“Right,” I said.
“Although,” she said, stretching out the syllables, “I suppose you’re young, aren’t you? And there’s a boyfriend, isn’t there? A fiancé, no?”
“Yes, but—”
“No need to be prudish, Angel. Not for my benefit. Just the two of us girls here now.” She grinned. “Angel, you’re blushing! Well, isn’t that sweet?” That seductive tone had worked its way into her voice again. Was she flirting with me? I had no idea how to respond. I was sure that the burn on my cheeks was deepening to a nice shade of scarlet. “You must be an angel after all,” Lucy was saying. It sounded like a quote, but I had no idea from where. “All right, sit down,” she said abruptly. “Let’s get to it.”
I sat-fell into Lucy’s white couch and she left her desk to come sit beside me, turning so that her softly booted knees were just touching mine. I made a show of reassembling the manuscripts on my lap so that I could shift away.
“Not yet,” she said, watching me shuffle the papers. “We have another matter to go over first.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling my notepad closer.
“No,” she said. “No notes for this conversation. In fact, Angel, I’m going to have to ask you to keep this in strict confidence. This is a very sensitive issue and I wouldn’t be discussing it with you at all if I didn’t feel I could trust your judgment completely.” She grinned at me again, showing all her white teeth. They seemed shinier than usual.
“Of course,” I said. “I mean, of course I won’t say anything.”
“It’s about Anna,” she said, and stopped, waiting for my response.
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m wondering,” Lucy continued, leaning in closer, “if I should let her go.”
“Oh,” was the only response I could muster.
“The thing about Anna is that, although I believe her heart’s in the right place, she’s just not that sharp. Do you know what I mean, Angel?” Her tone implied that I should not only know what she meant, but that I should agree. I wasn’t happy about the position that put me in.
“Um,” I said, stretching for time.
“Don’t be coy, Angel. I know for a fact that you’ve noticed what she misses with the reading.”
“Well, I—”
“And, frankly, I’m not confident that she’s detail-oriented enough for her other work, either. Although that could be fixed. The reading is the lifeblood of this office, Angel, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. You can’t train someone to have an eye. And that’s what you have, Angel, it’s why I hired you despite your naïveté and obvious lack of experience.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you.” Had I just thanked her for insulting me or had I agreed with her about Anna? The conversation was fast getting away from me.
“Now, Angel, even though I rely on your judgment, you cannot be the only person in this office with an eye for what will sell. I need every member of my staff to be as sharp.”
“Right.”
“Craig has plenty of responsibility outside of the reading, so I can’t expect the same kind of volume from him. And Nora, well, that’s another topic altogether, isn’t it? I’ll have to address that later. But Anna is clearly falling down in this area. So, my question to you is: Do I let her go? Do you feel the quality of her reading is getting better or worse?”
“Oh, Lucy, I’m not sure I’d be the best person to help you decide…. I mean, I…” I trailed off and looked down at my hands, as if what I should say next might be written there. It occurred to me that Lucy might be fashioning another one of her tests, along the lines of the “Do you put the author or editor through to me first?” question from my interview. Perhaps this was her way of separating the girls from the women? Some sort of office Survivor, perhaps? If that were the case, it was a particularly distasteful test. Lucy was waiting for an answer and I opened my mouth to speak. What came out of it next was a complete surprise to me.
“I don’t think her reads are getting any better,” I said. “I was just thinking this morning how she seems to be rejecting most of her manuscripts without really reading them carefully.”
“Yes,” Lucy said, and leaned back into the couch, an unpleasant grin spreading across her face. “I thought as much. So your recommendation would be to let her go, then?”
“No, I didn’t—”
“You’re pretty confident, aren’t you, Angel? Only here a few weeks, and already you’re suggesting I fire one of your superiors.”
Up to that moment, I could safely say that I’d never felt my jaw drop. But it fell open then, independent of any will on my part, while the words that came to my mind—What are you talking about?—remained tangled and unspoken in the back of my throat.
