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Mugs of coffee between them, the boy and the girl talked; and when their talk waned or their thoughts wandered inward, as sometimes they did, they gazed out onto the empty street lit only by the bright splash from their window. Once she saw him examining her reflection in the glass, but when his eyes caught her looking back at him, they flinched away. She felt sure he hadn't had a real chance to see what she looked like out in the darkness and was making a quick appraisal of her reflection. She was young and slim, but she knew she was not pretty. Still, people sometimes said she had nice eyes, and when she examined them in her mirror, she found them, if not exotic or sexy, at least kind and expressive, and they were set off by long, soft lashes... her best feature. She was afraid he was going to compliment her on her eyes, and she was glad when he didn't because saying a girl has nice eyes is an admission she isn't good-looking, something like describing a person with no sense of humor as 'sincere', or saying a really dull girl is a 'good listener'. Her shoulder-length hair was curled in at the ends, forming, with her short bangs, a frame for her face. She had gone out that night in a stiff cotton frock with little bows at the shoulders, a full skirt held out by a rustling crinoline, and a matching bolero jacket... her 'June Allyson dress'.
Every major film actress had her characteristic makeup, hairdo, and wardrobe that girls imitated, each following the style of her 'favorite movie star': meaning the actress she thought she most closely resembled. For girls with too much face, there was the 'Loretta Young look'; for hard-faced girls, the 'Joan Crawford look'; for ski
"That's a lovely dress," he said with gravity.
She smiled down at it. "I got all dressed up and went to the movies tonight. I don't know why. I just..." She shrugged.
"A June Allyson movie?" he asked.
"Yes. I'd been waiting to see-" Her eyes widened. "How did you know?"
He slipped into a Bela Lugosi voice. "I know many things, my dear. I have powers beyond those of your ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill, ready-to-wear, off-the-shelf human being."
"No, come on, really.How did you know I went to a June Allyson movie?"
He smiled. "Just a lucky guess." Then he popped back into the Lugosi voice, "Or maybe not! Maybe I was lurking outside the movie house, and I followed you onto the bus, stalking my prey!" He shifted to Lionel Barrymore, all wheezy and avuncular, "Now you just listen to me, young lady! You've got to be careful about letting bad boys pick you up and carry you off to well-lit dens, where they ply you with stimulants... like caffeine."
She laughed. "Well, you're right, anyway. I did go to a June Allyson movie. She's my favorite."
"No kidding?"
"It was Woman's World.Have you seen it?"
"Afraid not."
"Well, there's these three men who are after this swell job, but only one of them can have it. And their wives are trying to help them get it, and..."
"...and June Allyson is the nicest of the wives? A small-town girl?"
"That's right, and she— Wait a minute! You said you haven't seen it."
"Another lucky guess." Then back into the Lugosi voice. "Or was it? You must never trust bad boys, my dear. They may smile and seem harmless, but underneath...? Churning cauldrons of passion!"
She waved his nonsense away with a flapping motion of her hand: an old-fashioned, small-town, June Allyson gesture. "Why do you call yourself a bad boy?"
"I never said that," he said, suddenly severe.
"Sure, you did. You said it twice."
He stared at her for a moment... then smiled. "Did I really? Well, I guess that makes us a team. I'm the bad one, and you're the odd one. Riffraff, that's what we are. Tell you what: you be riff, and I'll be raff, okay?" Then Amos of Amos 'n' Andysaid, "So elucidate me, Missus Riff. What am yo' daily occupational work like?"
She described her work at a JC Pe
"And what if your store modernizes and gives up Mr Weaver's thingamajig-"
"Overhead Cash Carrier."
"...Overhead Cash Carrier. What happens to your job then?"
"Oh, by then I'll be a qualified secretary. I'm taking shorthand two nights a week. The Gregg Method? And I'm going to take a typing course as soon as I save up enough money. You know what they say: If you can type and take shorthand, you'll never be out of a job."
"Yeah, they just keep on saying that and saying that. Sometimes I get tired of hearing it. So, I suppose that what with your job and your shorthand classes and all, you don't get out much."
"No, not much. I don't know all that many people. ...No one, really."
"You must miss your folks."
"No."
"Not at all?"
"They're religious and awful strict. With them, everything is sin, sin, sin."
He smiled, "they do a lot of si
"No, they never sin. Never. But they... I don't know how to describe it. They're always thinkingabout sin. Always cleansing themselves of it, or strengthening themselves to resist it. I guess you could say they spend all their time notsi
"I know exactly what you mean."
She suddenly had the feeling that he hadn't even noticed the moment when their shoulders touched, but he didn't want to admit it.
They fell silent for a time; then she emerged from her reverie with a quick breath and said, "What about you?"
"How do I feel about sin?"
"No, I mean, tell me about yourself and your job and all."
"Well... let's see. First off, I have to confess that I don't work in a JC Pe
"No, come on! How come you talk with an English accent if you're not English?"
"It's not an English accent. It's what they call 'mid-Atlantic'. And it's totally phony. When I was a drama major in college, I-"
"You've been to college?"
"Only a couple of years. Then the Korean Police Action came along and I-" He shrugged all that away. "No, I'm not English. I just decided to change my voice because I hated it. It was so... New York. Flat, metallic, adenoidal, too little resonance, too much urgency. I wanted to sound like the actors I admired. Welles, Olivier, Maurice Evans. So I took courses in theater speech and I practiced hours and hours in my room, listening to records and imitating them. But it turned out to be a waste of time."
"No it wasn't! I likethe way you talk. It's so... cultured. Sort of like Claude Rains or James Mason."
"Oh yes, my dear," he said as Claude Rains, "the phony speech eventually became habitual." He shifted to James Mason, a slightly lower note with a touch of huskiness. It was wonderful how he could sound like any actor he wanted to! "But even with a new voice, I was still the person I was trying not to be. Damned nuisance!" Then he returned to his everyday voice. "For all my correctly placed vowels and sounded terminal consonants, I was still a bad boy ru