Jill Emerson - The Trouble With Eden

“You enhance it, Tanya mine.”

“Mmmm, love you,” she said. She kissed him on his bald spot, dropped onto the stool beside him. “You were beautiful out there, Warren. You scared the shit out of me, I swear to God.”

“I was properly vicious, wasn’t I?”

“Improperly vicious. You made me want to confess long before I was supposed to.”

“Pure method, love.”

“Oh?”

“Oh indeed. I summoned up all my loathing for the play’s author and directed it at you poor witches.”

“But Arthur Miller—”

“Sucks,” he supplied.

“Isn’t he supposed to be one of our major playwrights?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“And Crucible’s an allegory. It was very important. The McCarthy era and everything.”

He looked at her fondly. “Didn’t you campaign for him in New Hampshire?”

Her face turned uncertain. “Was it the same person? I can never quite—”

He snapped his fingers. “By Jove, I believe you’re right. I can never keep those things straight myself. Politics is such a damned bore, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “But I guess it’s important.”

“Ah, boring things always are. Which confirms your report that The Crucible and its author are indeed important. But important to whom? Not, I fear, to me. For I am merely an actor, and the stage all I know of life. I play my part, little one. One can do no more.”

“Well, you were good.”

“ How can one fail with such lines to speak. ‘I saw Goody Two-Shoes with the Devil!’ ‘Did you? What were they doing?’ ‘They were fucking!’ ‘Well, good for the Devil! And the devil with Goody!’ Shakespeare, put aside your pen. Shaw, eat your heart out. Sophocle—”

She giggled and he beamed paternally at her. A charming child, he thought. Not a brain in her head, not a wisp of talent in her body, but nonetheless charming for it.

“You were very good,” she was saying. “I keep saying I that, but what I’m trying to say is that you were so good I that you made me be a little less rotten than I usually I am, you made me feel almost good, and, I don’t know, I oh, I wanted to thank you for it.”

“Why, Tanya,” he said. She lowered her eyes and I blushed furiously. He was enormously touched and on the point of tears. His voice soft, he said, “That is as genuinely sweet a compliment as anyone has ever paid me. God bless you. I will always love you for having said I that.” He coughed to clear his throat, heaved himself to I his feet. “I must away,” he said, his voice normal again. “My turn to pay a compliment to the young lad but for whom you and I would have been utterly in the dark. I speak of young Peter of Nicholas.”

“He worked the lights, didn’t he?”

“He did. Friend Marc dropped the old show-must-go-on philosophy in the dirt, and young Peter dusted it off. I ought to tell him he was good before Tony tells him he was bad.”

“Why would Tony tell him that?”

“So that Tony can pay him as little as possible, as he will no doubt do anyhow. Tanya, you were good tonight yourself, incidentally. I hate to offer compliments as a quid pro quo, but there it is. You’ve never been better.” Which was true enough, he thought, but which was unfortunately saying lamentably little.

“I’ll be joining some people at Sully’s later,” he added. “Will you be going?”

“I don’t think so. There’s a late movie Billy was talking about seeing.”

“You insist on squandering yourself on that paint smear?”

“Well, he loves me.”

“Who could fail to?”

Her face went impish. “Now if you’d straighten out for me, Warren, I might be interested.”

His eyes inventoried her body — dainty feet, willowy legs, tight little ass, tiny waist, opulent breasts. He sighed wistfully. “I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “that you’re just the slightest shade too butch for me.”

Her laughter followed him out of the dressing room. A dramatic talent equaled only by the depth and breadth of her intellect, he thought. She would never be an actress, and he supposed she knew as much. But for the next half dozen years her looks would carry her, and by that time she would probably find the stage something of a bore.

But what a sweet thing she’d said; it had taken all his talent to keep from crying.

He found Peter and Tony Bartholomew at the rear of the house. Tony was talking, and Peter was nodding at the pauses. Excellent, Warren thought. He had timed his entrance well.

“Ah, there you are,” he called out, approaching the two. Bartholomew raised his eyes in irritation at the interruption but Warren’s gaze swept quickly over him and centered on Peter. “Peter, that was superb. I was nervous tonight when I heard you would be on the lights. I loathe being nervous. But you were so much better than I dared to hope that I was astounded.”

“That’s kind of you, Warren.”

“Kind? Kindness has nothing to do with it. It’s pure and simple self-interest. I prefer to play with the lights well handled. One does not want to become blessedly invisible at the wrong moment. Thus, as there is always the chance that you might not realize quite how good you are, I’m taking the small trouble of informing you in order to encourage you to do this regularly.” His eyes turned briefly to Bartholomew. “As I’m sure Tony has been trying to say himself.”

“I was just telling Peter I think he has real possibilities. Of course the work is a discipline, a craft—”

“Yes, of course it is, of course it is. Peter, as I’m sure Tony has already told you, you were far better tonight than Marc Hillary ever was in his life. And Marc was not bad. One got one’s money’s worth with Marc. But you are better intuitively than Marc was with rehearsal and practice and training. Tony, you’ve turned up an honest talent. Permit me to congratulate you.”

“Thanks so much, Warren. I was telling the boy—”

“I know precisely what you were telling him, and I’m sure I’ve done no more than echo your own praise Tony, it was a good show. If one must perform Arthur Miller one might as well do him properly. You’ll excuse us, won’t you? We’re supposed to be meeting some people at Sully’s and I’m afraid we’re late already. I’ll see you tomorrow, Tony?”

“It does seem likely.”

“And perhaps you can join us at Sully’s if you can get I away.”

“I think I’ll be tied up tonight.”

“A pity,” Warren said. He grabbed Peter’s arm and led him out of the theater and through the parking lot.

Halfway to the street Peter said, “What’s this about meeting people at Sully’s?”

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, sweet, but I thought I’d buy you a drink. I did think we ought to get away from Antonio and it seemed an easier way than handing him a bottle of mouthwash. Subtler, I thought.”

“Uh-huh. How did I do with the lights, incidentally?”

“Hmmm. Let us say that you were not awful. You were a little unsteady in the first act, you were quite good in the second act, and you may have been thinking of something else toward the very end. I can understand that. I have the same problem myself. Arthur Miller has that effect on any sensitive intelligence. Oh, you weren’t bad. On a scale of one to ten I’d give you about a seven overall, and I don’t think Marc ever got much more than an eight-point-six on his best night, so I’d call it an impressive debut.”

“Thanks, incidentally.”

“For that back there or for what I just said?”

“Both. I don’t think it will work, though.”

“Let me guess. He was giving you the usual ostrich shit about how much you had to learn.”