Blind Submission

by Debra Ginsberg

  “It would be so cool to have another auction,” Anna said. “You’re so amazing with those, Lucy.”

  “Okay,” Lucy said. “Any other thoughts?”

  “It’s a very solid offer from Long, Greene,” Craig said. “And I think that if you limit the rights to North America, we could get some decent sales on the foreign side. Then there are the other subsidiary rights. It could do well as an audio book. Then, of course, there are the paperback rights. You could try to work some magic with royalty rates there.”

  How had Craig gotten this job in the first place? I wondered. He lacked anything resembling a spleen. His little speech was so dull and devoid of passion, he risked boring all of us into a collective coma. Perhaps sensing this, Lucy moved on.

  “What about you, Jason? Any thoughts?”

  Jackson, clearly unused to being called by a name that wasn’t his, hesitated for a moment before answering. I could almost hear Lucy’s irritation increase.

  “Well?” she barked.

  “Um…” Jackson looked over at me as if for support. “I kind of think Angel’s right. Maybe we should ask the author what she wants to do.”

  “Well, what do you know?” Lucy said, dismissing Jackson. “It’s after noon in New York. This meeting is over. Let’s get to work, people. Angel, you stay here. Get the author on the phone.”

  Lucy seated herself at her desk as everyone else beat a hasty retreat out of her office. “Use my phone,” she said. “And put her on speaker.” I punched the numbers and Shelly Franklin picked up after the first ring.

  “Hi, Shelly, it’s Angel Robinson.”

  “Hi?”

  “I’ve got Lucy on the phone for you.”

  “Okay?” On speakerphone, Shelley Franklin’s verbal tics were more annoying than usual. The woman was hopeless. There was no way she’d be able to turn Elvis into a book about poker. Lucy was in for a surprise and I was going to enjoy it wholeheartedly.

  “Hello, dear,” Lucy boomed. “We’ve been working extremely hard for your book. Angel and I have just returned from New York, where we blanketed the landscape with the fruits of your labor.” I winced inwardly at Lucy’s mixed metaphor. “What do you think of that?”

  “Oh?” Shelly giggled nervously. “That’s great?”

  “So listen, dear, I’ve got some very exciting news for you. Are you sitting down?”

  “Sitting down?”

  Lucy looked at me, gestured to the phone, and rolled her eyes. I shrugged. Lucy lifted her hands, palms up, and I nodded my agreement. Just like that, without either of us uttering a word, we’d been able to have an entire conversation.

  “We have a lot of interest in your little novel, my dear,” Lucy sang into the speaker, “but here’s the best part: I have received an offer from Julia Swann, an editor at Long, Greene. I’m assuming you’ve heard of them?”

  There was a long pause before Shelly came back with, “Long, Greene? Oh, yes, I’ve heard of them. They’re…that’s wonderful!”

  “But wait,” Lucy said. “The best part is the kind of money they’re offering. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars, my dear. That kind of money is almost unheard of in publishing these days. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Oh…” Shelly said. “Oh, oh, oh…” She sounded as if she were swooning.

  “Indeed,” Lucy said. “But now I want you to listen carefully, all right? We have two options. I can accept the Long, Greene offer right now or you can wait and we take our chances trying to sell it elsewhere. Of course, there are no guarantees that I could get the same kind of money from another publisher. Not to mention the fact that Long, Greene will undoubtedly do a wonderful job of publishing this novel. They are the kind of house that builds their authors. Do you understand what I’m saying? You’d have a future there.”

  “I want to take their offer,” Shelly said without hesitation, the shy, faltering tone completely absent from her voice.

  “You don’t have to rush into anything,” Lucy said. “Although I do have to tell you that I promised Julia Swann I would get back to her today, and well…We do have an excellent opportunity here. But would you like to consider the other option and give me a call back?”

  “No!” Shelly gasped. “Please call her and tell her that I want to take her offer.”

  “You’re sure?” Lucy asked. She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Yes!” Shelly said. “I’m sure. Oh, please call her before she changes her mind.”

