“And now,” she announced, emerging from the glassed-in sound room, “we are ready to see ourselves on television.”
A little ripple of anticipation went down the line that now followed the uniformed guide to another studio containing a pedestal camera and a television set.
“It’s a closed circuit,” she explained. “Your friends at home won’t see you, but you will see yourselves and each other. You will each have a chance to say a few words—”
“What will we say?” Clarissa inquired.
“I’ll ask you questions. You just answer them. Most of you are from out of town, I presume. People taking these tours usually are. You, sir?” She spoke to a tall gentleman with a thick mustache. “Step up here before the camera and tell us a little about yourself. Can you see yourself on the screen?”
He smiled, showing white teeth that looked even whiter as his face was framed in the TV set.
“I see. I look good. I am here from Rio de Janeiro on business.”
The man talked about his business which was manufacturing plastic caps. It was hard to understand him because of his accent. The others taking the tour waited their turns, standing along a wall at the side of the room. As the line moved up, Clarissa became more and more nervous.
“I may not show,” she kept insisting.
“Of course you’ll show,” Judy reassured her. “You see how clear the picture is. Everybody else shows.”
As the line moved up, Clarissa became more and more nervousAs the line moved up, Clarissa became more and more nervous
As the line moved up, Clarissa became more and more nervous
“I didn’t show in the mirror.”
Pauline turned to her in surprise.
“Weren’t you joking when you said that?” she asked.
“I was never more serious in my life,” replied Clarissa. “It’s the truth. Once I really did look in a mirror, and there was no reflection. I’ve been afraid of—of something ever since it happened. My brother noticed it first and said, ‘Clar, you don’t show!’ He always calls me Clar. It rhymes with jar the way he says it. I thought he was teasing me, but then I looked, and sure enough, my face didn’t show at all.”
“Was the mirror broken?” asked Flo.
“No, it wasn’t broken. I’m sure, because I noticed my brother looking in it afterwards, and his reflection was as plain as anything. My younger sisters looked, too. They saw themselves all right. There are six of us, including Mother and Daddy,” Clarissa explained. “It was Mother’s mirror. She still uses it. I was the only one who didn’t show. Mother laughed and said I must be a changeling, but I didn’t think it was funny. It still scares me. How could a thing like that happen?”
“There must be an explanation for it,” Judy replied. Here was another mystery for her to solve. But, instead of concentrating on it, her thoughts kept returning to her hair. Would it look dull and drab on television?
The brown-haired man Pauline and Flo thought they knew stepped up before the camera and announced that he was from Hollywood.
“No wonder he didn’t recognize me!” Flo exclaimed. “He isn’t the young man who works in our office and yet he does look like him. Maybe he has a twin brother.”
“Or a double. Lots of people have doubles—”
“No, Judy, only a few people have them,” Pauline objected, and Judy had to agree with her. One of the wonderful things about people, she thought, was that no two of them were exactly alike. Even identical twins could be told apart by their fingerprints, and usually there were other important differences. Judy found herself watching for individual characteristics as, one by one, the people stepped before the camera. A photograph of skyscrapers on the backdrop behind them made it appear to be a sidewalk interview.
“Are you from out of town?” was the question most frequently asked by the guide.
Most of them were. Some came from as far away as Brazil or Switzerland. Two were from Texas, and two said they were from the state of Washington. When Judy replied that she lived in Pennsylvania she felt as if she were practically at home.
“Your hair looked lighter on TV,” Flo told her when she stepped back in line.
“Did it?” asked Judy. “I kept worrying for fear it would look dark. I don’t know why. Dark hair is pretty. I like the color of yours.”
“I don’t. It’s drab—”
“Please,” Judy stopped her. “You’re next, Clarissa. What’s the matter? Are you afraid to go up?”
“Yes,” Clarissa admitted, suddenly all a-tremble. “I’m afraid—”
“Come on. Take a good look at yourself,” advised Pauline, giving her a little push.
“All right. I’ll do it.”
