Janet bit her lips. Of course her dad was right. She couldn’t seriously hope to be a motion picture actress, but for just a moment she had found herself dreaming of real fame and fortune in Hollywood. Why it WAS just a lark, a sort of super vacation that only Helen’s father could make possible for them.
In the fall, after the summer on the film lots, they would probably come back to the middle west for Janet knew her father favored her entering the state university, Janet resolutely set her mind right. She must realize that it was to be only a vacation lark. Then she could come back happy and without regret when the summer was at an end.
Chapter XVII
ON THE WESTBOUND PLANE
The week following graduation was a hectic one for Janet and Helen. There were the riding lessons each day, their wardrobes to be gone over, new shoes and hose to be purchased and they finally decided that each of them needed at least two new dresses to last until they could get into the shops in Hollywood and select things they desired there. It was fortunate that Janet’s father was a successful lawyer and Helen’s a famous director or their personal pocketbooks would have been much thinner at the end of the shopping expeditions.
Neither Janet nor Helen told their friends of their plans, but somehow the story got around that they were going to Hollywood and had already signed for rôles in a new picture. Some said they were to have parts in Henry Thorne’s next production while others claimed the girls were going to be bathing beauties in a series of comedies.
“Now wouldn’t that make you boil,” said Helen, as she related a conversation between Cora Dean and Margie Blake which she had overheard. “I was half way minded to step in and tell them the truth, but then I realized that was just what they wanted.”
They were sitting on the Hardy’s front porch and the telephone summoned Janet inside. She called Helen to her a few seconds later.
“It’s Pete Benda of the Times. He says he’s heard the story and if we won’t confirm it he will print all of the rumors going the rounds, including the one that we’re going to be bathing beauties. What shall I tell him?”
“Tell him we’re going to Hollywood with Dad for a vacation and if we get in any pictures we’ll send him an autographed picture,” suggested Helen, which Janet promptly did.
“Pete isn’t satisfied, but I guess he won’t print all of the rumors,” reported Janet as she hung up the telephone.