My Fair Planet by Evelyn E. Smith (best mystery novels of all time .txt) 📖

It was an exceptionally hot October—the kind of weather when sometimes he almost lost his faith and began to wonder why he was batting his head against a stone wall, why he didn't get a job in a department store somewhere or teaching school. And then he thought of the applause, the curtain calls, the dream of some day seeing his name in lights above the title of the play—and he knew he would never give up. Quitting the theater would be like committing suicide, for off the stage he was alive only technically. He was good; he knew he was good, so some day, he assured himself, he was bound to get his big break.

Toward the end of that month, it came. After the maximum three readings, between which his hopes alternately waxed and waned, he was cast as the male lead in The Holiday Tree. The producers were more interested, they said, in getting someone who fitted the role of Eric Everard than in a big name—especially since the female star preferred to have her luster undimmed by competition.

Rehearsals took up so much of his time that he saw very little of Ivo for the next five weeks—but by then Ivo didn't need him any more. Actually, they were no longer teacher and pupil now but companions, drawn together by the fact that they both belonged to different worlds from the one in which they were living. Insofar as he could like anyone who existed outside of his imagination, Paul had grown rather fond of Ivo. And he rather thought Ivo liked him, too—but, because he couldn't ever be quite sure of ordinary people's reactions toward him, how could he be sure of an outworlder's?

Ivo came around to rehearsals sometimes, but naturally it would be boring for him, since he wasn't in the profession, and, after a while, he didn't come around very often. At first, Paul felt a twinge of guilt; then he remembered that he need not worry. Ivo had his own work.

The whole Holiday Tree troupe went out of town for the tryouts, and Paul didn't see Ivo at all for six weeks. Busy, happy weeks they were, for the play was a smash hit from the start. It played to packed houses in New Haven and Boston, and the box office in New York was sold out for months in advance before they even opened.

"Must be kinda fun—acting," Ivo told Paul the morning after the New York opening, as Paul weltered contentedly on his bed—he had the best room in the house now—amid a pile of rave notices. At long last, he had arrived. Everybody loved him. He was a success.

And now that he had read the reviews and they were all favorable, he could pay attention to the strange things that had happened to his friend. Raising himself up on an elbow, Paul cried, "Ivo, you're mumbling! After all I taught you about articulation!"

"I got t'hanging 'round with this here buncha actors while y'were gone," Ivo said. "They say mumbling's the comin' thing. 'Sides, y'kept yapping that I declaimed, so—"

"But you don't have to go to the opposite extreme and—Ivo!" Incredulously, Paul took in the full details of the other's appearance. "What happened to your Brooks Brothers' suits?"

"Hung 'em inna closet," Ivo replied, looking abashed. "I did wear one las' night, though," he went on defensively. "Wooden come dressed like this to y'opening. But all the other fellas wear blue jeans 'n leather jackets. I mean, hell, I gotta conform more'n anybody. Y'know that, Paul."

"And—" Paul sat bolt upright; this was the supreme outrage—"you've changed yourself! You've gotten younger!"

"This is an age of yout'," Ivo mumbled. "An' I figured I was 'bout ready for improvisation, like you said."

"Look, Ivo, if you really want to go on the stage——"

"Hell, I don' wanna be no actor!" Ivo protested, far too vehemently. "Y'know damn' well I'm a—a spy, scoutin' 'round t'see if y'have any secret defenses before I make m'report."

"I don't feel I'm giving away any government secrets," Paul said, "when I tell you that the bastions of our defenses are not erected at the Actors' Studio."

"Listen, pal, you lemme spy the way I wanna an' I'll letcha act the way you wanna."

Paul was disturbed by this change in Ivo because, although he had always tried to steer clear of social involvement, he could not help feeling that the young alien had become in a measure his responsibility—particularly now that he was a teen-ager. Paul would even have worried about Ivo, if there hadn't been so many other things to occupy his mind. First of all, the producers of The Holiday Tree could not resist the pressure of an adoring public; although the original star sulked, three months after the play had opened in New York, Paul's name went up in lights next to hers, over the title of the play. He was a star.

That was good. But then there was Gregory. And that was bad. Gregory was Paul's understudy—a handsome, sullen youth who had, on numerous occasions, been heard to utter words to the effect of: "It's the part that's so good, not him. If I had the chance to play Eric Everard just once, they'd give Lambrequin back to the Indians."

Sometimes he had said the words in Paul's hearing; sometimes the remarks had been lovingly passed on by fellow members of the cast who felt that Paul ought to know.

"I don't like that Gregory," Paul told Ivo one Monday evening as they were enjoying a quiet smoke together, for there was no performance that night. "He used to be a juvenile delinquent, got sent to one of those reform schools where they use acting as therapy and it turned out to be his m�tier. But you never know when that kind'll hear the call of the wild again."

"Aaaah, he's a good kid," Ivo said. "He just never had a chanct."

"Trouble is, I'm afraid he's going to make himself a chanct—chance, that is."

"Aaaah," retorted Ivo, with prideful inarticulateness.

However, when at six-thirty that Friday, Paul fell over a wire stretched between the jambs of the doorway leading to his private bathroom and broke a leg, even Ivo was forced to admit that this did not look like an accident.

"Ivo," Paul wailed when the doctor had left, "what am I going to do? I refuse to let Gregory go on in my place tonight!"

"Y'gonna hafta," Ivo said, shifting his gum to the other side of his mouth. "He's y'unnastudy."