Unwilling and still trembling, Clarissa stepped up before the camera. She stood in the exact spot where Judy had been standing. The guide began to ask questions.
“You’re from West Virginia, aren’t you? What town? Look into the camera and tell me—”
A long drawn-out wail from Clarissa interrupted her.
“I am looking,” she cried, “but I don’t see anything! What’s the matter with me? Why don’t I show?”
An exclamation went up from the people taking the tour. “She’s right. There isn’t any picture?”
“What’s that bright spot of light?” asked Judy.
She had never seen anything like it before. The picture on the television screen seemed to be closing in on all sides. Instead of Clarissa’s face, an eerie, wavering light danced before her eyes.
“There must be something wrong with the set,” the guide began. “Step back a moment, and I’ll see—”
She stopped. Clarissa’s face had become waxy white. She would have fallen if Judy hadn’t rushed to her side.
“It’s all right,” Judy said soothingly. “Some little technical thing probably went wrong—”
“No, Judy. It wasn’t that. I am a phantom. I saw myself the way I really am. Oh, help me!” wailed Clarissa as she slumped forward and slipped to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Judy gasped. “I tried to hold her.”
“It’s all right, Judy,” Pauline told her. “You did save her from a hard fall.”
“She’s ill. We must get her to the first-aid station at once.” The guide, obviously a little shaken herself, took charge. Two of the men carried Clarissa to a door with a red cross and the words:FIRST AID, lettered on it. Here she was left with an efficient, white-uniformed nurse who assured Judy that her friend would be all right, but that she must rest for half an hour.
“May we stay with her?” asked Flo. “I think she was frightened.”
“In that case,” replied the nurse, “it might be better for her to be alone until she’s fully recovered from the shock. What happened? Was the guide in any way at fault?”
“No,” Judy hastened to assure her. “In fact, she was very efficient. It was probably something technical. I don’t understand the inside workings of television very well.”
The nurse smiled. “Neither do I. The inside workings of the human mind are even more mysterious. This girl should see a doctor or a psychiatrist—”
“No-oo,” came a sob from Clarissa.
The nurse quieted her, breaking a capsule for her to inhale. She asked the girl for her name and address, but all Clarissa said was, “I’m not real. I’ll fade away altogether pretty soon. Please, just leave me alone.”
“Perhaps that’s best.” Quietly the nurse escorted Judy, Pauline, and Flo into the next room where she began to ask questions.
“You say the girl’s name is Clarissa Valentine?”
Judy nodded, and the nurse wrote it down.
“Where does she live?” was her next question.
The three girls looked at each other in bewilderment. “She said West Virginia, didn’t she? We don’t know the name of the town.”
“It’s all right. I’ll get the rest of the information from her as soon as she’s feeling better. Now,” said the nurse, “if you will leave your names and tell me where I can reach you, I think it will be all right for you to go back and finish your tour. Give our patient half an hour, and I think I can convince her she isn’t in any danger of fading away.”
“We forgot to tell the nurse that Clarissa’s father is a minister,” Judy said suddenly when they were halfway down the hall.
“Maybe he isn’t. I still think she’s putting on an act,” declared Pauline. “She’s the sort that craves attention.”
“How do you know what sort she is?” Flo asked. “She’s practically a stranger.”
“I was beginning to think of her as a friend,” objected Judy. “Everybody craves attention in one way or another. If she’s in trouble, isn’t it up to us to help her?”
“We have helped her,” Pauline reminded Judy. “We each gave her five dollars, didn’t we? I should think that was help enough.”
“Maybe money isn’t what she needs.”
Flo laughed at that. “Isn’t money what everybody needs? Quit dreaming, Judy. Why do you think all these people are rushing about like ants in an ant hill? If it isn’t to get money, it’s to spend it.”
“It’s more than that.” Judy wanted to explain, but the right words wouldn’t come. They had just entered the room where the closed circuit TV set was being viewed by the tourists.
“There’s nothing wrong with it now,” observed Pauline. “The picture is just as clear as ever. We’ll bring Clarissa back here—”
“If she’ll come.”
