Virginia Hughes

“ Peggy had no desire to be serious, except about the theater. And even the theater, she thought, should stay in the background tonight. She and the others had been living nothing but theater lately, and it was good for them to sit in this cozy, candlelit room and talk about things that didn’t matter; things like the coming of spring, rowing on the lake, or what to have for dinner.
But keeping actors from talking about the theater is as hopeless as trying to keep the tide from coming in. No matter what they start to talk about, it always ends up on stage. ”

“ And surrounding it all were the actors, airing their manners like the traditional strolling players invited to a baronial feast, behaving grandly as if they ate this way every day in the week!
Laughing at the sight, Peggy happily helped herself to some of the more exotic foods, wisely conserving her appetite. After all, if these were just the appetizers, whatever would dinner be like?
An hour and a half later, contentedly sighing as the waiter poured a second cup of coffee, Peggy was glad that she had saved a little appetite. Otherwise she might never even have tasted it all! ”

“ That’s why a Broadway play has a much better chance than an off-Broadway venture. When you’re working with stars, you have known quantities—and qualities—and you cast people who already correspond to your own vision of the part. But when you have to work with unknown actors, you must remember that they’re unknown to the director as well as to the audience. Because of this, my first job is to get to know them as they are, and to get the feel of each one’s natural way of reading a line. ”

“ Randy said. “I’d hate to have her get ill now, and have to start training a replacement. Besides, where would we get someone as good as....” He looked at Peggy and reddened.
“Oh, Randy,” she laughed, “you don’t have to be embarrassed about telling the truth. I know I’m not nearly as good as Paula, and you all know it, too. Though it’s very sweet of you to try to pretend that I am. But I didn’t walk away from the part just because I’m a nice girl and wanted to help Paula. I’m too much of an actress to be entirely unselfish when it comes to a good role! ”

“ Peggy sat down on the edge of the bed and took Paula’s hand. “I can understand the way you feel,” she said, “but that’s a foolish kind of pride. Everybody wants to think they’re taking care of themselves, but really nobody does. Before your parents died, they took care of you. They fed you and clothed you and taught you to walk and talk. If somebody hadn’t taken care of you then, you wouldn’t have lived to want to take care of yourself. As we grow up, we take care of ourselves more and more, but we’re never completely on our own. Everybody needs someone else. ”

“ Peggy agreed, “but I would hate to blunder into something when we don’t have all the facts. When we find out just who Paula’s parents are, we may at the same time find some perfectly good reason why she shouldn’t call them. I’d like to give her the full benefit of the doubt until we have all the information we need.”
Greta nodded. “I think that makes sense,” she said.
“The only problem we have left now,” Peggy said with a frown, “is to find a way to get the information we need without stirring things up. If only we knew someone in Los Angeles we could trust, it would be easy. ”

“ It’s just that I feel that money alone doesn’t say what needs saying to a girl like Paula. She’s a sensitive person, after all, and she might even resent the financial help, in some subtle way.”
“You may be right, at that,” Amy said softly. “I know that if I were ever in her position ... having to take money from people ... I’d feel pretty uncomfortable about it. Especially if the people were just—well—just casual acquaintances. And after all, that’s what we are to her.”
“That’s just the point,” Peggy said eagerly. “You’ve put it perfectly! We are just casual acquaintances—not close friends. ”

“ You can look beautiful, or comic, or pathetic, or cute or anything. I’m stuck with just being a South’n Belle, blond and helpless, po’ li’l ol’ me, lookin’ sad and sweet through those ol’ magnolia blossoms!” She broadened her slight, soft accent until it sounded like something you could spread on hot cornbread, and both girls broke into laughter that sounded odd in the strained atmosphere of the bare rehearsal studio.
It was at this point that Mal and Randy came in, with pleasant, if somewhat brisk, nods to the assembled actors and actresses, and a special smile for Amy and Peggy. ”

