BLONDE, YOU KNOW Dewey Hudson I'm not naive about life. I haven't lived twenty long years with a blindfold over my eyes. But even a guy like Napoleon got caught behind the eight ball once or twice, so whoever says I'm a psychopath better look at a history book before he miscounts my marbles. And I can read women like a lesson from a primer, too; I've been wary of them since they started stepping on my best shoes at dancing school when I was ten. But this girl, this Glenda "Goldilocks" Garrett. I admit it, she certainly pulled a Klondike blanket over my eyes. But I'm not the only one she hooked blinders on. Plenty of other poor oafs have tapped the sidewalk with a cane because of her. It all happened the week end our fraternity swept all the dirt under the rugs and staged on open house. I invited Julie Smithton up for the thing, not because my life was empty without Julie but because I'd called up three other girls and they didn't like the sound of my voice. I knew that Julie would arrive on schedule, look adequately smooth, and do me credit without taking too much of my time or my money. Julie and I came from the same town, and while we didn't leave, each other short of breath, we got on like siblings. I took in the proms at New London when Julie couldn't get her clutches on someone with a better profile, and she'd even break a date to pinch-hit when I was caught without a blonde. It was a nice arrangement too, because it was no gaping hole on her calendar to introduce me to her fairer cohorts and I reciprocated by pushing the football heroes her way. Well, I plucked Julie off the train and gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek. She's a cute kid with blowy brown hair and a funny little freckled map. "Hello, light of my life!" I said. I always talked that way to Julie. "Nice of you to trek up here and save my record of always having a beautiful woman in tow." "Well, if I loved you less, I'd never have made it. With handsome disappointed suitors throwing themselves in front of the train, and me with a cold in my head besides; but love conquers all!" Julie always talked that way. She practiced her line on me and I understood, of course. "I'll start loading on your luggage." I reached down to pick up her bag and it was at that moment that I saw the blinding vision! This girl sort of floated off the train and stood a moment looking unmet. I cursed the fact that I was already encumbered with a draying job, for my hands itched to start slaving for this creature. Blonde, you know, with big blue weepers, and a figure that made Grecian art look like the blundering of an amateur. "Julie," I gulped. "Get a load of that!" "What?" said Julie, just like a woman, ignoring a better product in her own line. "That vision! Lord, I wish you'd stayed home with your cold and my rivals!" "Let it never be said I interfered with your blunder," said Julie. "I'll drift along as if I'd mistaken you for a gentlemen, and you can attack, or I'll introduce you if you prefer ..." "You know her?" "Like a book," said Julie. "You only have to read the first page to know how it all turns out in the end." On sober retrospection, I guess Julie was telling me off. But what looks like an angel is an angel until proved otherwise with me. I'm not naive, as I said, but I'm not a cynic either. At least, I wasn't at that time. "I talked with her on the train. I'll do the dastardly deed, but remember it's at your own risk. Not responsible and that sort of thing." "Get along quick," I said, "because here comes something with an eye on her." It was Jed Barker, one of ours, a good-hearted but dumb money-bag, the fraternity mortgage lifter. He looked flushed and feverish. Julie turned round and said, "Glenda, this is Roger Dunbar, the dope I told you about on the train. Miss Garrett, Roger." "Oh," said Glenda. That was all, but I suddenly felt as if I had the strength but not the heel of Achilles, the face of Robert Taylor, and the brilliance but not the beard of Bernard Shaw. That's the way she said "Oh," and I'd swear an affidavit for Ripley to that effect. "I've got a car," I said, flattering the old can I drive around. "Could I take you somewhere?" "Why you're the most wpnderful thing," she said and drowned me in the blue of those eyes of hers. "But there's led." "Oh, I say, I'm sorry," Jed, began. "My car flat tire six blocks from here." Jed's a lump anyway, and out of breath without a football or a wallet in his fists he's ridiculous. "I have offered Miss Garrett a ride. I'll put her down carefully somewhere for you," I said, "while you shoe your horse." "But, but" Jed stammered.. It was easy to see Glenda was both bored and irritated with Barker. She stared right through him like an X-ray. "I think Roger's idea is perfect," she said rather haughtily. "Yes, perfect," said Julie, and she beamed on Jed, eight who's big and blundering the way Julie, the idiot, likes them. "I'd like a walk myself, after the train ride. I'll go along with Jed and watch him change tires and then he can trade me in for Glenda later." "Oh, I wouldn't crowd you out for the world, Julie," Glenda said, very sweetly too. But the way Julie popped back at her, you'd think she hated the girl. "I'd consider the world well lost if I could crowd you out." Women! "What a cute car, and so simple and quaint of you to drive it," Glenda said, as I