"Was this Oscar's idea?" Arthur asked suddenly.
"What?"
"This. Your calling me, this little talk."
Inside the candy store, an old Chinese woman with her hair pulled back tightly into a knot, was handing a coin across the counter and smiling at the proprietor. Again, the feeling of strangeness came over Arthur; he had never seen a woman like this one before, her clothes had been stitched in Singapore, her hair had been greased with hummingbird fat by a hairdresser who traveled from province to province, he knew she had just consumed a rare exotic drink and was now paying for it in foreign coin. Probably an egg cream, he thought, and smiled, and saw that Kent thought the smile was directed at him and was offended by it.
"You needn't look so smugly superior," Kent said, "because this was definitely not Oscar's idea. This was my own idea. I've got to think of myself, too, Arthur, I can't continually think of everyone else involved in this project."
"I understand that."
"I've been offered certain other things and, I'm being frank, some of them look very attractive to me. I've got to give people a yes or no answer, Arthur, I'm sure you can understand that."
"Of course."
"And this has nothing to do with your play, believe me. I love your play, you know that. But I've got my own career to think of, you know how it is with these things. If you don't say yes or no, people think you're not interested and begin looking elsewhere. There are only so many jobs, Arthur, and I don't have to tell you how many directors."
"I see."
"So what do you plan to do?"
"I don't know."
"How well do you know Hester Miers?"
"Only casually," Arthur said.
"You mean she hasn't yet made a grab for your jewels?" Kent said, and laughed. "I'm surprised, really."
"What about her?" Arthur said.
"I'm told she's very good in bed," Kent went on, unmindful of Arthur's tone. "She gives magnificent head," he said, and laughed again.
Arthur stared at Kent for a moment, and then abruptly began walking away from him. Kent stood rooted to the sidewalk. The door behind him opened, and the Chinese woman came out, shuffling past Kent, who rolled his eyes heavenward in a gesture to despair that Arthur missed, and then quickened his pace to catch up with him.
"She's a very good actress, Arthur," he said solemnly.
"I know."
"And I think she could be right for Carol."
"Sure, if we make her twenty-three instead of nineteen, and change her to a social worker instead of a college girl, and make her father the head of General Motors, and…"
"Well, I think you're exaggerating…"
"… make her a whore besides."
"What?"
"Instead of a virgin."
"No one suggested she be made a whore."
"No, not exactly."
"Not in any respect, Arthur."
"Okay, not in any respect."
"I love the faces on these Chinese children, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"One affair was what they suggested, actually," Kent said.
"I know."
"Everybody's had at least one affair," Kent said, and shrugged.
"But not Carol."
"Art need not imitate life quite so closely, need it?" Kent asked.
"I see they told you she's based on my sister."
"Yes. There's nothing wrong with that."
"I should hope not."
"But at the same time…"
"At the same time, let's make all the changes."
"I'm being frank with you, Arthur."
"Sure you are. You want a job."
"Not any job, Arthur. I want this job. But I'll tell you frankly, if I thought this job was in danger of evaporating, I would most certainly take another one."
"If I win this case…"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Let's not talk about personal matters right now, Arthur."
"My play is a personal matter. To me."
"I'm sure it is. And to me, too. Which is why I hate to see it scuttled."
"There are other actresses."
Kent sighed. The sigh encompassed a lifetime of talking to writers and producers and actors, the sigh was one of sorrow and wisdom, sorrow because he had to give this same speech again to a writer intent on suicide, wisdom because he knew without doubt that what he was going to say was incontrovertible and stark and absolutely valid. The sigh was a tired one; Arthur heard something in it that compelled him to listen to Kent for perhaps the first time during their walk.
"Arthur, I know a little more about this business than you do," Kent said. "I've been in it for close to forty years now, as actor and director both, and I can tell you frankly that there's a time to stop thinking about a project, and a time to begin moving on it. At this moment, your play and the people involved in it are ready to move, the whole project has a feel to it, a sense of growing power, a certainty that all the planets are finally in conjunction and that we are about to move, Arthur, we are about to get moving. All you have to do is make those changes, agree to make those changes, and the thing will start humming and ticking, they'll spring Hester out of that actor's graveyard, she'll sign a contract, the backers will be fighting to get a piece of the action, and your play will be done. That's the feeling I get, that's what forty years of theater experience is telling me right now, It's telling me to move. Arthur, to get this thing on its feet and moving. Because if we don't, Arthur, if we allow Hester to get away, your play will not be produced by Selig and Stern. They've exhausted their people, Arthur, they cannot raise the money, they will let the option expire."
"There are other producers."
"Arthur, I've been in this business too long, really. Oh, yes, there are the success stories about the plays that have made the rounds of four hundred producers, and lo and behold the four-hundred-and-first snaps it up and it becomes a smash hit and runs for fourteen years and makes everyone involved a millionaire. I have heard all those stories, Arthur, because I've been around a long long time, I was born in the proverbial trunk. But I can tell you that if you don't move when everything is right for moving, things may never be right again, things may never come to that exact spot in time and space again."
"Maybe I'm willing to take that chance."
"You'd be smarter to compromise a little, Arthur."
"I've been compromising a little all my life," Arthur said.
"Then do it one more time. Make the changes. There'll be God knows how many revisions during rehearsal, anyway. The thing may get changed right back to what it was originally."
"Come on, Kent."
"All right, it won't, but will that be such a great loss? No one's trying to corrupt your play, Arthur. They're only trying to improve it."
"They're trying to change it, Kent."
"But only to improve it."
"No, only to change it. Only to make it theirs and not mine. Goddamn it, Kent, this is still my play."
"I've got news for you, Arthur. Without an actress, it isn't a play at all, yours or anybody's."
"No? Then what is it?"
"A manuscript."
"There are plenty of actresses around. We can always get—"
"No, Arthur."
They stopped on the sidewalk and silently turned to face each other. In the window behind Kent, a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary knelt beside a cradle bearing the infant Jesus. To the left of the manger, a large Chinese calendar hung, a slant-eyed girl in a bathing suit looking back over her left shoulder. To the right of the manager, alternating green and red cardboard letters spelled out the words MERRY XMAS, dangling from a string.