Flo, who had not yet seen herself on TV, stepped up before the camera. She frowned at her image framed in the TV set against the background of tall buildings. The picture was clear.
“If you hadn’t scowled at yourself you would have looked all right,” Judy told her.
“But my hair looked dull—”
“That’s Clarissa’s complaint, not yours, Flo. I do believe she’s hypnotized you into saying it,” declared Pauline.
Judy wondered if that could be possible. Afterwards she wished she had asked the guide what went wrong with the picture when Clarissa fainted. For when they went back to get her she did refuse to come and see herself.
“Anyway,” Clarissa added, “the tour is over, and I’m all right now. The nurse gave me some capsules to break and inhale if I feel faint during Irene’s show.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go,” Pauline began.
“But you invited me—”
“Of course we did,” Judy broke in. “Irene is expecting all four of us.”
“You’re so good to me!” exclaimed Clarissa. She glanced about the small room with its first-aid equipment as if in doubt about something. Then she said, “The nurse went out for a minute. We don’t need to wait for her. Shall we go?”
Judy was glad to leave. There was something oppressive in the air. The closed-in cubicle was left for the next emergency patient. As soon as they were outside in the wintry air, the color came back to Clarissa’s cheeks, and she appeared to be quite herself again. Swirls of snow were still blowing about, now hiding, now revealing the street ahead.
They stopped in a drugstore and had coffee and a quick sandwich. As they were about to leave, Judy remembered something.
“I was going to buy a bottle of golden hair wash!” she exclaimed.
“I was, too,” Flo said. “This looks like as good a place as any.”
“Golden hair wash,” breathed Clarissa.
“Make it three bottles,” Judy heard herself saying to the druggist.
He regarded her curiously.
“You aren’t going to use that stuff on your red hair, are you?” he inquired.
“No,” replied Judy, feeling uncomfortable under his puzzled gaze. “It’s for a friend.”
He shook his head. “I can’t understand it. This is the thirteenth bottle I’ve sold in the last half hour. Ordinarily the stuff doesn’t sell too well. You have to be careful how you use it. Follow the directions, and don’t let any of it get into your eyes or your mouth. It will gradually change the color of your hair. Is that what you want?”
“It’s what I want. I want to change everything about me,” declared Clarissa.
Hugging her bottle of shampoo as if it were a magic potion, she followed the others out of the store.
“Now I’ll be beautiful,” she kept saying. “Now I’ll be a golden girl too.”
Flo agreed with her. “I’ll have golden hair, too. It’s bound to make me look better. Don’t you think so, Judy?”
The wind blew harder. Judy could scarcely make herself heard above the weird whistling noise it was making.
“You won’t be Flo,” she shouted. “You’ll look so different without your pretty, brown hair.”
“Who will I be?” Flo asked, glancing at Clarissa just as the wind caught her scarf and sent it flapping. “Will people call me a changeling?”
“Now you’re laughing at me,” Clarissa charged. “Well, you can joke if you want to, but I still have a feeling I’m not real. You must have felt there was something different about me when you called me a phantom friend.”
“We were talking about the empty chair,” Judy began.
“People say things sometimes without knowing why they say them, and they turn out to be true,” Clarissa insisted. “Mother didn’t mean it when she called me a changeling, either, but she made me feel like one. You know—as if the real me is hidden somewhere under this dull, drab hair.”
“Did your mother call it dull and drab?” asked Flo. “Is that why you’ve hypnotized the rest of us into buying this golden hair wash?”
“Me? Hypnotized you? I thought it was the other way around.” Clarissa seemed genuinely distressed. She turned to look at Flo, and at that moment the thirteenth bottle of golden hair wash fell and broke, spilling all over the snow.
“Look what you made me do!” With a sound that was more of a sob than a laugh, Clarissa added, “Now I can never be a golden girl. I can never find the really, truly me!”
Judy acted on impulse. She thrust her own bottle of shampoo into Clarissa’s gloved hand.
