Counterpart

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Mark Jenner delivered the play’s final line with as much force as he could muster, and the curtain dropped like a shroud, cutting off stage from audience. Jenner gasped for breath and fashioned a warm smile for his face to wear. The other six members of the cast left the wings and arranged themselves around him, and the curtain rose again for the calls. A trickle of applause crossed the footlights.

This is it, Jenner thought. We’re through.

He bowed graciously, peering beyond the glare of the foots to count the house. The theater was about three quarters full—but half the people out there were free-riders, pulled in by the management just to give the house a semblance of fullness. And how many of the others were discount-ticket purchasers? Probably, Jenner thought as the curtain dropped again, there were no more than fifty legitimate customers in the house. And so another play went down the drain. A savage voice within him barked mockingly, telling him that it was his fault, that he no longer had what it took to hold an audience, that he lacked the subtle magnetism needed to pull people out of their homes and into the theater.

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