The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Well, what are your terms? I don’t need any editing, but I need someone to review the contract and handle the rest of the business.”

  Mr. Byron sat down in one of the burgundy leather chairs opposite her. “To tell you the truth, we have a bit of a problem. You see, normally I work on a fifteen percent commission. But as there won’t be another book from your daughter, or a career to build, in this case I would be putting in a huge amount of work for a very small financial reward.”

  Opal didn’t think 15 percent of the advance was a small reward, nor that Mr. Byron had to do all that much work. “Don’t you merely have to review the contract and oversee?” she asked. “Call your contacts? Could that take very long?”

  “Oh, it’s much more complicated than that. Though I don’t expect this book to have very many sales, there may indeed be some foreign rights sold—Scandinavians like this kind of thing, and there’s a considerable market there. Plus, I have some very good contacts in the U.K. I think I could manage a London sale, and maybe even a South African. All of the contacting of foreign publishers and the contracts entailed involves a lot of effort on my part.”

  Opal thought not of the money but of the chance to have Terry’s book translated into Swedish, Norwegian, and half a dozen other languages. She’d never thought of that. The idea thrilled her, but this man did not. She hated beating around the bush, and he was doing so much of it that the bushes were dead. He obviously had something in mind. Why didn’t he just come out and say it? “Well, Mr. Byron, why don’t you tell me what you suggest?”

  He smiled. “One obvious approach would be for me to take a higher commission. But I’m sure you can use all the money you can get right now.”

  Opal was offended by that. Did she look indigent? Why did he assume that? Opal was quite competent financially, and if she returned to Bloomington relatively soon, she could live comfortably for the rest of her life. But she felt it was irrelevant to point any of this out to the arrogant Mr. Byron. “So?” was all she said.

  “So I have another idea.” The man interlaced his fingers and placed his palms behind his head, his elbows winging out on either side. “I think there’s a better way to go,” he said. “I think your story would make an excellent movie. Not a feature perhaps, but a television movie-of-the-week. It has all the elements: your daughter’s tragic death, your brave struggle to get her recognition. We could even gloss it up a bit and have the thing become an enormous bestseller, vindicating your belief. It certainly could affect sales very positively.” He paused, but Opal was speechless. “I had a very preliminary discussion with a contact of mine at ABC. He’s bought two of Susann Baker Edmonds’s books and has done them as miniseries. We might be able to attach Tyne Daly. She would play your role, of course. Anyway, I think we could interest him, and we’re talking mid six figures.”

  Mr. Byron looked over at Opal, and he must have misinterpreted her expression. Opal realized that her mouth was probably hanging open. She snapped it shut. But before she had a chance to say anything, Byron continued. “I know. It’s a lot of money. Now, I would insist on twenty percent of this and executive-producer status for myself. But you could look at it as an unexpected windfall.”

  “I most certainly could not. Mr. Byron, you are either the most insensitive man I have ever run into—and that’s saying quite a lot—or you’re certifiable. Why would I want to exploit my daughter’s tragedy? It’s painful enough that it’s happened. I don’t need to relive it, share it, or make a financial killing on it. And I must say it was totally out of line for you to discuss this with anyone at a television network or anywhere else without my permission. I did not retain you, and it is clear that I am not going to.” Opal lifted her purse and stood up. She was out the door and down the hall to the elevator before she saw even the slightest humor in the ridiculousness of it. As she stepped onto the elevator, she imagined telling the whole story to Roberta. Tyne Daly indeed.

  “A made-for-TV movie?”

  “I told Roberta you wouldn’t believe it,” Opal said to Emma Ashton over the phone that afternoon. “But then, who would?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him what I thought of him and walked right out. I may not live in the country anymore, but I still know a weasel when I see one.” Opal thought perhaps she’d gone too far, but when she heard Emma’s laugh she felt relieved and vindicated.

