The Bestseller
Page 41
“Here,” she said. “Drink this up and you’ll feel much better.” Daniel looked at the dubious contents of the ugly tumbler. The liquid was pink, and it bubbled.
“What’s this?” Daniel asked suspiciously.
“Asti Spumanti,” Judith said proudly. “And I made dinner to celebrate. Pot roast!” She took his hand and led him into the kitchen. The table was set with candles and a bunch of unnaturally blue carnations. Judith lifted her glass and clinked the one that Daniel was holding gingerly in his own hand. “To the acceptance check,” she said. And he was forced to raise his glass as she took a tiny sip from hers.
The sweet taste of the cheap wine was disgusting. He had had vintage Moët only hours before, and he had no intention of going from that to Asti Spumanti, not now or ever. He looked at Judith and the pathetic little suburban kitchen. The smell of cooking mingled with floor wax hung in the air. He was nauseated, his jaws were tired, and knew that he couldn’t possibly manage the pot roast. Well, for appearance’s sake he would have to sit down. He walked to the table and sank into one of their new kitchen chairs. He’d let her have all this when he left, he decided. He could be generous. Judith went to the refrigerator, brought out two salads, and placed one before him. Iceberg lettuce and unripe tomatoes. He thought of the subtleties of the grilled portobello mushrooms he’d had with Pam. That was the problem with Judith; she had no subtleties. It made her easy to deceive but damn difficult to live with. He sighed.
“So what did he think of chapter eleven?” Judith asked.
Daniel couldn’t even remember chapter eleven. Was that Elthea’s back story or the one where her husband leaves her? “Judith, I managed to get him to accept it. It was very hard work, but I managed to do it. You have no idea what it’s like. I had to negotiate on every point. I did what I could, okay? And now I’m very tired and I don’t really want to talk about it.” Judith looked at him, her doe eyes big and round as quarters. He couldn’t bear to sit there, opposite her, as she pulled her baby-bird-with-a-broken-wing routine. All at once he was incensed. He shouldn’t have to put up with this. It was sad, and it was unfair, but the reality was he was out of her league. He’d help her to understand that, when the time was right, and then he’d leave her. She was young. Everyone’s first marriage was a fiasco. She’d get over it, as he had. He laid his fork down, his salad untouched. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed,” he said.
Daniel didn’t bother to put on the light in the bedroom. He walked to the bed, shedding his jacket and shirt and dropping them to the floor. He sat down on his side of the mattress and pulled off his good shoes, for once not bothering with the shoe trees. He slipped out of his trousers and let them fall to the rug. Flaubert had followed him and now jumped onto the bedspread, putting his cold nose up against Daniel’s naked back. “Off,” Daniel told him and gave the dog’s rump a push. Then, naked but for his shorts and too tired to slip into his pajamas, he lifted the blanket and inserted himself under it. He stared up at the ceiling, one of those blown-on, irregular-textured affairs. He took a deep breath. Exhausted as he was, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep because his mind was racing.
He had been right. That’s what he had to remember. He was one of the elite, one of those people who, despite obstacles, can grab at the brass ring. Well, in this case it was a gold one, and he would keep a hold of it. He was not going to fall back, be dragged back, into the old life: begging for tenure, boring sex, drinking Asti Spumanti, saving up for a winter coat. He had known he was special, and Pam Mantiss confirmed that. He might not like her, but she was smart and tough and she recognized talent when she saw it. The fact that she wanted to sleep with him was the equivalent of winning a writing prize. He was hot, and she wanted to keep him, and they both knew his book would succeed. So would he.
On the next contract there would be a lot of money. Alf Byron said that Hollywood was interested in the book. They’d meet with producers. Maybe Daniel would write the screenplay. And without the teaching job, he’d have all the time in the world to turn out the next book himself. The trouble, of course, was Judith, still sulking in the kitchen. He could see now that he had never loved her; that he had merely felt sorry for her. That was his problem: He was always adopting birds with broken wings. Cripples. That wasn’t the basis for a relationship. He would have to escape, but this time it would be easier because he wouldn’t stay here and have to face Don and the rest of the faculty. It would be hard on Judith for a while, sure, but then she’d go back to her daddy, finish school, and her real life would begin. In a way, she’d been lucky to have the experience.
