Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

eyes half-closed, her fur bristling. And slowly she moved towards the hedge. I made a grab for her but missed. She paid no attention to me. For a moment there was a hushed feeling and I saw the dazed expression in Muffet's eyes — as if she were doing an act she was compelled to do. And there was something else. That quietening, loved-for-cared-for feeling that always made me sense the closeness of Bill's presence was suddenly very strong about us. "Well — hello! Did you come over to welcome me to my new home?" I knew the stranger was speaking to Muffet and his words made me ashamed for my ungracious behavior. I rose — and he was kneeling just across the hedge from me. He was scratching the cat, gently, just behind the ears. Just where Muffet liked to be scratched. He was knowledgeable about cats, this stranger. The kittens tore through the hedge after their mother and cavorted around them, gleefully. "I'm awfully sorry," I said. "I hope they aren't bothering you.' They're a little spoiled, I'm afraid. I'm not very firm with them." He smiled at me and I saw he was young, but with an odd kind of maturity. I smiled back. "Bothering me? I like them. I was planning to get one of my own but I think yours might not like an intruder and they can have the run of my place." I hesitated a moment. "Perhaps your wife might object." "t'M not married." He rose and dusted ■1 off his knees. "My name is Kirk Meryweather. I'm a new assistant professor in the math department at Parker College and I stumbled on this old house by accident yesterday. It's just what I've been looking for, what I used to dream about in the Army. I can't believe my luck." So he had been in the Army — that would account for the slight limp when he walked, and for the young-old look of his. "What about this hedge?" he went on. "Is it mine or yours? Do I take care of it?" He must have seen my confusion, then. I never could trim it as smoothly as Bill had and now it was all dips and ridges. "It's a community sort of hedge. It belongs to both of us," I answered. I found the clippers behind me and started to work. But he took them out of my hands. "Then I think it's about my turn to do it." After that it was impossible to be strangers. I told him my name — Jan Thurston. I even found I could talk to him about Parker, the small college where Bill and I had first met when we were both working our way through waiting on tables in the cafeteria. About the designing course I had taken. And how I had dropped out of school my junior year to start the hat shop. About Bill taking the job in the bank when he graduated so we could save money and get married before he went into the service. I 1 4S It was so easy to talk to Kirk. And after I had invited him over for what was left of the hot coffee in the thermos jug we were just that to each other — Kirk and Jan. I couldn't help liking him. He was companionable in an easy, masculine way I had missed. His laughter was infrequent but his smile was a steadying, warming thing that waited at the corner of his lips for any old excuse. The kittens were crazy about him. But it was Muffet who puzzled me. She accepted Kirk so completely. Her head rested in his lap; her eyes seldom left off their wistful gaze into his face; her tail waved in majestic approbation. Only once in a while did habit claim her again and she would begin her usual, pitiful, futile search for Bill. Once this had torn my heart — now I saw that Kirk could recall her to his side with one quiet word. When I finally said goodnight and went into the house, I had a moment of chilling caution. Had I enjoyed this past hour too much? This gladness I felt in knowing Kirk — was that a sign I had been alone too much? I had my memories and up until now they had been enough. They would have to be enough. I must never need anyone. This love that was stronger than death between Bill and me would forever keep me from needing anyone — whether in marriage or love — or even in friendship. But the uneasy feeling vanished with the pleasant remembrance of the con^versation we had had and the work we had shared. And also with the strange conviction that there was no reproof against me here in the little world that was my house. Bill would want me to have friends; he wouldn't mind Kirk. So every evening, when I got through work and my tiny supper and Kirk was through with his classes, we made our way to our neighboring gardens. For an hour or so we would work together across the hedge in a near-silence,' speaking only when we felt like it. Sometimes he would bring examination papers with him to be graded and A "MY TRUE STORY" This story was adapted from a script heard originally on My True Story, an American Broadcasting Company program, Monday through Friday, 10 AM There was gladness and joy j„ our kiss. And a strange, unbidden sense came over me that Bill was there, and still it was glad then he would use my table, sitting] in Bill's old chair, while I worked to] the accompaniment of the scratching I of his pen or the pecking of his type-] writer. Other times, I would bring the j bookkeeping accounts from the shop] home with me and Kirk would go over] them, straightening out the confusion! that figures always gave me. It was nice to feel I could help him, J too. It was I who could advise him'I about mulchs and about pruning hisl trees and about spraying for pests. ItJ was on my suggestion that he searched! for safe places for the little triangular! bottles of ant poison he put out, to'l keep them from the inquisitive talons of the cats. Helping Kirk made me feel needed and useful, almost like a wife again. And afterwards we would have cof f fee and cake, or, if it was an unusually warm evening, iced tea. Once Kirk teased me into trying some of his own Italian spaghetti, his] bachelor's pride, and we ate until we.| were torpid. "That's the way I like to see a girl j eat," he said, approvingly, when wej 4 relaxed afterwards. "Most of them just peck at their food. But, then, most of them don't have your figure, Jan." How could I help being thrilled a little at the admiration I saw in his eyes as they took in the high-breasted slimness revealed by the shorts and shirt I wore? Or help being glad that my hair curled naturally and stayed in place in spite of my being constantly up and down on hands and knees? Although sometimes I would still question my right to have such a friend in so attractive a man, there was still no feeling that he was intruding. He was not robbing me of my closeness with Bill. Rather, he made a pleasant addition to my life — never stepping into that closed circle that bound me to my dead husband, but only making another circle that was Jan and Kirk. If there were any danger of my becoming too interested in Kirk, I thought, surely I would have been jealous of his outside interests. I wasn't. I liked to hear the bits of gossip he would bring back after some faculty party. Although Kirk was totally unaware of his own charm I knew that the wives of his fellow-professors were earnestly match-making for him and constantly bringing some pretty girl for him to meet. I would laugh with him over his description of these parties and teas, feeling a warm glow of pride in the admiration others must feel for him — for his strength and honesty, for the tenderness and good -humor that lay behind his reserve. Even for the handsomeness of his crisp, slightly-curling brown hair and the lean hollows of his tanned cheeks. . "Dean Tilden," he said to me one afternoon, smiling, "can't understand why I won't show up for any of the faculty suppers. It's nice of her to worry about me, but I explained that T had very important things to do between five and eight — every evening." And his eyes caught mine with a look that said we shared a guilty secret between us. For a moment my heart caught and lifted. It meant a lot to Kirk, then — these hours we spent together! And a strange, giddy happiness made me tremble all over. The moment was dangerously, thrillingly sweet . . . and then reason whispered that Kirk had meant something different. Of course he liked these hours together. There was peace here and good work shared. He loved gardening and he liked to play with the dogs and he enjoyed planning with me the restoration of his old house. It was nothing more than that for him and it couldn't be more than that for me. It couldn't, I told myself sternly. And silenced with a firm hand that tiny little wonder in my heart. This corner of the garden where we talked and worked had seemed lately a growing place of enchantment, so perfect was the brooding late-fall peace that hung over it. And not just the weather and the physical beauty alone. Before I had known Kirk I had felt that her • I walked most closely with Bill. This was (Continued on page 91) 39