Chapter VII: The Biggest Stage

There were no meals served at May Berriman’s Gramercy Arms, but the big kitchen was considered common property, and anyone who wanted to was allowed to prepare breakfast and dinner there. Lunches were eaten at restaurants and counters.

Each of the girls had a wire basket labeled and filled with her own food in the giant hotel-size refrigerator, and each was given shelf space for other things. Since Peggy and Amy had not stocked up the night before, the other girls invited them to share breakfast with them.

“We have a system,” Dot said. “Each of us cooks for all the others in turn, but that’s only for breakfast. At dinnertime, you shift for yourself. The dishes are done for us, thank Heaven, by Aniko, the housemaid. We each contribute to a dishwashing fund every week to keep Aniko happy. Since you’re both new, we’ll put you at the end of the list, which gives you about a week to get used to us in the morning, before having to cook for us.”

“She’s being optimistic,” Maggie called over her shoulder from her position at the range. “It’s impossible to get used to us in the morning. How do you like your eggs?”

They settled on scrambled, which was diplomatic, since they noticed that Maggie was whipping up a bowl of them for the others. In short order, they were seated around the long table, eagerly eating the eggs, bacon, toast and fresh sliced tomatoes, and washing it down with good, hot coffee.

Irene and Greta huddled together, looking over a copy of _Variety_ and writing in small notebooks. Catching Peggy’s inquiring glance, Irene explained, “It’s _Variety_, the bible of show business. We’re looking at the casting notes. Every time a producer has a play and wants to see new actors, he puts a notice in the casting call page. The notices tell you what kind of people he’s looking for and when he’ll see them. We’re looking—along with a thousand other actors—to see if there’s something for us. I’ve got two that sound interesting, and Greta’s got one.”

“And do you just go up and say, ‘Here I am’?” Amy asked.

“That’s about all I do,” Irene admitted with a laugh, “because I just answer the ads for Showgirl types and beautiful ingénue roles. I just stand there and hope they like my face and figure.”

“I don’t see how they couldn’t,” Peggy said.

“Oh, it’s easy! I’m too tall for some, and too fashionable-looking for others, or I should be blond, or they wanted an outdoor type, or I’m just what they’re looking for, but so are twelve other girls who all have more acting credits. It’s not easy.”

“It’s no easier for me,” Greta put in mournfully. “I’m an even more definite physical type than Irene is, and to make matters worse, I have to act for them. Most of the time, my round, red face and my blond braids eliminate me at the start. If they don’t, I then have to go through an audition reading. I’m just waiting for a casting notice that asks for a new actress with a face like a Campbell’s Soup kid, and I’ll rush right up and get the part!”

“If I ever meet any playwrights, I’ll put in a word for a part like that,” Peggy said. “But by then, you’ll be famous, and the ‘new actress’ part would disqualify you.”

When breakfast was over, the girls scraped the dishes, put them in the sink for Aniko, and went their separate ways.

Gaby was off first, for an early English class at a language school, which would be followed by a full day at Columbia University studying English literature, American history, economics, and a special course called Literature of the Theater. With a small “_au revoir_,” which was all she had said since her first quiet “_bon jour_,” she slipped out.

“Gaby’s a night person,” Dot explained. “You can hardly get a word out of her until sunset. Then you’re lucky if you can keep her quiet for five minutes!”

“How about you?” Peggy asked. “Are you a night person, or a morning person?”

“I think I must be a twenty-four-hour person.” Dot laughed. “I work on stage until eleven-fifteen, but it doesn’t keep me from getting up as if I were on a farm. I have to, though. I have a busy day. We rehearse three days a week, just to keep the chorus work tight, and I have special rehearsals for my understudy part. It keeps me going nearly every day from nine in the morning until after midnight, but I seem to thrive on it.”

Greta left for her office, to put in a day of script editing (whatever that is, Peggy thought), Irene went upstairs to “put herself together” for a photo shooting to take place later in the morning, and Maggie went off to a rehearsal studio to practice her stretches and scales. Amy and Peggy sat alone in the kitchen.

“What shall we do?” Peggy asked. “I feel so useless having no program, and we sure can’t spend the day sitting here in the kitchen.”

“Why don’t we go out for a walk, and learn something about the neighborhood?” Amy suggested.

“Good! In fact, why don’t we find a sight-seeing bus and take a ride around the city? My father said—”

“So did mine!” Amy interrupted.

