Janet Hardy in Hollywood

“Everybody ready?” It was Miss Williams, calling the cast together for a final checkup.

Fortunately Janet would not go on until the middle of the first act. It would give her an opportunity to regain her full composure, to get into the swing of the play, and to brush up on any lines she was afraid she might forget.

The music of the high school orchestra, which was playing in the pit out front, reached a crescendo and died away. Janet faintly heard a wave of applause for the efforts of the orchestra. Then the girl who had taken her place at the switchboard dimmed the house lights, shoved the switch that sent the electricity surging into the footlights, and the curtain started up.

There was that little breathless pause before the action of the play began. Then Helen, the first character on the stage, started her lines. Clearly, confidently, she spoke, and Janet’s fears for the play, fears for any mistakes of her own, melted away. Helen was going magnificently, perfectly at ease and seemingly living the very rôle of Gale Naughton.

Janet slipped into the mood of the play. It wasn’t hard for she had attended every rehearsal and knew the lines of almost every character.

On the other side of the stage Miss Williams, the prompt book in her hands, was obviously pleased.

Then came a cue that awoke Janet from the pleasant glow. She was on next. With hands that fluttered just a little she picked up a mirror on the tiny dressing table in the wings and made sure that her hair was right.

It was time for her to go on, a rollicking, bouncing sort of entrance that one would expect from gay, light-hearted Abbie Naughton, and Janet did it perfectly.

The blaze of light from the footlights shielded her from the audience. She didn’t need to care what they were thinking. All she needed to do was to go through her part, playing it to the utmost. Later she would know what the audience thought, but then it would be too late to matter.

Janet and Helen had a fast exchange of lines, Helen reproving Janet for her gayety when the family funds were so low. They carried that hard bit of repartee off successfully and when the conversation swung to another character, Helen whispered under her breath.

“You’re grand, simply grand. Keep it up.”

“Double the compliment for yourself,” replied Janet, her lips barely moving yet the words were audible to Helen.

The first act was over suddenly. The curtain came down, smoothly, silently, and as it bumped the floor a gathering wave of applause echoed throughout the gym. Miss Williams nodded and the curtain went up again, the members of the cast smiling and bowing.

Then came the rush for the second act. The stage must be reset and the girls, especially, had to put on new costumes. Miss Williams stopped Janet in the wings.

“Margie’s costumes for the last two acts are laid out in the dressing room. I’m sure they’ll fit.” Then she laughed. “They’ll have to, Janet. We can’t stop for a costume, can we?”

“Not after the first act,” replied Janet.

But Margie’s costumes did fit. It was as though they had been made for Janet.

The action of the play moved more rapidly, swirling closer and closer around the Chinese image on its pedestal in the garden.

Finally came the third act with Janet, clumsy, jubilant Janet, accidentally knocking over the image, which burst open when it struck the stage floor and there, inside the figure of clay, was the secret of the image and the continued comfort of the Naughtons – a ruby, so perfect, so beautiful, that it was worth an exceedingly large fortune.

Before Janet knew it the curtain came down for the final time and on its echo came a sustained wave of applause. First the cast, then Miss Williams, and then the cast, answered the steady calls for their appearance. When Janet and Helen, coming out hand in hand, took a bow, the applause reached a new peak and then died away as the audience, satisfied as having paid tribute to the two stars of the show, prepared to leave the spacious gymnasium.

There was the usual crowd on the stage, parents and friends rushing up to congratulate members of the cast and over in one corner Janet saw Miss Williams signing her name to a paper that looked very much like a contract. Without doubt the dramatics instructor had earned her contract with the producing company.

“I’m tired,” announced Helen, in a very matter-of-fact manner.

“I suppose I am, too, but I’m still far too excited to realize it,” replied Janet. “Here come the folks.”

Her father and mother, closely followed by Helen’s parents, were pushing their way through the crowd.

“I’m mighty proud of you two,” said John Hardy as he gave each of them a hug.

“I’m more than that,” chuckled Helen’s father. “I’m tempted to sign them to contracts and take them back to Hollywood with me.”

Chapter XIV

JUST FISHING

Henry Thorne’s words echoed in Janet’s ears as the girls changed their costumes in the dressing room. Of course he must have been saying it lightly, paying them a pleasant compliment for their work. She forced herself to dismiss it from serious consideration.

They changed quickly, hung up their costumes, and hurried out to join their parents for Henry Thorne was entertaining at dinner down town.

“What was the idea of telling us you were in charge of lighting when you actually played the second lead?” Janet’s mother asked after they had left the gym and were rolling down town in the car.

“But mother, I told the truth. I was in charge of lighting until about twenty minutes before the curtain went up. Then one of the drops broke away and fell on Margie. She suffered a minor concussion and it was up to someone to step in and take the part or the show would have flopped right then and there before the curtain went up.”

“You mean you stepped in cold and handled the second lead?” asked Henry Thorne, turning around in the front seat to gaze incredulously at Janet.

“But it wasn’t hard. You see I tried out for that rôle and then I attended every rehearsal. Of course I sort of lived the character I tried out for. I missed some of the lines tonight, but the others knew I might and they covered up for me.”

“Well, I’ll be darned. I thought you had been rehearsing it from the first and had told us you were on lights just to surprise us,” said the famous director. “Anyway, you did a swell job. Maybe I will take you back to the coast with me.”

“Now Henry,” protested his wife, “don’t start saying things you don’t mean. You’ll get the girls all excited and then you’ll have to rush away to start work on another picture and you’ll forget all about your promises to them.”

“Probably you’re right mother, but they’re smart, good looking girls, even if one of them is my daughter, and heavens knows we could use some really smart, level-headed girls in one of my companies.”

Janet’s father wheeled the car in to the curb in front of the restaurant where they were to have dinner and in the bustle of getting out of the car conversation switched to another topic, but Henry Thorne’s words persisted in sticking in Janet’s mind.

Henry Thorne had planned and ordered the supper himself. It was a man’s meal and Janet and Helen, now tremendously hungry after the strain of the play, enjoyed it to the utmost.

First there was chilled tomato juice and in the center of the table a heaping platter of celery, olives and pickled onions that they ate with relish through all of the courses of the dinner.

Then came great sizzling steaks, thick and almost swimming in their own juice, french fried potatoes, a liberal head lettuce salad, small buttered peas, hot rolls and jam. And after that there was open-face cherry pie and coffee for those who cared for it.

“So this is your idea of a meal, Henry?” asked his wife, surveying the welter of dishes on the table.

“Well, perhaps not every day and every meal, but once in a while I’d say yes. This is my idea of a meal.”

“I think it’s been grand,” spoke up Janet’s mother, “especially since I didn’t have to do any work toward it.”

“That does make a difference,” conceded Mrs. Thorne, “but I’d hate to think of Henry’s waistline if he had a meal like this every day.”

Conversation turned to neighborhood issues and talk of the town, for Henry Thorne maintained a tremendously active interest in the affairs of his home city.

When they finally started home, it was well after one o’clock, but routine school days for Janet and Helen were at an end. Exams were over and there was only the junior-senior banquet and then commencement.

Janet slept late the next morning and it was after ten o’clock when her mother finally awakened her.

“Helen and her father just phoned they are coming over. I thought you might like to go with them. After they get some worms out of the back yard they’re going fishing. I’ll put up a lunch.”

Janet hurried into her clothes and met Helen and her father as they arrived. Henry Thorne was armed with an ancient cane fishpole, had on a venerable straw hat, cracked but comfortable shoes, old overalls and a blue shirt.