Lying in bed, wakeful, he had to think of it. He tried to think of it coldly and calmly, as though he weren’t thinking about Joe Carlin at all but about somebody else. They’d have to get a juvenile for the part. What man could play the part of a young high-school boy? A man’s voice, deepened and matured, would be a give-away; the mother-son illusion would be shattered. Certainly they couldn’t find a juvenile in this city. Amby had told him once that local radio was strangely shy of juveniles who were tops, and he had since found this to be true. Last season Sonny Baker had been here and Sonny had skimmed the cream. This season it was Joe Carlin. He’d have had the lead in Bush-League Larry had the show sold. He was playing opposite Stella Joyce in Sue Davis. Who else was there?
The answer was plain—nobody. Would they bring somebody down from New York? But what juvenile, with a chance to make the big time, would come here to play in a five-dollar-a-day show? And again the answer was—nobody.
Joe Carlin thought: “I’m in luck. They’ll have to wait for my voice to come back.”
Friday’s show was so painful he could not bear to hear it to the end.
“When do you see the doctor again?” his mother asked.
“To-morrow.”
He was at Dr. Zinn’s door before the door was open. He sat in a darkened room and a beam of light illuminated his throat.
“Better,” the doctor pronounced cheerfully. “Much better. Very much better.”
“My voice isn’t any better,” Joe whispered.
“Sometimes these attacks prove stubborn. Once the voice begins to regain its strength improvement is rapid. You must give it time.”