I Should Have Stayed Home by Horace McCoy

Author:Horace McCoy [McCoy, Horace]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Munsey's
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

part two

... chapter one

The next afternoon Mona came in very excited.

'Guess what — I've got a job. A regular job.'

I got excited too.

'Doing what?'

'Let me get my breath,' she said, sitting down, fanning herself. 'I was coming by Magnin's a while ago and who should I bump into but Laura Eubanks.'

'Laura Eubanks?'

'I recognized her instantly, but I didn't want to speak to her first. You never can tell in Hollywood, you know.'

'Did she recognize you?'

'Recognize me? You'd thought I was her long-lost sister. Well, she insisted we go over to the Knickerbocker and have a drink. She said she'd enjoyed our talk that night at Mrs. Smithers' and had often wondered what'd become of me and was very much interested in me and what I was doing.'

'She could have found you if she'd been that interested,' I said. 'She could have asked Mrs. Smithers.'

'That's the usual routine — but let me finish. Her stand-in's just landed a stock contract at First National and she asked me to take the job. Thirty-five a week.'

Something hit me a jolt in the stomach and knocked all the excitement out of me.

'Is that the job? Stand-in?'

'Yes, of course.'

'You're a sucker to take it,' I said.

'Are you nuts? I'll get a regular salary, every week.'

'That's just it,' I said. 'What chance do you think you'll have in pictures taking a job as stand-in? They never get anywhere.'

'Her last one did. I just told you she landed a contract.'

'One in a thousand. One in twenty thousand.'

Mona looked at me, frowning.

'That's a peculiar attitude for you to take.'

'I've been here long enough to know a few things and that's one of them,' I said. 'You take that job and you can kiss your career good-bye.'

She got up and stood staring at me. All the excitement was gone out of her now.

'You overlook one thing, Mr. Carston,' she said in a flat voice. 'We've got to eat.'

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