Radio Mirror: The Magazine of Radio Romances (Jan-June 1945)

And so, as always, I compromised. I caught his hand and held it tightly between both of mine. "Don't ask me now, Howard. I'm so tired. I'm going away — the Sheldons said today that I should take my vacation now, when I need it, after being sick. They even offered to pay part of my expenses at a little place they know in the mountains. I'm going up there for two weeks. Let me think about it a little longer. We've got all the time in the world, Howard." He smiled at me, a funny little one-sided smile. "No one has that, honey — all the time in the world. But I won't bother A slow, amused voice said "Fm afraid you're stuck with me for the evening" you about it any more now. You go away and have yourself a good time, and when you come back — we'll see. How's that?" I bit back a sigh of relief. '"That's the way I want it to be, Howard." "And that's the way it always is, Shelley-^the way you want it to be." But his smile took all the sting of bitterness out of that. That funny little fear that someday I might lose Howard if I didn't set a definite date for our wedding persisted in my mind after he had left that night. But I put the thought firmly aside — tomorrow would begin two weeks of delight for me, two weeks of the kind I'd wanted ever since I'd had to earn my own living. I was going to a resort for a vacation— true, it wasn't a resort of the kind which the patrons of Sheldon's shop went to, but it was a resort, just the same. I didn't let myself dwell on the fact that the people there would probably be working girls and working men on vacation, just like myself. No, it was better to dream instead — dream of dancing, and tennis, perhaps, and people in resort clothes, dressing differently for every activity during the day. At least, I told myself, I could keep up with them on that score — I had plenty of clothes, clothes I had made myself, carefully copied from the pictures in the fashion magazines. So I put Howard, and the Sheldons, and my -little apartment, and working for a weekly paycheck, completely out of my mind as I boarded the train for Stonewall Inn next morning. For two weeks I was going to be a princess in reality, a princess with nothing to do but wear pretty clothes and flirt judiciously and bask in the sun. I even had a story all made up in my mind to tell people up there who asked me who I was and what I did. A story about wanting to come to a small place like this to "get away from everything"! Oh, I'd be mysterious and a little apart from everyone, and people would ask each other who that beautiful girl was who wore those wonderful clothes with such an air of elegance! For two wonderful, wonderful weeks I'd be the person I wanted to be, and not the Shelley Drake I had to be at all. A ND that was the attitude of mind in which I arrived at *"-.the Inn, just in time to change for the "Blind Date Night" dance that was to be held that evening. Each woman guest would be given a numbered card, the clerk explained to me, and each male guest a card with a number corresponding to that of one of the women. Numbers would be matched, and the man and woman with the same number must spend the remainder of the evening in each other's company. I would rather have been able to pick my own partner, I thought as I dressed — without a single doubt in my mind that I could choose whomever I wanted, of course! But perhaps it would be a good way of getting acquainted, after all, and there would be plenty of time later to pick and choose. As I waited, a little later, a scrap of pasteboard bearing the number seventeen in my lap, I was conscious of the admiration in the eyes of people — men and women alike — who passed me searching for their partners. My frock, of palest pink, billowed about me, and the simple strands of seed pearls at my throat — a birthday gift from Howard — were the perfect complement to the gown. I glowed with pleasure — already my own world was far behind me, and I was a part of this one. Perhaps — well, I might even meet him, tonight. "If you've number seventeen," said a slow, amused voice from behind me, "I'm afraid you're stuck with me for the evening." My first feeling, as I turned swiftly to look at him, was a keen disappointment. He, surely, was not the man who had been so sweetly enshrined in my heart all these years. Accustomed to the polish and smoothness of Howard, and to the glamorous, handsome creature I'd dreamed about, my first thought was, Oh, he's rough-looking, and ugly! He was in his early thirties, I judged, of medium height, and strongly-built. There was an unusually firm set to his squarish jaw, and a surprisingly thoughtful cast to his rather blue eyes. His hair was sun-burned blond, and his features strong and irregular. Even as I rejected him as the person I'd come here to meet, I accepted the fact that I would be more fragile, more dainty than ever by contrast to him, that he would be an excellent back (Continued on page 76) 23