The whole group, including the usually taciturn Mal, broke into applause for Paula, who managed to smile through the play-tears that she seemed unable to control.
“We’ll have a fifteen-minute break,” Mal called. “Then, if Paula can stand it, we’ll run through it again!”
As the actors stood up and stretched before drifting off to different parts of the room to talk in groups of twos and threes, Peggy went to Paula Andrews, still sitting in her straight chair.
“You were wonderful!” she said. “I feel like a fool understudying you!”
“Don’t be silly, Peggy,” Paula replied. “It’s not me. It’s the play. Randy has written a marvelous role in Alison; it almost plays itself. If you have to do it, I know you’ll do every bit as well.”
“I certainly won’t,” Peggy said, “but what worries me is that I may have to try if you don’t take care of yourself. Paula,” she said in a softer tone, “is there anything the matter? You haven’t been looking at all well lately, and I’m worried about you. Is something wrong that I might be able to help you with? If there is, I wish you’d tell me. You know that I want to be your friend.”
Smiling wanly, Paula took Peggy’s hand. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong. I guess I’ve just been working too hard—at—at the department store, you know—and then at night with these rehearsals. And the part is so demanding, and I’m so wrapped up in it—” She stopped abruptly, as if on the verge of tears, but not acting tears this time. Then she once more managed to smile. “Thank you, Peggy, but you don’t have to worry. I’ll be perfectly all right.”
Peggy said nothing more. She had done all she could by offering to help, and if Paula wouldn’t admit anything was wrong, there was nothing further she could say. But Paula’s manner had convinced her that something was very wrong indeed, something far more than a simple case of overwork.
However, when Mal called the cast together again for a second reading of the scene, all of Paula’s tiredness seemed suddenly to vanish. She drew strength from some inner reserves and played with the same conviction and brilliance as before. Even more, perhaps, Peggy thought.
Caught in the pace and rhythm of her reading, the rest of the cast took hold and played up to her, shifting in and out of character with all the timed precision of a complex machine. Once again the action built to the climax, the tears, the curtain, and the applause. And once again Paula, unable to stop the crying, went as limp and washed-out as a rag doll.