  “I’m thrilled,” Lucy said. “Nothing would make me happier. Now listen, dear, there’s one thing.”

  “What? What is it?” Shelly now sounded frantic.

  “Julia Swann, who, by the way, is an excellent editor, would like you to play up the poker element in your novel. This is very important to her, dear. It’s sort of a deal-breaker. Do you think you’ll be able to do that?”

  “The…what? I’m sorry,” Shelly said, “I don’t think I heard you?” Here it was, I thought, and formed a smile of my own. I doubted Shelly Franklin had ever played the game of poker, let alone considered making it a part of her novel.

  “Poker,” Lucy said firmly. “The novel needs poker. Texas No Limit Hold ’Em, to be specific.” Another long pause on the other end. “Have I lost you?” Lucy said. “Are you already spending your money?” She barked out a laugh. “I do need to call her back, dear, so keep that in mind.”

  “Okay,” Shelly said. “It’s no problem. I can do that. I can write about poker.”

  I felt my heart sink with disappointment and mourned the untimely death of Shelly Franklin’s artistic integrity.

  “Wonderful,” Lucy said. “And really, I think that it’s a wonderful new direction to take the novel in. When I speak to Julia, I’ll be sure to let her know that you’re very excited about it. You’re going to love working with her, dear. She’s even come up with a fabulous new title. Hold on a second, I have it written down here somewhere.” Lucy leaned back in her chair, making no attempt to find anything, written or otherwise, on her desk. After a few seconds had passed she said, “White Aces and Promises. That’s it. As in ‘white lace and promises.’ That way you keep the wedding theme.”

  I heard something that sounded like a stifled groan or a grunt on the other end of the line. Lucy ignored it and went on. “Really, dear, the more I think about it, the more impressed I am with this offer. I hope you know how fortunate you are?”

  “Oh yes, yes. I am so very lucky.”

  “Indeed. Lady Luck has certainly been looking over your shoulder,” Lucy said, taking the poker metaphor to its nauseating end.

  “Yes, I know, but…” Shelly was faltering.

  “What is it, my dear?” I noted that Lucy’s my dear had the same emphasis as you bitch.

  “I don’t…I don’t know ANYTHING ABOUT POKER!”

  Lucy and I both cringed at the sound of Shelly’s outburst. What the hell had happened to her? Five seconds before she’d been willing to sell her firstborn for a book deal.

  “It’s not a difficult game,” Lucy said, disgust creeping into her voice.

  “Just turn on the damn TV and you’ll see some tournament on every other channel. Better yet, get a book on the subject.”

  “But I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to make it a book about poker. I don’t know what to dooooo….” Shelly Franklin had started weeping. I was embarrassed for her. Lucy was having a very different reaction.

  “You know, my dear, I worked very hard to put this deal together, and as with every deal I make, my reputation is on the line. I didn’t sweat my ass off in Manhattan so that you could sit around feeling miserable when a million talented authors are out there waiting for me to discover them. So am I to call Julia Swann and accept the offer or am I to tell her that the author has fallen apart and will not be able to write about a game that any eight-year-old can play?”

  “Ah, unhh, baa, haaa…” Shelly Franklin was falling apart and so was her deal. But I had an idea.


  “Shelly?” I said. “Can you hear me?”

  “A-A-Angel?”

  “Yes. Listen, Shelly, I’ve been thinking. You know how Michael is hiding his alcoholism from Jennifer and she’s hiding her pregnancy? Well, why can’t he—or she—also be addicted to gambling—poker, specifically—and then when they get to Las Vegas, of course it all comes out? Michael could leave her to go to a tournament. Or she could leave him and go play. Then he goes to the bar, gets drunk—again—and then they try to hash out their problems, but she’s winning and they both get caught up in it. Then you can make poker the central motif. You can have both characters thinking about it all the way to Las Vegas along with all the other things they’re keeping from each other. Because—here’s a thought—perhaps they both have a secret passion for this game. Can you see it, Shelly?”

