Mr. Wollard was the only one in whom I had confided about my final decision to go. He did continually inquire about whether my parents were aware. I didn’t want to lie to him. Instead, I admitted, “No, but they’re suspicious. I will give my mother and sister all my details before I leave and then tell my father as well.”
Mr. Wollard still looked concerned. “I don’t know if that’s wise, Emma.”
“I’m eighteen, Mr. Wollard. I don’t need to get permission, and I’m using only my own money. I have to try, and they’ll only try to stop me.”
“True, you’re an adult, Emma. I’m hoping something good will come of it. I’ve told many of my students who were in my musicals the same thing when they asked if they should continue pursuing a career in show business. If you have to ask, the answer is no. You were one of the few who didn’t ask that. Instead, you asked what do you do next. You knew what you wanted, and that reveals persistence, determination, and courage. Besides, you’re a talented young lady. If the Americans aren’t total nincompoops, they’ll realize it fast.”
He shrugged. “You can always come back and try here or go to a school with a performing arts program like our own University of Surrey. I just think you’re head and shoulders above their best graduates already. You not only have the beautiful voice, great range, but you have the personality that brings smiles when you sing, and you have the poise.” Then he confessed, “I wish I would have had the courage when I was your age.”
He had told me about the theater actors’ publication Playbill, in which open auditions were advertised. He explained that it was difficult getting an agent right from the start, but if I was fortunate enough to land a part, an agent would most likely follow. He said he had never taken the first step and looked melancholy for a moment.
Everyone has a secret ambition. Some are planted in a garden to grow, and some are smothered, I thought. But as I walked toward the boarding gate, I heard his words again and wondered if my father wasn’t right when he said Mr. Wollard should be careful “blowing up a young girl’s image of herself.”
Was Mr. Wollard living his dream vicariously through me? It made me shudder to think so.
My father was right about so much, I thought, but I wouldn’t let him be right about this.
My second moment of hesitation came when they announced the boarding of my flight. I stood there for a few moments staring at the attendant, a young woman who looked not much older than I was. She smiled and lifted her shoulders, asking with her expression, Are you going or not?
My upper body surged forward in my impulsive lunge, forcing my legs to catch up.
She laughed and checked my ticket. “Have a great flight,” she said. As I started toward the gangway, she asked, “First time?”
“Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”
“I looked the same way on my first,” she said. “Good luck in New York.”
“Thank you.”
I felt my whole body relax. Maybe, just maybe, the world out there wasn’t as cold and as indifferent as I had been told. I had the same feeling reinforced after spending the journey next to a woman who wasn’t much more than in her mid-thirties. She was posh, with her designer clothes, beautiful watch, pearl earrings, and matching pearl necklace, but from the warmth in her blue-gray eyes, I would hesitate to call her arrogant or snobby. Her name was Lila Lester, and she told me she worked in public relations for an up-and-coming women’s cologne and perfume company. She showed me a gold bracelet the owner had given her on her recent birthday. It had an inscription, a quote of Coco Chanel’s: “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”
“Oh,” I said. “I worked at a perfume counter in a department store in Guildford but never bought any of the expensive perfumes, even at an employee’s discount. I was saving all my money for this trip.”
I had sprayed on my inexpensive cologne, which probably had evaporated by now.
“Don’t look so worried,” she said, and reached into her purse to produce a small perfume sample from her company. “Here. This will get you through the day.”
“Thank you,” I said, and smelled it. “Very nice. A little like Norell.”
“Very good,” she said. “It is.”
After that, she told me about herself, about what it was like growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and what her high school and college life was like. She described how she had met her husband, who now worked at an insurance company in New York, and told me so much about their twelve-year-old daughter, who was showing talent on the piano, that I didn’t feel reluctant at all about describing what I was doing. She thought it was exciting. She told me I was quite brave because I didn’t really know anyone across the Pond.
“You must really want it,” she said.
“I do. Oh, I so do.”
She nodded and smiled. “If there weren’t dreamers, nothing new would happen.”
I didn’t say it, but my father would strongly disagree.
When we landed and left the plane, she said good-bye, expecting I would fall quite behind going through customs, but somehow I was moved through quickly. Lila Lester was still waiting for her luggage and waved to me from the carousel.
“Slow today,” she said when I reached it to pick up my suitcase. Just then, the bags started to come. “Guess they were waiting for you.”
Hers came first, but mine was right behind it.
“How are you getting into the city?” she asked.
“I guess a taxi.”
“I have a car waiting. We’ll drop you off,” she said. “No worries. I live off Central Park West. It’s not terribly out of my way.”
I wasn’t sure where I was going to live exactly, of course, but I had given her my new address. In the limousine, she described what it was like for her, someone from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to come to New York to live.
“I wasn’t much older than you are now and just as frightened.”
“Oh, I’m not really frightened,” I said.
She smiled. “Sure you are, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, if you weren’t, I’d say you were in for a worse time because you won’t be careful.”
She told me that not long after she had gotten married in Wisconsin, her husband was promoted to an executive position at the insurance company, so they moved to New York.
“I think I trembled for weeks whenever I would go out alone with my daughter.”
After her daughter had reached the age of eight, Mrs. Lester decided to pursue her own career and quickly went from a small public relations firm to her present position.
“So don’t let anyone discourage you,” she said. “If you’re determined, you’ll find your place.”
I tried to listen to her, but my eyes were being drawn to everything we were passing, especially when we arrived in the city. Of course, I had seen pictures and movies set in New York, but actually being here, my new home now only a step out of the car away, was more than just exciting and intimidating. It was almost unreal. I felt like someone who had stepped into a storybook.
I should have been very tired from the journey and the time difference, but I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding. When we passed some Broadway theater marquees, I was totally gaping. I’m sure I looked like what they called a “rube.” Mrs. Lester laughed and squeezed my hand.