Radio-TV mirror (July-Dec 1954)

on to these famous places, and she had gone with them. Jimmy had arranged to pick her up each night, late, after her stint was finished, and drive her home. One evening they were cruising along the highway on the way home from Toronto when Jimmy said, "Tomorrow's your eighteenth birthday, isn't it?" "How did you know?" "Madge told me. I — I've got a little present for you, and I know a present ought to be a surprise — but, in this case, well . . ." He reached in his pocket, pulled out a little velvet box, and snapped it open. The diamond glinted in the light from the dashboard. "Would you take it, Shirley, and be engaged to me?" "Oh, my dear," she said, "you're wrong. It is a lovely surprise!" And of course she wanted to be engaged to him. "I'll have to ask Mother if I can," she explained, and he understood that and approved of it. Her mother was not at home when they got there. One of Shirley's brothers said she'd gone to spend the night with a relative in Toronto, though he wasn't sure which one. "Oh, Jimmy," Shirley said, crestfallen. But he'd started after something, and he didn't want to face a whole night of not knowing whether he had it or not. "There's the phone, honey," he pointed out. "Let's get on it." So, for the next half-hour, she tried places all over Toronto where her mother might be . . . until finally, at her uncle's house, she found her. A few minutes later, she hung up and went out to the kitchen, where Jimmy was prudently taking nourishment against what might be a long siege. "It's all right," she said softly, "Mother says we can be engaged. I'm so glad, Jimmy." There beside the refrigerator, gulping hastily, he brought out his ring again and slipped it onto her finger. And, if their engagement kiss was slightly flavored with peanut butter and jelly and milk, it was no less romantic for that. The next year was a big one for Shirley. The way things worked out, it was almost as if she were living two lives at once. Then, all at once, there was a change. . . . Shirley had noticed that for the last few evenings when he'd called for her, Jimmy was distrait and quiet. *Tonight he began to talk about what had been worrying him. Didn't Shirley think a year's engagement was long enough? Jimmy's job was going well and he'd had a raise. He could afford his own car, pretty soon, and the down payment on a little cottage in Thornton's Corners. He was twenty-two and anxious to get settled and start his family. So how about it? For some strange reason, Shirley felt her heart sink. This was exactly what she had wanted a year ago, even six months ago. "Yes," she said, "I guess a year's long enough. Only . . . well, it's difficult enough now as it is, with me singing in Toronto and all . . . and, if I have to keep house for us, too, 'way out here in Thornton's Corners . . ." "Oh, but of course you'd quit singing," Jimmy said, in effect. "When you marry me you'll have your job cut out for you, for life — being my wife." "You mean — quit singing entirely? Give up my career?" After a long pause, Jimmy said, "I don't get it. Your career is marriage, isn't it? You said you wanted to be my wife, and how can you be that and sing with a T band, too?" V "But I've worked so hard, and I'm doing r so well, and George Murray says now that I'm on radio, even television, and . . ." "And how much time does that leave you for being married to me?" Jimmy shook his head. "Do you see any choice there?" Shirley didn't answer for a long time. When she did, it was in a very small voice, and there were tears in her eyes. "Yes, Jimmy, I think I do." That wasn't the end of it, then and there. It took a while, as such things do, when two people love one another dearly. But finally there had to come the night when Shirley slipped the ring off her finger and returned it to Jimmy. She did not cry, now, because they'd had it all out and she'd thought it over carefully, and this was a decision she'd made and slept on. She'd ' done her crying, through many sleepless nights. With all the sadness that must come with such a parting, they made a kind of compromise of it. Jimmy said, "Let's wait and see. Maybe, somehow, things will change and we can talk it all over again later." And Shirley answered, trying to smile and not succeeding so well, "Yes, sure, maybe that's how it will be." ohirley came to New York last year all by herself, except for her manager. She'd talked it over with her folks before leaving, and they'd given their consent only if she would stay at a hotel for women — an establishment where an unprotected girl can live, go out to work, and generally operate without ever being disturbed by boys. Men may visit such a hotel only at certain specified hours, and then only to speak decorously with the resident ladies under conditions of the utmost respectability. To put it bluntly, it is fully chaperoned. Some girls live in this type of residence because they're really scared. Shirley did because of her folks, and she stayed for the same reason. But, after a few days and nights in fabulous Manhattan, she began to wonder why she'd ever agreed to this. She'd worked Manhattan up into a kind of unbelievable, glamorous fairyland in her mind. She'd had an idea that the tall stone towers would soar charmingly toward the sky . . . that, as she walked down Fifth Avenue and strolled along Broadway, she'd bump into the great stars of movies and television. Her manager took her out on the town the first night of her arrival. She was like the sheltered princess Audrey Hepburn played in "Roman Holiday," on her first evening of freedom. Broadway was magic, the lights blinding and exciting. But the next night her manager was busy, and Shirley went quietly to bed in the small room at the hotel. She went to bed at eight o'clock, a little tired from her day of auditions and so on. At eleven she woke up, spank awake. She shuffled the bed-clothes around, got a glass of water, started listening to the horns and traffic noises below, in spite of herself. She closed her eyes, tried to go to sleep. Beep! Silence. Beep! Beep! Silence. Zoo-ooom! That was New York. Three hours later, she was almost crying, holding back her tears with an effort of will. "Oh, Thornton's Corners, here I come," she whispered frantically. But the next day she took the elevator downstairs and walked briskly up Fifth Avenue. The windows were gorgeous with clothes and jewels, including the diamond tiara Napoleon had given Josephine. As Shirley dragged her eyes away from these baubles, she almost bumped into Marlene Dietrich, dressed to the nines in something that looked like an original Dior, and protected from the elements by a hyacinth mink. Miss Dietrich nimbly sidestepped our Shirley and passed on. Shirley stood for a moment, stunned, knowing that in a kind of off-beat way, here had been her competition. Dietrich represented durable glamour. All Shirley had to offer was loveliness and youth and a perfect voice. . . . The next three months were a long, protracted misery for Shirley. She knew a few girls in New York, but no men. She worked at her job each day. But, when the evenings came, she was alone and lonesome, scared, bored. Often, late at night, she'd go out and walk along the streets, sometimes Fifth Avenue, sometimes Broadway. The fairyland of New York was here, all right, but not the way she'd always imagined it. The beauty of Fifth Avenue waited to be looked at, but it was cold and hard and expensive. The raucous beauty of Broadway was all there, blinking on and off, but she was jostled by crowds, sailors whistled at her, but strangers are strangers. The magic was a little tarnished. She went back to her hotel, and went to bed, and lay wide-eyed in the night, realizing how rough New York can be, how a dream can be shattered, how fairyland can turn into a frightening mess. Finally, after three months, things began to look better for Shirley. Don Cherry, the singer and golfer, whom she had met in Toronto, called and asked her to dinner. She could accept this invitation, because he was a friend of the family. Then, a few nights later, David Wheylen, Tommy Dorsey's manager, whom she'd met previously, asked her out. 1 he word got around: Here was a beautiful girl, talented and on her way to the big time. And suddenly Shirley's phone began ringing so constantly that she hadn't time to keep track of the calls. . . . Now, even though Shirley is twenty-two, her parents are arranging to have one of her older sisters come to New York to live with her before they will allow her to take her own apartment. Shirley is looking forward to that apartment, and the freedom it suggests. Agents are looking for furnished quarters which will suit her and her sister, and she is like a child about it, in anticipation. And yet . . . the other day, up in her hotel room, Shirley opened the mail from home and there it was, the news that in her heart she had half-expected, halfdreaded. Jimmy had found his girl at last, and had been married that week. Although she thought she had armored her emotions against love, against the thought of Jimmy and of marriage, the hurt stabbed deep for a few minutes. She thought of the new car and the little house in Thornton's Corners, and of Jimmy, so gay and handsome. These were the things she had given up so she could go on singing. At the moment, as she stared at the letter through a mist of tears, it seemed a pretty heavy price. But there wasn't time to sit there feeling sorry for herself. "In a couple of hours," she thought, "I'll be standing in front of the cameras with Paul Whiteman and a great orchestra backing me up. Millions of people all over the country will be watching, listening. That's something. That's what I want. . . ." Well, anyway, that's what she had. A few minutes later, she was walking proudly along Fifth Avenue, her head held high, on her way to rehearsal. A breath of spring, in sultry New York . . . with the remembrance of April showers past, the fragrance that would always linger . . . and the promise of flowers to come, of harvests still to be gathered as a gifted girl grows up to match her vibrant voice and the songs she sings.