“Excuse me,” she said in her sweetest voice, “would you mind moving over?”
The girl who filled the spot Peggy wanted drew herself up in an exaggerated shrug and slowly opened a space.
“Thank you,” Peggy said as she sat down. Her neighbor didn’t even bother to glance in her direction.
The silence continued.
Suddenly from behind the closed door that led into what Peggy assumed was Stalkey’s private office, she could hear voices. There was a high-pitched burst, then a deeper rumbling answer. A woman and a man arguing, Peggy thought. A third voice cut in, a resonant baritone. Two men and a woman.
There was a scream from the other room, followed by a crash, and the woman’s voice shouting, “No! No! No!”
“None of that now,” thundered the first man’s voice. “I’m sick and tired of your childish temper tantrums.”
“Temper tantrums!” came a screech. “How else can I act when you simply refuse to listen to reason?”
“Oh, come off it, Katherine!” the second man said. “Act your age.”
There was a stunned silence during which Peggy had a chance to look around. Every girl in the reception room had her eyes glued to the door. An air of excited expectancy hung over the office. Even the blond receptionist had put aside her magazine in favor of the real-life drama going on in the next room.