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Ebook has 866 lines and 45246 words, and 18 pages

PEGGY FINDS THE THEATER

"Of course, this is no surprise to us," Thomas Lane said to his daughter Peggy, who perched tensely on the edge of a kitchen stool. "We could hardly have helped knowing that you've wanted to be an actress since you were out of your cradle. It's just that decisions like this can't be made quickly."

"But, Dad!" Peggy almost wailed. "You just finished saying yourself that I've been thinking about this and wanting it for years! You can't follow that by calling it a quick decision!" She turned to her mother, her hazel eyes flashing under a mass of dark chestnut curls. "Mother, you understand, don't you?"

Mrs. Lane smiled gently and placed her soft white hand on her daughter's lean brown one. "Of course I understand, Margaret, and so does your father. We both want to do what's best for you, not to stand in your way. The only question is whether the time is right, or if you should wait longer."

"Wait! Mother--Dad--I'm years behind already! The theater is full of beginners a year and even two years younger than I am, and girls of my age have lots of acting credits already. Besides, what is there to wait for?"

Peggy's father put down his coffee cup and leaned back in the kitchen chair until it tilted on two legs against the wall behind him. He took his time before answering. When he finally spoke, his voice was warm and slow.

"Peg, I don't want to hold up your career. I don't have any objections to your wanting to act. I think--judging from the plays I've seen you in at high school and college--that you have a real talent. But I thought that if you would go on with college for three more years and get your degree, you would gain so much worth-while knowledge that you'd use and enjoy for the rest of your life--"

"But not acting knowledge!" Peggy cried.

"There's more to life than that," her father put in. "There's history and literature and foreign languages and mathematics and sciences and music and art and philosophy and a lot more--all of them fascinating and all important."

"None of them is as fascinating as acting to me," Peggy replied, "and none of them is nearly as important to my life."

Mrs. Lane nodded. "Of course, dear. I know just how you feel about it," she said. "I would have answered just the same way when I was your age, except that for me it was singing instead of acting. But--" and here her pleasant face betrayed a trace of sadness--"but I was never able to be a singer. I guess I wasn't quite good enough or else I didn't really want it hard enough--to go on with all the study and practice it needed."

She paused and looked thoughtfully at her daughter's intense expression, then took a deep breath before going on.

"What you must realize, Margaret, is that you may not quite make the grade. We think you're wonderful, but the theater is full of young girls whose parents thought they were the most talented things alive; girls who won all kinds of applause in high-school and college plays; girls who have everything except luck. You may be one of these girls, and if you are, we want you to be prepared for it. We want you to have something to fall back on, just in case you ever need it."

Mr. Lane, seeing Peggy's hurt look, was quick to step in with reassurance. "We don't think you're going to fail, Peg. We have every confidence in you and your talents. I don't see how you could miss being the biggest success ever--but I'm your father, not a Broadway critic or a play producer, and I could be wrong. And if I am wrong, I don't want you to be hurt. All I ask is that you finish college and get a teacher's certificate so that you can always find useful work if you have to. Then you can try your luck in the theater. Doesn't that make sense?"

Peggy stared at the faded linoleum on the floor for a few moments before answering. Then, looking first at her mother and then at her father, she replied firmly, "No, it doesn't! It might make sense if we were talking about anything else but acting, but we're not. If I'm ever going to try, I'll have a better chance now than I will in three years. But I can see your point of view, Dad, and I'll tell you what--I'll make a bargain with you."

"What sort of bargain, Peg?" her father asked curiously.

"If you let me go to New York now, and if I can get into a good drama school there, I'll study and try to find acting jobs at the same time. That way I'll still be going to school and I'll be giving myself a chance. And if I'm not started in a career in one year, I'll go back to college and get my teacher's certificate before I try the theater again. How does that sound to you?"

"It sounds fair enough," Tom Lane admitted, "but are you so confident that you'll see results in one year? After all, some of our top stars worked many times that long before getting any recognition."

"I don't expect recognition in one year, Dad," Peggy said. "I'm not that conceited or that silly. All I hope is that I'll be able to get a part in that time, and maybe be able to make a living out of acting. And that's probably asking too much. If I have to, I'll make a living at something else, maybe working in an office or something, while I wait for parts. What I want to prove in this year is that I can act. If I can't, I'll come home."

"It seems to me, Tom, that Margaret has a pretty good idea of what she's doing," Mrs. Lane said. "She sounds sensible and practical. If she were all starry-eyed and expected to see her name in lights in a few weeks, I'd vote against her going, but I'm beginning to think that maybe she's right about this being the best time."

"Oh, Mother!" Peggy shouted, jumping down from the stool and throwing her arms about her mother's neck. "I knew you'd understand! And you understand too, don't you, Dad?" she appealed.

Her father replied in little puffs as he drew on his pipe to get it started. "I ... never said ... I didn't ... understand you ... did I?" His pipe satisfactorily sending up thick clouds of fragrant smoke, he took it out of his mouth before continuing more evenly.

Mrs. Lane patted Peggy's arm and said, "We won't keep you in suspense long, dear. Why don't you go out for a walk for a while and let us go over the situation quietly? We'll decide before bedtime."

Peggy nodded silently and walked to the kitchen door, where she paused to say, "I'm just going out to the barn to see if Socks is all right for the night. Then maybe I'll go down to Jean's for a while."

As she stepped out into the soft summer dusk she turned to look back just in time to see her mother throw her a comically exaggerated wink of assurance. Feeling much better, Peggy shut the screen door behind her and started for the barn.

