Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

rying the usual request for a date. "I never make a date with a soldier," I said lightly "All soldiers have girls back home." "Now, Beth," Philip said reprovingly, "That's a pretty broad statement." Of course it wasn't wholly true, but I'd found that it was a safe enough assumption. It was part of the attitude that had made me one of the dependable hostesses at the center, one who could be relied upon to treat all of the boys alike. I left my personal life at home every Friday night, just as the boys had left theirs when they'd first put on a uniform. Until the war was over, they were simply fellow-travelers to me, people to be amused and entertained for a little while, people I didn't expect to be with to the end of the journey. pHILIP and I were arguing, half•*■ seriously, when my eyes met those of a tall young man standing near the door. It was just a second that our glances crossed, before a turn in the dancing swung him out of my sight, but I missed a step, felt a queer little shock like recognition. I knew that I'd never seen him before; it was as if everything about him — the way he held his head, his nice, dark, bony face, the humorous lift at the corner of his mouth — had been turned out of a mold cast long ago in my own heart. Philip shook me a little. "What are you looking at, Beth?" I flushed. I hadn't realized it, but I'd been craning my neck to see the boy at the door. Then I caught sight of him again, and Philip's eyes followed my line of vision. "Old Johnny," he said. "See here, Bethie, you don't want to pay attention to a no-good mechanic when you've got me around — " John was a nice person, then, a good person. Philip was a new arrival at the center, and I'd met him only the Friday before, but already I knew him well enough to understand that he was polite about people he didn't like, whereas he heaped cheerful insults upon his friends. "John," I said. "What's the rest of his name?" "Dorn," said Philip. "I'm warning you, Beth; don't dance with him. He's knock-kneed and pigeon-toed, and he'll walk all over your feet — " And then John was beside us, tapping Philip's shoulder, taking me out of Philip's arms so'competently and easily that I'd switched partners without missing a beat of the music. "My friend Philip," John commented. "I'll bet he was saying lovely things about me." I laughed. "He was — if you turned them inside out and then upside down." "That's his way. It can be irritating sometimes, when people believe him. But I'd forgive him anything for the way he looks after me." "Looks after you?" John didn't appear to need looking after. Not when he was six feet of bone and muscle, not with a jaw that was almost rocklike in its firmness. He didn't answer me. He seemed to have forgotten that I'd asked a question. He was looking down at me, and something in his silent regard set my pulse to beating unsteadily. I snatched at the first remark that occurred to me to break the silence. "You dance very well." "I shouldn't, right now. I wasn't even thinking of the music. An old tune was going through my mind. Remember: 'I took one look at you . . . that's all I meant to do. . . . And then my heart stood still?' " "Of course I remember it." "Well— that's how I felt when I first saw you." He spoke so matter-of-factly that at first I didn't realize what he'd said. Then I thought, He doesn't mean it — he can't; it's too much like what I was thinking oj him. But still, I felt that he did mean it. He was the sort of person you instinctively trust. Had he told me he'd just returned from a rocket trip to the moon, I'd have been inclined to believe him. I danced every dance with him that night, and whenever one of the other boys cut in, John cut right back. Between dances John told me about himself and his family — his mother and father and his twelve-year-old sister, Caroline — and about Maple Falls, a tiny town, hardly larger, in point of population, than the high school I'd gone to in Corona. "You ought to see it in the fall," he said, "when the leaves start turning. That's when all our relatives make excuses to come to visit us. Mother loves company, and she and Dad would turn the house into a hotel if they could. Dad owns the hardware store in town and some other property around the Falls, and he'd just taken me into the business when the war came along. . . ." I told John about myself — what there was to tell. I wouldn't have thought there wcs much to say about Elizabeth Hughes, except I was an only child, and I'd lived all. my life with my father and mother in a pleasant suburb in Corona, and that I'd gone to work in a downtown office as soon as I'd finished high school. There'd been the usual parties and dates and dances— until the war had started, and the young men went away, and the parties gave way to Red Cross work, and there were few dances except the service dances at the center. But John prompted me with questions and listened so attentively that I chattered away until I stopped, embarrassed, in the middle of a story that couldn't possibly have held much interest for a stranger. "I'm sorry" I apologized. "I'm talking too much—" A little grin curled the corners of his mouth, (Continued on page 69) € 9 *-r J) 33 JL "/ don't see how you did •'. / said breathlessly. "How d«< you know where I'd be. r. gnn widened. "You told me