“I hope so,” Peggy replied, glad to know that she could now talk to Chris naturally and calmly, as actor to actor. “I’m going home for a visit first, but after that anything can happen!”
“And next time we won’t let personal feelings interfere with our work, right?” Chris beamed at her, his handsome face teasing a little, but now Peggy understood.
“Right!” Peggy smiled.
“And give Randy my regards,” Chris added seriously. “He’s a great guy, and I really hope to see him again sometime.”
The party finally broke up, with everyone going back to the annex to start packing. Chuck and Richard had to stay after the close of the season to wind things up, but almost everybody else was leaving Lake Kenabeek on tomorrow’s bus. Peggy remained quietly in the theater after everyone had gone. She wanted to be alone for a little in this theater that she might never see again.
The flats had been stacked away for the party, and now only the worklight was left, its circle casting a small pool of light on the empty stage. Peggy stood there alone, looking out at the silent auditorium and thinking of everything that had happened this summer. She remembered the first time Rita and Gus had brought her up to the theater—the stage had looked just like this. That night she had had her first taste of the hectic backstage activity of painting flats. She had learned so much this summer, Peggy thought gratefully. She had learned about the theater and about working with people—even about summer romance and handsome leading men! Peggy smiled wistfully, wishing that Randy could be here with her now. He was the only person she knew who could share her feelings about a dark theater like this—the smell and the memories and the ghosts.
For it seemed to her that the house was filled with echoes from all the plays they had done that summer, that all the parts and the plays and the authors were still alive here somehow. This emotion was the magic that had brought Peggy to the theater in the first place—this sense of life, of living literature, of a communication that was nowhere else so special as between actor and audience.
Peggy remembered the first time she had walked out on this stage in Dear Ruth. How nervous she had been! And then as the weeks progressed, her sureness had developed, her professionalism had increased. She had learned from Rita and Gus and Chuck, from Richard and Danny and Alison. Yes, perhaps most of all from Alison Lord, who had shown her the contrast between career and dedication.
“I hope I will come back here sometime,” Peggy said aloud in farewell. She was sentimental enough to wish to say a private good-by to her summer. “And thank you,” she whispered, “thank you for everything.”
As she finally walked out the stage door for the last time, her make-up kit tucked under her arm, she could already hear the questions her parents would ask when she arrived home for her visit.