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Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams

By Jennifer Lamont Leo

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Helen Corrigan’s lower lip trembled. With great drama she thrust forth her arm and gripped Nanette Johnson’s hand. Hard.
“But you must help me. You’re my only hope.” Her voice quivered in anguish.
Nanette’s elfin face contorted. “Your only hope?”
“Yes. There’s no one else I can turn to.”
Nanette blinked rapidly. “I’d do anything to help you.”
Helen drew her friend’s hand to her heart, jerking her closer. “You must tell no one. I’m going to marry Will!”
Nanette gasped and recoiled. “Marry! That rascal?”
“Shh.” Helen cast an anxious glance toward the door.
Nanette lowered her voice. “Don’t your parents know?”
“No, and they mustn’t find out. Not now. Not until Will and I are well on our way to Willa-I mean, Walla Walla—oh, shoot.”
“Cut!”
At the director’s sharp command, Helen bit back the rest of her impassioned plea and released Nanette’s hand.
“Sorry.” Her midsection contracted. Not only had she blown the line, but she displeased Chet Scarborough, the play’s director and the man whose opinion she most cared about—on multiple levels.
She lifted her arm—no easy task in her heavily corseted costume. Shading her eyes against the glare of the footlights, she blinked in the direction of his disembodied voice.
From the hollow darkness of the vacant auditorium, Chet barked, “Nanette, you’re supposed to be excited and happy for your friend, not wincing as if you’re in pain.”
Nanette rubbed the offended appendage. “But I am in pain. She practically crushed my fingers. I’ve got a ring on, you know.”
Yes, we all know. Helen bit back a snappish remark. Nanette’s engagement to Ted Barber was recent enough that she talked virtually of nothing else whenever cast and crew took a break in rehearsal. Even so, Helen was happy for her friend, and if she were honest, more than a little envious. Nanette had landed her prince, while Helen didn’t have the slightest idea where she stood with hers. Chet’s mercurial moods shifted between being warm and loving one minute, cool and detached the next.
Clearly her prince was having was a cool-and-detached moment, his creative-genius mind focused entirely on the production. As hers should be, during a final dress rehearsal.
“Sorry about your hand,” she murmured to Nanette. “I got a little carried away.”
“All right, ladies.” A note of weariness laced the director’s deep baritone voice. “Let’s go back a few lines. Perhaps without all the stuttering this time, Helen.”
Her face heated at his sarcastic remark. It wasn’t her fault she’d stuttered. She hesitated a moment, then spoke into the darkness.
“I’m sorry, Chet. It’s the line.”
Beside her, Nanette inhaled sharply. Actors rarely contradicted the director, who in this case happened to be the playwright as well.
“The line?” Though she couldn’t make out Chet’s face in the dimness, Helen imagined his steely eyes fixed in her direction. She pressed on.
“It’s a good line, a necessary line, but it’s difficult to say.” Helen picked up a dog-eared script from a nearby table and flipped to a page. “‘Will and I are well on our way to Walla Walla.’ It’s … it’s awkward.”
“Awkward.” The ensuing silence was unnerving.
She took a step toward the footlights. “With all due respect, Chet, it sounds like a joke. Like the opening of a limerick or something. I don’t believe it’s something Susannah would say. Not in the middle of a serious scene like this one. Can we rephrase it?”
His reply was firm. “We will not be rewriting the script at this point, Helen.”
“I didn’t say the script needs rewriting,” Helen protested. “Just this one line. That’s all.”
“That one line makes deliberate and effective use of alliteration,” Chet’s tone was crisp and professional. “It will remain as is.”
Helen sealed her lips, reminding herself he was a theatrical wizard. A genius, many said. Critically acclaimed. And even if he weren’t, contradicting him was futile. His way or the highway, as Helen’s brother Charlie would say.
Worse, hard as it was to admit, she was in love with the man. Absolutely head-over-heels loony-tunes about him. She couldn’t help herself. What girl could? In the eight weeks or so they’d been working on the play, she’d fallen under his spell.
And he was falling for her, too. She was sure of it. Oh, he hadn’t said as much. Not in so many words. But his lingering glances, the way he brushed his fingers against her hair or her cheek and remarked on her beauty—those gestures told Helen everything she needed to know.
Even so, his remark stung. He needn’t have snapped at her. She was only trying to help.
After a seemingly interminable pause, he spoke again. “You two wait there.”
Helen and Nanette exchanged a glance.
“Where does he think we’re going to go?” Nanette muttered under her breath.
Helen smiled in grim camaraderie. She rubbed her forehead as a headache formed at the edges of her skull. The Kerryville Players’ production of Under the Flaming Oak was opening in less than twenty-four hours. Chet only wanted the play to be a smash hit, as they all did. They were all feeling wrung out, from the fastidious director on down to the high-school boys pasting flowery Victorian wallpaper onto the scenery flats.
