“How about knocking off, Janet, and coming out for some coffee?” She giggled and turned back to her flaming board.
Around the public booth downstairs, a cluster of irate people were soon glaring in upon him, but Thorn ignored them. Eight thousand by noon! He called Gregory, their parents, Jim Hathaway, and then Gloria, Georgia, and Gracia. Let the poor saps glare. Their book wasn’t a runaway the whole country would soon be discussing.
Before the week was out, the newspaper loyalties of the entire Johns family, as well as those of their friends and acquaintances, underwent a rapid metamorphosis.
At noon on Saturday, Thornton called Martin Heights and then Freeton, Long Island.
“Mom, get today’s Evening Post and look at page eight of the weekend magazine in. it.”
“Your father likes the Telegram.”
“Tell him to bring home a Post too. They have a best-seller list covering New York and The Good World is Number Two. After three days!”
“Why not Number One?” She sounded indignant.
Thorn was patient about explaining and went on to predict that, a week from tomorrow it would also show up in the national list in the Times.
“Why don’t they put it in tomorrow?” He was less patient this time, but he told her why.
“That always was a pokey old paper,” she stated. “The News wouldn’t wait a whole week.”
“For Heaven’s sakes, listen to me!” He hoped he had not been so dense, when Luther Digby had explained these mysteries half an hour before. “National best-seller lists only come out in the Times and the Tribune, and there’s always a time lag.”
“I never thought much of the Tribune either. Those big ones have no snap to them.”
Thorn restrained an impulse to slam up the receiver. “There has to be a time lag. They get figures each week from all the biggest bookstores and jobbers throughout the entire country. Then they have to collate them and arrange them in proper sequence. And remember, the book sections, where the lists appear, are printed a whole week before they’re sent out with the Sunday paper, just the way the magazine section is, and all the other sections that aren’t last-minute news.”
“But Gregory’s book is last-minute news.”
Thorn decided that filial obligation did not demand further anguish and turned to his other calls. Before the afternoon was out, there was a run on all the newsstands of Freeton. Posts were sold to such staunch Republicans as the Hestons, the Markhams, the Hiram Sprigginses, the Persalls, McGills, Antons, Smiths, Garsons, some of whom went so far as to reserve copies for Saturdays to come. In Metropolitan New York, no shortage developed; nevertheless, for very nearly the first time in their lives, Gloria and Harry Brinton bought two newspapers in the same afternoon, as did Georgia and Fred Mathews. Gracia missed it, but on the way home from the last show at Radio City Music Hall that night she insisted on buying all five Sunday newspapers. “Maybe it is in already,” she said firmly to her husband. “Thorn could be wrong.”
The following Saturday, Thornton Johns made his telephonic rounds once more, feeling himself akin to every five-star general who had ever dispatched communiqués to a waiting country. “It’s Number One for the city and Number Eight in tomorrow’s Times. And it’s going to jump straight up—eight, four, two, one—the real ones always go something like that.”
In actuality, it went eight, four, three, two, two, one.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT TOOK GREGORY JOHNS many days and nights to absorb the exhilarating shock of his book’s reception by the public. The country-wide reviews (most of them), the sales, the new printings, the best-seller lists, the deluge of mail, the smiles of his neighbors, his parents’ pride, Thorn’s bulletins, Hat’s delirium, Abby’s joy, his own inner turbulence and sense of miracle—all this combined into a force to stun him.
On publication day he lived from moment to moment, scarcely able to think, for the rapidity of impression and sensation; for perhaps a fortnight more, he welcomed endless talks with Abby, with Ed, with Thorn and each of his sisters and their families, with the Zatkes and his mother and father. One night Mr. and Mrs. Digby came out to pay a call; a strange and lively delight possessed him at the sight of them, and even Digby’s spate of reminiscence and rosy froth of prediction did not dispel it completely.
