The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Is this Mrs. Daniel?” Emma asked again.

  “My name is Judith Gross. My husband is Jude Daniel,” the woman said, then laughed bitterly.

  Oh Lord, Emma thought. Why was every single thing so damn complicated? All she wanted was to find a copy of a manuscript, which wasn’t even her responsibility in the first place. Well, she’d just push on. “We know that Mr. Daniel has finished his revisions to In Full Knowledge,” Emma said tentatively, and she could almost swear she heard a snort on the other end of the phone. Maybe the woman was drunk. “Anyway, I was wondering if there was a copy of the manuscript up there with you?”

  “Yes,” Ms. Gross said flatly. “I have a copy.”

  Thank God! “Well, we just might want to see it,” Emma said, relieved. Worst case, they could get this copy FedExed down to them. At least there was a copy. “We’ve had a few problems reading this one,” she lied. I don’t think we’ll need to see it, but it’s good to keep it available. May I call you for clarification, or if another copy of the manuscript is necessary?”

  “Sure,” Ms. Gross said. Then she paused for a moment. “Did Pam Mantiss like the changes?”

  This was one of the stranger conversations Emma had had, and she’d had plenty of strange conversations with authors, their family, and friends. “Well, I wasn’t directly involved, but we’re going into galleys soon, so I think that she did.” Emma tried to be placating. “You must be very proud of your husband. There’s a lot of excitement about this book here. That’s why Pam Mantiss herself is involved.” There was a pause at the other end of the line, and after a moment or two of silence, Emma thought the woman had hung up. But she hadn’t. Instead, Emma distinctly heard her clear her throat.

  “So, is she pretty?” Judith Gross asked again.

  Emma didn’t know what to say. As far as she was concerned, Pam was a gorgon, and why would this woman care, anyway? “Well, she’s…attractive.”

  “How old is she?”

  “I’m not sure. Um. About forty, I guess.”

  “And is she married?” Ms. Gross asked.

  “No, she’s divorced.” This woman was crazy, and Emma only needed to get off the phone. “Well, it was nice to talk to you, Ms. Gross. I’ll ring back if we have any more trouble reading our copy.” The hell she would. If they couldn’t find the manuscript, Heather could make the next call. “Anyway, if we need it, you can send one down to us at our expense,” Emma said cheerily and hung up, shaking her head.

  “Heather!” she yelled. “Jude Daniel has a copy of the manuscript if we need it.”

  But Heather came in doing some kind of break dance and waving an interoffice envelope. She pointed to it and sang, “In Full Knowledge. Pam put it in the interoffice mail. It was in the mailroom all the time.” Emma nodded and shrugged. Typical Pam Mantiss move. “Can you believe it?” Heather asked. “All that pain for nothing! She never gave me the manuscript. She didn’t drop it off on my desk. She sent it in the interoffice. Look, the envelope is in her writing! Instead of walking twenty feet down the hall to my desk, she sends it twenty stories down to the basement for one of those idiots to lose it on a back shelf until now.” Emma didn’t have the energy to do more than nod, clearly disappointing Heather, who was obviously looking for a common outrage.

  “Well, at least we have it and I don’t have to call that madwoman upstate again,” Emma sighed.

  “Who’s that?” Heather asked, and Emma told her about the odd conversation with Jude Daniel’s wife. “Pretty?” Heather echoed. “The woman is Medusa. But Pam turns men and women to stone. Everyone knows the ‘Preying Mantiss’ hunts down and sleeps with all the men authors. Ecc-ch! Who in the world cares what she looks like?”

  “Obviously, Mr. Daniel’s wife does.” And it occurred to Emma, for the first time, that the woman’s paranoia was not that different from her own. Emma thought of Alex. Of course, Pam’s always been a star-fucker. And Jude Daniel is the next rising star. His wife isn’t crazy. She’s probably on to something.

  Heather shrugged and went back to her desk, leaving Emma alone with a room full of unpleasant thoughts. God, what was Alex doing now? Why hadn’t she called? Was there someone else? Had Emma let herself be used? She never should have introduced Camilla and Alex. She never had and never will again mix business with pleasure. She sighed. Was it a Chinese proverb that promised that no good deed would go unpunished?

