Impressions were beginning to register on Joe. Everybody was one of Amby’s best friends. He said: “How about that FFOM audition to-morrow? Are you coaching me before I go to the studio?”
Amby, in his desk chair, stretched out languidly. “Give them what you gave FKIP. It was good enough there.”
On the way home Joe tried to understand what was becoming a muddle. Didn’t your agent want to see you get better and better? Why had Lucille said: “A nice boy, Amby, if you like them that way.” And there was another sentence she had used: “The tramp may find me a part.” Why had she been so caustic, so critical of Amby?
Amby went with him to FFOM and sat in the control-room. Station FFOM wasn’t quite in the same class with Station FKIP. It was in a smaller, less ostentatious building; there was no glittering reception-room with leather chairs, there was no expensive glass gallery. Joe went into a plain, small, matter-of-fact studio and began to read. This time he carried two plays to the mike so that, when he finished the first, the control-room would not ask him if he had anything else. He told himself: “They won’t know I’m so green; they’ll think I’ve been around.” Finally he gave them the juvenile bit.
“Thank you, Mr. Carlin,” the control-room said. That’s what he’d expected, that, and no more. He was learning. Soon nobody’d have to tell him: “That’s show business.”
Amby joined him. “Joe, you were terrific; better than FKIP. You’re a knockout. Now you’re on file at two stations. Don’t forget you audition at FWWO Monday.”
“What about to-morrow?” To-morrow was Saturday.
Amby’s hand caressed the thread of black mustache. “A short day, Joe. Not worth your while coming down.”
Joe would have been glad to come down, if only for a ten-minute rehearsal. Saturday, discontented and restless, he lazed in his room and kept turning the dial of his radio. Downstairs, the telephone rang. He leaned over the banisters hoping that this was for him and that Amby had changed his mind. But the call was from his father.
Kate Carlin brought a bulky envelop out into the hall. “Dad brought these papers home last night and forgot them this morning. Do you mind taking them down?”