  “Well, Alf Byron does have something of a spotty reputation,” Emma admitted. “More like a cheetah than a weasel, I think. I was sorry that Pam had even suggested him, and I’m glad that you’ve decided not to work with him.”

  “The only thing I regret,” Opal said, “is that he tempted me with foreign sales. I would like to see Terry’s work in other languages, but I don’t have a clue as to how to pursue that. Heavens, it was hard enough to get you to look at it in English!”

  “Well,” Emma said, “there are other agents.”

  “Oh, I just don’t think I’m the agent type,” Opal said. “There’s something unhealthy about the setup. I mean, why don’t they charge an honest fee for their time, the way other professionals do? Just because a book sells a million copies doesn’t mean they should make more. At least it doesn’t to me. But then, I’m from Indiana.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Opal thought of the nightmarish image of books stashed unread in the warehouse. But she pushed the thought from her mind. “I just want you to draw up the contract, Emma. I trust your house. Davis & Dash has a good reputation. I’ll have my lawyer back in Bloomington look it over.”

  “Oh, Mrs. O’Neal, I’m not sure that’s the best thing. Publishing contracts are very complicated documents, and even though a lot of it is boilerplate, it ought to be looked at by a professional. At the very least, go to an attorney who specializes in entertainment law.”

  “Entertainment? Are we talking about television movies again?”

  Emma laughed. “No, it’s just what the field calls itself.” She paused. “You know, Mrs. O’Neal, I do have a solution to the foreign-rights issue. You could call Alex Simmons. She’s a reputable agent, a friend of mine, and she could represent your foreign sales.”

  “Well, there’s an idea.”

  “Do you want her number?”

  “No. It isn’t necessary. You call her and send the contract over. If you trust her, I will, too.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be able to review the contract for you, too. And I doubt she’ll charge for it.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “It’s a deal,” Emma agreed. “Oh, one more thing: If you do ever consider a television movie, if I were you, I’d hold out for Olympia Dukakis.”

  For a moment, Opal thought the woman was serious. Then she realized the joke. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she told Emma.

  52

  No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.

  —H. G. Wells

  Pam threw the ghosted Peet Trawley manuscript across the long, narrow table and hissed at Stewart. “You call this a first draft? I told you I wanted it fast and good. You seem to have forgotten the second part of that directive.” She crossed the room to the half-opened casement window, coated with dust, pigeon droppings, and who knows what else. The place was nasty and depressing. It wasn’t dirty, exactly. It just had that air that apartments lived in by single loser men in their forties always acquired. Maybe it was the piles of old newspaper and the lingering odor of cheap take-out food. Pam shuddered.

  They had decided to meet at Stewart’s apartment in Stuyvesant Town, a sprawling ten-block mass of middle-income housing, and from Stewart’s dirty window all Pam could see were other boring brick buildings exactly like this one. It was unseasonably hot, and Pam was sweating, but the gritty breeze that blew in did no good. They shouldn’t have met here, but Pam didn’t want to be seen with Stewart while he was finishing this book—if he could finish it. “Don’t you have any fucking air conditioning in this pl
ace?” she asked. “I can’t work in this heat.”

  “The buildings were built back in the thirties,” Stewart told her calmly, as if she wanted an architectural history lesson. “They didn’t have air conditioning back then, so of course, they didn’t wire for it. Rents are cheap here, and you put up with it. Air conditioners aren’t legal, though some people cheat. Still, they get fined or even thrown out of the development if they’re caught.”

  “Christ! Air-conditioning condo commandos?” Pam grumbled. “Don’t people have better things to do than police their neighbors?” She looked back at Stewart. No, people like him probably didn’t. God, she’d have to lick him into shape fast. She sighed. “Look, I’ll make this easy for you. There’s only one thing wrong with this draft: It sucks. Now, let me break that down for you. It sucks because of three things: The characters are either dull or unbelievable, the plot is obvious, and the pacing is uneven.”

