“I have an appointment,” Peggy said. “With Mr. Stalkey.”
The doorkeeper immediately stepped back and motioned her inside. “Just a minute,” he said, reaching for a list on a clipboard. “Your name, please?”
“Peggy Lane.”
The man checked off her name with a flourish. “Right. Go inside, please.”
Peggy nodded at him absent-mindedly and pushed her way into the dark interior of the theater.
There was something about a deserted theater that was both lifeless and exciting. It was a strange, gloomy world of silent rows of seats that looked almost like headstones in a cemetery.
And then there was the smell.
All empty theaters had the same unmistakable odor. It was a combination of stale air and fish glue. The glue, Peggy knew from many long hours in summer stock, was called “sizing,” and was used over canvas flats to keep them stretched tight on their frames. Its odor was barely noticeable at the back of the house, but farther on down, close to the stage, it was quite strong. Backstage, of course, it was strongest, but there it was mixed with countless other odors of theatrical life—the sweet, oily smell of grease paint, the acrid cloud that was generated by the electrician’s lighting board—all so familiar to Peggy. They were an integral part of her life, just as the smell of printer’s ink was of her father’s.
Blinking her eyes until they were adjusted to the shadowy darkness, Peggy was aware that the curtain was up. In the middle of the stage stood a plain worklight—an ugly, bare iron pole topped with a single, powerful electric light bulb. It shed a harsh, uncompromising light that threw grotesque shadows over the back of the set and down into the orchestra. Near the rail that separated the orchestra pit from the audience, Peggy could see three or four men, deep in earnest, low-voiced conversation. In various parts of the auditorium, girls were sitting in groups or singly. Nobody noticed her and nobody came up to tell her what to do, so Peggy slipped unobtrusively into one of the seats off a side aisle.
In a few moments, one of the men down front stood up and consulted his watch. From his tall, loose-limbed movements, Peggy recognized him as Craig Claiborne, the director of Innocent Laughter.