The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “We’re not talking about a damn cookbook, my friend,” Morton said from his great height.

  Gerald realized he’d made a tactical error. Sitting down while Morton stood meant that he had to crane his neck to see him. It also meant that Morton was looking directly down on his wig, the worst angle to view it from. And rather than calming Morton, Gerald’s position, both physical and corporate, seemed to further outrage him. “This boy is one sick cookie, this writer. Wanting to disembowel women and then—” Morton was making a sputtering noise. His face was very red.

  “David, it’s just a prolonged joke about shopping and the disposable culture. It works on two levels, and misogyny sells. Look at what Howard Stern’s book did. Thirty-four thousand copies in its first day at Barnes & Noble.”

  “That was based on Stern’s personality and cult. This is different. What if there’s some nut who uses this as a how-to? People will hold us responsible.”

  The man was impossible. And Gerald was not going to allow Morton, an illiterate, to dictate editorial decisions. “It’s fiction, David,” he said in a tired voice. “That’s what we put on the spine of the book. SchizoBoy: A Novel”

  The tall man flushed. “Don’t condescend to me, you New York hustler. I will not be a party to this. Davis & Dash will not publish Chad Weston.”

  Gerald felt the fiat as a slap in his face. Perhaps he needed to regroup. After all, he himself had been offended by the thing, but he’d be damned if…Perhaps another approach would work. “We are under a contractual obligation to—” Gerald began.

  “We have lawyers. Let him sue us.”

  “But we’ll never get the advance money back—”

  “To hell with the advance money.” Morton had raised his voice. “You don’t seem to be hearing me. This book is a hideous degradation of American women. I would not let this book be read by my wife, my mother, or my daughters. We are not, I repeat, not publishing this book.”

  Gerald stood up and tried to conceal the fact that his hands were shaking. He could feel the blood rush from his head, and knew he must have gone livid. “I…” He paused. What, exactly, was he going to say? “I resign”? “I won’t do it”? “I think you’re an ass”?

  But it really didn’t matter, because David Morton had already turned his back on Gerald and was moving out to the front of the booth. He stopped for a moment at the open doorway. Gerald wondered how many people had overheard this dressing-down and how long it would take for the news to ebb and flow throughout the book fair. Gerald had seen Judy Quinn from PW earlier; the last thing he needed was coverage of this fiasco in the “Hot Deals” column. Humble pie did not go down easily. In fact, he felt as if he might choke.

  “Gerald, I am deeply disappointed in the lack of judgment you have displayed,” David Morton said. “I will have to hope that it does not occur again.”

  With that implicit threat, he walked away. Gerald was left alone. He tried to swallow but found it difficult because of the pain in his throat and because of the size of his pride, a sharp-edged thing that he choked on.

  “I’ve bought three books,” Pam told Gerald gleefully. She was wearing an ugly dress, which in Gerald’s opinion showed too much cleavage for a business party, but then Pam had never been known for quiet good taste. “I stole one from John Brockman, the nonfiction king. He wanted six figures, but I jewed him down.”

  Gerald winced at the slur. “It’s not going to replace SchizoBoy, but then, what will?”

  “Fuck that little bastard,” Pam said. “The book wasn’t going anywhere, anyway. We’ll live without it.”

  “We have no choice.”

  “Morton was a prick to get involved in a publishing decision,” Pam said.

  Gerald doubted her sincerity. “So, what to do?”

  She smiled. “I’m keeping busy. Elves aren’t going to leave a manuscript on my pillow tonight.”

  “If they do, we’d have to call it a nocturnal submission,” Gerald managed.

  She leered. David Young, the handsome, charming, and divorced managing director of HarperCollins U.K., was walking by. Pam raised her brows. “I’d like that on my pillow,” she said, and took off after him “Fun time.”

