Peggy on the Road

With a grateful sigh Peggy Lane lowered her aching feet into the delicious warmth of a dishpan filled with hot water, bath crystals, and Epsom salts. In other rooms exactly like hers throughout the big brownstone house near New York’s Gramercy Park, half a dozen hopeful, equally tired, but determined young girls about Peggy’s age were doing the same thing.

At the Gramercy Arms, a rooming house for young actresses in the middle of Manhattan, this was a daily ritual known lightheartedly as the “cocktail hour.”

Peggy sighed a second time, wiggled her toes in the steamy water, and flopped back on the studio couch.

“What a life,” she murmured darkly.

As if in answer to her complaint, the lights of New York began coming on. One by one, they twinkled through her window, throwing a spangle of diamonds across her dressing-table mirror.

New York had been home for a year now, but the big city never failed to thrill her—especially at dusk. Without taking her feet from the water, Peggy turned to one side and gazed at a few faint tinges of red in the west where the sunset was fighting a losing battle with the fabulous illumination of the New York skyline.

Propping a meditative chin in her hand, Peggy watched the magic spectacle of Manhattan change gradually from a bustling city of towering gray buildings and concrete canyons into the jeweled finery of a million lights. It was like the shimmering moment in the fairy tale when the drab little kitchen maid turns into a beautiful princess. Or at least that was the way Peggy always thought of it.

Once, when she was still new in New York, she had made the mistake of trying to explain all this to a very serious young man who was a second-year student at a nearby college. The young man had stared at her uncomfortably for a moment, then changed the subject. But Peggy wasn’t disturbed. She was fond of her own version, even though she knew it was hopelessly romantic.

Well, why not? Half-lying on the bed with her feet stuck into what was now a lukewarm basin of water, she was convinced that she was right and he was wrong. She thought of the young man’s earnest face and broke into a grin. Despite herself she laughed out loud.

The cheerful sound filled the darkening room. Paddling her feet happily in the water, she threw her head back against the pillow and sighed a third time.

“What a life!” She breathed ecstatically. Suddenly full of vitality again, she sat up and leveled a pair of clear hazel eyes over the city, now throbbing with the muted sounds of early evening traffic. “New York,” she announced in a grave voice to the open window and empty room, “you don’t care about me right now. You’ve never even heard of me. But some day you will. You’ll see!”

It was quite a dramatic speech for her to make, but then Peggy Lane was very young and very determined to become a great actress.

Outside her window, the city took the news of Peggy’s intended conquest calmly. Somewhere a lone taxicab gave a derisive toot on its horn as it squealed to a stop to pick up a fare. Peggy mentally stuck out her tongue at the driver and settled back to make plans for tomorrow. But before she could get really comfortable, an enthusiastic spatter of applause came from the doorway.

“I declare, honey,” drawled a familiar voice, “that’s the prettiest speech I ever did hear. You always talk to yourself in the dark like that?”

Light flooded the room, and Peggy saw her friend, Amy Shelby Preston, framed in the door. Amy, a striking ash blonde and a product of Pine Hollow, North Carolina, had been pulled to New York by the same magnet that had drawn Peggy. The two girls had met on their first day in the city, liked each other on sight, and decided to room together this year.

Peggy struggled to a sitting position and blushed furiously. “I—I was just going over some lines for a play,” she explained lamely.

Amy flashed her a knowing smile as she went over to a tiny sink hidden from the rest of the room by a Japanese screen. “What’s the name of the play?” she asked. “_Stage-Struck?_”

Peggy bunched up a throw pillow, but Amy raised her hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot,” she pleaded. “You heave that thing at me and I’ll never get up, I’m that tired.”

Peggy hitched herself to the edge of the studio couch and began to towel her legs vigorously. “You relax,” she ordered. “I’ll fix everything.”

Amy collapsed wearily on the bed, content to watch Peggy wait on her. “Well?” Peggy demanded eagerly. Amy had just finished a job filming a television commercial for the Bob Jordan show. “Did you get to meet Bob Jordan?”

Amy threw back her head and laughed. “Bob Jordan’s already done the show in Hollywood. It’s just the commercial they’re doing in New York.”

“But doesn’t he want to see it?” Peggy asked as she poured bath crystals into Amy’s dishpan.

Amy shook her head. “Not this one. Even if he wanted to, he’d never be able to find the studio.” Studio space in New York was at a premium, and as a result, many television commercials were filmed in the most unlikely places.

Peggy laughed. “Where’d they do it?”

“You won’t believe this,” Amy said wonderingly, “but I don’t know. I couldn’t find it again for worlds. All I know is that I had to take a subway for hours and then a bus till I got to the end of the line. Finally I had to wait for a Transcontinental Broadcasting Company car to pick me up and take me to something that looked like a converted garage way out at the end of Brooklyn.”

“I know the place,” Peggy interrupted. “That’s the Greenside Studio. I did an audition there once. It’s a converted stable.”

“It’s still a stable as far as I’m concerned,” Amy replied. She hugged her arms closer to her body. “Brrr! Was it ever cold!”

“Get into something warm,” Peggy urged. She looked at Amy critically. “Why did you wear that thin dress? You know what those television studios are like.”

“It’s the best dress I own,” Amy said as she rummaged through her closet. “I wanted to make an impression.”

Peggy shook her head and tossed over a bulky woolen bathrobe. “Here, take this,” she commanded. “It belongs to my cousin David, but I borrowed it. And hurry up! I want to hear what happened.”

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, honey,” Amy said as she struggled out of her dress. “But you just won’t give me a chance.”

Peggy sat down and tucked her legs under her. “All right, go on,” she said patiently. “I’m listening.”

“Well, first of all,” Amy said, poking a tentative foot into the dishpan on the floor, “it was only a thirty-second commercial. My, that feels good. I declare, I’m ten degrees warmer already.” She looked around vaguely. “Now where was I....”

“You were saying it was only a thirty-second spot.”

“That’s right. With General Refrigerator sponsoring the Bob Jordan show, I counted on having a couple of lines to say. Something like, ‘Oh, Edna! I’ve got the most exciting news! General Refrigerators now come in a whole sunburst of dreamy colors from pastel pink to leafy green!’” Amy dropped the rapturous look on her face and stared solemnly over at Peggy. “You know the kind of thing they make you say.”

Peggy nodded wordlessly.

“Anyway,” Amy went on, “soon as I got there, they sent me over to make-up. I got in the chair, closed my eyes, and waited for them to put cold cream over my face.”

“Never mind that,” Peggy said, “get on with the rest of it!”

“But that’s the important part!” Amy protested. “That’s when I knew it was the beginning of the end!”

“Goodness,” Peggy said. “It sounds serious. What happened when you had your eyes closed?”