“Take it,” she urged the surprised girl. “I don’t know why I bought it in the first place. Irene doesn’t need it. I’m sure she’d never use it. She’d probably think I was out of my mind to buy it for her.”
“Take mine, too. I don’t like the looks of the stuff when it’s spilled. And I’d be afraid to use it after what that druggist said,” declared Flo. “I wish—”
“Wait!” cried Clarissa before Flo could finish. “See what it does to me before you condemn it. I’ll be a glamorous new person because of this shampoo. You just wait and see what happens to me!”
Fear seized Judy. Suddenly she was afraid of what would happen. Already she felt herself in the grip of something she could neither explain nor understand. Was Clarissa in its grip, too? The girl’s mood had changed so suddenly it was alarming. Had the gift of two bottles of shampoo worked the transformation? Judy considered it unlikely.
“You’ve changed already. You don’t need to change the color of your hair,” she began.
“It’s drab.”
“No, it isn’t, Clarissa. I don’t know what makes you keep saying that. It’s just your imagination.”
The girl smiled impishly and tossed her head. A white scarf covered her hair except for a few stray wisps that were blowing in the wind. The ends of her scarf fluttered like white wings behind her.
“I do have an imagination,” she admitted as if revealing a secret she had meant to keep. “Sometimes it plays tricks on me.”
“That’s what it was when you thought the cashier stole your twenty dollars,” Pauline said. “You just imagined you gave it to him.”
“Did I?” Clarissa seemed ready to admit it. “You don’t suppose the wind could have picked the money out of my hand, do you? It’s fierce today, isn’t it? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it picked me up and carried me away.”
Judy laughed at that.
“I can just see you being swept up into the clouds with that white scarf trailing behind you. Like the witch who rides through the sky on Hallowe’en.”
“She’s the thirteenth fairy in Sleeping Beauty,” replied Clarissa, and she was laughing, too. “It was always my favorite fairy tale. I can hardly wait to see Irene—”
“She isn’t playing the part of Sleeping Beauty,” Flo interrupted. “She just introduces the show and sings.”
“I know. She told us. Sleeping Beauty is being played by a guest star, Francine Dow. I’ve seen her on television, and she’s lovely. I wonder if she uses golden hair wash.”
“Of course she doesn’t. Her hair is dark,” Flo said.
“No, it’s light,” Pauline contradicted.
Pauline and Flo were actually arguing about it.
“We’ll see what color it is when we reach the studio,” Judy told them, “not that it matters. I’m tired of all this talk about hair.”
“How much farther is it?” asked Clarissa. “It seems to me we’ve been walking forever in this wind.”
“We’re there,” announced Pauline as they rounded the next corner. “See the sign,GOLDEN GIRL SHOW. The theater looks a little sad, doesn’t it? They’ve turned an old movie house into a TV studio.”
Judy was eager to see how the cameras and other technical equipment were arranged inside the theater building.
“It’s warm, thank goodness!” she exclaimed as they entered, showing their pass to a man in the lobby. He waved a tired hand toward the left side of the theater.
“You’re early. Take any four seats,” he said with an uninterested drawl.
“Don’t we get a chance to see the dressing rooms?” Clarissa asked. “I’ve always wanted to see the dressing rooms of the stars.”
“We’ll see them afterwards, I guess. I wonder where the control room is. I think I’ll look around and see if I can find it.”
“Wait, Judy!” said Pauline. “I don’t think we should go exploring.”
But Judy didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t leave her seat if the others saved it for her. She shook the snow from her coat and left it there so people would know the seat was taken.
Most of the folding seats had been removed from the theater to make room for the TV equipment. Those that remained were directly under the balcony. Judy hesitated a moment, looking around. Then she walked down the aisle between the rows of seats until she came to what was called the studio floor. Immediately she recognized the different kinds of cameras and microphones. The big mike boom, mounted on its three-wheeled platform, stood to one side. So did the dolly, its funny little up-in-the-air seat now empty. Judy gazed at it for a moment. Then she turned around. There on the balcony was the glass-enclosed control room with its monitors and flashing lights.