  The manuscript was bad, but Pam had to admit—at least to herself—that Stewart had at least managed to get the damn thing written. Which was more than what she had done. But she now realized she hadn’t done it precisely because she’d feared that her version would be almost as bad as Stewart’s was. Pam thought of handing this mess in to Gerald and shuddered. After looking down on his work all these years, he’d now be able to look down on hers or what he thought was hers. It made Pam feel a little sick to imagine Gerald’s sly smile and raised false brow.

  She looked across the room at her writer-for-hire. The difference between her and Stewart was that while she would be deeply shamed by writing crap as obvious and bad as this, he was stupid enough to defend it. Well, she supposed that was good, in a way. Peet’s books had been badly written, too, but they had energy and belief. She had to get Stewart to put more energy into this draft.

  Stewart looked up at her. The guy wasn’t even smart enough to stand and meet her on eye level. He was pussy-whipped before they even started! Pam sighed again. “But Peet’s characters were always unbelievable,” Stewart was saying. “Ice cream men who are actual demons, a nursery school staff that’s a coven of baby-eating witches. You know.”

  Pam narrowed her eyes. “Well, they might have been a trifle larger than life, but that’s a lot different from dull. People don’t have to read to be bored. They can be that all by themselves.” Pam wiped her upper lip. The sweat had collected along her spine and was making a damp patch on her lower back. Her crotch was wet, too.

  Stewart licked his lips. Despite the heat, Pam noticed he wasn’t sweating. There was something wrong with a man who didn’t sweat. She liked sex sweaty, wet, and slippery. But why was she thinking of that now? Stewart repulsed her. The little worm. And it was a good thing, too. They had too much work to do to get involved with that. Anyway, she had promised her shrink she wouldn’t sleep with anyone for six months. Her shrink had suggested that there was a compulsive element to her sexuality. She’d denied it and agreed to the celibacy, though she didn’t like it. It made her antsy. And why should she deny herself something she liked? For a moment she thought of Jude Daniel’s long, sinewy hand. Pam shrugged. None of that. It had been almost two months, and she could do another four easy, just to prove to her shrink she could do it. It was the heat that was making her horny, not Stewart, who was mounting another defense.

  “Look, I used your plot,” he said. “Remember?”

  Pam was away from the window and jammed into the chair next to Stewart in less than three seconds. She could see by the way he froze that it frightened him. Good. Did he think she’d stab him like the student had? “If you had used my plot, the plot would work,” she said. “What happened to the double cross? And why wasn’t Samantha a twin?”

  “Pam, those elements just didn’t work. When I got there it was so unbelievable that—”

  “I’ll tell you what’s unbelievable. What’s unbelievable is that you’re getting six figures for this work and you can’t even follow directions.” She pulled out the editorial letter she’d prepared. “I don’t have time to go through this thing with you page by fucking page.” She had to get out of this suffocating place. Pam threw a folder at Stewart. “I’ve put together these notes, and I expect a new draft by the end of next week. A usable draft.”

  “Next week?” Stewart looked at the sheaf of notes with an expression on his face more pained than dismayed. He leafed through the lengthy letter. “Pam, nobody could get these revisions done by next week and—”

  “Peet Trawley could,” Pam lied. “And don’t tell me Peet’s dead. I know that, or else I wouldn’t be wasting my time talking to a limp dick like you.”

  “Pam, I haven’t brought this up, but my mother’s dying. I can’t possibly make this deadline.”

  Pam paused. “Were you close?”

  “Pam!”

  “It was just a question.” She stood up, deeply regretting every fucking penny of the money she had paid this idiot. “This book is not just on the fall list,” she said coldly. “It’s the lead title, okay? So if you want the rest of your money, if you want me to publish your next piece of shit, or if you even ever want to work in publishing again, you’ll get these rewrites done by next week. I’m busy as a cat covering shit, but I made the time to edit it, so get it done.” She felt another drop of perspiration trickling down from under her arm. It felt as if an insect were crawling on her. Well, Stewart and this place gave her the creepy-crawlies. And no wonder. It looked like the public housing she’d grown up in on the West Coast. Pam never wanted to be reminded of those days! “I’ll be here next Thursday,” she told Stewart. “I’ll need the revisions to read over the weekend.” She turned and let herself out.

