Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy

said Grace.
    Oh, there had been a lot of taking her aside and explaining how important a director was, and how his views were sacred, and how Grace knew nothing about drama. She was adamant.
    “He’s not a foolish character, he’s a strong character,” she repeated. “There would be no point in the story if he was a buffoon.”
    “But,” said the director, “that’s why I cast Norman. He’s acharacter actor. If we wanted a straight hero, we’d have got someone totally different. Not his shape, if you see what I mean.”
    “Everybody has to be some shape,” said Grace unanswerably, and to everyone’s amazement she had won.
    She also became Norman’s best friend.
    “Leave where you are, lad,” she advised him. “Get a new agent, live somewhere different. You’re only twenty-eight years of age. Don’t wait until you’re seventy before you understand how to win in this old life.”
    Norman had been sure she was going to be a well-meaning person who was going to put him on a diet and set him jogging. He was doubtful. He didn’t listen to her easily. Gradually, like a dripping tap, her words sank in. “Stop apologizing, stop joking, forget being the clown who laughs on the outside and cries under the makeup. Like yourself, lad, like yourself—others will take you at exactly the same value as you put on yourself.”
    Norman hadn’t agreed. He hated people who thought too well of themselves. He always wanted to put down the kind of toffee-nosed person who thought they were God’s gift to the human race. Drip, drip of the tap—he believed Grace, and everything she told him seemed to work.
    “You’re different, lad, you’re not like stuck-up people. You’re a fine boy—just let people know you are a fine, decent boy. Stop pretending to be some joke roly-poly without a brain in his head.”
    Week by week he’d worked at it. He gave himself tests. Sometimes he failed them; mainly he passed. Go to an audition. Never mention size, shape, weight
once
. Let the other guy tell you that you can’t have the part because you’re too fat. Go into restaurants, order what you want, no jokes to the waitress about the doctor saying you must build yourself up. Ask people to dance, don’t apologize, don’t explain. Seven months he had been doing it. It was really working.
    And tonight. Tonight. That was really a triumph, the moreyou thought of it, a beautiful society-type model, as thin as a whip, asking
him
to a fashion show in Park Lane. No, it wasn’t pity. It had been at the beginning, the first ten minutes after she saw him, but not anymore. And she hadn’t been a bad girl at all, that Joyce, very bright, really. He was half sorry he had made up that lie about Grace and the read-through of her play. It wasn’t Friday at all; it was Thursday. Still, it wasn’t an excuse made from fear or inadequacy—it was part of being like an ordinary fellow. It was the kind of thing a lean, handsome young actor might have done, play hard to get. But he hoped he would meet her again with Leonard and Sally; she had been very nice.
    And in the little bijou house, Joyce was walking around. She wasn’t tired; she couldn’t go to bed yet. She wished she had gone back to Leonard and Sally’s. He was a funny fellow, that Norman. There was some strength there in him that she didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand why she had begun the evening pitying him in some way. It was probably because he had been fat. She was very sorry he wasn’t coming on Friday. She would have liked to talk with him afterwards. He was very clear-sighted about things. She would like to know what he thought of posh charity do’s anyway—were they dishonest, were they a means to an end and therefore justified? She didn’t like him having his head together with this Grace person instead of being with the rest of them. Grace was probably a girlfriend of his, she thought, slightly annoyed.
    She picked up the television magazines to see what they