“ Peggy said. “I think the best thing is for you to start at the beginning and tell me the whole story. Then we can put the pieces together.”
Paula nodded in silent agreement, then drew a deep breath and started.
“My parents are wonderful people,” she began. “They’ve given me everything a girl could want, and I love them dearly. They’re both understanding and talented and charming and generous ... oh, all the things you want people to be! When I decided that I wanted to be an actress, they did everything they could to help me. ”

“ Before Mal and Randy could recover their senses sufficiently to run after her, she had grabbed her coat from the startled cloakroom attendant and run down the stairs. They could hear her heels clattering more than a floor below.
Randy started after her, but Mal restrained him.
“No use, old chap,” he said. “I don’t know what’s got into her, but whatever it is, she’s not going to act tonight. And as far as I’m concerned,” he added grimly, “I don’t care if she never acts again. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s temperament. Forget it. Peggy will do the role, and she’ll do it well.” ”

“ Peggy was glad that she would not have to see their faces when they learned that they had not been selected.
“The pity of it,” she whispered to Randy, “isn’t that there are so many bad ones, but that there are so many good ones, and that only one can be selected for each role. I wish there were some way of telling the good ones you can’t take that they were really good, but that you just couldn’t take everyone!”
“You can’t let yourself worry about that,” Randy replied. “The good ones know they’re good, and they’re not going to be discouraged by the loss of a role. ”

“ All the people in the play were trying, in whatever ways they could, to find some third or fourth kind of life that might be more pleasant and satisfying than the last; all of them were getting more confused every day they tried.
Peggy’s part, then, was not easy. She was playing the role of a young girl of twenty-one who had been a very successful child movie star, but who had not made a picture since she was twelve. Realizing that she was through with show business, she had tried to pretend that she was just an ordinary person who could live an ordinary life. ”

“ The play, which Randy described as a fantasy, or a “modern morality play,” was not an easy one for the actors. The parts could, with too broad a reading, descend into farce or, with not just the right quality of the fantastic, slide off into dullness. The setting was a resort which was, in actuality, a sort of rest home for wealthy people who needed to get away from themselves for a while—or to find themselves. The point of the play, which gradually emerged, was that each of the characters had somehow led at least two distinct kinds of lives and had found both of them unsatisfactory. ”

“ Peggy Lane said, looking ruefully at the fifty or more actresses and actors who milled about nervously, chatting with one another, or sat on the few folding chairs trying to read.
“With only nine roles to be filled,” she continued, “it doesn’t matter how good these people are; most of them just haven’t got a chance. I can’t help feeling sorry for them—for all of us, I mean. After all, I’m trying for a part, too.”
Peggy’s friend and housemate, Amy Preston, smiled in agreement and said, “It’s not an easy business, honey, is it? But the ones I feel sorriest for right now are Mal and Randy. ”

“ The airline terminal buildings, brightly lighted, were each different from the other, and different, too, from any buildings that Peggy had ever seen. One looked like a giant glass-and-steel mushroom; others, in the most modern shapes, defied simple description. The International Airways Building, one of the largest, was a long, square, crystal box, with soaring bridges and terraces connecting it to other buildings.
Randy drove under one of these bridges past the front entrance of the building, swung sharply to the right, and pulled the car into the parking lot reserved for pilots. ”

“ Peggy said slowly. “She seemed ... strange ... to me, too. She wasn’t nervous, and she wasn’t kidding around with the rest of the cast, and at the same time, she didn’t seem cool and calm. She just looked sort of distant and detached. I think she’s collecting her strength, in a way—preparing herself to be Alison, rather than just to play her.”
“That’s the way it seemed to me,” Randy said. “It’s as if she has written a sort of pre-play ... you know, the action that takes place before the play begins. ”

“ May Berriman said in her most theatrical voice, “is for amateurs waiting in the wings ten minutes before their cue. My best advice to you is to relax—until it’s time to go on. There’s no way to hurry the action.”
Of course, May was right. There was no way to hurry the action. On the other hand, Peggy, Amy, and Greta found that there was also no easy way to relax. The next two days dragged by only as days can drag when you want nothing more than for them to come to an end. ”

