A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon

Everyone laughed, filing the quip away in their minds so that they could tell their friends what they had heard Toby Temple say. I was with Toby Temple the other day and he said…I was standing as close as I am to you, and I heard him…

He stood around entertaining them, insulting them gently, and they loved it. He kidded them about their sex lives and their health and their children, and for a little while they were able to laugh at their own problems. Finally, Toby said ruefully, “I hate to leave you, you’re the best-looking audience I’ve had in years” —They would remember that, too—“but I have to spend a little time alone with Pop. He promised to give me some new jokes.”

They smiled and laughed and adored him.

 

Toby was alone in the small visitors room with his father. Even this room had the smell of death, and yet, That was what this place was all about, wasn’t it, Toby thought. Death? It was filled with used-up mothers and fathers who were in the way. They had been taken out of the small back bedrooms at home, out of the dining rooms and parlors where they were becoming an embarrassment whenever there were guests, and had been sent to this nursing home by their children, nieces and nephews. Believe me, it’s for your own good, Father, Mother, Uncle George, Aunt Bess. You’ll be with a lot of very nice people your own age. You’ll have company all the time. You know what I mean? What they really meant was, I’m sending you there to die with all the other useless old people. I’m sick of your drooling at the table and telling the same stories over and over and pestering the children and wetting your bed. The Eskimos were more honest about it. They sent their old people out onto the ice and abandoned them there.

“I’m sure glad you came today,” Toby’s father said. His speech was slow. “I wanted to talk to you. I got some good news. Old Art Riley next door died yesterday.”

Toby stared at him. “That’s good news?”

“It means I can move into his room,” his father explained. “It’s a single.”

And that was what old age was all about: Survival, hanging on to the few creature comforts that still remained. Toby had seen people here who would have been better off dead, but they clung to life, fiercely. Happy birthday, Mr. Dorset. How do you feel about being ninety-five years old today?…When I think of the alternative, I feel great.

At last, it was time for Toby to leave.

“I’ll be back to see you as soon as I can,” Toby promised. He gave his father some cash and handed out lavish tips to all the nurses and attendants. “You take good care of him, huh? I need the old man for my act.”

And Toby was gone. The moment he walked out the door, he had forgotten them all. He was thinking about his performance that evening.

For weeks they would talk about nothing but his visit.

 

 

17

 

 

At seventeen, Josephine Czinski was the most beautiful girl in Odessa, Texas. She had a golden, tanned complexion and her long black hair showed a hint of auburn in the sunlight, and her deep brown eyes held flecks of gold. She had a stunning figure, with a full, rounded bosom, a narrow waist that tapered to gently swelling hips, and long, shapely legs.

Josephine did not socialize with the Oil People anymore. She went out with the Others now. After school she worked as a waitress at the Golden Derrick, a popular drive-in. Mary Lou and Cissy Topping and their friends came there with their dates. Josephine always greeted them politely; but everything had changed.

Josephine was filled with a restlessness, a yearning for something she had never known. It was nameless, but it was there. She wanted to leave this ugly town, but she did not know where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do. Thinking about it too long made her headaches begin.

She went out with a dozen different boys and men. Her mother’s favorite was Warren Hoffman.