Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

Now that her decision was made, a strange, ecstatic shiver ran through Tina, a shiver of release and liberation. She was free to find happiness, to find love YOU'LL think I was terribly silly. You'll say it's scatterbrain Tina Martin, running two ways at once and never making up her own heart about anything. Maybe I'll say you're right, too. But I had to escape that night, for a little while, to get away from everything — Vern, and all the talk, even from Moms and Dad. Oh, I knew Vern was an exceptional young man. Solid and forceful and — as Dad always says — bound to make his mark, never you fear. I was lucky to be marrying him. The wedding was only a short time off and we'd been planning to spend the evening going over arrangements. It wasn't to be a big wedding— my parents couldn't have afforded that sort of thing. But all his relatives and all mine would be there. Cousins and aunts and people you hardly ever see except at weddings and funerals. I had to get away from the talk about them, where they'd stay and who would be with this one and all that. Only for a little while. Only for a few short hours stolen from time. I'd been shopping and I didn't go home to supper. I felt like a truant, even wicked, but all I had in my pocket was fifty cents and all I planned to do was stop in at the cafeteria on Sumner Street and have dinner alone. Not a terribly exciting adventure. But it's funny how you can be alone in a crowd of people, completely and utterly alone because no one knows you and you know none of them. My thoughts were miles away and I hardly saw the man coming toward the table until he was close to me, holding the tray in a precarious manner. I was sure it would spill and I said, "Better sit down with that, don't you think?" His lean face broke in a smile and his dark eyes sparkled as 24 he said, "Thank you very much." Deliberately, he placed the tray on my table and sat down beside me. I was upset because I hadn't expected him to take it that way at all. "It wasn't an invitation," I gasped. "I simply didn't want you to upset the tray." "But you were the cause of it," he answered quietly. "Because I was looking at you, you know." "I'm afraid I do." I tried to sound very cold and distant, the way Moms sounds when she's annoyed with Dad about something. It was a little difficult because — well, because he was grinning. I know. You can't just like a man, all of a sudden, because he happens to sit down at your table in a cafeteria. But I did. It wasn't his looks, either. In looks he couldn't hold a candle to Vern. Neither did he have that aggressive way that made you so sure Vern was going ahead. He seemed a little scared, in fact, as though he realized he was saying things he didn't have the right to say. But there was something about him, something in his manner. He was tall, and his face was pale and with his dark eyes he seemed almost like a poet or maybe an artist. I turned away irom him quickly and devoted my attention to dinner. After a moment he said, "I see you're having clam chowder, too." I glanced up, regarding him coolly. "Yes." "Nice and hot, isn't it?" "Yes." "But rather a damp night out." I couldn't help smiling and he smiled back and there was something electric about it. It's awfully hard to describe. Only I sensed it, whatever the force was, drawing us together. And I was terribly afraid he did, too. "This conversation — " I was try ing desperately to sound forbidding and austere — "hasn't much point, has it?" He nodded gravely. "I'm afraid you're right." I went on eating. After a pause he asked, "Do you come here often?" "No." "You wanted to get away from people — to be by yourself?" "Yes." "And what do you do, most of the time? Work?" "Why — no. I gave up my job, a few weeks ago, because I'm going to be—" I stopped. There wasn't the slightest reason to answer his questions, to tell him about myself, or my plans for marriage. I wanted to, in a way, but I knew I shouldn't. You don't talk over your life's story with a stranger. He was looking off into distance, lost in thought for a second. Then he went on, unperturbed, "I clerk, you know. Radio department. All kinds of radios. But that's only for a little while now. I've enlisted in the air corps. Soon as it comes through — but I don't want to talk about myself. What I really want to know is who you are, why you came here tonight? Haven't you any friends — " "Naturally, I have friends," I answered hotly. Then, afraid I might have hurt him, "Why — haven't you any?" He shook his head. "Not many. What's your name?" I debated replying to that and at last I said, "It's Tina." "Mine's Stan." It was foolish — but the more he talked, the more I liked him and liked the things he said. It was perfectly insane and incomprehensible. We'd quite finished our dinner and should have left long ago and we sat there, instead, talk RADIO MIRROR J