“All set,” Irene replied, smiling.
Did Judy imagine it, or was her smile a little forced? “Nothing must go wrong,” Judy caught herself almost praying. “Please, don’t let anything go wrong.”
“One minute ... stand by!” sounded over the loudspeaker.
Were the other girls as tense as she was? Judy found it hard to read the expressions on their faces. The lights over the Golden Girl set made everything else look dim.
The television set suspended over the middle aisle was showing the end commercial from the previous show. As soon as it was over red lights flashed above the exit doors, and Judy knew Golden Girl was on the air. The announcer stepped to one side, out of camera range, and clapped his hands as a signal for the audience to clap.
“Isn’t she lovely?” whispered someone in the audience as the bright spotlight shone down on Irene. Quick tears came to Judy’s eyes as Irene began to sing:
“My own golden girl, there is one, only one,
Who has eyes like the stars and hair like the sun.”
It was her theme song. Judy’s thoughts took her back to the first time she had heard it on a roof garden while she danced with Dale Meredith.
“Irene is a golden girl tonight,” he had said, and from then on her happiness had become his chief concern. Judy thought of him now, at home in their new Long Island house, probably holding a sleepy baby on his knee as he listened.