Thief of Words

by John Jaffe

  Geri laughed and broke into a cough. Annie was just about to say good-bye when Geri stopped coughing and said, “I hear it in her voice, Joan. She likes hirn. We’re looking at a second date here. At least.”

  “Geri, stop it,” Annie said. “You’re worse than she is. Does the whole building know?”

  Annie’s mother answered this time. “You could say that. Betty’s got a little pool going, she thinks this one might be a keeper.”

  “Betty? Betty Blackthorn, the process server? You told her? God, Mom. It was just lunch. Besides, what do you mean she thinks this one might be a keeper? How would she know? Wait, don’t tell me. I remember now. She’s that nutty woman who uses a Ouija board and spirit guides to find the people she’s serving, right? You told her? She’s probably going to post it on the psychic hotline. Mom, I can’t believe you told her.”

  “Annie, everyone cares about you here, you know that,” her mother said. “They all want to see you happy, as in happy with a good man who appreciates you. Not like the Cardboard Box you were married to. I always get asked, ‘What’s new with that beautiful daughter of yours?’ I had to tell them about your date. So tell me, is Betty right? Is he a keeper?”

  Annie rolled her eyes, shook her head, and took a deep breath—all the things she’d been doing since her mother went into Mother Turbo-Drive. Some days, days like this, Annie wished for the old Joan Hollerman Silver, the one who was either too busy talking on the phone with her girlfriends or too tired from work to notice the little redheaded girl wanting to play Scrabble or Barbie or anything with her mother.

  “Okay, Mom, Geri, you win. I give up. Christ, you two are worse than Laura. I’ll tell you. Not that there’s anything to tell. He’s very nice.”

  “Nice?” It was Geri. “Nice? Like he takes his mother to church on Sunday nice? Or nice like you couldn’t take your eyes off him nice?”

  “I don’t know,” Annie said. “He was nice. N-I-C-E. Nice. We talked. We laughed. Actually, we laughed a lot.”

  “He made you laugh?” Annie’s mother said. “I haven’t seen you laugh around a man since you-know-who. That gonef. He should never laugh again for what he did to you.”

  Oh God, here we go again, Annie thought. “Mom, that was a million years ago. We were both young and stupid. I probably would have done the same thing if the situations had been reversed.”

  Annie said those words every time her mother brought up Andrew Binder. She said them not only to make her mother stop talking about him, but also hoping one day she’d believe them.

  “There you go again making excuses for him. Ach, enough about him. So this one’s name is Jack. I don’t suppose he’s Jewish.”

  “Not exactly,” Annie said.

  “Could you please explain to me what ‘not exactly’ means? As far I’ve ever understood it, you either are or aren’t.”

  “Well,” Annie said, “he lived in Israel for six months.”

  “So he’s a goy. Okay. Okay. I gave up on having full Jewish grandchildren a long time ago. Is he smart at least? I want smart grandchildren.”

  “Mom, I’m ending this conversation now. Asking me about the date is one thing, asking me about breeding is something else.”

  “She likes him, Joan, I can tell,” Geri said. “When do we get to meet him?”

  “Geri,” Annie said, “I’m hanging up now. I have a stack of manuscripts taller than I am. Oh, wait. Before I go, I do have one small question to ask you two—about the Date, not that it was one, exactly. It was just lunch. I don’t know if I should e-mail him something, you know, something like ‘Thanks.’ He did pay for it, so I probably should. I don’t know. What do you guys think?”

  “Of course you should thank him,” Annie’s mother said. “Didn’t I raise you better than that?”

  “Raise me?”

  Annie laughed. Geri laughed. And so did Annie’s mother. Long ago, they’d come to terms with the missing mother years of Joan Hollerman Silver. It had taken a soul-rattling disaster to make it happen. But it had. When Annie’s life fell apart, it was her mother who stepped in, gathered the broken pieces, and forced Annie to put herself together again.

  “And here’s what I think, if anyone’s asking,” Geri said. “Send him an e-mail while your mother and I go to Dillard’s.”

  “Dillard’s?” Annie said. “What does Dillard’s have to do with anything, Geri?”