“We get more alike every minute!” Peggy said, grinning. “Let’s go up, put our things away, and go out to learn all about New York.”

Later that afternoon, sipping her first cup of Automat coffee, Peggy slipped her shoes off under the table and sighed, “I certainly had a lot to learn when I said we’d go out and learn all about New York! My feet are killing me, and we haven’t even begun to see the city!”

“We saw a lot, though,” Amy replied thoughtfully. “We saw Chinatown and Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side and Riverside Drive and Park Avenue and Central Park and Sutton Place and....”

“And neither of us could find our way back to any one of them unless we took a sight-seeing bus again!” Peggy said. “Why, we’ve hardly begun! I’ve been checking off where we’ve been on my city map and guidebook, and we haven’t seen anything but the sights the guides think are picturesque! I saw loads of places that we just shot by that I’d love to go back and explore when we have time; and the guidebook lists hundreds of things that we didn’t even come near! Did you know that there are Italian street festivals, and an Indian mosque, and a Spanish museum, and shops that sell nothing but cheeses from every country in the world, and an Armenian district, and a Greek one, and Russian restaurants, and Japanese, and French and German and Turkish and Mexican and....” She ran out of breath and stopped, eyes shining with excitement.

“My goodness!” Amy said. “You make it sound like a World’s Fair!”

“It is. It’s the biggest permanent World’s Fair anywhere, and we have a chance to see it without anything to take our minds off it from now until school starts!”

“Your energy just scares me,” Amy said in a make-believe little-girl voice, accentuating her Southern drawl. “Ah’m afraid you’ll just have to carry li’l ol’ me.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do the carrying,” Peggy retorted, “unless I can get these shoes back on! I think all the walking we’ve done has made my feet three sizes larger!”

Sensibly, they finished the day’s excursion with a Fifth Avenue bus ride downtown.

The next few days until the Academy opened were a round of sight-seeing, eating exotic foods in the restaurants of many lands that Peggy had only started to enumerate, and shopping in the famous stores.

The shopping expeditions were among the most exciting things that Peggy and Amy did. The huge stores, crammed with merchandise from all over the world, were like nothing that they had ever seen before. Even the afternoon that Peggy had spent window-shopping with her mother had failed to prepare her for the size and complexity of these shops. Everywhere were rows on rows of dresses, coats, skirts, blouses, robes, and gowns. Counters and showcases displayed incredible arrays of lingerie, purses, shoes, gloves, scarves, and other accessories. And everywhere, at every time of day, the crowds of shoppers clustered as thick as bees around a hive.

Beautifully dressed women in furs walked side by side with trim young secretaries and vied with them for bargains at sales counters. Embarrassed men sidled past lingerie departments in search of gifts for their wives and sweethearts; short, stout women admired dresses designed for tall, slim models; elderly ladies tried on hat after hat, each one looking less suitable than the last; girls sprayed themselves with perfume at the cosmetic counters, or stood and watched demonstrators at work. One demonstrator who especially fascinated Peggy was a beautiful girl with long blond hair, who was showing a new hairstyling spray. She would spray it on, and with a few expert flips of a comb, create a hairdo; then, combing it out again, she would quickly arrange it in a different style. Each one took her only a minute or so to make perfect, then, out it would come, more spray would be applied, and another coiffure would be combed in. Peggy wondered how she wore it when it was time to go home at night. Probably pulled back in a bun, she thought.

These shopping tours represented diversion as much as necessity, though in the course of visiting all the stores, the girls did buy what they needed. Peggy got several dresses, some skirts and sweaters, a new coat, shoes, bag, and a hat. Also, on Amy’s advice, she bought some school things that would be suitable for stage work, plus a leotard, tights and ballet shoes that Mr. Macaulay’s secretary had told her she would need.

When neither girl could think of anything else that she needed to buy, the temptation to revisit the stores just to see things was still great.

“We’d better not, though,” Peggy said sensibly. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to resist temptation, and I’ve just about used up all my clothing allowance. Let’s visit some museums next.”

“Oh dear,” Amy sighed. “I suppose it’s a good idea, all right, but I just wish school would hurry up and start. I’m afraid I’m going to get indigestion from swallowing all of New York in one big gulp!”

So did Peggy, but museums were on her “little list,” and museums it would be. Besides, she knew that once school began, she would have little time for anything else.

So the guidebook came out once more, together with the flat walking shoes. But, though their time was spent in museums, their minds were in the future, and their talk was of nothing but the Academy, which was due to open in a few short days.