  She lifted the phone and dialed the number she already knew by heart. And after all that, Emma was greeted only by Alex’s voice on a machine. For a moment Emma considered hanging up—she certainly wasn’t prepared to face this in a cold recorded message. But it had to be faced. So when the beep came she simply announced her name and asked that Alex call her at home in the evening. After all her anticipation, she knew she wouldn’t look forward to this call when it came.

  61

  In America there seems to be an idea that writing is one big cat-and-dog fight between the various practitioners of the craft.

  —William Styron

  The woman with the bad perm and the lipstick painted too far outside her lip line looked up from her reception console. “Yes?” she asked.

  Susann gave the woman her best smile and, reading the woman’s name off the Davis & Dash ID card hanging around her neck, said, “Miriam, please call Mr. Davis’s office for me.”

  “Does he expect you?” the woman asked.

  “Of course,” Susann told her briskly. Miriam would, no doubt, be embarrassed in a moment when she realized to whom she was talking, but Susann could be gracious.

  “Your name?” the woman asked.

  “Susann Baker Edmonds,” the author told her, and gave her an understanding look.

  But without even a glimmer of recognition the receptionist flicked her eyes away and punched in an extension number. She looked up without a smile on her clownish lips. “The line is busy,” she reported flatly. “Take a seat.”

  Susann blinked. It was outrageous behavior. This would never have happened to her at Peterson. Imogen used to wait for her in reception! There she had been treated with respect, her name and her face recognized. But Susann managed, once again, to give her best smile. “Why don’t you try calling Mrs. Perkins’s line?” she said. “I’ve come to discuss my book tour. I know Mr. Davis wouldn’t want to be kept waiting, Miriam.”

  “It’s Marion,” the receptionist said. Then she shrugged, consulted her screen, and punched in another extension. She looked up at Susann. “What’s your name again?”

  Susann’s smile dropped. She repeated her name, enunciating clearly. But the woman was already saying to Mrs. Perkins or whoever had picked up, “I got a Susan Almond down here.” There was a brief pause during which Susann clenched her painful hands into fists. “Susan Almond,” the receptionist repeated. “She says she’s got an appointment.”

  Susann reached forward and snatched the receiver out of the idiot woman’s hands. “This is Susann Baker Edmonds,” she said. “I have an appointment with Mr. Davis.”

  Mrs. Perkins’s voice over the phone was very soothing and apologetic. “Yes, of course you do. I’ll come right down myself to bring you up. It won’t be a moment.”

  Susann thanked her and handed the receiver back to Marion. “She’s coming down to get me,” Susann said, and turned her back on her. She was so annoyed and flustered she’d forgotten to ask if Alf had arrived yet. Well, he must have and gone upstairs.

  The reception area at Davis & Dash was a large windowed showroom that had space for not only the idiot receptionist and security desk, several sofas and chairs, but also book displays and a changing special exhibition. Today the exhibition was of children’s book illustrations, and Susann ignored it. But she made a beeline for the shelves of recent releases. Most prominently displayed was a life-size cardboard cutout of a moronic Hollywood has-been clutching her ghostwritten autobiography. There also were a dozen hardcover and softcover copies of the Trawley garbage, along with an “as told to” book by a fashio
n model (whose claim to fame was how badly she’d been slashed by her boyfriend, ruining her not particularly successful career). There were also three books—three—by television sitcom actors who seemed to think they had something to say. Susann restrained herself from shaking her head. Why was it that everybody wanted to horn in on the book business? Writers didn’t take side jobs as models or deejays. If you were an obscene radio deejay, couldn’t you be satisfied with that? Why did you also have to write a book about being an obscene radio deejay?

  Well, this was obviously the dross. She walked to the other shelf but was equally disappointed there; seven paperback romances by no-name authors, Gerald Ochs Davis’s last release (now more than a year old), a book by a woman who claimed to have been raped by aliens (complete with pictures of her baby), and high on the shelves and almost out of view, three legitimate novels.

  “Mrs. Edmonds.” Susann turned to be greeted by Gerald’s secretary, who welcomed her and ushered her into a waiting elevator. Feeling the chill, the woman tried to warm the atmosphere. “Mr. Davis is really looking forward to seeing you,” Mrs. Perkins said.

  “Has Mr. Byron arrived yet?” Susann asked.

