A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon

“You’re a dope,” one of Jill’s girlfriends told her. “He’s using your bed, eating your food, drinking your liquor. Get rid of him.”

But Jill didn’t.

For the first time, Jill understood Harriet, understood all her friends who clung desperately to men they did not love, men they hated.

It was the fear of being alone.

 

Jill was out of a job. Christmas was only a few days away and she was down to her last few dollars, yet she had to send her mother a Christmas present. It was Alan who solved the problem. He had left early one morning without saying where he was going. When he returned, he said to Jill, “We’ve got a job.”

“What kind of job?”

“Acting, of course. We’re actors, aren’t we?”

Jill looked at him, filled with sudden hope. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I am. I ran into a friend of mine who’s a director. He’s got a picture starting tomorrow. There’s parts for both of us. A hundred bucks apiece, for one day’s work.”

“That’s wonderful!” Jill exclaimed. “A hundred dollars!” With that she could buy her mother some lovely English wool for a winter coat and have enough left over to buy a good leather purse.

“It’s just a little indie. They’re shooting it in back of someone’s garage.”

Jill said, “What can we lose? It’s a part.”

 

The garage was on the south side of Los Angeles, in an area that in one generation had gone from exclusivity to middle-class gentility to seed.

They were greeted at the door by a short, swarthy man who took Alan’s hand and said, “You made it, buddy. Great.”

He turned to Jill and whistled appreciatively. “You told it like it is, pal. She’s an eyeful.”

Alan said, “Jill, this is Peter Terraglio. Jill Castle.”

“How do you do!” Jill said.

“Pete’s the director,” Alan explained.

“Director, producer, chief bottle washer. I do a little of everything. Come on in.” He led them through the empty garage into a passageway that had at one time been servants’ quarters. There were two bedrooms off the corridor. The door to one was open. As they approached it, they could hear the sound of voices. Jill reached the doorway, looked inside and stopped in shocked disbelief. In the middle of the room four naked people were lying on a bed; a black man, a Mexican man, and two girls, one white and one black. A cameraman was lighting the set while one of the girls practiced fellatio on the Mexican. The girl paused for a moment, out of breath, and said, “Come on, you cock. Get hard.”

Jill felt faint. She wheeled around in the doorway to start back down the passageway, and she felt her legs start to give way. Alan had his arm around her, supporting her.

“Are you all right?”

She could not answer him. Her head was suddenly splitting, and her stomach was filled with knives.

“Wait here,” Alan ordered.

He was back in a minute with a bottle of red pills and a pint of vodka. He took out two of the pills and handed them to Jill. “These will make you feel better.”

Jill put the pills in her mouth, her head pounding.

“Wash it down with this,” Alan told her.

She did as he said.

“Here.” Alan handed her another pill. She swallowed it with vodka. “You need to lie down a minute.”

He led Jill into the empty bedroom, and she lay down on the bed, moving very slowly. The pills were beginning to work. She started to feel better. The bitter bile had stopped coming up into her mouth.

Fifteen minutes later, her headache was fading away. Alan handed her another pill. Without even thinking about it, Jill swallowed it. She took another drink of vodka. It was such a blessing to have the pain disappear. Alan was behaving peculiarly, moving all around the bed. “Sit still,” she said.

“I am sitting still.”

Jill thought that was funny and began to laugh. She laughed until the tears streamed down her face. “What—what were those pills?”

“For your headache, honey.”

Terraglio peered into the room and said, “How we doin’? Everybody happy?”