“I learned more than I thought I did on that tour,” she told the others when she returned to her seat. “The control room is just over our heads on what used to be the balcony of the old theater. There’s a movie on this channel now.”
“We’ve been watching it. Probably it’s being shown for the second time in this theatre,” Pauline said. “It’s so ancient I’m sure it must have been one of the pictures shown here before this building was made over into a TV studio.” She pointed. “See it! They have another one of those monitors suspended from a beam just over the middle aisle.”
“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Judy. “We can watch Irene’s show on TV at the same time we’re seeing it on the stage. Oh, there she is!”
Judy broke off with this exclamation as the people in the surrounding seats began to clap. She joined them, clapping so enthusiastically that her hands smarted. Under the blazing overhead lights, Irene looked lovelier than ever. She had appeared from somewhere behind the star-studded curtain.
“Hi, everybody!” she said brightly when the clapping had subsided. “Welcome to the Golden Girl show. In the half hour before we go on the air there’s time to make you acquainted with some of the people important to the show.”
One by one they were introduced. Irene knew all the technicians and called them by their first names—the manager with his walkie-talkie, the boom man, the camera men and their helpers. One was adjusting the seat on the dolly.
“I’d get dizzy up there,” Judy whispered.
She had never before realized how many other people besides actors were needed to put on a TV show. The sound man, the lighting engineer, the director and his assistants in the control room—each had his own part to play.
“You people out there are part of the show, too,” Irene continued. “When the hands of the studio clock point to seven we will go on the air. In the meantime, I’d like to present four of my best friends to the studio audience.”
“She means us. How sweet of her!” exclaimed Judy.
“Me, too?” asked Clarissa, holding back a little as the others left their seats. “She can’t mean me. I only met her today.”
Judy laughed. “It doesn’t take Irene long to decide who her friends are. Come on!”
The area between the first row of seats and the Golden Girl set was filled with a complicated maze of technical equipment. Judy nearly tripped over a trailing cable on the way to join Irene on the studio floor.
“Come on,” Judy urged Clarissa a second time.
Irene was waiting for them. She seemed completely at home on the studio floor, moving through and around the pieces of equipment as easily as she moved about in her kitchen at home. The girls were introduced. It was all very informal and nice. Afterwards the floor manager suggested a quick tour behind the scenes.
“I know you want to show your friends around, Irene,” he said with an understanding twinkle in his eyes. “You have ten minutes.”
“Thank you, Si. I won’t take more than that. This doesn’t compare with Radio City, of course,” Irene apologized, turning to Judy, “but perhaps I can show you something you haven’t already seen.”
“What about the dressing rooms?” Judy thought of Clarissa’s request and explained that they hadn’t seen them on their other tour. “It was interrupted,” she began and then stopped as there was too much to tell in ten minutes.
“How did that happen?” Irene asked.
“We’ll explain it later,” Judy promised. “Is there time to see the dressing rooms?”
“They’re small and crowded tonight, but I guess we can take a quick peek,” Irene agreed. “This way, girls! Be careful and don’t fall over anything.”
The dusty, cluttered space behind the glittering curtain was a disappointment to Clarissa. Judy could tell by the look on her face. Backgrounds were folded one against the other. Props waited to be placed inside make-believe rooms that were nothing but painted canvas stretched on wooden racks. Beyond, a narrow corridor separated two rows of doors.
“Will we see Francine Dow?” Clarissa asked suddenly.
Pauline looked at Flo and said pointedly, “We had a little argument over the color of her hair.”
“You can settle it when you see her,” Irene told them as they entered the crowded dressing room. The girls who were to be good fairies on the program were fluttering about in their filmy dresses. Two of them were seated before a long dressing table putting on make-up that gave their faces a yellowish tinge. A third girl, made up to look like an old woman, was dipping a sponge into a bowl of green stuff and then applying it to her face.
“She must be the witch,” Pauline whispered to Judy. “Doesn’t shescareyou?”
