Radio and television mirror (May-Oct 1940)

i L^ '1 1 1 > 1 I 1 < 1 1 t « i t ( : : ' ■iBiigyiinim ^-R-i^q MJ • « tBjutjUmU^^^^^^M — -mm -»a 7?lH li-f? VOICES VLL' RIGHT, darling. Go ahead £j^ and be stubborn. Tomorrow's ' ^ another day — and I'll call again. And I'll keep on calling until you give in . . ." Michael Deemer replaced the receiver, smiled a little at the silent instrument before him, and then walked to the window. From the oflfices of the Mercviry Advertising Company on the 18th floor of a skyscraper he looked out across the city. Over the rooftops and past the city's towers his eyes singled out the Bentley Motors Building. He looked long and wistfully at that vertical pile of gray masonry. Somewhere in its myriad cubicles there was a girl named Linda Gale. And the music of her name and the music of her voice were melodies that reached out across the thrumming city, from that distant building to this one, like an invisible aerial, and caressed Michael Deemer and made him dream tender dreamsl 16 Three months ago Mercury had acquired the Bentley Motors account. The Job involved a certain amount of publicity and he was assigned to it. Just past twenty-four, Michael was two years out of college with vague journalistic and literary ambitions. Tall and lean, hair that wouldn't yield to a comb, long arms that dangled at his sides, an inclination to be absent-minded, these characterized him. And when someone at Mercury discovered that young Deemer was working on a novel, he was immediately dubbed a "queer duck." Then three months ago this Linda Gale affair, in all its strange facets, had its beginning, and Michael, in the opinion of his fellow-workers, graduated from "queer duck" to downright "screwy." Now, as Michael Deemer stood at the window and watched the curtain of dusk descend upon the city, he recalled the day when first he called Bentley. She had answered the phone, and when he gave her his name she had repeated it, and it seemed to him that Michael Deemer was a name that had never previously been uttered. He was presently connected with Bentley but the voice of Linda Gale echoed and re-echoed in his ears. Clear and gentle it was, like a whisper in the Avoods. And Bentley had no sooner hung up than Michael found some feeble pretext to call her back. In days to come he had legitimate reason for calling and soon he learned her name. The sound of it coursed through him and thrilled him. Linda Gale. She would have a name like that. Like Linda Gale. Weeks went by and his calls increased. Then one day he talked to her longer than usual. "You don't know what these talks do for me, Linda," he had said. "I live on them. But there are so many things I want to tell you about. So many things — but I want to look at you when I tell you." And Linda Gale wotild evade his hint of a meeting. Late one day, when both of them were alone in their offices, he told her about himself and his work, about the things he hoped to do. He told her about the novel he was working on, even discussed the current chapter. Her reactions were intelligent and sympathetic, and all through it he clung to the phone hungrily, conjuring a vision of the Linda Gale at the other end of the line. "You know, I'm really not a monster," he had said. "I know it," she laughed, and By JOSE ;t A Sctionixation of the radio drama, performed by Luther Adier and Syfv/a Sydney, on Kate RADIO AMD TELEVISION ItORBOR