Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

He was brilliant. He told stories and sang and danced, and he attacked everybody, and it was as though he had never been gone. The audience could not get enough of him. He was still a superstar, but now he was something more; he had become a living legend.

The Variety review the next day said, “They came to bury Toby Temple, but they stayed to praise him and cheer him. And how he deserved it! There is no one in show business who has the old master’s magic. It was an evening of ovations, and no one who was fortunate enough to be there is likely ever to forget that memorable…”

The Hollywood Reporter review said, “The audience was there to see a great star come back, but Toby Temple proved he had never been away.”

All the other reviews were in the same panegyric vein. From that moment on, Toby’s phones rang constantly. Letters and telegrams poured in with invitations and offers.

They were beating the doors down.

Toby repeated his one-man show in Chicago and in Washington and New York; everywhere he went, he was a sensation. There was more interest in him now than there had ever been. In a wave of affectionate nostalgia, Toby’s old movies were shown at art theaters and at universities. Television stations had a Toby Temple Week and ran his old variety shows.

There were Toby Temple dolls and Toby Temple games and Toby Temple puzzles and jokebooks and T-shirts. There were endorsements for coffee and cigarettes and toothpaste.

Toby did a cameo in a musical picture at Universal and was signed to do guest appearances on all the big variety shows. The networks had writers at work, competing to develop a new Toby Temple Hour.

The sun was out once more, and it was shining on Jill.

There were parties again, and receptions and this ambassador and that senator and private screenings and…Everybody wanted them for everything. They were given a dinner at the White House, an honor usually reserved for heads of state. They were applauded wherever they appeared.

But now it was Jill they were applauding, as well as Toby. The magnificent story of what she had done, her feat of single-handedly nursing Toby back to health against all odds, had stirred the imagination of the world. It was hailed by the press as the love story of the century. Time Magazine put them both on the cover, with a glowing tribute to Jill in the accompanying story.

A five-million-dollar deal was made for Toby to star in a new weekly television variety show, starting in September, only twelve weeks away.

“We’ll go to Palm Springs so that you can rest until then,” Jill said.

Toby shook his head. “You’ve been shut in long enough. We’re going to live a little.” He put his arms around her and added, “I’m not very good with words, baby, unless they’re jokes. I don’t know how to tell you what I feel about you. I—I just want you to know that I didn’t start living until the day I met you.”

And he abruptly turned away, so that Jill could not see the tears in his eyes.

Toby arranged to tour his one-man show in London, Paris and—the greatest coup of all—Moscow. Everyone was fighting to sign him. He was as big a cult figure in Europe as he was in America.

They were out on the Jill , on a sunny, sparkling day, headed for Catalina. There were a dozen guests aboard the boat, among them Sam Winters and O’Hanlon and Rainger, who had been selected as the head writers on Toby’s new television show. They were all in the salon, playing games and talking. Jill looked around and noticed that Toby was missing. She went out on deck.

Toby was standing at the railing, staring at the sea. Jill walked up to him and said, “Are you feeling all right?”

“Just watching the water, baby.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“If you’re a shark.” He shuddered. “That’s not the way I want to die. I’ve always been terrified of drowning.”

She put her hand in his. “What’s bothering you?”

He looked at her. “I guess I don’t want to die. I’m afraid of what’s out there. Here , I’m a big man. Everybody knows Toby Temple. But out there…? You know my idea of Hell? A place where there’s no audience.”

The Friars Club gave a Roast with Toby Temple as the guest of honor. A dozen top comics were on the dais, along with Toby and Jill, Sam Winters and the head of the network that Toby had signed with. Jill was asked to stand up and take a bow. It became a standing ovation.

They’re cheering me , Jill thought. Not Toby. Me!

The master of ceremonies was the host of a famous nighttime television talk show. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see Toby here,” he said. “Because if we weren’t honoring him here tonight, we’d be holding this banquet at Forest Lawn.”

Laughter.

“And believe me, the food’s terrible there. Have you ever eaten at Forest Lawn? They serve leftovers from the Last Supper.”

Laughter.

He turned to Toby. “We really are proud of you, Toby. I mean that. I understand you’ve been asked to donate a part of your body to science. They’re going to put it in a jar at the Harvard Medical School. The only problem so far is that they haven’t been able to find a jar big enough to hold it.”

Roars.

When Toby got up for his rebuttal, he topped them all.

Everyone agreed that it was the best Roast the Friars had ever had.

Clifton Lawrence was in the audience that night.

He was seated at a table in the back of the room near the kitchen with the other unimportant people. He had been forced to impose on old friendships to get even this table. Ever since Toby Temple had fired him, Clifton Lawrence had worn the label of a loser. He had tried to make a partnership deal with a large agency. With no clients, however, he had nothing to offer. Then Clifton had tried the smaller agencies, but they were not interested in a middle-aged has-been; they wanted aggressive young men. In the end, Clifton had settled for a salaried job with a small new agency. His weekly salary was less than what he had once spent in one evening at Romanoff’s.

He remembered his first new day at the new agency. It was owned by three aggressive young men—no, kids —all of them in their late twenties. Their clients were rock stars. Two of the agents were bearded, and they all wore jeans and sport shirts and tennis shoes without socks. They made Clifton feel a thousand years old. They spoke in a language he did not understand. They called him “Dad” and “Pop” and he thought of the respect he had once commanded in this town, and he wanted to weep.

The once dapper, cheerful agent had become seedy-looking and bitter. Toby Temple had been his whole life, and Clifton talked about those days compulsively. It was all he thought about. That and Jill. Clifton blamed her for everything that had happened to him. Toby could not help himself; he had been influenced by that bitch. But, oh, how Clifton hated Jill.

He was sitting in the back of the room watching the crowd applaud Jill Temple when one of the men at the table said, “Toby’s sure a lucky bastard. I wish I had a piece of that. She’s great in bed.”

“Yeah?” someone asked, cynically. “How would you know?”

“She’s in that porno flick at the Pussycat Theatre. Hell, I thought she was going to suck the guy’s liver out of him.”

Clifton’s mouth was suddenly so dry that he could hardly get out the words. “Are you—are you sure it was Jill Castle?” he asked.

The stranger turned to him. “Sure, I’m sure. She used another name—Josephine something. A crazy Polack name.” He stared at Clifton and said, “Hey! Didn’t you used to be Clifton Lawrence?”

There is an area of Santa Monica Boulevard, bordering between Fairfax and La Cienega, that is County territory. Part of an island surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, it operates under County ordinances, which are more lenient than those of the City. In one six-block area, there are four movie houses that run only hard-core pornography, half a dozen bookshops where customers can stand in private booths and watch movies through individual viewers and a dozen massage parlors staffed with nubile young girls who are experts at giving everything except massages. The Pussycat Theatre sits in the midst of it all.