Stella gave attention to a button on her blouse.
“I’ve coached you, kid. I sweated blood over you. Last week I said to myself: ‘The kid improves with every performance.’ And what do you do? What do you give me to-day? To-day you give me a performance that reeks.”
The room on the ninth floor was so quiet they could all hear the purr of automobile traffic from the street.
Abruptly Wylie turned around and pointed a clawing finger at Stella.
The girl, giving no sign that she had witnessed a typical Wylie rehearsal storm, began again at the beginning. Joe tried to whip himself to pitch. His moment came:
Dick: Mother, don’t shake your head at me like that. You must listen—
Wylie’s face stopped him.
“Are you alive?” the producer whispered hoarsely. “Let me feel your arm. You are alive? Then why don’t you pour life into it? You’re not talking to a broom. This is a scene between two human beings, mother and son. You’re not Charlie McCarthy; you’re Dick Davis.”
Joe knew he was wooden. He tried to take the knot out of his throat, tried and tried.... They ran through the scene, again and again. Sweat wilted the boy’s collar and he pulled off his tie. He no longer knew whether he was good or bad.
And then suddenly Wylie was smiling, Wylie was chuckling, Wylie was beaming. “Kid, that was the knockout. Now you’re giving it to me. I knew we’d pull the cork. Carry it on.”