  “Dillard’s has the best dresses in Greensboro. I’m not showing up at your wedding in anything in my closet. And neither is your mother.”

  “Okay, ladies, it’s time for me to say good-bye. Good-bye.” Annie’s mother wedged one last thing into the conversation. “E-mail him, Annie. It’s only common courtesy. If I had raised you right, that’s what you would do. Geri and I are going to the video store to rent a movie, talk to you tomorrow…”

  Annie hung up the phone, walked to the computer, and typed out a short message. Before she had a chance to second-guess herself, she hit the send button to jdepaul@aol.com.

  That’s when the phone rang.

  “I’m calling from the car. Did you send it?”

  Annie smiled. “Yes, Mom, I did. You must’ve done something right with me. Now good-bye. Go to the video store. What’re you going to rent, anyway?”

  “Mother of the Bride.”

  “Funny, Ma, but get it right. It’s Father of the Bride.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Annie turned off the phone, to keep her mother at bay, and climbed into bed. Automatically she reached for a book from one of the stacks on the nightstand. One down, 4,998 to go. So many books. It made Annie think of Nandini Skyler, the literal-minded psychic.

  For her last birthday, Laura had taken her to see Skyler, who, according to the neat hand-inked sign on the door of her Takoma Park apartment, specialized in readings and “lifescapes.” It was the wackiest present Laura could think of, and Laura told Annie she needed wackiness “like orchids need rain.”

  “Work on your metaphors,” is what Annie had told Laura as she hugged her and thanked her for the present.

  They’d laughed, but Laura regarded her gift as more rescue mission than birthday present. The fearless, wow-great-hair girl she’d first met twenty years ago in Charlotte was making fewer and fewer appearances, like an aging diva on her farewell tour. In place of the original Annie—the one she used to call “the rainbow coalition” for her colorful clothes; the one who’d ridden a circus elephant down the busiest highway in Charlotte; the one who’d gone on drug buys with gang kids for the prize-winning series “Charlotte’s Lost Generation”—was a guarded woman of careful tastes.

  Annie seemed to be crushed down by her past. And her marriage. Trip was worth four or five tons at least. Laura told Annie she was compacting under the weight, that she had “osteoporosis of the soul.”

  “Better metaphor,” Annie had said.

  When Annie mentioned she’d bought a pair of Mephistos at the Comfort Shoe Store, Laura knew desperate measures were called for.

  “You need to get some life back in your life,” she said, handing Annie Nandini’s calligraphed gift certificate. “You need a reason to reach back into your closet and pull out your Joan Crawford fuck-me pumps. Maybe Nandini can tell you where to look.”

  Laura then assumed her don’t-cross-me stance, expecting Annie to say, “Forget it, I’m not going to any psychic.” But to Laura’s—and Annie’s—surprise, she hugged her again and said, “How soon can we go?”

  Nandini turned out to be a pretty, coffee-colored woman of some island ethnicity who called herself an “intuitive.” She laid out tarot-like cards atop a faux Louis XIV desk with precise and graceful hand movements. She asked Annie general questions about what she liked—Laura, kibbitzing off to the side, answered half of them—then she made three pronouncements: “I see you surrounded by books, I see your life entwined with politics, and I see you making long journeys without leaving home.”

  Afterward, over dinner, Annie and Laura dissected their
psychic adventure. They agreed that the first prediction was uncanny; that the second was uncannily ridiculous (“Yeah,” said Annie, “every time the president leaves the White House, I get ‘entwined’ in all his traffic”); and that the third was baffling.

  “Long journeys without leaving home,” said Annie, mimicking Nandini’s movements with her wineglass. “Hand me the remote, Laura, it must be time for the Travel Channel.”

  Every so often, like tonight, when Annie looked at the piles of books flanking her bed, she thought of Nandini.

  “Surrounded by books.” Such a literal-minded intuitive. It reminded Annie of that time another life ago when she’d done a story for the Charlotte Commercial-Appeal about autistic kids. A boy was pouring a glass of orange juice from a cardboard container and the teacher told him to “step on it” so they could make the bus. Next thing the teacher knew, the boy had his foot on the juice box.