“Oh, don’t look at me that way, Angel,” Lucy said, waving her hand.
“You’ve got the killer instinct. That is not a disadvantage in this business. However, you’ll have to put a leash on your ambition for a bit longer. I’d like to give Anna a chance to redeem herself. In fact, I’d like you to give her a chance. I want you to work with her, Angel. Let her know what she should be looking for and what she’s missing. I’ve invested quite a bit of time and money in that girl, and I’m not willing to throw it all away just yet. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, although I didn’t.
“Of course, I’ll have to let her know that she’s in a probationary period as far as the reading goes. We’ll have a staff meeting when everyone gets here—draft a memo about that, please—and then perhaps I can see you and Anna together in my office.” It wasn’t a question.
“What time would you like to have the staff meeting?” I asked. Lucy looked over at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“The usual time, of course, Angel.”
This meant that I’d have to make one up. We hadn’t really had an organized staff meeting since I’d started the job.
“Now,” she said briskly, “this brings me to my next point, and I have to say I’m somewhat disappointed in you, Angel.” She reached down and plucked a manuscript from a pile on the floor. I recognized it as Shelly Franklin’s novel, Elvis Will Dance at Your Wedding. So that’s what “Chase Elvis” meant, I thought, and was seized with a quick panic. I’d given Lucy the manuscript weeks ago, but in the heat of Damiano’s auction and everything else that had happened since I’d read it, I’d forgotten to ask her about it. I’d forgotten to anticipate, remind, and otherwise order Lucy’s thoughts—a failing she was sure to pounce on.
“This,” she said, waving Elvis in front of me, “is one of the very manuscripts you feel is better than Anna has given it credit for. Why, then, has it taken so long to get to me?”
“But—” I began, and stopped myself before I could say something stupid. I had given it to her right away, I just hadn’t remembered to remind her of that fact. I couldn’t figure out if I was guilty or innocent. “I did pass that on to you a while ago,” I finished weakly.
“But I’m only seeing it now!” she exclaimed. “How do you account for that?”
Several insubordinate responses flashed through my brain, but I opted for the safest path, which was just to say, “I’m sorry, Lucy, I thought you’d read it already.”
Lucy stared at me for a second, her gimlet eyes flashing, and then moved quickly to another thought. “Fine,” she said, “I’ll let it go this time, but really, Angel, you need to be more careful. I don’t have to tell you. Anyway, let’s just discuss this piece—and give me the short version, Angel, we’re running out of time here.”
“Um, well, it’s…uh…” I remembered the manuscript well, but it was a struggle to pull the words out of the thickness in my brain. For one flashing second, I was sure I was going to pass out.
“The short version, Angel.” Lucy leaned toward me so close that for the first time I could see that she had tiny lines around her mouth into which her brick-colored lipstick was bleeding. I was starting to feel that Lucy was about to eat me like a predator with its fallen pre
y and I forced myself out of my haze.
“Right, right. I think this one is really good. Elvis Will Dance at Your Wedding,” I said. Lucy wrinkled her nose. “I know, I thought the title was too long when I first saw it, but it really does conjure the perfect image of what she’s trying to get across here.”
“Which is? Fiction or non?”
So she still hadn’t read it, I thought.
“Fiction. Road-trip novel about a couple who drives to Las Vegas to marry. Good writing, very evocative. Voyage of discovery about themselves, their relationship. It’s literary, but not too. Still has mass-market appeal. It comments on the state of modern love—no, actually, it’s postmodern love and marriage in the new millennium. Wild at Heart meets Leaving Las Vegas. But more upbeat.” I’d come back to myself, finding all the right words, throwing them out in a rush and creating the kind of hot energy I loved. I could see that Lucy was warming to it as well. We were on a roll.
“Credits?” she asked.
“A few little lit mags. She’s got a master’s from California University, though.”