Ever since she had been a little girl, the barn had been Peggy's favorite place to go to be by herself and think. Its musty but clean scent of straw and horses and leather made her feel calm and alive. Breathing in its odor gratefully, she walked into the half-dark to Socks's stall. As the little bay horse heard her coming, she stamped one foot and softly whinnied a greeting. Peggy stopped first at the bag that hung on the wall among the bridles and halters and took out a lump of sugar as a present. Then, after stroking Socks's silky nose, she held out her palm with the sugar cube. Socks took it eagerly and pushed her nose against Peggy's hand in appreciation.

As Peggy mixed some oats and barley for her pet and checked to see that there was enough straw in the stall, she thought about her life in Rockport and the new life that she might soon be going to.

Rockport, Wisconsin, was a fine place, as pretty a small town as any girl could ask to grow up in. And not too small, either, Peggy thought. Its 16,500 people supported good schools, an excellent library, and two good movie houses. What's more, the Rockport Community College attracted theater groups and concert artists, so that life in the town had always been stimulating. And of course, all of this was in addition to the usual growing-up pleasures of swimming and sailing, movie dates, and formal dances--everything that a girl could want.

Peggy had lived all her life here, knew every tree-shaded street, every country road, field, lake, and stream. All of her friends were here, friends she had known since her earliest baby days. It would be hard to leave them, she knew, but there was no doubt in her mind that she was going to do so. If not now, then as soon as she possibly could.

To what? To the bright lights, speeding taxis, glittering towers of a make-believe movie-set New York? Would it really be like that? Or would it be something different, something like the dreary side-street world of failure and defeat that she had also seen in movies?

Seeing the image of herself hungry and tired, going from office to office looking for a part in a play, Peggy suddenly laughed aloud and brought herself back to reality, to the warm barn smell and the big, soft-eyed gaze of Socks. She threw her arm around the smooth bay neck and laid her face next to the horse's cheek.

"Socks," she murmured, "I need some of your horse sense if I'm going to go out on my own! We'll go for a fast run in the morning and see if some fresh air won't clear my silly mind!"

With a final pat, she left the stall and the barn behind, stepping out into the deepening dusk. It was still too early to go back to the house to see if her parents had reached a decision about her future. Fighting down an impulse to rush right into the kitchen to see how they were coming along, Peggy continued down the driveway and turned left on the slate sidewalk past the front porch of her family's old farmhouse and down the street toward Jean Wilson's house at the end of the block.

As she walked by her own home, she noticed with a familiar tug at her heart how the lilac bushes on the front lawn broke up the light from the windows behind them into a pattern of leafy lace. For a moment, or maybe a little more, she wondered why she wanted to leave this. What for? What could ever be better?

Upstairs at the Wilsons', Peggy found Jean swathed in bath towels, washing her long, straight red hair, which was now white with lather and piled up in a high, soapy knot.

"You just washed it yesterday!" Peggy said. "Are you doing it again--or still?"

Jean grinned, her eyes shut tight against the soapsuds. "Again, I'm afraid," she answered. "Maybe it's a nervous habit!"

"It's a wonder you're not bald, with all the rubbing you give your hair," Peggy said with a laugh.

"Well, if I do go bald, at least it will be with a clean scalp!" Jean answered with a humorous crinkle of her freckled nose. Taking a deep breath and puffing out her cheeks comically, she plunged her head into the basin and rinsed off the soap with a shampoo hose. When she came up at last, dripping-wet hair was tightly plastered to the back of her head.

"There!" she announced. "Don't I look beautiful?"

After a brisk rubdown with one towel, Jean rolled another dry towel around her head like an Indian turban. Then, having wrapped herself in an ancient, tattered, plaid bathrobe, she led Peggy out of the steamy room and into her cozy, if somewhat cluttered, bedroom. When they had made themselves comfortable on the pillow-strewn daybeds, Jean came straight to the point.

"So the grand debate is still going on, is it? When do you think they'll make up their minds?" she asked.

"How do you know they haven't decided anything yet?" Peggy said, in a puzzled tone.

"Oh, that didn't take much deduction, my dear Watson," Jean laughed. "If they had decided against the New York trip, your face would be as long as Socks's nose, and it's not half that long. And if the answer was yes, I wouldn't have to wait to hear about it! You would have been flying around the room and talking a mile a minute. So I figured that nothing was decided yet."

"You know, if I were as smart as you," Peggy said thoughtfully, "I would have figured out a way to convince Mother and Dad by now."

"Oh, don't feel bad about being dumb," Jean said in mock tones of comfort. "If I were as pretty and talented as you are, I wouldn't need brains, either!" With a hoot of laughter, she rolled quickly aside on the couch to avoid the pillow that Peggy threw at her.

A short, breathless pillow fight followed, leaving the girls limp with laughter and with Jean having to retie her towel turban. From her new position, flat on the floor, Peggy looked up at her friend with a rueful smile.

"You know, I sometimes think that we haven't grown up at all!" she said. "I can hardly blame my parents for thinking twice--and a lot more--before treating me like an adult."

"Nonsense!" Jean replied firmly. "Your parents know a lot better than to confuse being stuffy with being grown-up and responsible. And, besides, I know that they're not the least bit worried about your being able to take care of yourself. I heard them talking with my folks last night, and they haven't got a doubt in the world about you. But they know how hard it can be to get a start as an actress, and they want to be sure that you have a profession in case you don't get a break in show business."

"I know," Peggy answered. "We had a long talk about it this evening after dinner." Then she told her friend about the conversation and her proposed "bargain" with her parents.

"They both seemed to think it was fair," she concluded, "and when I went out, they were talking it over. They promised me an answer by bedtime, and I'm over here waiting until the jury comes in with its decision. You know," she said suddenly, sitting up on the floor and crossing her legs under her, "I bet they wouldn't hesitate a minute if you would only change your mind and decide to come with me and try it too!"

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