The tips of Joe’s fingers were ice. If the other show was off, where was Vic?
The control-room began to fill as it fills for an opening. The technician who would regulate volume came in first. Munson arrived with the President and the Vice-President of FKIP. John Dennis was there next with Curt Lake. People gathered in the gallery and stared in through the glass.
Then a storm burst upon them, and the storm was Wylie. His face was lined with strain. “Everybody got the new script?”
Everybody had.
“Watch the control-room. Come in on my signs. Don’t start too fast. You’ll be in the groove in half a minute.”
Wylie was gone, to appear next in the control-room. And now, in the deeper, significant silence, Farr cleared his throat.
A minute to go. To Joe, that became the longest minute he had lived. The cast gathered at the mike. There was a moment when he thought he was choking.
Suddenly the silence was broken. The announcer was reading:
“To-night Munson brings you the opening chapter of Curt Lake’s radio drama, Sue Davis Against the World, the story of a widowed mother’s struggle—”
An incredulous voice cried out in Joe: “You’re on the air!”