Little by little, the process of absorption did go on and though, even by early May, Gregory Johns could not yet go back to regular work on his new manuscript, he did quiet down enough to take up his old habits of observation and reflection. As he pondered certain bits of new behavior or speech or attitude on his own part, as well as on the part of his daughter, wife, brother, relatives, he found himself frequently remembering a phrase that had once amused him. He could not recall the precise circumstances of its genesis, and decided that these must have concerned Hat, or his parents, or perhaps his speculations last winter about whether Thorn really wanted to chuck his old life and start all over.
The collateral results, the phrase had run, the ramifications going on and on. Could Patrick King be called a ramification, Gregory asked himself? Could the small steady household wrangle over their vacation plans for August? The polite stubbornness that had developed over the merits of three weeks in Provincetown versus three weeks of touring in Canada was a phenomenon he never had encountered in the days when they couldn’t go anywhere. And there were other complications, not yet fully emerged from the cocoon which, instinct told him, would be terribly big butterflies before Abby or he knew it.
By an association of ideas whose classicism he would have appreciated if he had only been aware of it, Gregory Johns instantly thought of Jill Goodwyn. Thorn had not mentioned her since their return from California; indeed, though Thorn had continued to report every other hour on what he was doing, Thorn had recently become highly noncommunicative about what he was feeling.
Who, Gregory Johns thought, ever knew more than a fraction of what anybody else was feeling? You thought you knew, you secretly congratulated yourself on being more intuitive than less knowledgeable fellows, but the day came when life pitched you a fast curving one and left you fanning the air.
Thornton Johns was fully and gracefully prepared to take a back seat for quite a time, now that The Good World was the talk of the nation as well as the town. But he was caught short on South Pacific.
For it to go and open just thirteen days before the pyrotechnics of publication day, so that everywhere he went people were talking about that too, was, he could not help feeling, just too much. It was one thing to give over the center of the stage to your own brother, but to have the whole proscenium arch and footlights and aisles ripped out over something you had had no part in at all—the justice of this kept eluding him.
Not being a man to harbor grudges or carry on vendettas, Thorn forced himself to sound gracious about South Pacific whenever people mentioned it, but it took something out of him each time he did. And so it was that one morning in the middle of May he found himself unexpectedly listless as he sat at his desk, waiting to call Digby for a report on yesterday’s orders.
As he meditated, the fingers of his right hand, for the first time in months, began to beat out their old restless tattoo; the rapid arpeggio from the pinky, the two downbeats with the ring finger. Soon his mind supplied lyrics to go along with the muted tune of fingertips on wood: the little arpeggio was accompanied by a long sighing SOUTHPA; the two raps by a pianissimo and dwindling “cific.”
He glanced at his watch and the telephone: SOUTHPA cific, SOUTHPA cific. It was still too early to call Digby. Each time he waited to call, he was reminded of the superstitious fears he used to have before the Imperial Century contracts were finally signed. If Digby were to tell him one morning that orders for The Good World had suddenly stopped dead, the blow would be unbearable.
And yet, Thorn thought, and yet.
He gazed vacantly around him. He was busier than he had ever been, even in Hollywood. It was nearly all desk work, though, paper work, tax
work with Hathaway, trying for a digest sale, setting foreign publication in motion, planning a year ahead of time on cheap reprints to come. He was learning something every day and succeeding in everything he tried. There was no more solid satisfaction for any man, and yet—
Diana came in with a huge stack of mail and he welcomed the sight of it. She also unrolled a proof of a large newspaper advertisement. “Mr. Digby sent it down by boy,” she said,“B.S.B.’s running it June first in all New York papers. They’re scheduling a lot of out-of-town insertions too, and did you have any suggestions?”
Thorn smoothed the proof out on his desk. It was a distinguished-looking advertisement, despite the large coupon in the lower right-hand corner. The type face was conservative, the only illustration a life-size copy of The Good World, and a facsimile, signature reading “Lyman French, President.”
THE PROUD MOMENT COMES . . .
