna and then started to leave. In the doorway, she turned around and started to mouth something to me. “What? Hang on, Lorna, Mother wants to tell me something . . . Oh, she says I should remember we’re talking long-distance. You know, before I got sick I was always thinking about what good friends I had in New York and mooning around about how I didn’t know anybody out here. But I guess from the way the phone’s been ringing I’ve got a lot of good friends out here, too. “You should see all the flowers people have sent me. Mother says the next bunch that are delivered better come with its own vase. The best things though are the funny gifts. Someone sent me a round squatty hand mirror shaped like a cocoanut, with a note that the mirror is specially designed for mump victims. And someone else, that nice girl from the studio that I told you about, sent five yards of the loudest red and white polka dot flannel to warm my neck, plus the biggest pair of sunglasses ever, all trimmed with rhinestones. And one of the boys I had to break a date with sent me a Frank Sinatra album, only he made a new record jacket with a picture of a girl with a face the size of a melon and a new title, ‘Music to Have Mumps By.’ “Oh, Mother’s back. She’s pointing to her watch. Oh, I know . . . It’s all right Mother, I know it’s long distance. I’m timing myself. It’s only been eleven minutes. I just want to tell Lorna about the songs on my mump album. ... It had all sorts of ‘phony’ selections printed on the jacket, like ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin,’ ‘You Go To My Head,’ ‘Catch a Falling Mump,’ and, oh, yes, ‘Sandy, the RedFaced Starlet.’ “Oops, Mother’s waiting in the doorway again. . . . What, Mother? . . . Mother says if I don’t hang up I’m going to bankrupt her. “I’m reading “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoievski. Yes, it is kind of deep, but real great. And I’ve got a whole stack that Mother brought me, “The Last Hurrah,” “The World Outside” and “The Success.” “Gosh, Lorna, you should see the look on Mother’s face! Oh, oh. Mother’s got a big scissors. I think she means to cut the telephone wire. Well, I’ll call you tomorrow.” After Mother clamped down on the telephone I worked out a schedule for myself, reading, watching TV, telephoning, playing solitaire — and sleeping — just to keep busy. “Try to get a little rest, dear,” Mother would say. “You mustn’t tire yourself.” Tire myself! I had to invent the most energetic sort of dreams, like chasing Johnny Saxon clear to Pasadena, just to feel tired enough to sleep for forty winks. WHAT BOYS THINK OF YOU Here — at last — a revealing outspoken report on what boys really think about girls! Never before have you had the opportunity to learn exactly what boys love and what boys hate about girls! Now a new magazine called Teens Today tells you what boys think of you. Imagine if you will, that you’re invisible, that you’re unseen in the boys’ locker room in your school listening to an all-male bull session on you: GIRLS! Teens Today is: A mammoth bull session with one thousand boys. 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