“Pretty Feet,” Lucy mused, referring to the last bestseller written by a California University MFA graduate. A quirky little novel about a young woman with enormous misshapen feet and her quest for love, Pretty Feet had been a solid fixture on the New York Times bestseller list for almost a year.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Intriguing,” Lucy said. “Has she contacted other agents?”
I bit the inside of my cheek and lied through my teeth. “No, we’re it. Would you like me to call her? To get the rest of it, I mean.”
Lucy gave an exasperated sigh. “You haven’t done that yet? Come on, Angel, you have to take some initiative. You don’t need my permission to call an author to request more material if you like something. That should just be a matter of course at this point, no?”
“No. I mean yes. Yes, of course.”
“And you really like it?” she asked.
“Very much.”
“As much as the Italian book?”
“Yes, but in a different way.”
“Good! What else do you have?”
“This,” I said, and thrust Blind Submission at her.
“Can you be more specific?” Lucy said, a cold edge of condescension creeping into her voice.
“Sorry. It’s a novel set in a literary agency. Anonymous author.” I smiled for effect. “Kind of fun.”
“Really?” Lucy asked, taking it from me. “And how long have I been waiting for this one?”
I was sweating again. “Just came in,” I said.
“Hmm,” Lucy mused. “And you like it?”
“I think it needs some work, but it’s got potential,” I said.
“And have you written notes to that effect?”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”
“Fine, I’ll read it right away,” she said. “Is that it? Are we finished?”
“Yes, that’s it,” I said, standing up. I felt as if I’d been sitting on that couch for days. Time got completely distorted in Lucy’s office. It really was similar to Narnia in its way.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked, pointing at Malcolm’s manuscript, still in my arms, which I’d just decided I shouldn’t show her. But there was no escaping it now. Lucy’s eyes missed nothing.
“It’s…” I filled my lungs with air. What the hell. “My fiancé is a writer? And a big fan of yours?” Now I was forming my sentences as questions, the first sign of the conversationally weak and lame. Lucy was not going to help me at all with this one, I could see. She looked bemused. “Anyway,” I went on, “he’s written this novel….”
“Have you read it?” Lucy asked me.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then why in God’s name should I waste my time reading it, Angel?”
“I’ve read his other work and I think it’s good. I thought it might be hard for me to be objective about the novel, though, if I read it before, you know, I gave it to you. But I totally understand if you’re too busy. I mean, he could have sent it in—he did, actually, send this to you once a long time ago, and you encouraged him to rewrite, but if he sent it now, I’d be the one seeing it first anyway probably and then—”
“Just give it to me,” she snapped, and so I did. “This is a big favor I’m doing for you, I hope you realize,” she said. “I hope he realizes.” She glanced at the title page. “Bridge of Lies, is it? Interesting. Why are these pages torn like this? Looks like the dog ate it.” She looked up at me, irritation creasing her features. “You’re still standing there, Angel.”
“Yes, okay, your calls. Thank you, Lucy.”
“Get me Nadia Fiori first, please. We still have to settle the schedule on the Italian book.” She was already at her desk, positioning her notepads and pens for their inevitable stacking and unstacking, as I left her office.
I DECIDED THAT THE “usual” time for a staff meeting should be at nine
A.M.—lunchtime in New York—and placed a copy of the memo on everyone’s desk. It would have been much simpler, of course, to just tell Anna, Craig, and Nora that there was a meeting, but Lucy insisted we have memos for every activity.
“What’s this about?” Anna asked me, holding up her copy of the memo. For a paranoid moment, I was sure she’d somehow heard my earlier discussion with Lucy. She looked uncharacteristically pale and worn out. She’d gained some weight in the last couple of weeks and it wasn’t sitting well on her. There was a gauze bandage on her left hand and wrist.
“I’m not sure,” I told her. “What happened to your hand?”
“Cut myself making chicken,” she said. “Spent all night in the emergency room.”