untied the door and helped her in. This was a new line of attack, but I carried on, "Yeh, I adore it," I said. "Old family heirloom, you know, priceless." "Aren't you amusing," she said and simply howled. I don't usually get that good a laugh when I'm trying hard. I pulled in the slack. Didn't catch it, but laughed anyway to appear bright. Well, I drove all overtown and I covered the suburbs and the rural areas too, pretty thoroughly before I put that package down at the College Inn. Poor Glenda, she told me she was just being nice to Jed, who lived in her home town. Hadn't wanted to come up for the week end and expected to be bored. I told her I was in the same boat with Julie, keeping my fingers crossed, because I never was bored with Julie, just not impassioned. She said meeting me had made everything worthwhile, however, and that it must be Fate. Did I believe in Fate? I said I certainly did, and gave her a predestined kiss. You can't buck Fate, so I gave her a couple more. I left her at the Inn finally and called Julie on the house phone while I was there. I was feeling weak in the knees over one thing or another. "Hello, Julie," I said. "Oh it's that cute litlte burro again, masquerading as a man," she answered. "Come out of it!" I was feeling full of soul and she made me sore. "Be around about seven for you." "Listen," Julie said, "can't you get that divine Jed Barker to come along with that cactus plant of his, and the four of us will play together?" "What's so wonderful about that slug, except his bankroll?" I said coldly. "And I don't understand that crack about a cactus." "No?" said Julie. "Wait until you pick off the flower and get your patties full of stickers. You'll understand." "Well, seven," I said, and hung up and went out the door, mad as a hornet at Julie, but definitely docile about her suggestion about a foursome. I thought up some neat and subtle speeches to deliver to Jed, but the guy's a pushover for a scheme and it took no golden oratory to pull him into the plan. "Why, say, that's mighty fine," he said humbly. "Let's take them to dinner and then bring them back for the dance." "Sure," I said. "That's a wonderful idea of yours!" I figured I'd let him think he lit the fuse himself. The girls came down the stairs at the Inn. Julie had on something white probably, or blue. I don't know which, but those are the colors she usually wears. But Glenda well, it takes somebody more rhapsodic than an engineering major to describe her. She wore red frilly stuff that clung in the right places and swished in the right places and no cloth at all in some places. And that blond hair hanging down to her white shoulders! And the way she walked, a divine refinement of what guys whistle to! But why tangle up my tongue on something I can't do justice to? She was tops anyway, with a heart beat. lulie helped. She tied the vine on to led. If I didn't know Julie so well, I'd have suspected her of playing for his jackpot. "How wonderful," she cooed, "that you're here. I'll have something nice to look at." "And I will too," he answered back. Pathetic, you know, hearing Jed Barker trying to push out the gallant patter. "You look mighty nice, Julie." While this heavy conversation ensued, I just stood and gazed at Glenda, and she paused on the steps. It was almost like a climax in a colored moving picture. And then she walked down to me and put her hand on my arm. "It's been so long, so terribly long, Roger." "Yes," I said, and compared to me at that moment, the blundering tongued Barker was Shakespeare. But we didn't need words, I just took her hand and she was my date, although I'm not that kind of a pirate usually. led didn't seem to mind much, though. He hooked on to Julie and started whispering to her, football signals probably; they're the only secrets he knows. We ate dinner. Cost a buck and half a plate, too, but it might as well have, been the twenty-five cent special at Filthy's. It just didn't taste. At the dance, to keep the dope from molesting her, I hid Glenda in the garden most of the evening and stayed out there to keep her company. The music drifted out the doors, and some kind of flowers were hanging on the bushes, and Glenda was so beautiful my words just came out in formation, without any orders from me.' I said, "Glenda, it looks as if we were meant for each other." "Oh, Roger! Yes, it's written in the stars." I unhooked my hunk of fraternity brass, and with a trembling hand I hung it on Glenda. "Shall we be married immediately?" she asked. This sort of took me off guard. I'd kind of overlooked that this sort of a conversation was what led to the altar and made college boys into family men. "Well, you see" I stalled. I felt silly, but I knew what hell my family would raise, after investing practically a fortune getting me headed toward engineering, if I brought home a bride some week-end before I had my hands on a sheepskin. "I haven't much money now," I gulped on. "Later there will be plenty." I wasn't modest at all. Not me; I figured I'd build gold-plated bridges across every sizable span in the country in time, with this bit of fancy work beside me to spur me on to achievement. "Oh, you adorable thing," Glenda answered. "As if I cared that we have to wait a bit for your money. It's our love that's important. Don't you love me that way?" (Continued on following page) nine