  There was a crackling silence from the speakerphone. Lucy was staring at me, her eyebrows forming perfect arrows, her lips folded into a thin line.

  “I can do that,” Shelly said finally. “I can definitely do that.”

  “So I can call Julia Swann?” Lucy had taken it down several notches now that Shelly was back on the line.

  “Yes, I’m so happy,” Shelly said. “Please accept. I can do it. I can do what they want.”

  “They want to publish you!” Lucy exclaimed.

  “Of course, of course. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you so much for making this happen.”

  “Thank you, dear. But listen, you’d better let me go so that I can call Julia. Again, I’m just thrilled. Enjoy! I’ll have Angel call you when we wrap this up, yes? Bye, dear.” Lucy hung up before Shelly could say good-bye and immediately turned to me, her eyebrows still raised.

  “Well, that’s done.”

  “Yes. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” Lucy said. She waited a moment before delivering her next words, which sounded as if they’d been torn from her. “And kudos to you, Angel. Nice work at the end. You have, indeed, been paying attention.” That was clearly all the praise or acknowledgment I was going to receive, and it seemed to have cost her substantially to give it to me. I folded my arms and tried to keep my disgust from working its way onto my face. I’d finally understood why so many of Lucy’s authors never wrote second books—she hated writers. And she probably hated me because I didn’t.

  Lucy stood, brushing the folds out of her pants, looked over at me, and completely misread my thoughts. “I hope you weren’t expecting her to thank you,” she said, gesturing to the phone. “Not that one. Another one who doesn’t deserve what’s falling into her lap. To think I had to convince her. It’s a disgrace how many of these self-obsessed narcissists get published, get acclaim, while so many deserving writers never get heard.” She took a deep breath. “They’ll let you down if you allow them to. I knew you were an author advocate when I hired you, Angel. It helps. But you get much too involved. You can’t separate the writers from their writing. That’s your problem.” She shrugged and placed her hands flat on the surface of her desk. Her fingernails were painted with a pale opalescent polish. “It’s a great pity that one can’t excise the author from the book once it’s written,” she said. “But there you are.”

  Lucy seemed to drift for a moment, caught up in thoughts she chose not to share, before she bristled, her shell hardening once more.

  “Speaking of authors,” she said, “I need you to get Karanuk on the phone. You’ve read his pages, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’ve seen the shape they’re in?”

  “Yes, but Lucy, I think—”

  “But I know how we’re going to fix this.” Lucy paused, forming her hands into a steeple and placing them under her chin. “Karanuk is going to write Cold!Cooking.” She smiled broadly. “Prose recipes from Alaska. It’s a brilliant idea.”

  She looked at me for confirmation. I tried, and failed, to muster any kind of enthusiasm. It was a god-awful idea, worse than turning Elvis into a novel about poker. She could sell it, of course, but it would permanently damage Karanuk’s career. Lucy saw the disapproval in my face and said, “What? What is it, Angel?”

  “I know that Thaw doesn’t look good right now,” I said, “but I think I can work with him. It’s got so much potential, Lucy—he’s an amazingly talented writer.”

  “Fuck Thaw!” Lucy snapped. “Get him on the phone for me. He’ll write Cold!Cooking if I tell him to.”

  “Okay,” I said, and turned to leave her office.

  “Wait,” she said. “Get me Julia Swann first before she does change her mind.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And Angel?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve got a lot to do today, so you’d better get going.”

  FIFTEEN

  AS SOON AS I CONNECTED Julia Swann with Lucy, I felt myself breaking into a cold, crawling sweat. Chilled and overheated at the same time, I put my hands to my forehead and pressed. Bouncing between the extremes of lack of sleep, the absolute creepiness of Blind Submission, Shelly Franklin’s deal, and worry over the missing Damiano, I was on the verge of having a panic attack. Damiano would never intentionally stand Lucy up. It just wasn’t his way. Plus, such disrespect wouldn’t exactly be a good career move. He was already in New York and planning to meet with her when I saw him. What could have happened between then and the following evening? I glanced at Anna, snake in the grass that she was, and thought about her heroin addict comment. What if my throwing him out had driven Damiano to…but no, I was giving myself way too much credit there.

