“Have you read the play?” Paula asked.
“I’m lucky there,” Greta replied. “I’ve seen it in three different drafts since it started. Peggy’s friendly with Randy Brewster, the boy who wrote it, and each time she brought a draft home, I got to read it. So I’m not at a disadvantage.”
“What do you think of Come Closer, Paula?” asked Peggy.
“I think it’s wonderful! I hope more than ever that I get the part! Do you really think I have a chance?”
Greta nodded decisively. “If you can act, you’re made for it,” she said.
“That’s just what Peggy said!”
Peggy stole a glance through the doors to the theater. “I think we’re about ready to find out whether or not you can act,” she said. “They seem to be about through with the actors, and that means you’re on next!”
Wishing each other good luck, they entered the darkened part of the house and prepared for what Peggy could only think of as their ordeal.
Afterward, as Peggy, Amy, Paula, and Greta sat at a table in a nearby coffeehouse waiting for Mal and Randy to join them, each was sure that she had been terrible.
“Oh, no!” Peggy said. “You two were just marvelous! But I couldn’t have been worse. I know I read the part wrong. I thought I had the character clear in my mind, but I’m sure that the way it came out was a mile off!”