“Then don’t do anything!” Anna said cheerfully.
“Whatever,” Nora said, and tossed the page into her reject pile.
Anna shrugged and I headed back to my desk, where there were several more demanding tasks screaming for my attention.
WHEN I GOT HOME, there were two notes and the still-unopened pinot noir from the night before sitting next to my telephone. The first one, slid under the bottle, said, Drink me, I deserve it. The second was scrawled with my mother’s name, Hillary, and a phone number. I didn’t recognize the area code, but I picked up my phone and dialed it, anyway. It rang five times before my mother picked it up and breathed, “Greetings,” into the receiver. I could barely hear her. It sounded as if a hurricane were blowing across the line.
“Hillary!” I shouted. “Where are you?” One of the very first things my mother had taught me was to call her by her name and not by any modification of the word mother. I’d never even thought of her as Mom.
“Is that my Angel?” she sang into the phone. “Hello, darling.”
“Where are you?” I repeated.
“I’m in the most beautiful place, Angel. You really have to come here. You must come. It’s gorgeous. Trees and fresh air and—”
“But where?” I persisted.
“Near…it’s near Seattle, Angel. Is that so important?”
“Well, it certainly would be if you wanted me to come visit,” I said. “Everything okay? I haven’t heard from you for a while, Hillary, I was starting to worry.” This wasn’t nearly the first time I had taken the mother role on the phone with mine. Nor, I suspected, would it be the last.
“Darling, don’t you know by now that I will always be fine? Have a little faith, daughter. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Actually, I’m good. I just got a great job, Hillary. I’m working with Lucy Fiamma—she’s a literary agent. I’m sure I must have mentioned…. Do you remember Cold!?”
“What? No, it’s not at all cold here, Angel. Look, honey, I have to tell you something. I’ve found the most wonderful group of women. They are descended from actual Amazons, can you believe it? Anyway, we’re planning a ritual cleansing, sort of a female sweat-lodge type of thing, and I would really like you to join us, Angel. You need to get in touch with your inner Amazon.”
The only Amazon I was likely to get in touch with was the dot-com version, but there was no way of telling my mother this without sounding sarcastic and faithless. Sooner or later she always found the Wiccans, eco-feminists, or sculptors disappointing and moved on, but while she was in the throes of community ecstasy, there was nothing I or anyone else could say to dim her enthusiasm.
“Hillary, did you hear what I said about my new job?”
“What new job, sweetie?”
“I’m working for a literary agent,” I almost yelled into the phone.
“Terrific!” A rush of static filled the phone and her next words were partially drowned out. All I heard was, “…to take care of yourself.”
“What? I can’t hear you, Hillary.”
“Listen, honey, I have to go to a goddess meeting now. I’m running out as we speak. But I really want you to come up here, Angel. It’s important. I’ll call you later, okay? We can talk more then.”
“Hillary—” I began, but she was already gone. I tried to imagine what a goddess meeting might entail, but stopped myself when I started envisioning a grotesque ceremony involving menstrual blood. Well, she was okay. That was good at least.
I looked at the bottle of wine, fighting an urge to open it and drink it down. I wished Malcolm were beside me and took immediate comfort in the knowledge that he’d be showing up soon. The last two days had worn me down and talking to my mother had just polished me off. Malcolm, I thought, would make a perfect balm. I’d be ready for him when he arrived, I thought. But first there was Parco Lambro. I picked up the phone and dialed Damiano’s number, which, by now, I knew by heart.
WITH MY HELP, Damiano managed to finish his revisions by the end of the following day, and by the end of that week, all the editors on Lucy’s list had received a copy of the manuscript. Despite the fact that Damiano had not managed to come up with a single photograph of himself, a point Lucy bemoaned constantly (“We’re screwed if this author isn’t mediagenic, Angel!”), every one of them wanted to buy his book.
