Some Enchanted Tea Time

The afternoon were on, and studying began to seem inevitable. The roommates were all riffling through huge dusty books, and even the telephone looked preoccupied. As I glumly eyed my collection of paperback summaries and other people's notes on political theory, the one roommate for whom I have hope leaped to his feet. He announced to the scandalized grinds that he was off to photograph Debbie Reynolds, movie star and all that. Entranced, I slipped into an Oxford button-down, seized my sketchbook, and raced off to the Hasty Pudding, where they had the red carpet rolled all the way up to the Hayes-Bickford trash cans. Presently a thirty-foot Harvard limousine with flying bridge and machine guns drew unobtrusively to the curb, and a crowd of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer publicity agents piled out and began shaking hands.

A small girl in grey got out, looked wistfully around, and was just stepping back in when an alert Pudding grecter grabbed her and began bubbling incomprehensibly in a Beacon Hill accent. Wiping bits of moisture from her face, she turned to a tramp who was lounging on the steps and cried, "Sitting around? Mercy! I thought you boys studied all the time!" She dashed in and I followed, but a policeman turned me away and I had to climb in a window. I ran around to the front door and asked the cop if I could go out, but he wouldn't let me until I said I was Eddie Fisher trying to get some fresh air. I went back in, and spied Debbie cavorting on the stage with some hula girls. From time to time she would draw her skirt up to a chalk mark four inches above her knee, cry "Mercy!" as the flashbulbs popped, and hurriedly drop it. She let me hold her silver fox wrap, and a lady from Universal-International, sensing my importance, sidled over and told me Debbie had just flown East for a few days to see Eddie Fisher. She winked and a slab of pancake makeup crashed to the floor. Waiting until my ball pen was working, she told me about Debbie's next picture for Paramount Studios, which is a thriller-diller, but I've lost my notes and I can't remember much else about it. Then Debbie walked over near us with a bunch of Puddies in tow, and I noticed her nicely tailored grey flannel dress, which fit like a soaking-wet nightgown. The lady from RKO lent me her hanky so I could wipe my chin and introduced me. Ripping out my pen, I made the accompanying sketch as she turned to another interlocuter and then asked her if I could have a few minutes alone with her. She said okay and then scampered off to the piano and sang a song which she insisted we all sing with her. We all sang dum-de-dum like we do in the Stadium, and she danced around while we sang. She's awfully cute.

I went over to a man with silver sideburns who looked like her father and asked him if I could have a few minutes alone with Debbie. But he turned out to be just another publicity agent from Republic and told me Debbie had taken a vacation to fly East and be with Eddie. "Keep it under your hat," he said, wiping his hand on my shoulder.