He sighed. He knew there’d be some ugly times ahead, with lots of crying and possibly even hysteria, but unlike before, he had a cushion of money deposited in his name and the promise of this large acceptance check as well. He’d survive.
From the floor he heard Flaubert’s tail thwack the carpet, and he looked to the doorway to see Judith’s dark form against the dim light from the hall. She walked across the room. Now there’d be accusations and recriminations. He sighed.
But Judith merely took off her shoes and slipped into bed, fully clothed, beside him. Gently, wordlessly, she put her arm around his torso, and Daniel had to will himself not to recoil. They would have to separate, he told himself yet again. He had another life waiting for him, and she would have to make her own. But he couldn’t discuss that yet. Not tonight, when his legs were tight with exhaustion, his back hurt, and his jaw felt as if it were being pinched in a vise. He lay as stiffly as possible, but Judith managed to insinuate her arm under his neck and roll her head against his unresponsive shoulder.
“Daniel?” she asked, and he was flushed with irritation. Who else would he be? Mahatma Gandhi? She moved her warm body against his. Irrelevantly, Daniel remembered that Gandhi used to like to sleep with two young girls, one on either side, to test him and keep him warm. Judith’s warmth seeped through the thin cloth of her dress. “Daniel,” she said, “I wasn’t just celebrating the acceptance check. I have some news, too.”
Oh, Jesus! Just what he needed. Show-and-tell at this time of night! What was she going to share with him? The results of Flaubert’s visit to the vet? How she’d conquered page styles on Microsoft Word? “Yes?” he asked, and tried not to let his boredom and irritation express itself in that single word.
He felt her hand searching for his, and by an act of will he didn’t pull his back when she wrapped both of her small ones around it. She leaned her head against his and then, in a whisper—a whisper of doom—he heard her.
“I’m going to have a baby,” she told him.
60
The job of an editor in a publishing house is the dullest, hardest, most exciting, exasperating and rewarding of perhaps any job in the world.
—John Hall Wheelock
Emma winced as she picked up the receiver. Thank God, the voice at the other end of the phone was the pleasant, down-to-earth alto of Opal O’Neal. “Emma, I have good news,” she said.
“Great. I could use some.”
“Why? Is anything wrong?”
How do you explain the overload and chain reactions, the constant deadlines and endless work that was Emma’s daily lot? And why complain? She had chosen it. But sometimes the pressure of the workload and the corporate games in a firm as big as Davis & Dash got to her. The real botheration was that she had a growling and most unpleasant suspicion, just a small one, that if she hadn’t been in publishing she might not have sparked Alex’s interest. She’d written it off as unworthy of her and of Alex. But now she was afraid that it wasn’t just a paranoid fantasy. Why hadn’t Alex called her? Emma hadn’t heard from Alex since her meeting with Camilla Clapfish. Even if Alex didn’t call to make a date, why hadn’t she at least called to explain about Camilla so Emma knew what was going on? Whatever the reason for Alex’s silence, it plunged Emma into suspicion and misery. Don’t overreact, she’d told herself. Wait and find out what’s going on.
“I’m fine,” Emma
lied now to Mrs. O’Neal. “It’s just good to hear your voice. What’s your news?”
“I’ll have the galleys finished right on schedule,” Opal said. “But my goodness! I hope you don’t pay those people who do the typesetting very much. There were mistakes on every page. They certainly aren’t good at their jobs.”
Emma laughed. “Who is?” she asked.
“You are,” Opal told her. “You’re very good at your job. Why, I don’t know where I’d be if not for you.”