“Her hair is green, too,” Flo observed with a giggle. “How about washing your hair withgreenhair wash, Clarissa? You said you’d do anything to get on TV. Would you play the part of an old witch?”
“I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “I’d hate to make myself any uglier than I am.”
Obviously the witch could hear the whispered conversation behind her. Making her voice sound old and cackling, she said without turning her head, “So you think I’m ugly, my pretty? Wait until you see the curse I put on the child! I hope I don’t scare any little kiddies who may be watching—”
“You scare me,” Clarissa interrupted. “I can see your face in the mirror.”
“It’s bad luck to look into a mirror over anyone’s shoulder,” the witch warned her. “Why don’t you go away?”
“I’m sorry.” Clarissa, her eyes still fixed on the mirrored face of the witch, was backing out into the corridor toward a closed door.
“Is that another dressing room, Irene?” asked Flo. “We didn’t see your guest star, Francine Dow.”
“Would you know her?” asked Judy. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t. She’s appeared in so many different roles. I don’t even know what color her hair is.”
“I’m afraid I don’t either,” Irene confessed. “She wore a black wig in theMikadoand looked quite like a Japanese schoolgirl. She is late, but I’m sure she’ll be here in time to play the part of the Sleeping Beauty. She doesn’t appear until the show is half over. Maybe she planned to be late so she would have the dressing room to herself. We had to rehearse without her this afternoon,” Irene continued, a worried note creeping into her voice, “but she assured me, over the telephone, that she knows the part.”
“The play would be ruined without Sleeping Beauty, wouldn’t it?” Clarissa asked. “I hope I haven’t brought bad luck.”
“Of course you haven’t. That’s just a silly superstition,” Irene declared. “Actually, it makes an actress nervous to have anyone look over her shoulder when she’s applying make-up, so she’s apt to tell you it brings bad luck.”
“I see.”
Judy wondered if she did. “You say this isn’t a dressing room? What is behind this other door?” she asked curiously.
She could hear voices that made her even more curious. “It’s forbidden!” someone was almost shouting. “This thing is still in the experimental stage. It may be as dangerous as an atom bomb!”
“I don’t know what all the excitement is about. This is our film storage room,” Irene explained, tapping on the door before she opened it. “Most of our programs are on film or on kinescope, and they’re kept here. Mine is one of the few live shows that originate in this studio.”
She was calm as she entered the small room that was still charged with emotion. Rows of shelves and pigeonholes lined the walls. Two men were glaring at each other across a high desk.
“You look like a couple of roosters ready for a fight,” Irene told them amiably. “Can you forget your differences long enough to meet some friends of mine? This is Mr. Lenz, our projectionist.”
“How do you do,” the older man said in an agitated voice as he was introduced to the four girls.
Judy recognized the younger man as the one with the unruly lock of brown hair.
“You were on the tour with us!” she exclaimed in surprise.
“Youarefrom our agency! Why did you tell the guide you were from Hollywood?” Flo demanded.
“Usually,” said the brown-haired young man with an easy smile, “I tell people what they want to hear. You want me to be Blake van Pelt, a native New Yorker. Yes, my dear Miss Garner, that is my name. I already know yours because, you see, I do work on Madison Avenue just as you do—and for the same agency, so I think we understand each other. The guide, another charming young lady, wanted me to be from out of town so I gave her a line.”
“Did you say line or lie?” Flo was angry now and justifiably so, Judy thought. Without in the least understanding what was going on, she felt herself on the side of truth. Something Clarissa had said back in the restaurant flashed across her mind. “Doesn’t anybody in New York care about the truth?” Apparently there were a number of people who did, among them the white-haired projectionist, Mr. Lenz.
“The word is lie,” he said icily. “So you tell people what they want to hear, do you, Mr. van Pelt? I think the purpose of your agency is to make them dissatisfied with what they have so they’ll buy what you have to sell.”
The young man flashed another smile.
“You’ve put it very well. Advertising is a selling job. We’re not in business to entertain people or to make them contented as they sit in their living rooms watching TV. Contented people are like cows. It’s our job to make them discontented. That’s no crime, is it, Mr. Lenz?”