  “Surrounded by books,” that was for sure. Piles at work and piles by her bedside. Any more and she’d be buried alive by them. Score one for Nandini. But only one. “A life entwined with politics”? Not this life. The only reason she went anywhere near the Capitol was to shop the Southern Market for the freshest sea bass in town. As for stationary journeys, she’d made a number of trips, but all of them involved airports and cars and places far from her home.

  Annie opened the top book from the bedside pile. It was the latest Richie Philman tearjerker. She’d heard that Philman was thinking about switching agents and was considering Annie. If Annie had any hope of landing her—and her best-selling books— she’d need to know Philman’s work.

  To her surprise, Philman wasn’t the hack she’d expected. This woman could plot. But Annie couldn’t keep her mind on track. She tried to force herself not to think about the man in Baltimore. Ha. The more she didn’t think about Jack, the more she thought about him. It was like going into the Firehook and not ordering a sticky bun. And when was the last time that happened?

  So much for Philman’s book. Her mind veered back to Baltimore. And to their lunch. And to her e-mail. She hadn’t written him much; just a quick thank-you. Annie wondered if he’d read it yet. Then she rolled her eyes because she knew exactly where her mind would take her next: Wonder if he’s written back yet?

  “God, are you ever going to get on speaking terms with patience?” Annie grumbled as she walked over to her computer and hit the AOL icon.

  When she’d sent Jack the message two hours ago, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t check her mail until the next morning.

  Ha again.

  There were four new messages. None from Jack DePaul. Annie hadn’t believed for a minute that she’d live up to her pact, but she didn’t expect to feel this disappointed.

  She signed off and returned to the leaning tower of books, thinking of John Brady, her tenth-grade heartthrob, and the sky blue Princess phone in her room that had never rung, even after she’d passed him a note in French class, even after she had sat by the phone for hours humming, “Let it please be him.” Thirty years later, Annie thought, I’m still singing the same stupid song.

  Annie reached for the She-Devil’s new manuscript, She-Power. Some words of she-powerment might be helpful about now. Plus, she’d promised to read it by next week’s signing of Confessions of a She-Devil so she could give Eda Royal, the She-Devil, her comments.

  The first line of the introduction was, “Make a person-to-person phone call to the She-Devil inside you.” Annie searched the ceiling for strength from a higher power, then she started thumbing through the pages, registering phrases here and there: “The She-Devil lives in every woman.” “We have evolved far past the other sex.” “Men—the storm troopers of history.” “Be your own woman, and your own man.” “Never depend on a man to pay your bills.” “Never wait around for him to call.”

  The last sentence wasn’t actually in the book; it was drifting through Annie’s subconscious as she lay dozing, She-Power lying against her chest.

  That night Annie slept fitfully, with dreams of single-breasted Amazons galloping through Rock Creek Park. She woke with the She-Devil’s book on her bed and Jack DePaul on her mind.

  CHAPTER 14

  That morning, Annie made another deal with herself: brush your teeth, then check your e-mail. She slipped out of bed and into the bathroom and scrubbed until her gums tingled. She even flossed, thinking virtue might be rewarded.

  But her mailbox had just one visitor, Briquianna, the wettest woman in the galaxy. So much for virtue.

  Whether it was her fractured sleep or empty e-mail box, Annie headed to the office in a foul mood. Just to spite her, the sun beamed down brightly and the Starbucks guy gave her a vente latte when she’d only ordered a tall. By the time she dumped a satchelful of books on her desk she’d crossed-examined herself ruthlessly: What did you expect?/Why did you let yourself be vulnerable?/Why did you let him make you vulnerable?/Why are you such an idiot?/Why are you such an idiot?/Why are you such an idiot?/and WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STRANGLE LAURA?

  “Hey, Punkin.” Annie’s assistant, Fred Rassmussen, stuck his head in her office. “Don’t forget to call the Ghoul today, he’s already called twice.”

  As always, Fred radiated cheerfulness. It was his only mood, kind of like a car stuck in drive. Even before the first cup of coffee or after the fourth, even while opening the office in the morning or after a late-night dinner with an ungrateful writer.