Book Clubs in America are sometimes attacked by thoughtless men. The ideal of making books available to millions—so runs the charge—is too often offset by the dissemination of ignoble work aimed at ignoble tastes.
Best Selling Books, Inc., has chosen to bear in silence its share of this sly attack. Knowing the dedicated, the uncompromising search made each month by its six renowned judges, and knowing that sooner or later the proud moment comes when a book so fine—
Thornton Johns tossed the proof at the brand-new basket marked “Clips” and turned eagerly to the letters. Before May first there must have been fifty lecture invitations to Gregory, even though major lecturing dropped sharply in the summer. Now requests for next fall were pouring in, as well as for sporadic dates during July and August with garden clubs and special functions of one kind or another. What a pity, what a waste! It had become peculiarly poignant to him to think of all those eager groups, not so much the political ones asking for a speech on world government, but the other groups, little literary clubs just like Hollywood’s “Friends of Books.” The first kind, the World Federalist Chapters all over the; country—:who could have guessed there were so many?—could take care of their own speeches, but the second kind appealed to everything in him. To them, it almost killed him when he wrote back in that stern unbending negative.
Thornton Johns leaned back in his chair. For a long time he sat without moving, his mind drifting back to “the terrible woman named Martin,” to the press table, to the kiss blown so thoughtlessly, so uncalculatingly, at Jill.
Unwittingly, his hand strayed to the batch of mail before him. If only he didn’t have to sound so cold and inhumane when he wrote; if a friendly tone, an understanding sympathy could go into the refusals.
“And so,” he could hear himself dictating to Diana, “though it does look as though my client and brother, Gregory Johns, will not change in attitude toward invitations to speak, there is always the possibility that at some later date he could be persuaded to. If you happen to be near my office, and feel in the mood to risk a waste of your time—”
Sooner or later it would be bound to happen. Sooner or later somebody named Martin or Jones or Smith would have her own emergency. Sooner or later she would come, in person, from White Plains, or East Orange, or Mamaroneck, to plead that he use his influence with his brother. If nothing but some good talk and an exchange of anecdotes resulted—
Suddenly a brightness was in the room, and, ignoring the buzzer before him, he shouted, “Diana.”
By late May, Hat had become an inveterate browser in bookstores. She would wander about, picking up first one, then another, current novel, occasionally even glancing through a copy of The Good World. Often Patrick King accompanied her.
Parental limitations were still in effect on evening dates during the school weeks but Hat often found Pat waiting for her when she came out of her last class. He was fascinated with her game; he said he loved to see the displays and the number of copies piled up; he remembered every store they had already been in and kept her from repeat visits. It was he who urged her, one warm afternoon, to try the large Doubleday store on Fifth Avenue, pointing out that they’d see more sales being made.
“Fifth printing,” Hat exclaimed a few minutes later, as she turned to the copyright page of The Good World. “I didn’t know they had run another.”
A clerk came up and spoke with bright, nonurgent politeness. “Did you want a copy? It’s our biggest—”
Patrick King laughed. “She has a copy,” he said. “Her father wrote it.”
The clerk said, “Oh.”
Hat said, “Now, Pat, you shouldn’t—”
“Well, Miss Johns! You ought to be very proud of your father.”
“I am,” Hat said, with a gracious inclination of her head.
“It’s coming out as a movie at Christmas,” Patrick King said. “Did you know that?”
“Yes indeed.” He turned back to Hat. “Do you suppose your father would come in and autograph a few copies for us, Miss Johns? So many of our special customers want an autographed copy if they’re going to buy any book.”
“I could ask Daddy,” Hat said helpfully.
The conversation was not carried on in hushed voices; Hat was aware that several real customers were hearing it, one sidling up to listen, another looking her up and down with respect. Hat thanked her stars she was wearing her new cashmere sweater from Saks, and when they were outside again, she squeezed Pat’s arm in delight. “Wasn’t that fun?”