Natalie Weinstein, who I could actually hear yelling through Lucy’s telephone receiver, came in first, with an offer of one hundred thousand dollars, hoping vainly to preempt the others. Lucy then used Natalie Weinstein’s offer as the “floor” with which to start an auction. Natalie was representing Weinstein Books, her own small imprint at Gabriel Press, which was, in turn, part of the behemoth Triad Publishing Group. Parco Lambro, like all of the books she acquired, would be a direct reflection of her taste and style; her name would be embossed on the spine of the book along with the author’s. And she wanted this one badly.
I was amazed by how quickly the level of excitement escalated. Although the editors had enough time to do a surface read, how could each and every one of them have had the time to really feel the writing—enough to be so captured by it that they just had to have it? The answer, I believed, was Lucy herself. There was something about the way she spun that book, some mojo she managed to send through the phone that snared them completely.
“It’s all about buzz, Angel,” she told me. “You have to create it. You have to make it happen.”
This, I was learning, was Lucy’s particular genius, if it could be called that. There was something hypnotic or bewitching about the way she worked. I felt a little like the sorceress’s apprentice as I traipsed back and forth from her office, watching her cast the spell.
Lucy gave the ten editors less than a week to prepare for the auction (“Have to keep it fresh,” she said, “so that they stay ravenous”), during which time she debated endlessly whether or not to throw a few more into the mix. “I’m just wondering if Susie Parker might not just love this book,” she’d say. And, “You know, we haven’t yet tried Nadia Fiori. She is Italian.” Ultimately, she hooked three additional editors, with more frantic overnight deliveries, to make a baker’s dozen. I was sure that had she wanted to, Lucy could have involved half the editors in New York, along with many heads of houses. Gordon Hart was among those heads, and he called a few times during the course of that next week, never once actually speaking to Lucy on the phone, but managing to communicate with her through me.
“Are you still working there?” he asked every time I answered his call. “This has got to be a new record for her.” That was another thing about Gordon Hart: He never referred to her as Lucy; it was always she or her. His tone was always extremely dry and crisp. It was difficult to tell on the phone, of course, but although he was clearly authoritative, Gordon Hart sounded like a relatively young man. Because he never seemed to be available when I called HartHouse for Lucy, I ended up logging quite a bit of phone time with his various assistants, most often Jessie Hill, who had recently been promoted to associate editor. It was Jessie who told me that Gordon Hart sounded young because he was only in his forties; he was the grandson of HartHouse’s founder. It was also Jessie who told me that Gordon and Lucy went “way back,” but she didn’t explain in what way.
The day before the auction, Lucy circulated a memo through the office:
As you are all aware, we will be auctioning the Italian book tomorrow morning. Therefore, I would like to ask that you arrive to work a little earlier than usual—
Angel and Anna—6 am
Nora—7 am
Craig—8 am
It is very important that you remain sharp, so get plenty of sleep tonight! If all goes well, we will have cause to celebrate!!! and you may go home early, at about 4 or 5.—L.
It occurred to me that Lucy might be one of those people who didn’t need to sleep. I’d read about this syndrome somewhere. It went beyond garden-variety insomnia. There was a certain chemical in the brains of these individua
ls that kept them up and functioning on a fraction of the sleep that the average person needed, and when they did fall asleep, it was into the deepest sleep state. They had far fewer dreams than normal and never remembered the ones they did have. I made a mental note to research this further.
Anna, who had said not a word about the early-morning summons, beat me to the office the following morning. When I arrived, at six exactly, shivering, miserable, and clutching the strongest coffee I could find, she was already at her desk, computer fired up, a cherry-and-cheese Danish combination laid out on her desk. I stood still and stared at it for a moment, paralyzed with cold and exhaustion. Anna’s face flushed carmine.
“It’s for Lucy,” she said, pointing at the pastry. “In case she needs something to keep her going.”
“I don’t suppose there’s an extra one?” I asked, hoping I sounded sly and conspiratorial instead of tired and desperate.
Anna furrowed her sandy eyebrows into a misshapen V. “No,” she said, “but you can have this.” She thrust a fax at me and turned her attention back to her artful arrangement of Danish.
“What’s this?” I asked her, but I was already reading it.
Your next bestseller is on the way. I hope you are ready. I am your next star author.