For a moment, despite the mail piled on her desk, Heather walking in with a distracted look on her face, and the list of calls she still had to make, Emma felt a calmness and pleasure. Yes, some of what she did was worthwhile. “I’ve asked the marketing department to get together a really good program for Duplicity,” Emma told Opal, while Heather mimed “emergency” and tried to point to the phone as she ran her index finger across her throat. Emma nodded at Heather and raised her index finger to indicate she needed just one minute more.
“Should I bring the galleys down to you when I’m done?” Opal was asking.
“Oh no, don’t bother,” Emma told her. “We’ll send up a messenger.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that,” Opal said. “What if he lost them?”
Emma smiled. “They never do. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll come up when they’re ready and get them myself.”
“Oh, that would be terrific.” Opal sounded sincerely pleased. Meanwhile, Heather was waving her arms in some kind of we’re-going-to-be-chopped-meat semaphore. Emma quickly said her good-byes to Mrs. O’Neal and hung up.
“What is it?”
“Do you have the edited manuscript from Jude Daniel?” Heather asked. Emma shook her head. It was more work she wasn’t looking forward to; another book about to go into galleys for their fall list. So far, Pam had been handling it herself, a sure indicator that she expected a runaway with this one, but at this mechanical phase she’d dumped it on Emma, as she did so many thankless tasks.
“I haven’t seen it,” Emma told her secretary.
“Well, Pam says she got it from Jude and left it here, on your desk.”
“When?” Emma asked. Ridiculous. After just telling Opal O’Neal how careful they were, was there a manuscript missing? An edited manuscript. My God! “When did she leave it here?”
“She didn’t say. Last night or the day before.” Emma’s stomach dropped. She’d been through everything on her desk since this morning. There was no edited Daniel manuscript.
“Okay, let’s not panic,” Emma said in a voice calmer than she felt. Heather’s eyes were already big with panic. “She said she left it on my desk?”
“Yes, or on mine,” Heather whispered. “But I swear there hasn’t been anything new on my desk in the last two days except for the Trawley thing and the mail.”
“Listen, I’m sure it’s here somewhere, probably on Pam’s desk. That is, if she didn’t leave it in a taxi.” Heather’s eyes grew even bigger. A mistake to mention that possibility, Emma realized. If Pam had done that, they knew they’d take the fall.
They spent the next forty-five minutes—time Emma couldn’t spare—searching her office, Heather’s cubicle, both desks, Pam’s secretary’s desk, and the hallways in between. The manuscript had disappeared, but Emma kept calm. She’d been through enough of these false alarms with Pam to take it one step at a time, the way you had to with alcoholics. She wondered if there was a twelve-step program for codependent editors, then wondered if that wasn’t a redundant phrase. After all, weren’t all editors codependent?
When the phone rang again Emma considered not answering it, but it might just be Alex. She had left only one message for Alex; she didn’t want to seem too needy. Emma picked up the phone. “Emma Ashton?” a voice inquired. Not Alex’s.
“Yes,” she said, disappointed and a little—just a little—more concerned.
“Please hold for Susann Baker Edmonds.”
God, Emma hated to be called by a secretary! She thought it was the height of rudeness and, on impulse, hung up. She knew it was wrong, but sometimes she just couldn’t help it. When the phone rang again she sighed and decided to take her medicine now instead of on her voice mail. “Emma Ashton?” the voice asked again, and again Emma indicated it was she. “We got cut off.”
“Oh, it’s been happening here all day,” Emma lied.
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t happen now” the voice said. “I’ll put Miss Baker Edmonds on.” There was an irritatingly long pause.
“Emma, dear.” Susann’s voice purred in Emma’s ear. “I have some sketches here that I’d like picked up.”
“Sketches?” Emma asked. Was the woman now illustrating her books as well as writing them? Emma couldn’t help but wonder which she’d do worse. “Sketches of what?”
“They’re sketches of the clothes I’m going to be wearing for my book tour. I’m sure the publicity department would like to distribute them. I thought they might be sent to the newspaper’s fashion pages. It’s such a big tour, and I’m sure people in those smaller cities will be interested in my choice of designers.”
