The River Of Time by David Brin

Author:David Brin [Brin, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781857234138
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 1997-08-07T18:59:48+00:00

4

The amber-white fluid enticed, and he sought salvation in the past …

Enola Gay

closed before summer. He hadn’t much liked the part, anyway. It made him nervous.

Claude Eatherly, the protagonist, was a hard mind to get into.

No matter. When Peter Tiersjens hired a fresh-faced kid for the road show, that suited Derek fine.

He was getting sick of Peter and his damned sanctimony anyway. At the last cast party the elderly director tried to give Derek some “fatherly advice.” Derek fumed in his cups.

“The Catskills? The fucking Catskills? Jesus, Peter! What kind of shit have you got for brains?

What would I do in the friggin’ Catskills over the whole summer? I went there as a kid and all I can remember is being bored enough to kill myself, while my mother and father listened to accordion music and the sound of their arteries hardening!”

Derek tossed back the last of his drink. He took a cube from the ice chest on his dressing table and dropped it into the glass. His hands shook a little as he poured two jiggers of gin after it, spilling some onto the marble tabletop.

The sounds of the cast party could be heard through a crack in the door. Old Peter Tiersjens sat back in a folding chair, his feet propped up on a box of costumes. He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Derek, I am thinking of you. What will you do now that the show has closed? Do you have any other offers? Do you have savings?”

Derek shrugged. “My agent says he’s looking over the off-season possibilities. But most of them are out in the sticks, so maybe I’ll just stay in the city this summer. Who knows? I may get a call from the Coast for another movie.” Derek sipped at his drink. Already the evening was shimmering in a fine inebriated gloss—like gauze over a camera lens. He would be grateful for the fog later, when he went out to select a bed partner from the groupies. The Vaseline vagueness would make the stalest teenybopper shine like Fay Wray. It was easy to forget Melissa when he was loaded.

“Derek …” There was a long pause as Tiersjens grew uncharacteristically reticent. Derek experienced the strangest sense of déjŕ vu, almost as if he knew the director’s very words before they were spoken.

“Derek, there will be no offers from Hollywood. Your name is mud out there, has been, ever since you walked out on

Tunnel in the Sky

. Who would hire you after that? To be honest, Derek, your taking the Catskills job wouldn’t be a great favor to me. It’s my way of trying, one last time, to help you.”

Derek sneered. “Like you

helped

me by hiring that snot-nosed Todd Chestner to play Eatherly on the road? Dumping me in the process?”

“Don’t blame that on Todd. The kid idolizes you, Derek. I did it for the good of the show. Todd’s been covering for you half of the time anyway. Anyone but me would have replaced you three months ago.

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