“I do,” I said promptly. “What do you want, Henry?”
“I want everything to be back the way it was before the flipping wishing well was opened,” he said vehemently. “It wasn’t my idea to go there, Lori. Sally wanted me to do it, so I did it, to please her. I thought it would be a bit of a giggle.”
“What wish did you make?” I asked.
“I asked the blinking thing for one more turn on stage,” he replied, “one more chance to have a laugh with the punters before I hung it up for good. I didn’t believe for one minute that anything would come of it, but then this bloke, this Arty Barnes, shows up at the tearoom with his chum Dabney Holdstrom. Arty listens to my patter, he likes what he hears, and before you know it, he offers me a one-nighter at the club in Bristol.”
“Your wish came true,” I said. “You must have been pleased.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Henry said. “But I wasn’t pleased. I was scared spitless.”
I looked at him in surprise. “What scared you?”
“If you’d ever been a comic, you wouldn’t have to ask,” said Henry. He hunched forward and stared at the tussocky grass around his feet. “I began to remember what it was like to get up in front of a roomful of strangers, half of them pie-eyed and the other half yapping nonstop. I remembered the silence that crashes down like a guillotine when a joke bombs. The tension, the flop sweat, the nausea, the nerves—it all came back to me as clear as day.”
He shuddered and his swarthy face turned pale. For a moment I thought he was going to be sick, but he smoothed his neat mustache, took a few breaths through his nose, and went on.
“It was too much for me,” he said. “I was going to turn down Arty’s offer, but then Sally and Peggy had their slanging match and Sally came up with her grand plan and all of a sudden, I not only couldn’t say no to the one-nighter, I had to say yes to years of one-nighters.” He glanced mournfully at me. “It’ll never happen, Lori.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“For one thing,” said Henry, “Arty Barnes isn’t a bona fide theatrical agent. He’s the club owner’s brother-in-law. He lines up acts for the club, but he doesn’t have contacts anywhere else. He’s strictly small potatoes.”
“Bang goes the movie contract,” I said, trying to lighten Henry’s mood.
Henry chuckled in spite of himself.
“You’re a wag, Lori,” he said, elbowing me gently in the ribs. “But I’d never have gotten a movie contract. I’m not a main-stage comedian. I’m not even a small-time comic anymore. I’m the chap in the tearoom who tells funny stories and I like being that chap. I wish I’d never wished for anything more.”
“Wishing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I said. “Have you told Sally that her grand plan won’t work?”
“Not yet,” he said. “It’s not easy to tell the woman you love that you’re not the leading man she thinks you are. Sally’s set her heart on seeing my name in lights.”
“What about the tearoom?” I asked.
“She’s put it behind her,” he said gloomily. “She says she won’t fight for it because she has to prove to Peggy that we can get along without it.”
“I haven’t seen Sally this morning,” I said. “Where is she?”
Henry pointed to the apartment above the tearoom.
“In her flat,” he said, “making a new waistcoat for me to wear on my big night.”
He sounded like a man contemplating the shroud he would wear during his funeral.
“You should be up there with her,” I said. “You should be telling her what you’ve told me. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for both of you.”
“What if she decides to go it alone?” Henry asked. “What if she doesn’t want to marry a broken-down old has-been?”
“You’ll never be a has-been to Sally,” I said bracingly. “You’re her leading man, Henry, and you always will be, no matter what happens. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and start being honest with—” I broke off as Henry stood.
“The tearoom’s on fire!” he cried.
I turned my head and saw a thin stream of smoke issuing from the tearoom’s front entrance. Before Henry or I could react, Sally burst through the side door that led to her upstairs apartment and ran into the tearoom, shrieking at the top of her lungs that Peggy Taxman wasn’t fit to make toast.
“What are you waiting for?” I demanded, giving Henry a shove. “Rescue her!”
“I’m coming, Sal!” Henry shouted and he lumbered off to save his lady love, looking every inch the leading man.
Twenty-three