Backstage Wife was humming from the Philco console: “Can a small-town girl from Iowa find happiness with one of America’s most handsome actors, Larry Noble, matinee idol of a million other women … ?” Anthony Eden was speaking over a sleek Emerson table model, denouncing Chamberlain’s “straw peace”: “We slither ever closer to the abyss. The idea that safety can be purchased by throwing a small state to the wolves is a fatal delusion.” It was all background noise to Jimmy Brennan. Jimmy managed the Outlet’s radio department, and he had learned to program his attention like one of the machines he sold, tuning the broadcasts in or out at will. He usually listened for the afternoon weather. When he heard a bulletin about a hurricane in Connecticut, he went downstairs to tell his friend Florence Simmons in the ladies’ shoe department. Florence laughed at him. “Oh, Jimmy, there’ll never be a hurricane. We’ve never had a hurricane.” She was still smiling a few minutes later when a woman ran into the store, incoherent and crying hysterically — something about her baby blowing out of her arms.