  Annie tried to scowl at the friendly face in her doorway, but it was like trying to be an iceberg in Honduras.

  Fred was a former Lit professor from American University who had agreed to help out Annie temporarily when she first opened an office in D.C. That was twelve years ago. Since then, he had become her bulwark and, though he’d deny it, her surrogate father.

  He was a big, round-faced man who wore a little square mustache and bow ties. He loved three things most in life: Shakespeare; his wife, Lillian; and Annie. Two of them were dead. He was seventy-four now but his enthusiasm for things was undimmed; he wrapped his arms around every day as if it were a grandchild.

  “Well, Ghoul-boy is just going to have to wait,” said Annie. “I have other things to do.”

  Fred didn’t respond, but didn’t move either. “I bet he’s an ass-hole,” said Annie, placing a stack of books on the left side of her desk, then picking them up and putting them on the right. “And he’s practically illiterate. I don’t know why anybody reads his stuff—rats chewing through people’s faces…”

  Fred remained in the half-open doorway, regarding Annie with mild benevolence, like a shepherd tending to his flock.

  “The next time I suggest we even think about representing a thriller writer, just shoot me,” said Annie, putting the stack of books back on her left.

  Fred, still silent, folded his arms and settled comfortably against the doorjamb.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” said Annie as if she were finally confessing under torture. “I e-mailed that DePaul guy a thank-you after our date and he never wrote back, he never called.”

  “You told me it wasn’t a date,” said Fred. “It was only a lunch.” “Date, lunch, whatever. He didn’t write.”

  “Let me just make certain I’ve got it right. You went out to lunch with him yesterday, wrote to him last night, then he failed to write back, despite the fact that you waited by your computer all evening and fell asleep slumped across the keyboard?”

  “I wasn’t slumped across the keyboard.”

  “Well, don’t take it personally.”

  “Fred, everything is personal. You lived with Lillian for twenty-four years and you still don’t get that? Everything with women is personal.”

  “I’m sure he had a good time, Annie. I’m sure he thinks you’re wonderful. How could he not? I bet he got busy at work and then got home late. He’ll write. Just give him time. ‘How poor are they that have not patience.’ ”

  “I guess that makes me destitute, then,” Annie said. “Besides, give me a break: �
��Busy’? ‘Late’? ‘Time’? Aren’t those code words for ‘inconsiderate swine’?”

  “Annie, have you been reading the She-Devil again? You say nay to thriller writers, but I say nay-no-nyet-nein-never to anyone who calls herself a w-o-m-B-Y-N. As for men—that’s M-E-N— let’s just say we’re more methodical than women would like. We tend to finish our work—clear the decks—and then move on to matters of the heart. And Annie, don’t check your e-mail every fifteen minutes today. If he’s any kind of a mensch, he won’t just dash off something at work. He’ll craft an elegant response tonight.”

  “Elegant response,” Annie harrumphed. “You wouldn’t have waited, would you, Fred?”

  “No. But I’m old-fashioned. I don’t like e-mail. I would have called.”

  Fred gave her a little salute and left. Before his cheerfulness even had time to dissipate, Annie was checking her e-mail. There was nothing but business messages and low airfare deals.

  Annie had two choices. She could obsess or she could work. “Men,” she muttered. “ ‘Clear the decks’? You’re not the only ones who can clear the decks. I’ve got plenty of decks to clear.”

  She jutted out her chin and turned her attention to her desk. There was the stack of books she’d been arranging and rearranging just minutes before. And the stack of phone messages. And the stack of queries. And the stack of proposals. And the stack of mail. Stacks and stacks of stuff to be cleared.

  Clear decks, that’s what Annie was going for. Of the desk and of the mind.

  She could have told Fred to handle the phones, but she knew who the first caller would be: Laura. And that was some deck-clearing she was looking forward to, reading Laura the I’m-finethe-way-I-am-my-life-doesn’t-need-fixing riot act.

  Of course Laura called. After so many years of friendship they didn’t even bother with the hi’s or how-are-you’s of normal telephone etiquette.

  “So I guess things didn’t exactly click yesterday, that’s why your phone was off the hook last night, right?” was how Laura started the conversation.