“Show your tickets, please sir.”
Pat opened the envelope and handed them to the doorman. Then he said to Eleanor:
“The seats are reserved—it doesn’t matter that we’re late.”
She pressed close to him, clinging—it was, as it turned out, the high point of her debut. Less than three steps inside the theatre a hand fell on Pat’s shoulder.
“Hey Buddy, these aren’t tickets for here.”
Before they knew it they were back outside the door, glared at with suspicious eyes.
“I’m Pat Hobby. I wrote this picture.”
For an instant credulity wandered to his side. Then the hard-boiled doorman sniffed at Pat and stepped in close.
“Buddy you’re drunk. These are tickets to another show.”
Eleanor looked and felt uneasy but Pat was cool.
“Go inside and ask Jack Berners,” Pat said. “He’ll tell you.”
“Now listen,” said the husky guard, “these are tickets for a burlesque down in L.A.” He was steadily edging Pat to the side. “You go to your show, you and your girl friend. And be happy.”
“You don’t understand. I wrote this picture.”
“Sure. In a pipe dream.”
“Look at the programme. My name’s on it. I’m Pat Hobby.”
“Can you prove it? Let’s see your auto licence.”
As Pat handed it over he whispered to Eleanor, “Don’t worry!”
“This doesn’t say Pat Hobby,” announced the doorman. “This says the car’s owned by the North Hollywood Finance and Loan Company. Is that you?”
For once in his life Pat could think of nothing to say—he cast one quick glance at Eleanor. Nothing in her face indicated that he was anything but what he thought he was—all alone.
III
Though the preview crowd had begun to drift away, with that vague American wonder as to why they had come at all, one little cluster found something arresting and poignant in the faces of Pat and Eleanor. They were obviously gate-crashers, outsiders like themselves, but the crowd resented the temerity of their effort to get in—a temerity which the crowd did not share. Little jeering jests were audible. Then, with Eleanor already edging away from the distasteful scene, there was a flurry by the door. A well-dressed six-footer strode out of the theatre and stood gazing till he saw Pat.
“There you are!” he shouted.
Pat recognized Ward Wainwright.
“Go in and look at it!” Wainwright roared. “Look at it. Here’s some ticket stubs! I think the prop boy directed it! Go and look!” To the doorman he said: “It’s all right! He wrote it. I wouldn’t have my name on an inch of it.”
Trembling with frustration, Wainwright threw up his hands and strode off into the curious crowd.
Eleanor was terrified. But the same spirit that had inspired “I’d do anything to get in the movies”, kept her standing there—though she felt invisible fingers reaching forth to drag her back to Boise. She had been intending to run—hard and fast. The hard-boiled doorman and the tall stranger had crystallized her feelings that Pat was “rather simple”. She would never let those red-rimmed eyes come close to her—at least for any more than a doorstep kiss. She was saving herself for somebody—and it wasn’t Pat. Yet she felt that the lingering crowd was a tribute to her—such as she had never exacted before. Several times she threw a glance at the crowd—a glance that now changed from wavering fear into a sort of queenliness.
She felt exactly like a star.
Pat, too, was all confidence. This was HIS preview; all had been delivered into his hands: his name would stand alone on the screen when the picture was released. There had to be somebody’s name, didn’t there?—and Wainwright had withdrawn.
SCREENPLAY BY PAT HOBBY.
He seized Eleanor’s elbow in a firm grasp and steered her triumphantly towards the door:
“Cheer up, baby. That’s the way it is. You see?”