  “I really love your book,” Pam said to Camilla Clapfish. The girl smiled. They always glowed when they heard those words. Pam launched into the obligatory three-minute praise: the lyrical descriptions, the acutely drawn characters, the blah, blah, blah. Camilla actually blushed with pleasure. She wasn’t pretty exactly, but she had that peachy English skin and her hair glinted with reddish highlights. She must have been about ten years younger than Pam, but Pam knew that a decade ago—or even two—Pam hadn’t had that air of vulnerability and freshness. The comparison didn’t make Pam warm to Camilla.

  “Would you like a coffee? Or are you a tea drinker?”

  “Coffee would be lovely, thanks.”

  Lovely. Yes, Pam was sure that coffee would be lovely for Camilla Clapfish. And so would everything else. She was clearly one of those little English girls who had always been taken care of, who spent their spare time writing little literary novels to amuse their friends. A regular Jane fucking Austen.

  Pam wondered who Camilla Clapfish’s friends were and whether she was connected in any high places. Did she hang out with Di or Fergie? And did she know the editorial world? More importantly, Pam wondered who else was about to see the manuscript.

  The good news was that Pam had gotten in at the ground floor, had already made her offer and could probably buy it cheap. If it moved, it moved. If it didn’t, she could play up its literary side and use it to enhance her editorial reputation. It paid to be careful. Since the SchizoBoy debacle, she felt the ground had moved under them. Without Gerald at the helm, she knew her job would be jeopardized. The showdown with David Morton did not enhance either of their career paths. But this book was a pretty one, to make up for SchizoBoy. Not that it would appeal to the same market. Yet it could possibly take off. The problem was she had lied to Gerald and told him she’d already acquired it when she hadn’t—not quite. If she could only manage to snag this book and parlay the rest of the list so she was voted Editor of the Year, Pam would feel more secure.

  She looked over at the demure Camilla Clapfish. When did this girl have to worry about job security? She was wearing a pathetic skirt and blouse with a little schoolgirl jacket. But English women rarely knew how to dress. This was a woman who didn’t know shit about business either, and if Pam played her cards right, she could buy this manuscript for a nickel, h
ave it in galleys in two weeks, and shoot it out there with the rest of the fall list. Now Pam’s job was to make sure that their offer was accepted. The coffee arrived, and Pam began the little dance. “Is this your first visit to New York?”

  “Oh, no. I was here for school. I went to Marymount and Columbia.”

  Marymount, of course—little-rich-girl school. “Oh, really. What did you study?”

  “Art history.”

  Pam nearly smiled. Of course. And then she probably worked for two weeks at Sotheby’s before she met Chauncy or Percy or Charles. Well, it was time to get down to business. “We’re prepared to publish your book. Have you thought about a title?”

  “Actually, I think about it quite a bit. But I don’t seem to come up with anything appropriate.”

  “Yes,” Pam nodded. “Titling is an art in itself, and very important. A good title sells books. “We’re thinking of A Week in Firenze.

  The girl paused. “Isn’t that just a bit…prosaic?”

  “Well, we’ll work on it. So, I have the contract drawn up. Do you have any questions?”

  “Well, you will have to be just a bit patient with me,” Camilla said. “I’m very grateful for your interest, but I’m in the process of retaining an agent and I don’t quite know what ought to go into the contract.”

  Shit. “Who’s your agent?” Pam asked.

  “I haven’t committed yet, but I think it will be Alex Simmons.”

  Alex Simmons. Who the fuck was Alex Simmons? On the one hand, dealing with an unknown agent was good news, because at least it wasn’t Lynn Nesbit or one of the piranhas who would insist on Pam’s tonsils plus rewards for sales. On the other hand, an unknown could be a real pain in the ass. “He knows about our offer?”