“He and the other boys,” Arrington replied, “but knowing Peter, I’m sure he took the weight of it on his own shoulders.”
“I didn’t know he had acted in it, too.”
“Neither did I. He’s good, isn’t he?”
“He is, and so is everything else. Now I see why Leo Goldman at Centurion was so impressed.”
They continued to watch until the final fade-out, then Stone put on some music. “You know that Peter sent his screenplay and the DVD along with his application to Yale, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Arrington said.
“When Leo called me and wanted to buy the film, I insisted that he return his copies to me and keep absolutely quiet about the film, but now I don’t think it can be kept quiet. They’ll see it at Yale, and word is bound to get around that the thing is, well, brilliant.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yes.”
A faint throbbing could now be felt from three floors below.
“The party seems to be at its peak,” Stone said.
“I’ve told them to have everybody out of the house by eleven,” Arrington said.
“I hope there’s still a house left by then,” Stone said.
Early on Friday morning Stone got the two boys into the car and started for New Haven. Ben had stayed the night before. They reached New Haven in plenty of time, and Stone followed the map that Peter had printed out from the Internet. They found the administrative offices, and took seats in the waiting room. Ben was called in first for his interview.
“Peter,” Stone said, “your mother and I watched your film last night, and we thought it was absolutely terrific.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
“You remember our conversation about Leo Goldman liking it, and how I asked him to keep it a secret?”
“Sure.”
“Somebody at Yale, maybe more than one person, has seen it by now, and it may be difficult to keep it quiet.”
“It had occurred to me that that might happen,” Peter said, “but I thought my chance of being accepted here would be better if they saw it.”
“I expect that’s right, but you might see if you can find out how many people have seen it and ask them to keep quiet about it.”
“I can ask, I guess,” Peter said.
Forty minutes passed, and Ben came out of his interview. “They’ll be ready for you in a minute, they said.” He plopped down beside Peter. “Whew!”
“Was it tough?”
“Not exactly, but they sure had a lot of questions. They didn’t like it that I hadn’t done any sort of audition, but they seemed to like it that I want to study production and get an MBA. They have a program for that.”
“Good,” Peter said.
A woman came and took Peter down a hall to a large office, where two men, one of them the dean of the school, and a woman waited. Introductions were made, and they all sat down at a small conference table.
The woman began. “Peter, please tell us why you want to study at the Yale School of Drama.”
“For the past seven months,” Peter said, “I’ve read up on about fifteen schools, and I concluded that Yale has the best program. It’s as simple as that.”
“Do you know anyone who has attended here?” she asked.