{"product_id":"2940013741089","title":"A Star Danced","description":"\"Lunch in London, the day after tomorrow...'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe skipper dropped the words out of one corner of his mouth\u003cbr\u003ewithout disturbing the cigarette in the other corner. He disposed\u003cbr\u003eof some three thousand miles of atmosphere as nonchalantly as you\u003cbr\u003ewould toss a peanut shell over your shoulder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI blinked. But only once. After all, the past two days had been\u003cbr\u003eso fantastic that this ultimate scene and conversation on the\u003cbr\u003ebrilliantly lighted airfield outside a city in one of the\u003cbr\u003eSouthern states, beside the big airliner which was to take me to\u003cbr\u003eEngland in a scheduled thirty-six hours, seemed part and parcel\u003cbr\u003eof the events that had been happening thick and fast ever since\u003cbr\u003ethe telephone woke me at seven o'clock one morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe telephone had summoned me from a dream in which Richard and I\u003cbr\u003ewere running, hand in hand, down our own narrow strip of Cape Cod\u003cbr\u003ebeach into the ocean. Sleepily, unwilling to let go of that\u003cbr\u003edream, I reached for the receiver and held it to my ear. New York\u003cbr\u003ecalling. At Dennis, Cape Cod, at seven o'clock of a May morning,\u003cbr\u003eNew York seems as far away as London or Timbuktu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Are you up?\" the voice of my lawyer demanded crisply.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKnowing me as she does, this was purely a rhetorical question\u003cbr\u003ewhich, I felt, did not rate an answer. She went on: \"Get up!\u003cbr\u003eRight away! Get yourself onto the first plane, or the first\u003cbr\u003etrain, into New York. I've just had word from the Air Ministry in\u003cbr\u003eWashington that there is space for you on the British Airways\u003cbr\u003eplane leaving at midnight tomorrow. You're on your way.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter weeks of more or less patient waiting, repeated timid,\u003cbr\u003epleading, urgent, and finally importunate requests to the\u003cbr\u003eauthorities who rule such matters in Washington and London, and a\u003cbr\u003erapid-fire barrage of telegrams, cables, and telephone calls, it\u003cbr\u003ehad happened. At last I had permission to do what I had been\u003cbr\u003ewanting desperately to do for four years--go to England and do my\u003cbr\u003ebit on a tour for E.N.S.A. Though no one knew just when, everyone\u003cbr\u003ewas aware that the invasion of Europe was imminent. More than\u003cbr\u003eanything in the world I wanted the opportunity to entertain the\u003cbr\u003eBritish and American troops who would soon be fighting in France.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBasil Dean, founder and director of E.N.S.A.--the British\u003cbr\u003eequivalent of the U.S.O.--had cabled, asking me to come; but\u003cbr\u003egetting a priority to make the crossing and getting a place\u003cbr\u003eaboard a plane had taken a lot of wire-pulling at the American\u003cbr\u003eend. Now, I was really on my way home to London which I had not\u003cbr\u003eseen in six years. I would see my old friends, or at least those\u003cbr\u003ewho remained of that gay company after the Battle of\u003cbr\u003eBritain--those who weren't fighting in Italy or the Near and Far\u003cbr\u003eEast, or on any one of the seven seas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I might see Richard.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152692953328,"sku":"2940013741089","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013741089_p0.jpg?v=1763589619","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013741089","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}