Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

1 COULDN'T sleep. Too many thoughts. Too many little cogs of my memory, clicking like parts of a perpetual motion machine. And the rocking of the train didn't help a bit either. Going to New York! The conjecture was at once exciting and terrifying, and you'd imagine I was a kid of sixteen instead of forty-three. But that was my trouble, I mused. Somehow, despite my years, I was youngish, immature in my thinking. Oh, you'd never get that idea to look at me. A girl of forty-three, doesn't look sixteen; she might look thirty or thirty-five. But not sixteen. Then why does she feel as young as that? Inexperience. That was it. Not knowing the answers to the little things that add up to a general awareness of life. I turned over on my left side and my bare feet touched the end of the berth. I was aware of that, mind you; and I was conscious of the other things thst were not exactly new to me, but were certainly things I wasn't used to. I turned over on my right side and Here it was at last, the dream-cbme-true of excitement, adventure, in a city that was a different world. But the dream had cheated — it had left something out somehow that was more comfortable. I shut my eyes, but I didn't sleep. My brain was turned up like a new radio, catching the sounds of the night train as it hurtled along steel tracks. "I'll think myself to sleep," I determined. "I'll wear myself out thinking. I'll begin at the beginning and end the story tonight." Wilhelmina Snyder. Not a pretty name, but not too bad. What did the name suggest? Stolidity. Carefulness. Yes, a perfect picture of me, assistant buyer at the Bon-Ton of Worth City, Ohio. No! Not assistant buyer any more! I was the new linen buyer. I couldn't even get used to that because I had been assistant so long that it was like having a name all your life, then changing it. Change my name? Well, there was only one way to do that — and I had no right to be thinking such thoughts. "Go back again, Wilhelmina, tell us about your life." Life in Worth City? Well, that was something. Every morning of my life was the same. Bounce out of bed at 7:30. Turn on the radio. Robe on, slippers on, patter to the kitchenette. Water boiling for coffee, lemon juice, coffee. Lemon juice. Keeps the weight under control, it says in the success course. Hurry to the bath and the last half hour for dressing. Then the twenty-two minute walk to the BonTon, Worth City's Finest Store, Established in 1902. The Bon-Ton at Main and Maple. Clean sidewalks, shiny windows, revolving doors and the buzz of early-morning preparations for the day's work. As automatic as a vacuum cleaner. And all the time I was dressing, swallowing lemon juice and walking to the store I talked to myself, figured out the world and the people in it. If my little bedroom radio spouted news from London, England or Paris, France, my mind was at work comparing those places with Worth City, Ohio. Were the people the same? Did an English girl my age drink lemon juice, did a Frenchwoman hurry to her job? Did Paris, France, have a Chamber of Commerce like Worth City? Bet they didn't have a Bon-Ton. No place could have a store like that. Im-possible! I was an admirer of Worth City and its Bon-Ton because, for a city its size, you couldn't beat it. At least that's what you heard all the time. We did have nice buildings, nice homes, nice people . . . well, yes, they were nice people. Nice, but uninteresting. I guess that was the trouble with Worth City; or, perhaps, that was the trouble with me. And I was frank enough to admit something like that even if I wasn't sure it was true. As I said, every day was the same. Walk down Maple until you come to the corner of Main. You go through the revolving door and the store's air-conditioning system greets you with a clean touch; you walk by the perfume counter and you continue past costume jewelry, handbags, millinery, haberdashery. Right on to the rear elevator, and maybe you ride up to the second floor with Mr. Kelly or Mr Kahn. Buyers, like me, they begin talking shop right away. The shortage of this and the shortage of that and ceiling on everything. Those are the things you talk about with them. They never say: "That's a lovely hat, Miss Snyder." They never say: "Going to be busy tonight, Miss Snyder? How about dinner? The movies?" To tell the truth, such an invitation from either of them would have been something to laugh about; they were such dyed-in-the-wool bachelors. But who am I to talk? I'm almost fortythree and unmarried, too. Then into my little office, neat and orderly. Miss Lango, my assistant, ready with the morning mail; circulars from all the big linen companies. "Miss W. Snyder, Buyer. The Bon-Ton, Worth City. Dear. Miss Snyder: Due to the demand for linen goods for use in the Army and other services our supply of Grade-A Dublin, texture 229, has been restricted. However . . ." Dry as dust? Nothing romantic about linen. Oh, its history and manufacture is probably a colorful story; but I meant it's not romantic to sell linen or any dry goods — unless there's romance in your life. And there was no romance in mine. Except on Tuesdays — and that was certainly romance of a vicarious kind. Tuesday was my day off. The Bon 23