“Is it off, Gil?” one of the actresses asked. Her voice was dead.
“Upstairs changed its mind and gave it the hot foot.”
The cast filed out. Joe was torn with helpless resentment and aching disappointment. His first call. And he had turned down FKIP—for this.
A morbid curiosity sent him to the FKIP Building. Dennis was rehearsing in Studio B. One look through the glass-walled gallery, and the boy’s sense of loss grew. Archie Munn was in the cast, and Stella Joyce, and Lucille Borden. When you had a chance with a cast like that....
Presently the rehearsal was over. Dennis gathered up script and went out through the empty control-room. Joe walked to the door through which Archie and the others would come to the gallery.
The door opened before he reached it. Archie Munn hurried through the gallery, disappeared into the reception-room, and hurried back in a few moments with a glass of water. Studio B received him.
Mystified, Joe looked in through the glass. Lucille sat in a chair and Stella stood beside her. Lucille drank the water slowly, looked up at Stella, and tried to smile. Archie came out into the gallery.
“Anything wrong?” Joe asked.
“Lu said she felt faint.” Preoccupied, the actor took a cigarette from his pocket, held it unlighted in his hand, and seemed to talk to himself. “That New York audition took an extra day. She had to go to a hotel. She was probably down to some loose silver when she got back.”
Joe was still mystified.