“Isn’t this the same one who sent Nora that weird letter? When did this come in?” I asked, searching the fax for information and finding none.
“It was here when I got here,” Anna said.
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I mean, if the manuscript is that good, why don’t we have it already?”
But before Anna could answer me, Lucy’s voice, shouting “My office, please!” came flooding through our intercoms.
I came in behind Anna, who had shoved her way in ahead of me, which was a good thing because the sight that greeted me temporarily stole my breath.
Lucy was standing in the middle of her office, arms and hands raised in a steeple above her head, exhaling expansively. She was dressed, head to toe, in blinding white. Her ensemble started with a white cashmere turtleneck, included a long string of pearls, an ankle-length white wool skirt, and white suede spike-heeled boots, and finished with a white Pashmina, which she’d draped insouciantly over one shoulder. Her hair, already a whiter shade of pale, floated loose around her face and seemed, like the rest of her, to be electrified. The brilliant green of her eyes and the scarlet cut of her mouth provided the only color in the entire office. For a brief, overtired moment, I thought I’d entered Narnia and was face-to-face with the White Witch.
“Yoga!” she barked, releasing her arms. “You should try it.”
“I’m not as flexible as you are, Lucy,” Anna gargled, sounding as if a small animal had lodged itself in her throat.
“Flexibility is a state of mind,” Lucy said, and gave me a long, sweeping gaze. “What about you, Angel? Surely you could maneuver those long legs of yours into a few yoga postures?”
“Uh…yoga…” I managed, still entranced by the scene before me.
“All right, enough small talk!” Lucy snapped, moving toward her desk. “Are we ready?”
“All set for round one,” Anna answered. I could hear her trademark smugness edging into her tone. “Would you like me to be first on the calls?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucy said. “I’m going to need both of you on the phones and then Nora when she gets here.”
“Okay,” Anna said. “And I’ve brought a pastry for you, Lucy.” A weird, almost-smile appeared on Anna’s face.
“What makes you think it would be appropriate to eat during an auction, Anna?”
“Well, I wasn’t…I mean, you could…” Anna’s face looked like a puzzle on the verge of coming apart. I felt an unwanted stab of sympathy for her. A short, bright silence filled the room for an instant and then the phone rang.
“Got it!” Anna squealed, and ran from the room. Lucy gave me a Cheshire grin. “You may leave my office now, Angel,” she said. And then: “The Italian book. It begins.”
When I returned to my desk, there was an instant message from Anna waiting on my computer:
Feel free to take the Danish.
Thanks, I wrote back, I might. Although we both knew that I wouldn’t.
“Doesn’t she look great?” Anna asked out loud.
“Who?”
“Lucy! Her outfit. She always wears white to her auctions. She says it brings her luck. I think she looks smashing.”
“Right,” I said. “Smashing.”
“And just a tip,” Anna sniffed. “Don’t go into her office unless she calls you. Usually, she likes to be alone in there until the auction’s over. Also for good luck.”
“Okay, got it,” I said, and picked up a ringing line.
“Good morning, Lucy Fiamma Literary Agency!” I realized, after the words were already out of my mouth, that I sounded almost hysterical. There was a distinctive coughing on the other end of the phone. Peter Johnson again. His timing was impeccable.
“Good morning. Ms. Robinson?”
“Mr. Johnson?”
“Yes!” he splutter-coughed into the phone. “You recognize my voice!” I stopped myself from telling him that of course I did. He called every day and I had somehow been assigned, after dispatching him on my first day, to be his personal rejection slip. If I hadn’t answered his call, it would have been put through to me, anyway. Nora also slid his manuscripts over to me as soon as they arrived in the office, glad to rid herself of the task of sending them right back. Part of the problem with Peter Johnson was that he never failed to include a self-addressed stamped envelope with his submissions. He had to be answered. He also had to be rejected. His novels, or what we saw of them, ranged from bad to worse. They were tedious thrillers with rehashed plots and purple prose, and he seemed to have an endless supply of them for our review. The next one, he kept insisting, was the winner. But I didn’t have time to hear about another one; I had to get him off the phone.