"But the doctor said it would be weeks before I can get around again. Either Gregory'll take over the part completely with his interpretation and I'll be left out in the cold, or more likely, he'll louse up the play and it'll fold before I'm on my feet."

"Y'gotta have more confidence in y'self, kid. The public ain't gonna forgetcha in a few weeks."

But Paul knew far better than the idealistic Ivo how fickle the public can be. However, he chose an argument that would appeal to the boy. "Don't forget, he booby-trapped me!"

"Cert'ny looks like it," Ivo was forced to concede. "But watcha gonna do? Y'can't prove it. 'Sides, the curtain's gonna gwup in a li'l over a nour—"

Paul gripped Ivo's sinewy wrist. "Ivo, you've got to go on for me!"

"Y'got rocks in y'head or somepin?" Ivo demanded, trying not to look pleased. "I ain't gotta Nequity card, and even if I did, he's y'unnastudy."

"No, you don't understand. I don't want you to go on as Ivo Darcy playing Eric Everard. I want you to go on as Paul Lambrequin playing Eric Everard. You can do it, Ivo!"

"Good Lord, so I can!" Ivo whispered, temporarily neglecting to mumble. "I'd almost forgotten."

"You know my lines, too. You've cued me in my part often enough."

Ivo rubbed his hand over his forehead. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"Ivo," Paul beseeched him, "I thought we were—pals. I don't want to ask any favors, but I helped you out when you were in trouble. I always figured I could rely on you. I never thought you'd let me down."

"An' I won't." Ivo gripped Paul's hand. "I'll go on t'night 'n play 'at part like it ain't never been played before! I'll—"

"No! No! Play it the way I played it. You're supposed to be me, Ivo! Forget Strasberg; go back to Stanislavsky."

"Okay, pal," Ivo said. "Will do."

"And promise me one thing, Ivo. Promise me you won't mumble."

Ivo winced. "Okay, but you're the on'y one I'd do 'at for."

Slowly, he began to shimmer. Paul held his breath. Maybe Ivo had forgotten how to transmute himself. But technique triumphed over method. Ivo Darcy gradually coalesced into the semblance of Paul Lambrequin. The show would go on!

"Well, how was everything?" Paul asked anxiously when Ivo came into his room shortly after midnight.

"Pretty good," Ivo said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Gregory was extremely surprised to see me—asked me half a dozen times how I was feeling." Ivo was not only articulating, Paul was gratified to notice; he was enunciating.

"But the show—how did that go? Did anyone suspect you were a ringer?"

"No," Ivo said slowly. "No, I don't think so. I got twelve curtain calls," he added, staring straight ahead of him with a dreamy smile. "Twelve."

"Friday nights, the audience is always enthusiastic." Then Paul swallowed hard and said, "Besides, I'm sure you were great in the role."

But Ivo didn't seem to hear him. Ivo was still wrapped in his golden daze. "Just before the curtain went up, I didn't think I was going to be able to do it. I began to feel all quivery inside, the way I do before I—I change."

"Butterflies in the stomach is the professional term." Paul nodded wisely. "A really good actor gets them before every performance. No matter how many times I play a role, there's that minute when the house lights start to dim when I'm in an absolute panic—"

"—And then the curtain went up and I was all right. I was fine. I was Paul Lambrequin. I was Eric Everard. I was—everything."

"Ivo," Paul said, clapping him on the shoulder, "you're a born trouper."

"Yes," Ivo murmured, "I'm beginning to think so myself."

For the next four weeks, Paul Lambrequin lurked in his room while Ivo Darcy played Paul Lambrequin playing Eric Everard.

"It's terrific of you to take all this time away from your duties, old chap," Paul said to Ivo one day between the matinee and the evening performances. "I really do appreciate it. Although I suppose you've managed to squeeze some of them in. I never see you on non-matinee afternoons."

"Duties?" Ivo repeated vacantly. "Yes, of course—my duties."

"Let me give you some professional advice, though. Be more careful when you take off your makeup. There's still some grease paint in the roots of your hair."

"Sloppy of me," Ivo agreed, getting to work with a towel.

"I can't understand why you bother to put on the stuff at all," Paul grinned, "when all you need to do is just change a little more."

"I know." Ivo rubbed his temples vigorously. "I suppose I just like the—smell of the stuff."

"Ivo," Paul laughed, "there's no use trying to kid me; you are stagestruck. I'm sure I have enough pull now to get you a bit part somewhere, when I'm up and around again, and then you can get yourself an Equity card. Maybe," he added amusedly, "I can even have you replace Gregory as my understudy."

Later, in retrospect, Paul thought perhaps there had been a curious expression in Ivo's eyes, but right then he'd had no inkling that anything untoward was up. He did not find out what had been at the back of Ivo's mind until the Sunday before the Tuesday on which he was planning to resume his role.

"Lord, it's going to be good to feel that stage under my feet again," he said as he went through a series of complicated limbering-up exercises of his own devisement, which he had sometimes thought of publishing as The Lambrequin Time and Motion Studies. It seemed unfair to keep them from other actors.

Ivo turned around from the mirror in which he had been contemplating their mutual beauty, "Paul," he said quietly, "you're never going to feel that stage under your feet again."

Paul sat on the floor and stared at him.

"You see, Paul," Ivo said, "I am Paul Lambrequin now. I am more Paul Lambrequin than