“ Paula answered. “Everything except self-confidence. I was never sure whether I was getting the good parts and the good reviews because I was me, or because I was my parents’ daughter. My mother is, well, very popular with all the show people in Hollywood, as well as being a famous actress. Nobody would ever do anything to hurt her. I was afraid I was being carried along because everybody wanted to be nice to her. And my father, too. He’s well-liked, and he’s also very—influential.”
“I see,” Peggy said thoughtfully. “And you wanted to try your talent on your own. ”

“ Peggy said sadly. “I just hate to tell you that I think Paula still hasn’t told us the truth about herself and the reason she had to go hungry. I saw things when I was at her apartment that convinced me of that. But I don’t know why.”
“You think she’s lying?” Greta asked. “Why?”
“To begin with,” Peggy said, determined to have the whole thing out in the open, “she’s lying about ever having worked in a department store, and about being a poor orphan. I know because of the clothes I saw in her closet and her bureau when I was getting her pajamas and robe for her.” ”

“ Amy said. “About the shoes, and Paula not being a salesgirl, and not being poor....”
“And not being an orphan, either,” Peggy added.
“Well ... this certainly shows that she wasn’t raised as an orphan,” Amy said, “but this could have been given to her before—before she became an orphan, couldn’t it?”
“No,” Peggy said flatly. “For one thing, this is pretty new. And, besides, even if Paula’s parents did ... die ... after giving her this, the rest of her story couldn’t possibly be true. People who can give gifts like this don’t leave a daughter penniless.” ”

“ Peggy watched with interest as Mal and Randy looked them over, murmured to Amy to take notes, and asked questions. After a few minutes, the men left, two of them looking happy, two resigned. Then Mal stood and called for leading man types, late twenties or early thirties, tall and athletic. As six tall, athletic, handsome young men came forward, Peggy felt that she just couldn’t stand watching the casting interviews any longer. It reminded her too much of the livestock shows she had attended as a youngster in her home town of Rockport, Wisconsin. ”

“ Paula said, “but I feel so ashamed to take your money!”
“Think how ashamed we’d feel,” Peggy said, “if we weren’t able to help you. And besides, we’re not doing it just for you. We’re doing it for the play. We need you in the play. There’s nobody else who can do the Alison part the way you can ... and even if there were, it would be too late now for a cast substitution. No, it’s your part, and it’s our play, and we have to keep you in good condition to do it. It’s a difficult enough role to play even if you’re well-fed, and I just don’t believe you can do it if you’re half-starved. ”

“ It was necessary to tell Randy how she found out about Paula, and what Paula had been trying to accomplish, and how she had found out that Paula’s parents were on their way. By the time she had finished telling it, they had left Manhattan behind them, and were speeding along the express highways of Long Island.
Every so often, coming to the top of one of the low rolling hills that make up the gigantic sandbar that is Long Island, Peggy could see the lights and towers of Manhattan, seeming never to drop much farther behind. ”

“ But shortly before the play opens, she has suddenly come into the fortune which she had earned as a child, but which had been held in trust for her. The money confuses her, and the publicity she gets when the story of the money comes out makes it impossible for her to continue as a secretary.
The difficulty for Peggy was in making this character seem true and alive. This meant that the personalities of an ex-child movie star, a quiet, precise secretary, and a bewildered new heiress must all be combined in one believable whole. ”

“ Peggy and Amy made their way to it as if it were a beacon marking the way to a friendly port.
95
Nothing in the world is more delightfully confusing than an old-fashioned delicatessen in New York. There is a special quality to the very smell of the place; it is a compound of every good thing to eat, and so complex a perfume that it is almost impossible to isolate the elements that make it up. ”

“ Peggy said, “you’re going to need more cash. Isn’t there somebody you can go to for help? How about your family?”
“Oh, no!” Paula said. “My family ... I haven’t any family. I mean, I’m an orphan. My parents are dead, and I haven’t anyone else. I’ve been supporting myself for a long time, and I’m used to it.”
“Well, then,” Peggy said firmly, “I’m going to have to be your family, and you’ll have to accept help from me. I would say that you’ll need about fifty dollars a week to add to what you earn—at least until we get to be a hit, if we do. ”