She smoothed her hair as Chet’s lean frame emerged from beyond the footlights, his long legs taking the stairs two at a time. In spite of her headache, she couldn’t help but feel a thrill, thinking how much he reminded her of Gary Cooper. Tall and good-looking in a rugged sort of way. Even the faint lines visible around his eyes and mouth, the touch of silver in his dark hair, gave him a wise, authoritative look.
He strode across the stage and stood before her and Nanette. “The show opens next week,” he said with strained patience. As if they needed reminding.
He reached out, grasped Helen’s shoulders, and shifted her position. A thrill coursed through her at his gentle touch and Brylcreem-scented nearness. Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to focus on his words.
“Now, honey, when you deliver that line, turn your shoulders like this, so the light captures your elegant profile.” He touched her chin and lifted it. As he did so, she couldn’t help glancing at his mouth. At his strong, well-shaped lips. Darn it, he could be such a demanding director—to the point of rudeness at times—and yet something about his commanding presence never failed to reduce her to a star-struck schoolgirl. Maybe that quality was what her favorite dime novels meant by “charisma”--that ability to charm your way back into people’s good graces, no matter how shabbily you’d treated them just moments before.
“Hold it. That’s it. Nanette, you stay right where you are. Perfect.” Chet took a step back and surveyed the scene with a critical eye.
Helen felt a fleeting disappointment when he let go of her shoulders. She gave herself a sharp internal pinch. Get a grip on yourself, girl.
Of course he knew best. He was the professional. Who was she to question the way he’d written the line?
“Take the scene from the top, please.” Chet returned to his seat in the darkened auditorium. They repeated the scene, three more times in all, during which Helen managed to utter the tongue-twisting line without a single stutter. Then they moved on through the rest of Act Three to the finale.
“That’s enough for tonight,” Chet called at last, just when Helen thought she could not endure one more minute of rehearsal. Murmurs of relief sounded all around the stage as actors and crew milled around, shutting down equipment and gathering their belongings. “See you all back here tomorrow, seven sharp, in full costume, ready to go.” He stood. “Helen, can you hold up a moment? I’d like to speak with you.”
Helen’s tummy fluttered. She was unable to read his tone. Was he going to pay her the sorts of compliments he’d been doling out all summer—about her skilled acting, her flaxen hair or her cornflower-blue eyes? Or, in the extreme other direction, would he read her the riot act for questioning his playwriting ability in front of the others?
Nanette gave her shoulder a playful nudge. “Good luck,” she whispered. She knew all about Helen’s not-so-secret crush on the dashing director, had listened to her praise him to the skies over the long, hot weeks of rehearsal.
“He’s as hard on himself as he is on us,” Helen had insisted. “He’s a perfectionist, that’s all. He insists on the best. All the best directors do.”
“How do you know what the best directors do?” Nanette had teased.
“I just know.”
True, Helen had come across many directors in her sheltered life. As theatrical venues went, the Orpheum was only one step up from the Kerryville High School High School auditorium. Nevertheless, she faithfully pored over every issue of Photoplay and Theatre, so she knew the score. Genius directors were perfectionists, and Chet Scarborough was a genius. She needed to take his critiques to heart, no matter how difficult they might be to hear, if she were going to make professional acting her career. This had been her deepest hope since she was twelve years old, watching her first moving picture on the Orpheum screen. Then came the Depression and the need to help out in her family’s store, but the dream hadn’t died. Now she was twenty-one and, as the screen cowboy Roy Rodgers put it, time was a-wastin’.
Feeling conspicuous even though no one was paying attention, she walked with forced casualness from the stage to where Chet stood stuffing papers into a brown leather briefcase.
“You did well tonight, Helen,” he said with hearty cheer, loud enough for the others to overhear. “I just had a few thoughts about your entrance in the second act.”
“Oh?” Her stomach clenched as it always did in the face of criticism. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“You’re doing fine.” He busied himself with his papers until most of the others had cleared out. Then he turned to her with that intense look in his gray-blue eyes—the look he gave her whenever she did something that pleased him. She’d come to love that look, to yearn for it and do whatever it took to get it. She practically melted in relief that he wasn’t annoyed with her.
He lowered his voice. “I’d just like to talk some things over with you. Matters of some importance. Come back with me to my hotel.”
An electric shock jolted her to her core. She took an involuntary step back. “I—I can’t do that.” Maybe the city girls he was used to could freely visit men at their hotels, but she wasn’t a city girl, and Kerryville sure as heck wasn’t the city.
His handsome face broke into a lopsided grin. “You should see the look on your face. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to seduce you. What kind of a cad do you think I am?”
She didn’t know which was more embarrassing: to be propositioned, or to assume you were being propositioned when you weren’t.
“It’s just that I’d like to talk to you in private,” he continued, “and the hotel lobby is the only place where we can scare up a cold drink at this hour.”
