"I"m sure thafs what it is," persisted Harry. He a.s.sumed his "serious" mien. "What about Vegas, babe?" he asked.
"Can he handle it? Even with you?"
Now You See It- 35
"I don"t know," she murmured. 1 could tell she was con- versing with him and dealing with her thoughts at the same time, a skill she"d carefully developed.
"Was Baltimore as bad as I heard?" he asked.
She was back now, in control; it hadn"t been a serious un- hinging. She looked at Harry with an expression of deep distress; it almost seemed real-was it? "You can"t imag- ine," she told him quietly.
Harry put his arms around her and she leaned her fore- head on his shoulder. He stroked her back and told her he was sorry. "It must have been a nightmare," he said.
Vlhat is this? I wondered.
"G.o.d," Ca.s.sandra sobbed, and d.a.m.ned if it didn"t sound perplexingly genuine. "To stand there on me stage with him, watching him drop things."
Oh, now wait a second, my mind protested.
"^Watching him miss verbal dues ... visual dues-obvi- ous ones," she went on. "Watching him bungle hand manipulations he could do in his sleep a few years ago.
Flounder through his performance. Flounder, Harry! Him!
The Great Delacorte! The most gifted-"
She began to cry harder.
K I hadn"t been already speechless, I would have been speechless.
Could this be true?
Max floundering? Bungling hand manipulations? Missing dues? My son, Maximilian, The Great Delacorte?
K had to be impossible. I didn"t think I could endure me pain of it being true.
Harry obviously felt helpless before her grief- (I felt helpless myself; it seemed so real.) All he could do was pat her dum- sily on me back and murmur, "Easy, babe, easy."
"It broke my heart to watch him," Ca.s.sandra said, able to
36 Richard Matbeson
speak once more. She drew in a lengthy, trembling breath/ then raised her head and shook it slowly. "Followed by three long months up here, watching him sink a little deeper into despair every day."
I felt myself swallow. Max had seemed very gloomy in the past few months. His attentions and words to me had been dispensed with enervated melancholy- I had equated it with his unhappy marriage.
But his career?
Now Ca.s.sandra clutched at Harry"s arms so tightly that it made him wince.
"You"re his best friend. Harry," she told him. (There she lost me.) "You"re his only friend." (Lost me double!) "M you can"t talk him into this..."
She sobbed/ began to cry again. If it was an act, it was of Tony, Oscar, and Emmy caliber.
"Easy, babe/" he said. "I think he"s changed his mind, mat"s why he asked me here today. Ifs gonna work."
She looked at him uneasily. "Did he say anything in par- ticular that makes you think that?" she asked.
"No, but why else would he ask me here?" he counter- questioned. "Like I said, if he wanted to say no, he could have done it on the telephone."
"I suppose." She still didn"t sound convinced.
"Has he been to a doctor?" Harry asked.
A doctor, for G.o.d"s sake? Now what were they talking about?
Ca.s.sandra"s sigh had been a heavy one. "He won"t go to a doctor," she said.
"You mink he"s afraid of what he might find out?" Harry asked her.
She shook her head- "I just don"t know."
Harry grimaced. "He"s not that old," he said. "What, fifty-one?"
Now You See H... 37
"Fifty-two," she answered.
"That"s not old."
"His father wasn"t that old either," said Ca.s.sandra.
That sent a chill right through me, let me tell you. Had Max also suffered a stroke, albeit a mini? Enough to dimin- ish his physical and mental capabilities?
The thought was shocking to me.
Ca.s.sandra had walked to the picture window and was gaz- ing out. "It"s going to rain," she murmured. She sighed again and looked toward the desk chair as though Max were sitting there. Another sigh. Moving to the chair, she pushed idly at its high back, making it revolve-
She men began to pace the room, her expression one of mounting anguish. (I hated the ambivalent emotions she was arousing in me.)
"I remember every detail of the night I first saw him," she said. "The Orpheum in London. G.o.d, he was magnificent!
The most majestic-looking man I ever saw on stage!" Of course, she"d never seen me. "The way he moved. The grace-the flow-me total, overpowering magnetism of him! It was awesome! The audience was his slave. And so was I,"
She was at the fireplace now, staring into its shadowy depths. She shook her head, a smile of bitter self-reproach on her Ups. "But I"m living in the past," she said. "All I see now is a crumbling edifice. A parody of what he was." (This was more in keeping with the Ca.s.sandra I knew; or, the Ca.s.sandra I thought I knew.)
Harry moved to her and put his arms around her once again. She leaned against him wearily.
"He"s going to let you do it, babe," he said.
"I don"t know that. Harry," she responded.
38 Richard Matheson
"Babe, he isn"t going to let the whole act die/" he said.