“No, but this is! None of the other networks allow it. I have my orders from the director of this program,” the projectionist declared. “Now, suppose you take your film out of here.”
Young Blake van Pelt picked up a round gray can about an inch thick and a foot across, and sauntered out of the room. Did it contain a roll of film or something more sinister? Judy found herself wondering what Mr. Lenz meant when he had shouted, “It may be as dangerous as an atom bomb!” After he had calmed down a little the projectionist opened a can similar to the one the younger man had taken away with him and said to Irene, “This is the ad we’ll run on your show, Mrs. Meredith. It’s for a tooth paste approved by dentists, and features a cute little girl cleaning her teeth.”
“It may inspire little Judy,” Irene began and then stopped. “What was the other ad?” she asked. “Why were you so angry about it, Mr. Lenz?”
“An old man’s temper,” he replied. “Don’t mind me, and good luck with your show tonight.”
“I’ll need more than luck if anything is wrong in the film department,” Irene said later when they were back on the studio floor.
She was worried about something. Judy could see that. She took the seat Pauline was saving for her. Flo was already seated next to Pauline with Clarissa occupying the chair next to the aisle. An usher was seating people in every available place.
“No empty seats! No empty seats!” he kept on repeating as the crowd surged in.
Two pedestal cameras were stationed directly in front of the curtain where Irene stood waiting. At one side, mounted on a large three-wheeled platform, rode the man who operated the mike boom. The man on the dolly was sitting in his funny little seat with the operator ready to raise or lower him.
The hands of the big studio clock over the exit door moved slowly toward the hour of seven. The camera men and the boom man, all wearing headphones, stood ready before their equipment. The floor manager also waited for the directions he would receive through his headpiece.
“All set?” asked the announcer.
“All set,” Irene replied, smiling.
Did Judy imagine it, or was her smile a little forced? “Nothing must go wrong,” Judy caught herself almost praying. “Please, don’t let anything go wrong.”
“One minute ... stand by!” sounded over the loudspeaker.
Were the other girls as tense as she was? Judy found it hard to read the expressions on their faces. The lights over the Golden Girl set made everything else look dim.
The television set suspended over the middle aisle was showing the end commercial from the previous show. As soon as it was over red lights flashed above the exit doors, and Judy knew Golden Girl was on the air. The announcer stepped to one side, out of camera range, and clapped his hands as a signal for the audience to clap.
“Isn’t she lovely?” whispered someone in the audience as the bright spotlight shone down on Irene. Quick tears came to Judy’s eyes as Irene began to sing:
“My own golden girl, there is one, only one,Who has eyes like the stars and hair like the sun.”
“My own golden girl, there is one, only one,
Who has eyes like the stars and hair like the sun.”
It was her theme song. Judy’s thoughts took her back to the first time she had heard it on a roof garden while she danced with Dale Meredith.
“Irene is a golden girl tonight,” he had said, and from then on her happiness had become his chief concern. Judy thought of him now, at home in their new Long Island house, probably holding a sleepy baby on his knee as he listened.
“That’s Mommy,” he would be saying to little Judy. Or perhaps there was no need to say it. By now Judy’s little namesake must be well acquainted with the mysteries of TV.
“Better acquainted than I am,” Judy thought ruefully.
She couldn’t overcome the fear that something would go wrong with the show. Little Judy wouldn’t see the microphone dangling over her mother’s head. She wouldn’t see the cameras being moved in like menacing monsters. She wouldn’t know, as Judy did, that somewhere back in the film room there had been something “as dangerous as an atom bomb.”
“If Peter were here I could ask him about it,” Judy thought.
“The advertising is over, and the show is about to begin,” Pauline whispered.
Judy glimpsed the little girl cleaning her teeth on the TV set. Since the advertising was all on film, it did not seem to interrupt the play that was now beginning.
“Look!” she heard Clarissa whisper. “It’s the palace scene with the king and queen. I wonder if that’s a real baby in the crib.”