Her shoulders relaxed. He was right. Kerryville’s downtown area, such as it was, did shut down early, especially on a weeknight. Even the Tick Tock Café was closed. The Excelsior Hotel—opened with great optimism in 1929 just one month before the stock-market crash—offered the only nightspot to speak of. But tempting as the offer was, she couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. Even though perfectly innocent, all they’d need is for a biddy hen like Eugenia Wardlow to spot them entering the hotel together and soon the whole town would have the wrong idea about their … their … well, whatever this was.
She lifted her chin. “I have to work early in the morning. I need my beauty sleep.” Even to her own ears the excuse sounded straitlaced and stuffy, but he chuckled, his face etched with the smile lines she found so appealing.
“Whatever you say, honey. At least let me walk you home.”
“All right.” The likes of Eugenia Wardlow could find nothing objectionable about a girl accepting a walk home this late at night. Safety first, and all that. Even Helen’s brother-in-law Peter, a police officer, would approve.
“Meet you out front as soon as I’m done here,” Chet murmured. Then he raised his voice, once again all business. “John, may I speak to you for a moment before you go? I have a few notes.”
The warm, sultry air enveloped Helen as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. In the bright electric light from the marquee, she reviewed the promotional poster mounted on the brick wall. Under the Flaming Oak, it proclaimed in flowing script. July 23, 24, and 25, 1933. Her own image smiled back at her from beneath the costume fascinator she wore in the role of nineteenth-century belle Susannah McCabe. Beside her in the photo stood John Morton, Kerryville’s balding postmaster-turned-romantic lead. Her gaze trailed down the poster to the words, “Written and directed by Chester Scarborough, distinguished Chicago impresario.” Distinguished impresario. She shivered deliciously. The Kerryville Players were unbelievably lucky to have him, even if the arrangement was only temporary, part of some government project to bring culture to the hinterlands. He’d be leaving soon—gut-wrenchingly soon—to return to Chicago’s glittering theater scene. And equally glittering actresses. An unexpected arrow of jealousy piercing her midsection.
All through the long weeks of rehearsal for the summer-stock production, she’d had done her best to make a good impression on the eminent director, to prove that a Kerryville actress could be just as polished and professional as the those in Chicago. And along the way, she fell in love. Chet Scarborough was older, sophisticated, incredibly intelligent and experienced—just the sort of man who could have a life-changing impact on Helen’s longed-for acting career, as well as her heart, if that intense look in his eyes meant what she dreamed it meant. That she was special. That she had a shot at being his leading lady not only on the stage, but in real life.
The theater-industry rags occasionally linked Chet to this or that actress, but made no mention of a serious girlfriend. That role, it seemed, remained open. Now he wanted to meet with her in private! This walk home might be her tryout, her audition for the coveted role of Mrs. Chester Scarborough.
The heavy glass door opened and she glanced up in eager expectation. But instead of Chet, Nanette’s sprite-like form appeared.
“You still here?” She looped her arm through Helen’s and drew her toward a dilapidated Ford idling at the curb. “Come on. Ted will give us both a lift home, and you can tell me what Chet said to you just now.”
Helen stood her ground. “No, thanks. I--I’m waiting for him.”
Nanette lifted one penciled eyebrow. “For Chet?”
Helen forced a little shrug, as if to say no big deal. “He’s offered to walk me home, that’s all. Says he wants to talk to me about something.”
She should have known better than to try to get anything past Nanette, whose dark eyes sparkled at the prospect of romance. “That’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for?”
“I suppose so.” For a quick moment Helen regretted confiding in Nanette about her crush. The two had been lazing around on the Corrigans’ wide porch one hot evening after rehearsal, marveling over their good fortune to have landed such a swoon-worthy director. Helen had been candid about her hope that he’d ask her out. But now that her idle daydream was perhaps becoming real, Helen felt awkward about sharing her feelings with her friend. However, they might as well have been written across her face, because Nanette’s next words were, “Has he asked you on an actual date?”
“No. Not in so many words,” Helen admitted. Not unless being walked home counted as a date.
“Maybe tonight’s the night!” Nanette winked. “Well, behave yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She lifted her hand and slid into the car’s passenger seat. As the sedan pulled away from the curb, she called back through the open window, “You should introduce him to your sister as soon as possible. If he’s going to be walking you home, she’s going to insist on meeting him.”
She’ll flip her lid, more likely, came the unnerving thought.
Why, oh why, hadn’t Helen made sure her family met Chet before things had progressed this far—particularly her overprotective big sister, Marjorie? After all, she’d had all summer to orchestrate a meeting, to warm them up to the idea that Chet was somebody special in Helen’s life.
It was a rhetorical question. She knew why. She’d intuited Marjorie’s disapproval in advance. He’s too old for you, she’d say. Does he go to church? What’s his family like? What do you really know about him?
In spite of her misgivings, Helen had no time to ponder her sister’s probable unwelcome interference in her love life, because just then Chet appeared in the doorway. As he turned the key in the lock and gave Helen a winning smile, any further thoughts of Marjorie flew straight out of her head.

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