"Laura Resnick - Fluff the Tragic Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

T-shirt two months earlier.
"It's not a troll that's living down there," she cried, moving with a
pro basketball player's agility to block my way again. "It's a dragon!"
"Mrs. Pearl," I said, trying to maintain an even tone, "I've been
pounding the pavement since first thing this morning. I've spent the day
waiting in humid, stuffy, un-airconditioned rehearsal halls, auditioning
before casting directors with faces so stony they could grace Mount Rushmore,
and wondering how I'll pay not only this month's rent, but last month's rent,
too. Now I'm drenched from this charming summer shower we've just had, and the
one thing I want out of life is to go upstairs to my apartment, take off my




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shoes, and die in peace on my own couch. And if you will either go in or come
out so that I can accomplish that feat, I will _give_ you a quarter to replace
the one you lost. What could be fairer than that?"
Mrs. Pearl's doughy face looked disapproving beneath her blue hair. "No
wonder you're always having financial trouble. You'll never hang onto your
money by giving it away."
"I'm not _always_ having financial trouble," I snapped. The hell with
maintaining an even tone. "Just lately." After a six month regional tour and
lots of heady anticipation about our New York opening, the show I was in -- a
musical based on _Clan of the Cave Bear_ -- had folded after only four weeks
on Broadway.
I, like everyone else in the cast, had anticipated that it would be a
big success and that I could count on a pleasant interlude of regular income.
Unfortunately, _Clan_ had instead proved to be the greatest Broadway debacle
since _Shogun_. Considering that the New York theater community had given the
previous year's Tony Award to a show with singing cows, I had thought they
would welcome singing Neanderthals with open arms, but such was not the case.
So there I was, still out of work more than three months later and
completely broke. Having expected to be steadily employed for a while, I had
finally invested in some furniture for my one-bedroom apartment, some clothes
for myself, and even a motorcycle for my Significant Other after his had died.
He used the new one to pick up another woman. The next time I spend my last
fifteen hundred dollars on a man, someone should throw me up against a wall
and beat me with a lead pipe.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Pearl," I apologized wanly, trying to forestall a
lecture on how to run my life. "I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just that
things haven't been going so well lately. Summer is a lousy time to be in the
city anyhow, but it's a _horrendous_ time to be looking for acting work. And
when I got cast in _Clan_, I really thought that my table-waiting days were
behind me at last."
"Yes, and I'm sure that losing Lloyd to a younger woman hasn't helped,"
said Mrs. Pearl, whose sympathy is something of a double-edged sword.
I sighed. "Thank you for those comforting words, Mrs. Pearl. Now can I
go upstairs?"
"But aren't you concerned about the dragon in the basement?"