On the television screen the king and queen seemed to be crooning over a real baby, but Judy suspected the crib was empty. The throne room was only a painted scene on a wooden frame with a few props in the foreground to make it appear real. The spotlight rested on the royal family for a moment and then moved over to Irene. Dressed as one of the fairies, she sang to summon the others:
“Fairies! Fairies! Now appearBringing gifts for baby dear.One will give a pretty face,Two a body full of grace,Three the love light in her eyes.Four will make her kind and wise.”
“Fairies! Fairies! Now appear
Bringing gifts for baby dear.
One will give a pretty face,
Two a body full of grace,
Three the love light in her eyes.
Four will make her kind and wise.”
In danced the fairies bringing their gifts and waving their wands over the crib. On the screen flecks of stardust could be seen swirling about. Remembering the tour, Judy knew how this effect was achieved.
More gifts were bestowed on the little princess as the next seven fairies danced in. Irene’s song was as beautiful and tender as a lullaby. A film strip of a real baby made it seem as if the audience had been given a glimpse of the little princess in her crib.
It was almost too real when the witch whirled in. A gasp went up from the audience as she interrupted the fairy song with a hoarse shriek:
“I was not invited. Why?For punishment I’ll make herdie!”
“I was not invited. Why?
For punishment I’ll make herdie!”
“No, oh, no!” Judy almost forgot it was a play and found herself crying out with the fairies. All had given their gifts except Irene, who was playing the part of the twelfth fairy.
The queen, rising from her throne, began to explain that there were only twelve golden plates for feasting.
“That is why you weren’t invited, dear, good fairy,” she said to the witch. “Please take away your curse.”
“For shame!” cried the witch. “I’ll make it worse!She shall live to age fifteen,But she shallneverbe a queen.While spinning she shall prick her hand.There’ll be no cure in all the land.”
“For shame!” cried the witch. “I’ll make it worse!
She shall live to age fifteen,
But she shallneverbe a queen.
While spinning she shall prick her hand.
There’ll be no cure in all the land.”
“Have pity! Have pity!” cried the poor queen, wringing her hands and sobbing so realistically that Judy almost cried with her.
“I will have every spinning wheel destroyed,” the king declared. “This cruel pronouncement must not come to pass.”
“Can’t you help us, dear fairies?” sobbed the queen.
They drooped like wilted flowers. “I’m afraid not,” one after another of them replied. “She is not one of us. She is a witch. Her powers are greater than ours, but we will try.”
At that they began dancing around the witch, trying to touch her with their wands. The music played wildly as the witch whirled and danced, always eluding them and finally dancing off the set.
“She’s gone!” exclaimed the king. “She’s left her curse on all of us.”
“You good fairies, is there nothing you can do?” The queen turned to the dancers with a pleading gesture. Eleven of them shook their heads. Irene, the twelfth fairy, danced into the spotlight and began to sing:
“A twelfth gift I have yet to give.The princess shall not die, but live.A fairy mist will change the spellFrom death to sleep. She shall sleep wellA hundred years. Yes, all shall sleep.Change, curse, from death to slumber deep!”
“A twelfth gift I have yet to give.
The princess shall not die, but live.
A fairy mist will change the spell
From death to sleep. She shall sleep well
A hundred years. Yes, all shall sleep.
Change, curse, from death to slumber deep!”
With a wave of her wand, Irene stepped out of camera range and stood smiling and bowing to the studio audience as the curtain descended. Judy forgot to look at the advertising. She was seeing only Irene.
“She’s the star of this show. Francine Dow can’t be any more wonderful than she was,” Judy whispered.
“I hope she’s here.”
Was Pauline worried, too? Clarissa was heard to whisper, “Oh dear, I left my two bottles of shampoo back there in the witch’s dressing room.”
“You can get them after the show,” Flo whispered back. She turned to Pauline and said something about the commercial. Several people left their seats during the intermission, but Judy stayed where she was. She didn’t want to miss anything.