Entr'acte by Frank Juliano Read Free Book Online

thing…”
    Joyce felt like she should be taking notes. Ron was really on a roll now, back at center stage where he felt most comfortable.
    “If you lose your place, don’t stop. Just keep going or fumble around until you get back on track. Asking to start over drives them crazy.
    “Only actors stare each other in the eyes when they’re speaking to each other. Lose that; it’s false.”
    Joyce nodded again.
    “Talking about truth, it’s no good if it’s boring. Sometimes getting at the truth of a scene isn’t enough. And avoid shortcuts.
    As Shurtleff says, chewing gum is not creating a character.
    “Remember that you’re reading to show them who you are, not how well you can read. React on the line, not in the pauses in between. Know why?”
    “Because it isn’t the way people react,” Joyce said. “It sounds fake.”
    “Right!” Ron said, delighted with his pupil. A few minutes later, having kissed both women on their foreheads, he was gone.
    “Wow!” Joyce said.
    “I know exactly how you mean that,” Debbie laughed. “What scares me is: are we all like that?”
    Joyce undressed and got into bed, feeling that her first day in the city had been a success and tomorrow would be even better.
    She heard the phone ring, and Debbie speaking softly. Then she heard a knock on her door. “Phone for you,” Deb said.
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    ENTR’ACTE
    “It must be my parents. Professor Collins must have told them how to reach me,” Joyce said. “I guess I should have called them sooner. It’s late and they’re probably worried they haven’t heard from me.”
    “It’s a guy,” Debbie said.
    It wasn’t until Joyce had taken the receiver and heard his voice that she thought of Doug.
    “I’m at the bus terminal, Port Authority. It’s on Eighth Avenue,” he said. “Can you come and get me? We have to talk.”
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Chapter 8
    Doug was waiting in a section of the huge terminal where coin-operated television sets were bolted to hard-plastic armchairs.
    As she came up behind him, Joyce saw that he was watching one of those public affairs shows where some talking head tries to explain an obscure government regulation.
    Flopped in other chairs and resting against the support columns or along the wall were a number of the city’s homeless.
    Their possessions were in tattered shopping bags and most of them wore several shirts, even though it was late spring.
    A policeman came along and almost apologetically roused the ones who had fallen asleep with their legs stretched out into the corridor.
    But while none of the homeless was paying the slightest attention to Doug, he sat rigid in his seat, scanning them furtively from behind the TV console.
    Joyce groaned as she saw the suitcase on the seat next to him: this was not planned as a brief visit.
    “Doug,” she said flatly. “Let’s go. I have a long day tomorrow and I have to get some sleep.”
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    ENTR’ACTE
    “Is that any way to say hello after I came all this way?” he asked petulantly. Doug squirted out from behind the TV console, and wrapped his arms around Joyce.
    “We can talk about that at home, sometime,” she said, self-conscious from the stares of the few straggling travelers and the nighttime population of the terminal.
    Doug introduced himself to Debbie, pumping her arm in an enthusiastic handshake. “Are you a dental student?” she innocently asked him, as they walked to the exit. Doug just looked confused and Joyce pretended to have something caught in her throat to disguise her giggles.
    “Your parents told me how to reach you,” he said, while Debbie walked down the block to get the car. The girls had gone out to meet Doug with just jeans and tops pulled over their nightclothes, and Joyce shivered in the cool air.
    “What are you doing here, Doug? I thought we understood each other,” Joyce said as they piled into the VW Bug for the ride downtown. “I’m trying to get organized myself, get started in my career; I don’t have time for