November 1941

"I'll never get tired of looking at Clark Gable," Olivia said as she walked out of the movie theater with her best friend and roommate Alex. "I think I've seen every one of his pictures. Some of them twice."

"I'll never get tired of looking at Lana Turner," Alex admitted and Olivia gave her a confused look.

"Same here," Olivia said to break the ice. "I wish I could be as glamorous as she is."

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. "Me, too," she said.

It was just after 10 o'clock and the city was bursting with life. Alex and Olivia were two young women in their prime and the men of New York would have been more than happy to spend an evening with them, but they both worried about what the other women in their building would think if they saw them canoodling with men late into the night.

Alex and Olivia were both in their early 20s and they had been roommates since they had graduated from high school. Alex was a few credits away from graduating from college and she insisted that she didn't need a man in her life. She wanted to become a journalist after college and Olivia knew that would be the perfect career for Alex because she was always reading the newspaper and keeping up with everything happening in the world. Olivia was a secretary and even though she felt as if that was okay for now, she knew that wasn't what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. There were just so few choices for women and she knew she had to make a living. Unlike Alex, Olivia didn't insist on not having a man in her life. She had boyfriends in high school and a few since then, but she had yet to meet the man who swept her off her feet.

Olivia was lost in a daze until someone accidentally walked into her and nearly knocked her down.

"Are you okay?" a young man about her age asked. "I'm sorry for—"

"I'm fine," Olivia told him. "No need to be sorry."

"At least let me buy you ladies a cup of coffee," he insisted. "There's a diner just down the street."

"I would love to, but I have class early in the morning," Alex said.

"I have to work," Olivia said matter-of-factly. "But maybe I can take a rain check?"

"That's all I can ask for," he said. "How about tomorrow at 6? I'll meet you there."

"That's swell," Olivia said and started smiling. "I'm Olivia and this is my best friend Alexandra."

"I'm Elliot," he told them. "I'll let you both carry on. It's been a pleasure."

"The pleasure is all mine," Olivia blurted out and Alex couldn't believe what her friend had just said.

"You're not one for subtlety tonight, are you?" Alex asked once they were inside their apartment.

"I don't know what came over me," Olivia admitted. "Maybe it was because he was so chivalrous."

"Or maybe it was because he looked like he was straight out of a picture show," Alex teased.

"If so, I think I just met my next leading man," Olivia told her and Alex pretended to look shocked.

Olivia shimmied out of her dress, removed the bobby pins from her hair, and changed into something comfortable while Alex laid on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"I think something is wrong with me," Alex said glumly.

"Nothing is wrong with you," Olivia told her. "You're smart, beautiful, and any man would love to make you his."

"But I don't want that," Alex pointed out. "That's what's wrong with me. I know the two of us are the only unmarried women from our graduating class, but you actually take an interest in men and I don't. I have no idea why and not knowing is what keeps me up at night."

"You just haven't met the right one," Olivia reassured her. "You and I aren't the type of women who settle. We're holding out for something real."

"You're right," Alex said and started smiling. "Maybe Elliot has a friend for me."

"You can go for any of his friends, but not him," Olivia teased and then playfully tossed her pillow at Alex.

It was another five minutes before Alex finally gave Olivia back her pillow. She noticed that Alex fell asleep almost instantly, but Olivia had no such luck. Even though her encounter with Elliot lasted less than five minutes, she already found herself thinking about him. Had she not been with Alex, she would have agreed to have coffee with him and they probably would have stayed out all hours of the night, talking. As improper as it was, she had a feeling she wouldn't have cared. He was handsome, chivalrous, and already interested in her. It was just like a romantic movie she had seen with Alex except, this time, she would finally get to be the leading lady.