  Gerald was not having fun—not by any means. His sore throat had bloomed into what felt like an open wound, and the chewing out he’d received from David Morton was, by now, common knowledge. Still, Gerald was there at the Bertelsmann party with his head held high—though he was doing his best to avoid David Morton. Bob Gottlieb of The New Yorker drifted by and nodded. He was never to be confused with Robert Gottlieb, the William Morris superagent, though even reporters sometimes did. Gerald decided to avoid him and moved across the room. He spotted Jack McKeown, elegant as ever, in a heated discussion (was there any other kind?) with Judith Regan. Probably plotting another megahit. Screw them. He nodded to Phyllis Grann, the chairman of Putnam, despite his envy. Last year she’d made Entertainment Weekly’s Power 101. Gerald had, for the first time, dropped off the magazine’s list, while David Morton had moved up two notches. Phyllis had that pulled-together dress style that made her look like a woman newscaster. He passed Maureen Egen, the savvy and charming new publisher at Warner Books. Another woman a little too smart as far as he was concerned. If only he could do what she’d done with Scarlett. Ah, who should he talk to? Gerald didn’t know how long he could continue this crucifixion. He headed to the bar to get a drink and passed the detestable David Rosenthal, with what looked like a smirk on his face. He was talking to Cindy Adams, the only newspaper columnist who bothered to mention authors when she talked about movies based on their books.

  He considered going back to the hotel to avoid being sneered at. No. He wouldn’t show the white feather. After all, he was not a little schoolboy sent to Coventry. He would speak to someone. He noticed the agent Helen Breitweiser standing quietly near the window, observing the glittering display with a look of amused detachment on her pale, delicate face. He inhaled deeply, shot his cuffs, and approached her. “What’s the matter, Gerald? A little too much starch?” Helen asked quietly. He spun on his heel and walked away.

  He needed someone unimportant. Ah…there was Paul Mahon, a literary lawyer-agent, talking to some dowdy brunette. Gerald forced himself to address the young man. “Hello, Paul,” he smiled, though the grin hurt his face and the words hurt his throat.

  “Hey, Gerald,” Mahon said brightly. “Heard you got plowed on this Chad Weston thing. Are you going to have to eat all the advance money?”

  Clearly, Gerald had picked a fool to speak to. He shrugged. “It’s not much,” he said, as cavalierly as he could.

  Mahon raised his brows. “Six figures…not much? Let me introduce you to my client, Justine Rendal. She writes children’s books, but I’m sure for six figures she’d be willing to write anything you want.”

  “Not anything,” the brunette corrected. “I wouldn’t write a Chad Weston slice-and-dice.”

  Gerald grimaced. “It’s a slice-and-dice commentary. An hommage,” he said with a tired sigh and a perfect Parisian accent.

  “Too much hommage and not enough critique for my taste,” she returned. As if her taste mattered. You’ll never ever be published by Davis & Dash, Gerald thought, making a mental note of her name and crossing it off at the same time.

  “So, it looks like Chad’s agent is already talking to Archibald Roget of Peterson. You paid through the nose for stealing Susann Baker Edmonds from him, but it looks as if he’s going to get Chad Weston cheap.”

  What fresh hell was this? Had that little worm already cut a new deal? “Roget is publishing SchizoBoy?” Gerald asked, his voice reduced to a croak.

  “That’s the word, hummingbird,” Mahon confirmed cheerfully. “Nothing’s been signed yet, but boilerplate is being churned. Archie said it was a First Amendment thing—that he despised censorship in all its forms.” Mahon giggled. “Guess that means you don’t, hey, Gerald?”

  Gerald very nearly groaned out loud. Oh, Christ! He
could see it all now: his father’s freezing blame, the attacks in the liberal press, and the stupid boy’s book—which was barely literate—turning into a political cause célèbre. The publicity alone would sell a hundred thousand copies of the wretched thing. Archie Roget was getting his revenge. It was unbearable. Gerald began to walk toward the door. “Hey, where are you going?” Mahon asked, but Gerald found that his voice had completely disappeared.

  “See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya!” Paul Mahon sang out as Gerald left the party.

  29

  Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

  Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,…

  —William Shakespeare

  Opal slowly got off her knees, dropping the wet rag into the bucket. In the wake of her daughter’s suicide, it seemed that she could only do two things: scrub and read. This morning it was scrubbing.

