Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers Read Free

finishing school. Boston, of all places, and everything so dull and proper and correct until Carol had arrived, turning everything upside down with her unsubdued, flaming beauty, her terrible grammar, and her uncensored comments on just about everything.
    Perhaps the real reason they had become friends was because they were such opposites. Anne had been the wide-eyed listener, and Carol the doer. It was Anne who covered up on the nights that Carol sneaked out, when she needed "a night on the town." Carol had hrought adventure into her life. And although Carol had lasted only a year at school, Anne had never been able to forget her.
    "I won't promise to write, sweetie, because-hell, I never write letters anyhow, you know that! But one day, when I'm famous and rich, we'll look each other up and compare notes. Talk about old times ..."
    Anne still remembered the way Carol had looked that day, sitting on her suitcases on the steps while she waited for her stepfather to pick her up. Her eyes squinted against the sun with determination; her smile was wide and flashing. They'd be leaving for Europe the next day. Carol had said. "Europe! Will you think of that? For a high-class call girl, my mom really did good, didn't she?" And then she'd laughed, seeing Anne's face. "Shit, baby! Haven't I taught you to call the facts of life by name?
    And me, I'm going to do even better."
    Since then, Carol had gone on to become rich and famous, just as she had promised. But Anne had never looked her up. Craig wouldn't have approved of Carol, with her marriages and her flamboyant antics that always made the front pages. And she had been too busy fighting for her self's survival.
    But now, today-it didn't really matter at all what Craig might or might not approve of, did it?
    They'd probably be rehearsing right now in the old theater in the middle of town. She could slip in through the side door and watch Carol. It would be fun to see her again-to watch a Broadway play in rehearsal.
    Hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket, Anne started downhill again, and now she was almost running.

Chapter Two
    THE SIDE DOOR 'to the theater had never been locked, for as far back as Anne could remember. She didn't think it even had a lock. As a child, she had often wandered into the theater through this very door, walking softly down musty, shadowed aisles, clambering up onto the stage to pretend she was a star, giving her best performance. With eyes half-closed, she had made the theater come alive-chandeliers blazing with light, the worn velvet of the heavy curtains taking on a bright new opulence.
    She hadn't been down here for years-but now the wrought-iron doorknob turned rustily and the door opened as it had before, so many times, allowing her to slip quickly inside. Fortunately, there was some kind of a gun battle in progress on the stage-the staccato sound of shots drowning out the squeaking of ancient hinges as Anne pushed the door shut behind her. She stood there uncertainly for a few moments until her eyes adjusted to the dim interior.
    Forcing herself into a sense of daring, Anne walked softly along the carpeted length of the theater and slid unobtrusively into a seat in the back row. No one seemed to have noticed-there were people in scattered, tiny groups, sitting ahead of her in the front rows.
    The action onstage captured her attention almost immediately. It didn't take her long to realize that it was one man, playing an obvious gangster type, white suit and all, who was making the whole scene come alive. He was supposed to have just killed someone, she surmised, and was arguing with an older man and a woman as he thrust a gun back into his shoulder holster. He projected an angry, animal emotion that made only him real and the other two actors just background shadows.

    Involuntarly, Anne found herself catching her breath, unable to take her eyes off him as the scene progressed. He moved like a jungle animal-she was reminded of a black panther,