Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1941)

But he must be, by the girl I was going to be — the girl I already was in my dreams. My resolve to be that girl in reality, at that moment outgrew mere hope or stubbornness, becoming fierce, passionate purpose. It may be he felt that resolve. More likely he felt me looking at him. His eyes rose to meet my eyes. In the same instant he flung down the music on the piano, and swung round like a person suddenly galvanized, all at once arrived at a decision, an unchangeable, unchallengeable decision. All his decisions, I felt, were like that. NO," he said, to the piano player. "She isn't what we want. She has an — orchid voice. That isn't what we want on this program. We want a brave voice, sweet, a little defiant, a — a wild rose kind of voice. But wait a second. There's some one out there looking for some one." He came to meet me. He had brown eyes, like Dad. But also he had a strange look of unbelief. Faith in him and doubt of him mingled with my feeling that I was being rapidly — and relentlessly — appraised, by the world of strength and success which he represented. I felt my face color with the intensity of my determination not to be afraid — of him — of anything. With something like the amusement that had showed in the girl's face, he smiled. But there was more than amusement in his smile. There was — recognition, as if a sign and countersign had passed between us. "I — may be in the wrong studio," I faltered. Surely I could not have found my way so soon. Surely so much good fortune could not come all at once. "I'm looking for Mr. Stephen Langley." "You're not at all wrong, then," he said. "On the contrary. I'm Langley. And I imagine you're the little girl Ken Dixon made me send for." "I am," I answered. "I'm Betty Rand." I couldn't find breath enough to say more than that. Stephen Langley said, "Dixon tells me that you've sung into a mike." "At my teacher's, and on amateur and children's programs," I replied. "I'm not afraid of one." But his attention was not on what we were saying. It was on my eyes and hair, and the curve of my cheek, and the way the corners of my lips go when I smile. And, strangely enough, it disappointed me, to see him thinking only of how I looked, just like any boy at school. Somehow I wanted his eyes to be looking away, thinking of songs and audiences, and the power of radio. And when he seemed to feel my change of feeling toward him, and tried a little awkwardly to change his own expression, I wondered in dismay what could be wrong with me, to make me call that kind of attention. In that suddenly galvanized way he had, he went back to the music on the piano. "We want songs that will inspire people," he said. "I was looking for some here. Have you any to offer?" His eyes were shutting me out now, as if I hardly were there. That was what I had expected at first, but now it was — it was like a boy having made love to you, and then meeting him with a girl he was engaged to. Not that you'd cared about him, but he had cared about you and didn't any more. It's a let-down, somehow. It makes an emptiness. So I smiled purposely this time, and made my voice smile, so he'd know I was smiling. And still he wouldn't look. I knew it was silly to feel ill almost, like being hungry, and — lonely, but I did. "This program," he said, "tries to make people believe that there's something good and beautiful in every person and every situation." He was concentrating hard, to explain to me. "We think that you can find in every one something good and beautiful, if you 10 make an honest effort to, and that you don't have to deal with the qualities you hate or despise in a person. You can find better qualities by using your own better qualities. Our songs must carry out this idea. Do you see?" "Yes," I answered eagerly. "It sounds like my Dad." And everything was all right then, as soon as Dad was there, even though only in my memory. "He used to say to Mother, when she lost patience with my sister or me, 'Now wait. What the girl wants is right enough. It's only her way of going about getting what she wants, that's wrong.' " I had forgotten to sparkle. I was only loving Dad and being grateful to him. I hadn't realized I'd brought RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR