A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

The door opened without waiting for her, and she saw a corridor full of people, all staring at her. They brought Gerry in, very pale, with his eyes closed, and put him down on the bed.

“My honeyboy!” Sharlee gave an agonized little whimper, and all thought of New York vanished completely as she bent over him and kissed him. She got everyone out of the room and closed the door on them, but her back was no sooner turned than the door opened again and a voice said: “Mayn’t I help? I’ve brought my spirits of ammonia in case—”

The Venetian-eyed Zoe Werner had insinuated herself into the room.

“If I thought I could trust you to take the right care of him,” said Sharlee bitterly, “I wouldn’t spend another night in this hotel.”

“He’s overworked,” Zoe murmured, not noticing. “The hours here are too long.”

Sharlee snatched up her valise and took long hysterical strides to the door. “Stay here if you want,” she said, half strangled with sobs. “I’m going to New York.”

“You needn’t go,” said Zoe gently. “I’m leaving in the early morning for Jacksonville.” She passed her, and on the way out said softly, “Tell him goodbye for me.”

The sea was blue as only the Florida seas can be: acetylene blue. It reminded Gerry of the eyes of Angel Face, his mother. A dripping mermaid came splashing out of the surf to greet him.

“I saw you leave the hotel,” said Sharlee, “and I was afraid you might want to try the water. I don’t think it would be good for you just yet.”

They sat down on a little hillock of sand, and their arms went around each other.

“We will go away from Florida,” said Gerry.

“We can’t,” said Sharlee, grinning up at the sky. “I wired Angel Face and she’s on the way down. She says she wants to dance to your music. Go in and dress, and I’ll sit out here listening, and when you play, I’ll know it’s all for me.”

Cinderella Magic

Sometimes it all seemed like a dream, one of those things that happens in books and talking pictures, but not to her, Patty Moran, of Sixty-Eighth Street and Ninth Avenue. Ninth Avenue, where the “El” trains rumbled by in front of the parlor and people ate corned beef and cabbage and had worries. Maybe it happened because she was eighteen. When you’re eighteen, dreams have a way of coming true.

First there were just the two of them, Laurence and Patty. No one ever knew where he ever got that name. Spelt with a U in the middle, too. He hated it. If you wanted to be his friend, you had to call him Larry, if you knew him well enough like Patty did. Or else just plain Mr. Cogan.

Patty was the one who could call him Laurence (with a U in the middle) and not risk getting a punch in the nose. Sometimes she did it when she wanted to tease him. He’d look at her and smile. After a while she found out he liked it. He’d call her up on the telephone and say, “This is Laurence with a U in the middle.” They’d been going together steadily for quite some time, nearly a year. And they knew they’d have to keep on going for another year, or maybe two, before there would be enough money to — if you know what I mean. But they didn’t mind that.

For all they knew, they were the only two in the whole wide world. Of course there were mothers and sisters and brothers and people like that — but they didn’t make Pat’s heart beat any quicker, the way it was doing right then, for instance, at the telephone.

“And what’s on your mind, Laurence with a U in the middle?” Pat said, pretending to be very matter-of-fact. “Admitting that you have one.”

“It’s about that dance, sweet Patty Moran,” he said. “They couldn’t get Killarney Hall for tonight, so they’re giving it downtown instead, at an armory on Park Avenue. I’ll wait for you at the door. Are you ready to leave soon?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll have to change my dress first. I forgot I was seeing you tonight.”

“Shame on you!” her mother laughed. “Standing there in your silver shoes and all, telling him that.” And she tried to take the phone away from Pat and say, “Don’t believe a word of it, Larry!”

Pat climbed up on a chair, phone and all, and winked at her. “How will I know this armory?” she said to Larry.

“It’s as big as a castle,” he said, “with a great wide awning over the door. Will you remember the number?” And he gave it to her. Pat called it out so her mother could write it down on a piece of paper for her. “I’ll be seeing you then,” she said, and ran inside just to take one more look at herself in the glass. But when she asked her mother for the number, Pat found she hadn’t written it down at all.

“I didn’t have any pencil,” her mother said, “but I kept it in my head for you. It’s 240.”

“I think he said 420.”

“If it isn’t one, it’s the other,” her mother said. “That’s easy enough.”