  It was odd to Opal that no matter how much cleaning she did, Terry’s little apartment never took on the glow of cleanliness that made a home attractive and welcoming. The dirt must be embedded in the walls, the floors, the very fabric of the old building. Opal didn’t know why she bothered, anyway. She wasn’t all that fastidious in Bloomington. She let the newspapers mount up and waited till she had a full load to run the dishwasher or washing machine. But here she kept scrubbing. Perhaps, on some deeper level, she wanted to make this grim place a better last home for Terry. Of course, that was hopeless. Still, Opal washed down the walls, polished the windows with glass wax and newspaper, scoured the stove with steel wool, and mopped the floors with both detergent and bleach. It had become a kind of moving meditation for her. Then, when she got tired, she lay on the daybed and read the extra copy of her daughter’s manuscript.

  Opal was convinced that the book was brilliant, but reading it often caused an actual pain in her chest. She put her hand to her breast. When had she had her last X ray? she wondered. She shook her head at her somaticizing. She was immensely sad and equally proud that Terry had achieved this vision, and she was absolutely committed to the book. It would be published. But she would have destroyed every word of the bulky, polished manuscript for just an hour, just ten minutes, with Terry.

  Opal heard the mail arrive and put down the pages to get up and fetch it. She had to remember to bring both the mailbox and the apartment key with her so she wouldn’t lock herself out. She’d made that mistake once, and it had cost her a favor from the super: a phone call, not to mention the hundred dollars cash she paid for a locksmith.

  She could ill afford the unnecessary outlay. Money was certainly an issue. She had written to the library, taking a leave of absence after her vacation and sick pay had run out. The chief librarian, a young man whom Opal did not particularly like, had written a kind letter. But he could only keep the job open for one semester. She’d expected more, but she’d have to live with that.

  Her final paycheck should have arrived by Monday, and it was already Thursday. Somehow Opal didn’t trust the mailman, the flimsy boxes, or the whole New York postal system, though she knew it was as much a part of the federal post office as her suburban mail route. She opened the battered brass box, but all that was inside was a ConEd bill, a bank statement, and a letter from her real estate agent back in Bloomington. Opal had inquired about renting out her house. She hated to let it with her things in it, but in a college town that was the easiest way.

  Opal walked back into the apartment, carefully locking the door behind her. She scanned the letter from the realtor; he assured her he could probably rent it to a couple of students for about six hundred a month. As if that was assuring at all! Opal shook her head. She hated to think of her china, her furniture—even her bed and sheets and linens—being abused by thoughtless kids. But she certainly could use the money.

  Despite the very modest way she was living, she was about to have no income at all and she had to pay the rent and eat. She had already drawn up a careful, tight budget, and she’d stuck to it. She’d only spent money on buses, a few basic groceries, and laundry. She didn’t eat out or go to the movies, but she did allow herself a weekly visit to the bookstore that Terry had worked in, though she’d only once bought a book, a guide to New York. Even with all her frugality, the totals at the bottom of her neat columns meant that each month she would be $744 poorer. After sixteen months, she would have no choice but to take early retirement or give up and go back. And have no job to go back to! Well, she didn’t have to think about that right now, she told herself firmly. No use borrowing future trouble. She had plenty right here in the present.

  Opal thought about the young editor at Davis & Dash. It was hard to believe that a woman so very young, and in an outfit like that, had power over books. Once again, Opal found herself worrying about it. Would she lose the manuscript? Perhaps she had been lying. Perhaps she was merely an assistant to an assistant—which was certainly what she looked like. Did a girl dressed like that read? Opal told herself not to get her hopes up. In five weeks of relentless assaults on more than two dozen publishers and agents, Opal had induced only this Emma Ashton to look at the manuscript. And she knew she couldn’t expect an immediate hit. Well, it was a start. She’d just be prepared for a rejection and keep trying. If she could talk that child in a motorcycle jacket into it, she could talk other people into reading The Duplicity of Men as well.

