Read Online A Stranger in the Mirror by Sidney Sheldon - Free Book Online Page B

studio talent scouts. Toby had been put with the Workshop actors. Alice Tanner had told him that it might be six months or a year before he would lie ready to do a Showcase play. Toby found the classes interesting, but the magic ingredient was missing: the audience, the applauders, the laughters, the people who would adore him. In the weeks since Toby had begun classes, he had seen very little of the head of the school. Occasionally, Alice Tanner Would drop into the Workshop to watch improvisations and give a word of encouragement, or Toby would run into her on las way to class. But he had hoped for something more intimate. He found himself thinking about Alice Tanner a great deal. She was what Toby thought of as a classy dame, and t)�at appealed to him; he felt it was what he deserved. The idea of her crippled leg had bothered him at fast, but it had slowly begun to take on a sexual fascination. Toby talked to her again about putting him in a Showcase play where the critics and talent scouts could see him. "You're not ready yet," Alice Tanner told him. She was standing in his way, keeping him from his success. 7 hace to do something about that, Toby decided. A Showcase play was being staged, and on the opening night Toby was seated in a middle row next to a student' named Karen, a fat little character actress from his class. Toby had played scenes with Karen, and he knew two things about her: she never wore underclothes and she had bad breath. She had done everything but send up smoke signals to let Toby know that she wanted to go to bed with him, but he had pretended not to understand. Jesus, he thought, fucking her would be like being sucked into a tub of hot lard.
    As they sat there waiting for the curtain to go up, Karen excitedly pointed out the critics from the Los Angeles Times and Herald-Express, and the talent scouts from Twentieth Century-Fox, MGM and Wamer Brothers. It enraged Toby. They were here to see the actors up on the stage, while he sat in the audience like a dummy. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to stand up and do one of his routines, dazzle them, show them what real talent looked like. The audience enjoyed the play, but Toby was obsessed with the talent scouts, who sat within touching distance, the men who held his future in Aeir hands. Well, if Actors West was the lure to bring them to him, Toby would use it; but he had no intention of waiting six months, or even six weeks.
    The following morning, Toby went to Alice Tanner's office. "How did you like the play?" she asked. "It was wonderful," Toby said. "Those actors are really great." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I see what you mean when you say I'm not ready yet." "They've had more experience than you, that's all, but you have a unique personality. You're going to make it. Just be patient." He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'd be better off forgetting the whole thing and selling insurance or something." She looked at him in quick surprise. "You mustn't," she said. Toby shook his head. "After seeing those pros last night, I -- I don't think I have it." "Of course you have, Toby. I won't let you talk like that." In her voice was the note he had been waiting to hear. It was not a teacher talking to a pupil now, it was a woman talking to a man, encouraging him, caring about him. Toby felt a small thrill of satisfaction. . : He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, anymore. I'm all rfbne in this town. I have no one to talk to." * "You can always talk to me, Toby. I'd like to be your friend." 4: He could hear the sexual huskiness come into her voice. Ibby's blue eyes held all the wonder in the world as he gazed at her. As she watched him, he walked over and locked the office door. He returned to her, fell on his knees, buried his head in her lap and, as her fingers touched his hair, he slowly lifted her skirt, exposing the poor thigh encased in the cruel steel brace. Gently removing the brace, he tenderly kissed the red marks left by the steel