He could not bear to look at her, to have anyone look at him. He wanted to be alone with his misery, to try to cope with the pain that was tearing him apart. His world had collapsed around him. He had had his chance, and he had failed. Clifton Lawrence had walked out on him, had not even waited for him to finish. Clifton Lawrence was a man who knew talent, a professional who handled the best. If Lawrence did not think Toby had anything…He felt sick to his stomach.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said to Alice.
He walked down Vine Street and Gower, past Columbia Pictures and RKO and Paramount. All the gates were locked. He walked along Hollywood Boulevard and looked up at the huge mocking sign on the hill that said, “HOLLYWOODLAND.” There was no Hollywoodland. It was a state of mind, a phony dream that lured thousands of otherwise normal people into the insanity of trying to become a star. The word Hollywood had become a lodestone for miracles, a trap that seduced people with wonderful promises, siren songs of dreams fulfilled, and then destroyed them.
Toby walked the streets all night long, wondering what he was going to do with his life. His faith in himself had been shattered and he felt rootless and adrift. He had never imagined himself doing anything other than entertaining people, and if he could not do that, all that was left for him were dull, monotonous jobs where he would be caged up for the rest of his life. Mr. Anonymous. No one would ever know who he was. He thought of the long, dreary years, the bitter loneliness of the thousand nameless towns, of the people who had applauded him and laughed at him and loved him. Toby wept. He wept for the past and for the future.
He wept because he was dead.
It was dawn when Toby returned to the white stucco bungalow he shared with Alice. He walked into the bedroom and looked down at her sleeping figure. He had thought that she would be the open sesame to the magic kingdom. Not for him. He would leave. He had no idea where he would go. He was almost twenty-seven years old and he had no future.
He lay down on the couch, exhausted. He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the city stirring into life. The morning sounds of cities are the same, and he thought of Detroit. His mother. She was standing in the kitchen cooking apple tarts for him. He could smell her wonderful musky female odor mingled with the smell of apples cooking in butter, and she was saying, God wants you to be famous.
He was standing alone on an enormous stage, blinded by floodlights, trying to remember his lines. He tried to speak but he had lost his voice. He grew panicky. There was a great rumbling noise from the audience, and through the blinding lights Toby could see the spectators leaving their seats and running toward the stage to attack him, to kill him. Their love had turned to hate. They were surrounding him, grabbing him, chanting, “Toby! Toby! Toby!”
Toby suddenly jerked awake, his mouth dry with fright. Alice Tanner was leaning over him, shaking him.
“Toby! Telephone. It’s Clifton Lawrence.”
Clifton Lawrence’s office was in a small, elegant building on Beverly Drive, just south of Wilshire. French Impressionist paintings hung from the carved boiserie, and before the dark green marble fireplace a sofa and some antique chairs were grouped around an exquisite tea table. Toby had never seen anything like it.
A shapely, redheaded secretary was pouring tea. “How do you like your tea, Mr. Temple?”
Mr. Temple! “One sugar, please.”
“There you are.” A little smile and she was gone.
Toby did not know that the tea was a special blend imported from Fortnum and Mason, nor that it was steeping in Irish Baleek, but he knew it tasted wonderful. In fact, everything about this office was wonderful, especially the dapper little man who sat in an armchair studying him. Clifton Lawrence was smaller than Toby had expected, but he radiated a sense of authority and power.