  So where was he?

  “Find him,” Lucy had said, and that was good enough for me. I tried his home phone number first. I let it ring ten times before I hung up. I’d discovered during our all-night editing sessions that Damiano had no answering machine or voice mail for his home phone. I tried his cell phone again, but it was still out of area. The last number I had for him was a work number, but even as I dialed it, I knew I wasn’t going to find him there.

  “Dolce and Pane.” At least someone had answered at this number. Someone who might have a clue as to where Damiano could be, even if the gruff male voice on the other end didn’t exactly sound like it belonged to a rich conversationalist.

  “Good morning. Is Damiano there?”

  “Damiano? No.”

  “Do you know if he’s coming in? Do you know when?”

  “Damiano? No.”

  “Damiano Vero, yes. He works there, right?”

  “Damiano? Yes, yes. Work here.”

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked.

  “Damiano? No. You try later,” the voice said, and the line went dead.

  I turned to my computer so that nobody in the office could see the tears stinging my tired eyes. Damiano, wherever he was, did not want to be found. At the very least, I thought, he didn’t want to be found by me. I was going to have to get control of myself. My blushing and stammering during the meeting had surely tipped my hand, but becoming a sobbing wreck at my desk would expose me entirely. As if on cue, my computer chirped with the sound of an instant message from Anna.

  Are you ok?

  I turned around in my chair to face her and saw that she had her fingers on her keyboard and her eyes fixed intently on her computer screen. I stared at her long enough for her to notice me, but she kept up with her ridiculous pretense of looking busy. Behind me, my computer chirped again.

  You seem a little upset.

  I debated whether or not to send a message back. Somehow Anna had managed to become entangled in every aspect of my life. I wondered when all of that had happened and how I’d missed it. Perhaps missed wasn’t the right word. Underestimated was more like it.

  We need to talk, I wrote back. I heard the electronic ping of an incoming e-mail and welcomed the distraction.

  To: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  From: solange@sunstar.com

  Subject: Re: BALSAMIC MOON

  Greetings, Angel!

  Thank you so much for
your note. I apologize for not writing back to you sooner, but my computer’s been on the blink for the last few days and I’ve just gotten it back up and running (this always happens to me when Mercury goes retrograde, so you’d think I’d be used to it by now)! At any rate, I’m so glad you got in touch with me. I believe our meeting was most fortuitous—and destined to happen. Of course, destiny and the stars are my business, so my belief in them both isn’t so surprising.

  I am “over the moon” (ha-ha) that you are so excited about my book and can’t wait to discuss the next step. I look forward to hearing from you again.

  Regards to you and Ms. Fiamma,

  Sunny

  P.S. If you’re interested, I would be delighted to send you a copy of your astrological birth chart. All I need is your date, place, and time of birth. Think about it—it might prove to be quite illuminating!

  SM

  I’d almost forgotten about Sunny’s book in all the madness of the last twenty-four hours. This was something else to add to the “tell Lucy” list, which was starting to become very long and complicated. I started to send Sunny a reply, something that would hold her off until I figured out a way to keep her from the fate of Shelly Franklin, but the sound of another incoming e-mail completely sidetracked me.

  To: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  From: ganovelist@heya.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Alice

  Dearest Angel Robinson,

  I fear I’ve offended you, but I can’t imagine why. It seemed that we were working so well together. I’ve just read your last e-mail (apologies about the delay) and I’ve taken it to mean that you don’t agree with the direction I was thinking of taking here, so after giving it much thought, I’ve decided to rewrite. I’m attaching the fruits of my labor. I’m sure you’ll give it your best consideration, Ms. Robinson. I can hardly believe that you wouldn’t want to know what becomes of our Alice.