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designer jeans, posing like a male model. Leda thought he should have been one. His all-American-boy appeal was a strong selling point, and he was handsome if you liked the type.
    Leda didn’t like the type. His goal during this theatrical engagement was to get her into bed, and he spent most of his time attempting to charm Leda out of her socks. And other items of clothing. The charm was beginning to wear a little thin in the face of her total unresponsiveness, but Chip was a patient man. He simply couldn’t believe she meant what she said. He was certain she would cave in eventually. And given his apparent track record, his conceit was justified.
    Leda looked up at a knock on the door.
    “Who is it?” she called, wincing. If it was Chip, nothing short of a death announcement would make him go away.
    “Your roommate,” a woman’s voice answered.
    Leda got up to remove the chair. It was Anna Fleming, the actress who played Leda’s mother in the show. She shared the dressing room. Anna raised her brows as she entered and saw Leda replacing the chair against the wall.
    “Expecting company?” she asked.
    “You might say that.”
    “Young Lochinvar?” Anna asked, grinning. She found Chip’s pursuit of Leda an endless source of amusement.
    “Very funny,” Leda said darkly.
    “You could always hire a bodyguard. Honestly, sweetie, I don’t understand you. Haven’t you seen all those panting young things asking Chip for his autograph after every performance? Just think what they would do with the opportunity you’re passing up.”
    “They can have him,” Leda said, sitting down again and opening up a new package of sponges to apply her makeup. “They can all read his press clippings together.”
    “Have you seen my powder?” Anna asked, shifting things on her side of the room. She sat on the floor and unzipped a vinyl carryall, dumping its contents on the tile.
    “Are you looking for that stuff again?” Leda asked. “Can’t you keep track of it?”
    “If that tightwad Gary would get me a wig, I wouldn’t have this problem,” Anna muttered, picking up an emery board and starting to file her nails. “I look ridiculous with that junk on my head anyway.”
    Leda smiled in silent agreement. Anna was referring to a decision made by Gary Randall, their director, who was notorious for pinching pennies. Anna was in her thirties, playing an older woman who was the mother of a girl in her twenties. Gary’s solution to the problem of aging Anna was to liberally dust her dark hair with talcum powder, instead of purchasing the gray wig Anna wanted. Leda and Anna privately thought that this tactic made Anna look like a thirty-two-year-old woman with a head full of dusting powder; it didn’t help that Anna gave off a small scented cloud anytime somebody touched her. Cast and crew alike referred to her as “The Dust Bowl.”
    Anna had left the door ajar when she entered, and a stagehand came in with a plastic bag draped over his shoulder.
    “Elaine dropped these costumes off earlier,” he said to Leda. He hung the bag on a coat rack fixed to the wall. “She told me to say you should let her know if the alterations are okay.”
    “Too bad for me if they aren’t,” Leda said after the boy left. “I’ll be wearing those dresses in forty minutes.”
    “Full house tonight,” Anna commented, now plugging in her electric rollers. “Gary informed me on my way in. Let’s hope Peter doesn’t fall into the orchestra pit.”
    Peter Jenkins played the local merchant who married the old maid schoolteacher in the play. Peter was a former matinee idol in the B pictures of the forties, down on his luck now and reduced to playing supporting roles whenever he could get the work. The reason for his downfall was obvious. Although Chip often looked the worse for wear, he was always sober for performances, while Peter was usually dead drunk.
    “Do you think Gary will fire him?” Leda asked. It amazed her that Peter had