“Mr. Johnson, I’m going to have to call you back if that’s okay. It’s very busy here this morning.”
“I just need a minute of your time, Ms. Robinson. I’ve got something here I think is—”
“Great, we’ll be happy to look at it when you send it in.”
“I don’t think you understand.” He was breathing very heavily and I hoped he wasn’t working himself into some kind of fit. “I have a book that Ms. Fiamma is definitely going to want.”
“That’s great, Mr. Johnson. We look forward to reading!”
“Let me tell you—”
“Thanks so much! Have a great day.”
The moment I hung up on Peter Johnson, every phone in the office seemed to explode with sound, and they just kept ringing. I didn’t even notice Nora slink in at seven, and at some point, Craig just seemed to materialize at his desk. As Anna had predicted, Lucy remained sequestered in her office, communicating with us via intercom or e-mails. She never sent instant messages and I began to think that either her computer hadn’t been set up for them or she simply didn’t know how. There was one tense five-minute period during the third round of bids when, with every line blinking, Lucy seemed to vanish from her office and none of us could get her on the line. Anna stated that Lucy was probably inside her house “centering herself.”
I placed several calls to Damiano as the day wore on and Lucy gave him updates on how high the bids were getting. I heard none of these conversations, of course, I merely placed the calls, but every time I got Damiano on the phone, he got more excited, awed, and, finally, disbelieving.
At about three o’clock, Lucy emerged from her office and stood, taller than usual it seemed to me, in the middle of ours.
“The deal is done,” she said. “That Italian pastry chef is now a very wealthy man.” Lucy had sold Damiano’s book plus a sequel (she’d decided against the idea of a trilogy) for half a million dollars. The sheer magnitude of what she’d accomplished gave me gooseflesh.
Lucy clapped her hands briefl
y and then put them on her hips. “Congratulations, everyone. Well done.” She looked over at me. “Let’s just hope he can deliver,” she said. “His new editor’s about twelve years old. And she’s no hand-holder.”
FOUR
Lucy Fiamma
Lucy Fiamma Literary Agency
Dear Ms. Fiamma,
It is here.
Although I am sure that you receive many such claims, I am writing to tell you that I am your next star author and am ready to take my place in your literary heaven. I do realize that this is a rather grandiose statement, but I have the goods to back it up.
Rather than wasting any more of your time with this letter, I am enclosing a few pages from my novel, BLIND SUBMISSION. I am convinced that once you read them, you will agree with me that this novel has the potential to be a huge bestseller. It’s a real winner.
Should you wish to see more (and I know you will), please contact me at [email protected]
Happy reading!
BLIND SUBMISSION
Chapter 1
Alice wrapped her scarf around her neck to stave off the chill of the late winter morning. The pale sun looked like cold butter in a hazy sky as she raced down Fifth Avenue to get to the office by nine o‘clock. Alice thought about stopping for a coffee to warm herself and decided that there wasn’t time. She had only been working for Carol Moore, New York’s most successful literary agent, for a few weeks and it was important that she stay in her boss’s good graces. It wouldn’t do to rock the boat at this stage of the game. Later, when Alice made herself indispensable, there would be time for maneuvering.
As she rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor, Alice thought about how easy it had been to land this job. Before she’d been hired, Alice’s only publishing experience had been serving lunch to editors in the Manhattan restaurants where she worked as a waitress. She had learned plenty by listening to their conversations as she leaned over them with plates and glasses, but none of that could be put on a résumé. So Alice had fabricated jobs on her application and had bluffed her way through her interview. Carol Moore was both tough and smart and Alice had been sure that her made-up jobs wouldn’t pass muster. However, if there was one thing Alice had learned in her twenty-seven years on earth, it was how to lie well. She kept her secrets closely guarded under the blonde halo of her hair. Her fake experience passed under the agent’s radar and she convinced Carol Moore to hire her. Of course, the part that was true, the part that had probably tipped Carol Moore over the edge, was that Alice was driven and ambitious and that she desperately wanted the job. What Carol Moore didn’t know was why and, if Alice had anything to do with it, she never would.
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