Val got to her feet and ever so quietly crossed the long room and sat down beside him, as if her nearness might heal the narcissistic wound. She brushed back an errant strand of his hair, a soft corrugation which refused to stay in place. “You’ll get something soon,” she crooned to him, and Abdul said, “Sure you will,” and Val glowered at me, commanding my support, just to make it unanimous.

“Give yourself a little time,” I found myself counseling. “You’re in a business with a difficult entry level.”

Derek’s eyes were fixed steadfastly on blankness. “I’ve been acting for six months,” he said.

Which should have given him ample time to regret it. Suddenly my counterfeit sympathy for him turned genuine, the poor lox, six months down the drain and nothing to look forward to but many an unsung season.

“He’s doing just fine,” Val cried stoutly. She patted his limp hand as though it were a dog. “He’s already been up for a lot of stuff. He’s had some parts.”

“Walk-ons,” he amended, enjoying our sympathy, for once on center stage. “But I’m going to make it,” he promised us passionately.

It was an adolescent promise, about as probable as a landing on Pluto, and all the more pathetic because it was lodged in the body of a man whose dedication to his craft was so much greater than his ability to master it. America, I thought, America is the only country in the world where people are allowed more than one adolescence.

“The only question is,” Derek was feeling better, “how am I going to hold out? Where’s the money coming from?”

“You’ve got a job,” Val reminded him.

“It interferes with my real work. It destroys my concentration.”

“Soon you’ll be going to Hollywood, you said.”

“How, without money?”

“What do you do?” I asked, caught up in the drama.

“He’s got this job,” Val said, “screwing light bulbs onto the marquee of a theater.”

Derek scowled. Evidently, twisting bulbs into sockets was not his métier. “It doesn’t pay anything,” he said. He looked at me hard, evaluating perhaps the depth of my compassion. I could guess what was coming: this mouse-brained mummer, this bulb-twister was about to hit me up for a contribution in the holy name of Art. I figured I’d better change the subject fast.

“How’s it feel to be up there?” I asked.

“What do you mean,” he asked, “up on a ladder?”

Val too stared at me, testing for guile.

“I mean as an actor. How do you control it?”

“You serious? You really want to know?”

I nodded somberly. “I think it’s fascinating.”