Emma almost laughed aloud. As if anyone cared what a writer wears, Emma thought. It was hard enough to get the public to care about what writers wrote! “Well, send them over,” she said. “I’ll bring them to the publicity department.” And they’ll laugh for twenty minutes and then toss the sketches into the circular file. Let them deal with it.
“Would you mind sending over a messenger?” Susann asked sweetly.
“Certainly,” Emma agreed, and jotted a note to herself. She would have to call the mailroom, fill out a form, have Heather bring it down, and have the cost deducted from her budget. Meanwhile, Susann Baker Edmonds had a car, a driver, and a full-time secretary, not to mention the millions of dollars in advance money. Oh well. Emma merely shrugged.
“Thank you,” Susann said, and mercifully, she hung up.
Heather walked in, her face pale. “I just can’t find it,” she said. It looked to Emma as if tears were rising in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Emma assured her, though she too was becoming distinctly nervous. “It’s going to show up. And anyway, in case of emergency Jude Daniel probably has another copy. Why don’t I just call and check on it before we do anything else?”
“But if he finds out that we’ve lost it—”
“I’m not going to tell him that. I’m merely going to ask if he has another copy. Meanwhile, we’ll keep looking. One step at a time. But it will give us another option.” Heather took a deep breath and nodded. Emma smiled at her. “Keep looking. By the way, while I was on the phone, did I get a call from Alex Simmons?”
“No,” Heather said, and left Emma alone to contact Jude Daniel.
Emma looked through her card file and found the upstate number. She picked up the phone, but instead of a dial tone there was a caller already on the line. “Emma?” a crackly voice asked. “Hello. Are you there?”
Not now, Emma thought with a sinking feeling. Not Anna Morrison. Emma just didn’t have time to be kind to her today. “Hello, Anna,” Emma said as if her last breath of air was being used to get the words out. “What can I do for you?”
“Have you found out if there had been any more sales on my book?”
What was this? Anna hadn’t even had a book in print for over a decade. Had the woman finally moved over the line from loneliness to delusion? Emma had no time to find out. “As a matter of fact, Anna, I was just going to call a marketing meeting. It might come up. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“You’re such a darling, Emma. Thank you.” Mercifully, Anna too hung up.
Emma couldn’t get on top of this day. She dialed Daniel’s number and waited while the phone rang. She knew the chances of getting anything but an answering machine nowadays were slim: Emma spent the largest portion of her time talking to machines and listening to her own recorded missed calls. Was all of this technological advance really so efficient?
“Is Jude Daniel there?” Emma asked.
She heard a sharp intake of breath, and then the woman said, “My husband isn’t home.”
Well, there was a place to start. May as well be cordial and social. “Oh. Hello, Mrs. Daniel. This is Emma Ashton. I work at Davis & Dash. We’re publishing your husband’s book.”
“Yes, I know,” Mrs. Daniel said, her voice almost inaudible. “What do you have to do with it?” Emma wondered if there was something wrong with the connection. Had she really heard that? “What do you have to do with it?” Mrs. Daniel repeated.
As little as possible, Emma thought, but she tried to sound enthusiastic. “Well, I’m one of the editors here.”
“Are you my husband’s editor?” the woman asked, and now her voice was much stronger, but also tight and hard. “I thought Mr. Davis was his editor.”
Emma couldn’t help but smile. GOD didn’t even edit his own books, let alone other people’s. Still, she couldn’t afford to offend. Perhaps they’d been told the editing was Gerald’s. But she doubted it. “No. Mr. Davis has been involved, but he’s not actually editing the book. Pam Mantiss is. She’s our editor in chief and very important.” Emma wanted to be sure that the wife wouldn’t be put off.
“Is she pretty?” Mrs. Daniel asked. Or at least that was what Emma thought she heard. What the hell was going on? Could the woman be drunk? Or perhaps crazy?