FORGOTTEN BOOK: TOFFEE TURNS THE TRICK

Toffee Turns the Trick by Charles F. Myers  (first published in Fantastic Adventures, February 1949; issued as a chapbook, date uncertain; included in Toffee:  The Complete Adventures, 2002)

Not a book, per se, although it has had a separate publication as a chapbook before being bundled up with the other nine adventures of the dream girl who became all too real in a 2002 omnibus.  "Toffee Turns the Trick" stands at about 20,000 words.  Marc Pillsworth was too busy with his advertising career to have much of a social life, but while he was sleeping he did have an active dream life.  And that dream life included the gorgeous Toffee, who fell heavily for the derring-do man of action that his dreams allowed him to be.  The more he dreamed, the more real she became, until one day he woke up and found her by his bedside.  His dreams somehow had made her real, and the Thorne Smith-ian misadventures of Marc and Toffee began, full of mildly risque hints and classic screwball antics and misunderstandings.  To add to the mayhem, Marc Pillsworth was happily marriage -- despite what his subconscious may say.

And what kind of dream girl was Toffee?   "...a slender gold-sandaled foot [...] was neatly attached to a really top-notch leg.  The leg swung gracefully into view and was instantly joined by various other notable appointments; another exquisite leg, for instance, a body if disquieting shapeliness and a pert young face.  As an almost needless bonus there were also two vivid green eyes, a full red mouth and a plethora of gleaming titian hair.  Together, these dazzling bits of merchandise added up to Toffee, blither mistress of the valley of Marc Pillsworth's subconscious mind."

An inventor named Culpepper has come up with a product called Fixage, medicinal pills that. while not promising immortality, will arrest physical deterioration, while perhaps adding twenty years or so to an individual's  lifespan, or so Culpepper claims.  Culpepper has not been able to get anyone interested in backing him, most likely because his claims are too wild, so he has come to Marc's agency with a proposition:  help him find financing and Culpepper will cut Marc in for twenty percent of the profits.  It's Marc's job to sell things to the public, not to manufacturers, so he brusquely shoed Culpepper the door.  but the inventor was not one to give up quietly -- he left a bottle of the Fixage pills with Marc...just in case.

The encounter with Culpepper left marc with a bad headache, and he was due for a tense meeting with a soft drink account.  Marc's secretary gave him a glass of water and some aspirin to help with the headache.  But there was no aspirin in the office, his secretary (not the brightest) had given him two pills of Fixage, and according to the instructions on the Fixage bottle, the dosage should be one pill every six months.

Then Marc blacked out, going deep into his subconscious where Toffee began to be concerned.  He woke up, bringing Toffee with him.  For the moment, all seemed to be okay.   then dizziness hit him and he closed his eyes.  Opening them, he saw Toffee was gone, replaced by an eight-year-old girl.  Toffee, for her part, saw Marc as a geeky young boy, with big ears and a face full of freckles.  Fixage not only arrested Marc physically, it somehow reversed his age.  Because Toffee was actually a part of Marc's subconscious, she, too, became much younger.  And the important meeting with the soft drink people was scheduled in just a few minutes.

Much more happens in the madcap Toffee way.  Rest assured all ends well, but a heck of a lot happens along the way.  Luckily for Marc, his wife was away, looking after an ailing relative; otherwise Toffee's presence would have compounded the trouble even more than it actually did.

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Charles F. Myers (1920-2006) after publishing fantasy stories under his own name, became best-selling suspense novelist and screenwriter Henry Farrell, author of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Awful About Allan.  He won an Edgar Award for co-writing the screenplay Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (based on one of his short stories).  Several of his novels were filmed, and he wrote the original screenplay for What's the Matter with Helen?  

Unlike his suspense stories, the Toffee tales are pure fun from a day long gone:

• I'll Dream of You (Fantastic Adventures, January 1947)
• You Can't Scare Me! (Fantastic Adventures, March 1947)
• Toffee Takes a Trip (Fantastic Adventures, July 1947)
• Toffee Haunts a Ghost (Fantastic Adventures, November 1947)
• The Spirit of Toffee (Fantastic Adventures, November 1948)
• Toffee Turns the Trick (Fantastic Adventures, February 1949)
• The Shades of Toffee (Fantastic Adventures, June 1950)
• The Vengeance of Toffee (Imagination, February 1951)
• No Time for Toffee! (Imagination, July, 1952)
• The Laughter of Toffee (Imagination, October 1954)