“What’s funny?” Greta asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Peggy said. “I was just thinking that the best thing about being an actress is the glamorous backstage life!”
“Five minutes!” called Dick Murphy, the stage manager. “Everybody ready in there?”
“All ready!” Peggy and Greta sang out.
“Five minutes!” they heard him call at the next door.
“Let’s go up,” Peggy said. “I’m dying to see what kind of house we have!”
“Murphy doesn’t want us up until he calls for places,” Greta said doubtfully.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Peggy said. “We’re both on within five minutes of curtain, and our places in the wings aren’t in anybody’s way.”
“All right,” Greta agreed, knowing that she was as eager as Peggy.
At the stage level, a few stagehands were making last-minute adjustments. Mal stood to one side, seemingly watching nothing at all. There was hardly a sound, except for the chatter of the audience, muted by the curtain that separated them from the stage. The hundreds of voices of the audience merged into a single sound, as the splashes of thousands of wavelets in a single wave combine to become the murmur of the sea. Peggy put her eye to the tiny peephole in the curtain. Almost every seat was already filled, and the ushers were leading a few last-minute arrivals down the aisles.