lights and lock up when youâre through.â
âOkay, Mr. Price.â
âAnd be in the box office at nine tomorrow morning, will you, Elizabeth?â
âIâll miss my classesââ Elizabeth started, then stopped. âOkay, Mr. Price.â
âGood night, darling,â Mr. Price said with automatic affection, and left.
Elizabeth picked up the telephone and asked for operator twenty-three.
âYou have a call from Jordan, Virginia, Miss Jerrold,â the operator told her, and Elizabethâs heart began to beat with apprehension. If the call was from Jordan, it meant that it must be from her aunt with whom she had lived since her fatherâs death, and Aunt Harriet Jerrold would not call except for bad news. Elizabeth heard the telephone ringing and she could imagine it ringing in the dark, narrow hall of the house in Jordan. Itâs after midnight, she thought. Why on earth would Aunt Harriet be calling me at this time of night?
The phone kept ringing, and after a while the operator said, âThere doesnât seem to be any answer, Miss Jerrold. Iâve
been trying to get you since eight oâclock this evening and either the line was busy or you couldnât be reached. Do you think I should try again in twenty minutes?â
âNo,â Elizabeth said, âitâs too late now. Iâd better call in the morning. Shall I ask for you?â
âI wonât be on in the morning, but ask for operator nineteen and sheâll take care of you.â
âAll right. Thanks.â Elizabeth hung up and a sick feeling of apprehension settled in the pit of her stomach. She looked around the small office, starkly painted white. On the wall was a calendar, opened to the month of August, 1946, showing the schedule for the rest of the summer. Most summer-stock theatres did a play a week, and this theatre was no exception. There are four more plays to learn from, Elizabeth thought wistfully. Next to the calendar was the box office window.
Elizabeth reached up to the neat cubbyholes to touch one of the stacks of pink and blue and green tickets which she would be selling the next morning. Under the green money box was a large mimeographed seating plan of the theatre, and on this she would mark off all the tickets she sold. She rather enjoyed sitting on the high stool by the ticket window and chatting with the people who would be seeing the play that night or later on in the week; she had come to know several who returned each week, and tried to always give them the choicest seats. I love everything about this place, she thought. Ben can say anything he likes about it, but Iâve loved every minute of this summer so far.
âLiz!â a voice called. âAre you there?â
âIâm here,â Elizabeth called back.
After a moment Jane Gardinerâs slight figure appeared in the doorway. Ben had been in the theatre since he was a child, only taking a break for college at his fatherâs insistence, but it was Jane, fresh out of drama school, who seemed to have the wisdom the rest of them lacked. Elizabeth always felt tall and clumsy beside her, though Jane said that Elizabeth was a Viking, and she herself the product of a decadent civilization.
âBen told me you had a long distance call,â Jane said, âso I thought Iâd come over and make sure it wasnât bad news.â
Elizabeth shook her head. âThe operator said she had a call from Jordan for me and that sheâd been trying to get me all evening. But when she rang just now, there wasnât any answer. It must have been Aunt Harriet. And Aunt Harriet never answers the phone after ten oâclock. If anybody called to tell her the house was on fire, it could just burn down if it depended on her answering the phone. I do hope she isnât ill or something.â
âProbably just wants to talk to you,â Jane said.
âNot Aunt Harriet. Itâs