“Why didn’t you call in?” Nora said, materializing as if from nowhere. Nora’s long hair was pulled back, accentuating the sharp line of her jawbone. She’d lost the weight Anna had gained recently, and its absence looked even worse on her. The half-circles under her large eyes looked as if they’d been drawn in charcoal. I wondered if I looked as unhealthy as my coworkers. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
“Can’t call in,” Anna said. “It’s just a few stitches. Only twenty. I missed the vein, anyway.”
“Well, at least it wasn’t a paper cut from all the reading you’ve been doing,” Craig said as he made his way to Lucy’s office. “I’d hate to think you got a work injury at home.” Anna, Nora, and I gave him matching perplexed stares.
“It was a joke, ladies,” he said, his rich voice covering us like honey. “You know, ha-ha? Never mind, then. Join me for the staff meeting, won’t you?”
There was a fair bit of shuffling around before the four of us found comfortable places to sit in Lucy’s inner sanctum. Her office wasn’t particularly well designed for meetings since the couch provided most of the seating and actual chairs were in short supply. Craig took his position on the one large chair in the office, while Anna, Nora, and I settled into the couch, all of us trying to keep our arms and elbows as close to our bodies as possible so as to avoid touching our neighbor. Lucy was seated at her desk, surveying the scene, and when we’d finally assembled and were sitting still, she said, “This is lovely and you all look very cozy, but there’s one problem here.” Nobody ventured to ask her what that might be. “Who is going to answer the phones?” she said.
Anna sprung up like a jack-in-the-box. “I will, Lucy!” she gulped.
“Anna, what is that on your arm?”
“I had a little accident last night. It’s nothing, really, just a few stitches.”
“Did you bandage that yourself or did you see a doctor about it?” Lucy asked.
Anna gave Lucy a puppyish smile and said, “No, I went to the emergency room. Thanks, I’m fine, really.”
“Do you realize how much bacteria there is at a hospital?” Lucy said. “I hope you aren’t carrying in some kind of staph infection. These are close quarters, you know. You might have thought of that before coming in to work today.”
Anna sank back into the couch, her color rising to a bright red hue. Embarrassment was written all over her face, but I could see the hard, angry edge underneath it. I read her thoughts as one word: bitch.
“Nora, it will have to be you, then. No, don’t leave. Come and take my place over here. You can answer the phone at my desk.” Nora looked stricken. “And Craig, I’ll take your place and you can sit next to the patient over there on the couch. I can’t afford to take the chance.” Craig moved without a word, his face expressionless, and Nora, moving with all the speed of someone approaching the guillotine, seated herself at Lucy’s desk. The phone rang immediately, as if sensing her presence there.
“Lucy Fiamma Literary Agency, may I help you? Yes? Hi. Can you hold, please?” Nora pushed the hold button on Lucy’s phone and looked up. “Lucy? It’s Susie Parker for you?”
“Nora, we’re in the middle of a staff meeting here.”
“So shall I—”
“Yes, Nora, and do it now.” Lucy sighed heavily and muttered, “No sense, that girl.” She adjusted a notepad on her lap while Nora dispatched Susie Parker. “I don’t know why these staff meetings take so long to get going,” she said. “Really, it ought to be a simple thing. We’re going to have to learn to be more efficient here, people, if we’re going to keep the coffers full. I realize that we’ve made some impressive sales in the last few weeks, but we cannot stop, slow down, or look back. I shouldn’t have to spend time getting a meeting like this started. You all should be ready to go the minute you arrive. Angel, I’d like you to draft a plan for how we can improve the efficiency of these meetings. Please have it to me for review before the end of the day so that I can go over it.”
Staff meetings more efficient, I wrote.
“Now,” Lucy said, “our first order of business is the reading.” She took in a deep breath. “As you are all aware, the reading is key to the success of this business….” Despite myself, I began to glaze over. I’d heard Lucy say the same thing so many times, I’d reached a saturation point. My brain could hold no more. I was heading into a full-scale drift until the sound of my own name reeled me back in.
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