“It just popped out, Hat, telling him who you were.”
“I realized it was an accident. I do wish Daddy would go in, and I’d go with him.” Her voice became aggrieved. “Everybody else has autographing parties at Brentano’s or even at the Ritz—I can’t see why my father has to go and say it’s being a salesman for your own wares. He’s so queer.”
“Your father,” Patrick King said, “is the most wonderful man I have ever met. It is a privilege to have him like me.”
Hat went on quickly. “It isn’t as if he thinks autographs are wrong or anything. Look at the ones he does at home for Gran’pa and Gran’ma’s friends, and all the aunts and uncles and the people in their offices or stores. The whole family keeps driving out with stacks.”
“I hope he didn’t think I had a nerve, taking out those eight copies. It does help, if you send something around to a casting director.”
Hat made vague sounds of reassurance, and he added, “I’m no name-dropper, but show business is crammed with gossips and somehow they all know I know Gregory Johns.”
“Can you imagine what it’ll be like, once the movie’s out?”
He stared at her as if a glory were unrolling before him. “It must be wonderful, having a famous father.”
“If Daddy would get normal, it would be.”
Well, Hat comforted herself, perhaps Daddy would see the light later on. He was peculiar about feature interviews in the papers too, except for one skinny column in each of the Sunday book sections. “But why?” she had asked him. “If they’re all right, why can’t you let all the others, and Life and Look and all?” He had laughed. “‘The author in pajamas,’” he had said, “that’s Life’s idea about what you do on a book. Or, ‘The author collapses after a hectic day at the Boston Book Fair.’ Or, ‘The author with his lovely wife and daughter.’” He had looked at her apologetically after the last one. “I’m sorry, Hat, but you see, Breit on the Times and Hutchens on the Trib are interested in books and writers, not in pajamas.”
Sometimes, Hat thought helplessly, parents are creeps. They won’t be in Life magazine, they won’t take you tonight clubs where you could see all the celebrities, they could be celebrities themselves and they throw it away. Why should her two cousins, Fred and Thorn Junior, be getting more fun out of everything these days than she was, and as for Uncle Thorn and Aunt Cindy, going out every night to the most glamorous places—
Pat noticed her doleful face and suggested a soda for her and a martini for him—a combination of orders possible only at Schrafft’s. She glanced up at him and her sp
irits rose. How handsome he was, how well dressed, how much a man of the world! Whatever Dad and Mother thought they were doing by being modern and letting her have him to the house all the time, hoping she’d get sick of him if they didn’t pull a Montague and Capulet on her, they weren’t either of them fooling her. Anybody like Patrick King was just beyond parents, that was all. But the girls at Vassar would know, the minute they laid eyes on him and wished he was theirs.
Hat looked happily about her. They were at Rockefeller Center; the clean sharp buildings, the flying flags, filled her with exhilaration, as the visit to Doubleday’s had done. “It’s just two blocks to Brentano’s,” Hat said. “What say we drop in there first and look around?”
Scarcely two blocks from Brentano’s, in a beauty parlor on Madison Avenue, Mrs. Luther Digby was having her gray hair dyed. “I’m shaky,” she told the hairdresser, “I really am. Look at my hand.” She held it out, palm down, fingers extended.
“Every lady is afraid the first time.”
“After all these years of saying I never would!”
“Every lady says it for years until—”
“It isn’t that I want to look younger,” she said. “I just got so tired of seeing myself in the mirror.”
“Of course,” he said soothingly. “All the ladies say it’s a lift, more than a new hat.” He thought, Why this talk always, not to look younger?
“You’re absolutely sure it will come out like the sample you did?”
“Just like the sample. Every lady worries; it always comes out the same as the sample.”
“And not red at all? Just ash blond? My husband—”
“Not even one little tinge of red. Your husband was right to suggest you should try it.”
“I can’t understand him. He was always against anything like that.”
“All the husbands are against. And then!”
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