“The superintendent will let us in, I’m sure,” Peggy replied. “He saw us when Mal and I brought Paula home last night, and he saw me again when I was there to pick her up for lunch this afternoon, so he knows that I’m a friend of hers. If we explain about the surprise party, I know he’ll let us in, and not mention it if he sees you and Paula coming home. He seemed like a very nice man, and he was genuinely concerned about Paula. I know he’ll approve of the idea of a party.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Greta agreed. “While you’re setting up the party, and while Paula’s busy rehearsing, I’m sure that I can manage to raise the money from the cast. I’ll bring it with me, and we can give it to her along with the Gramercy Arms money at the same time.”
“We can buy a cake and birthday candles too,” Amy suggested, “and as soon as you come, you can tell me how many of the cast members chipped in, and we can put a candle on the cake for every friend Paula has. It will really be something to celebrate!”
“Good,” Greta said, nodding her agreement. “Well, we’d better get going now. We’re on a tight time schedule. I have to report at the theater for rehearsal in fifteen minutes, and you have to start your shopping for the party. Mal will probably take it easy on Paula after last night, so you had better be prepared to have us come in on you early. Be sure that you have all the party things set up by ten o’clock.”
Picking up their check, the three girls rose to go, looking forward with high spirits to the challenge of breaking down Paula’s wall of reserve and of showing her that there is such a thing as real friendship in what must have appeared to her to be a hard, cold world.
X
Two for the Show....
“If they expect to be at Paula’s by ten,” Peggy said as she and Amy left the restaurant, “we’d better hurry. We have a lot of shopping to do, and food to prepare. And I’d like to decorate Paula’s apartment in some way, too. It’s a nice enough place, but I couldn’t help noticing how cold and unlived-in it looks. Maybe we can find some way to make it cheerful, even if it’s just for an evening.”
“If we hurry, we can do that part of the shopping before the stores on Twenty-third Street close,” Amy said. “I remember seeing a sort of party shop there that sells things like crepe paper and candles and silly decorations and things. I think they’re open till seven or seven-thirty.”
“I remember the place,” Peggy said. “If we go there first, we can put off the food shopping until later. The bakeries and the delicatessens always stay open till late.”
The girls hurried uptown the few blocks to Twenty-third Street, where they found the proprietor of the little party shop getting ready to close for the night. With a resigned sigh, he agreed to stay open a few minutes more in order to let the two friends buy the few things they needed for their surprise party. Trying to make their decisions in a hurry, so as not to further exasperate the shopkeeper, they quickly settled on some paper napkins with a festive rosebud design, and some sugar rosebud-shaped candle-holders for the cake. Peggy also bought some pink crepe-paper sheets and strips.