  Opal was about to pick up the manuscript again when the buzzer sounded. It startled her: Nobody ever rang except Aiello, the super, and that was only when she left several notes to him about the faulty washer in the bathroom sink, or the whining noise the refrigerator had been making. But she hadn’t left Aiello a note this week. Opal went to the door but was citywise enough to first look out the peephole. It was Roberta, the woman from the bookstore. Opal had spoken briefly to her once at her shop. Surprised, Opal fumbled with the latch and pulled open the door. “Hello,” Roberta said, smiling and holding out a bunch of cheerful yellow tulips. “I saw these and thought of you. Don’t know why. Actually, you don’t seem the yellow type. Did I do the wrong thing?”

  Opal shook her head and took the flowers from Roberta. She didn’t think she had a vase. “Come in. Sit down,” she told Roberta, and took the flowers over to the sink. She had to settle for putting them in two mugs, one of which she put on the tiny dinette table and the other beside the daybed. “They’re beautiful,” Opal said. “Flowers always change a room, don’t they?”

  Roberta had perched herself on the daybed. Opal was disappointed to see she had not taken off her coat, but she had untied her beautiful scarf. She probably didn’t mean to stay but a minute. Well, it was thoughtful nonetheless. “Yes, we’re lucky in New York,” said Roberta. “The Korean markets have made flowers so available, and so reasonably priced. I think the Chinese say that one way to judge the quality of a civilization is by the wide availability of affordable flowers.”

  Opal nodded. “I’ve always thought the Chinese have been better judges of civilization than the West has been.” Then she remembered her manners. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I can only give you instant.”

  “Never drink the stuff,” Roberta said. “Now, tea, on the other hand…”

  Opal smiled. She filled the kettle and opened the cabinet over the sink. “I have Earl Grey or English Breakfast,” she told Roberta.

  “Earl Grey, please.”

  Opal took out two tea bags and put them into two cups. She’d used the mugs for the flowers, but she was embarrassed to see she had no matching saucers. She thought for a moment, with regret, of her Lennox china at home. Ah, well. It was odd to have anybody here with her. Her entertaining skills, never at the Pearl Mesta level to begin with, had atrophied. She brought over the tea and sat down in the straight-backed chair opposite Roberta. Roberta leaned forward. “May I asked you a question?” Roberta said, her voice low and confidential. Opal nodded, bracing herself.

  “What are you doing here? I know it’s not my place to say, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else to say it to you.�
�� Roberta’s plain, serious face grew even more so. “I’ve seen you on Broadway, shopping at the market. And at the bookstore. But it worries me. There’s nothing here for you, Opal.”

  “Yes, there is,” Opal said. And in a rush she told Roberta about recovering the manuscript in the mail, about her campaign, her memorial to her daughter.

  “You found the manuscript?” Roberta asked more than once, her eyes shining with enthusiasm or tears. “You found it?”

  “Yes. And now I’ve even submitted it!” Opal told Roberta about every office she had tried, every call and visit she had made, culminating in her meeting with Emma Ashton. “Have you ever heard of her?” she asked.

  Roberta shook her head regretfully. “But what a surprise! My goodness. When I saw you come into the bookstore I thought you were probably paralyzed. You know, just frozen here. And now I find you’ve accomplished all this…” She finished her tea, stood up, and walked to the long window that overlooked waste ground at the rear of the apartment. Her back turned, she said, “Why don’t you come and work with me, Opal? I really can’t pay much, but I honestly need the help. It would be good for you, and it would be good for me. After all, you can’t spend twenty-four hours a day flogging the book.”

  Opal was glad Roberta’s back was to her. It wasn’t the money; it was the offer of friendship that touched her so deeply. “I’d like that very much,” Opal told her, in what she recognized as one of the more profound understatements of her life.

  Without turning, Roberta said, “Good. And I’d like very much to read the manuscript, if you’ll allow me to. And to help in any way I can.” She glanced back at Opal. “I know a few people in publishing, and a lot of booksellers, though I don’t know how much it will help. Would you allow me to?”