  “No,” Mrs. Perkins told her, making her stomach lurch nervously. “But Mr. Davis has been waiting.” Yet when Susann arrived at his office, she was surprised to find that Gerald Davis was not alone. Alf wasn’t there yet, but Gerald Davis’s henchman was on time. The publisher stood, extended his hand, and then introduced the young woman beside him.

  “Susann, this is Wendy Brennon, our new head of publicity. I wanted her to personally supervise every moment of your tour, and I thought this was a good time for you to meet.”

  Susann gave Wendy her best smile and held out her hand, though her knuckles were swollen today with arthritic pain. The girl’s overly firm handshake was excruciating, but Susann managed to keep the smile splashed on her face. This insignificant-looking young woman was important; she was the key to it all. But she seemed so young. They got younger and younger, these publicity people.

  The three of them sat down in a corner of Gerald’s vast office. “We’re so delighted that you’re doing this tour,” Gerald said. “It’s going to be great for you, and great for business. Look what touring did for Newt Gingrich.”

  “Well, he was thinking of running for president, wasn’t he?” Susann asked. “Now, after he toured, he’s not.” They laughed, but Susann merely waited. Where was Alf? She didn’t want to have to do this meeting alone, especially not with two of them facing her. Oh, how could she bear to drag herself all around this vast country alone? “Newt must have gotten tired,” she said.

  “Perhaps. But he sold a hell of a lot of books.”

  Susann smiled and nodded. “Yes. I’m looking forward to that.” Should she engage in small talk and stall or face it alone? She’d kill Alf for this. She smiled again. “So, do you have the schedule?” she asked Wendy.

  “Well, I have part of it,” Wendy answered, handing her a three-page printed sheet. On the left margin it listed the date and the city. In the center was a listing of the scheduled interviews, radio, local TV, et cetera. On the right margin were the travel arrangements and local contacts. Susann quickly scanned the densely covered sheets. Aside from Chicago, Cincinnati, Seattle, and Los Angeles, there didn’t seem to be any firm appointments—-just “interview with press as scheduled” and “radio interview tk.” Susann put the papers down in her lap and held her hands together so they wouldn’t be so obvious. Is this all that had been booked so far? This was nothing. It was a nontour, a nonevent. Did they think they could get her to give up two months of her life to sign stock in the backroom of a B. Dalton in a suburban mall?

  At that moment the door was flung open and Alf Byron appeared. Susann was so relieved to see him that she didn’t bother to give him the look of pure annoyance she’d been preparing.

  “Hello, hello.” Alf slipped into a chair and turned to the disappearing Mrs. Perkins. “Coffee, please,” he said. “Black with sugar.” She could hear his heavy breathing.

  Susann knew he shouldn’t have caffeine with his heart medication, but she said nothing.

  “Hi, Wendy. Hello, Gerald. Sorry. I was negotiating with April Irons. We’ve sold Jude Daniel’s book to Hollywood! International has bought the option. They want to attach Drew Barrymore to the project.”

  “Congratulations,” Wendy said.

  Susann noticed he didn’t apologize to her, and that he already knew this incompetent little publicity girl. And why did Jude Daniel interfere with my business life? He had yet to sell one damn copy of any book. Of course, she thought bitterly, she had yet to option a book to Hollywood. Men had all the luck. Women got TV miniseries.

  “Hello, Alf,” Gerald Davis said coolly. “We’re just going over Susann’s tour schedule.” Wendy passed a copy to Alf, who looked it over quickly.

  “Mm. Thirty-six cities already. It’s starting to shape up nicely.”

  “Nicely?” Susann asked. “The list is very neat and very organized, but I don’t quite agree. I don’t see anything major and virtually nothing firm.”

  “Oh, I should have mentioned that we have book signings in every city,” Wendy said. “I just haven’t listed them here.”

  Book signings! As if that took any clout or did any good! My God, Susann could walk into any bookstore in the city, or the country for that matter, and sign copies of stock. It was media exposure that sold books—and created crowds at book signings. Howard Stern had a line of ten thousand people at one of his signings—but only after shamelessly promoting himself on radio for hours before. Without television, radio, and heavy newspaper-feature coverage there was no point to this tour. Susann looked over at Alf, waiting for him to explode. For years they’d played the good cop/bad cop game. He knew what was necessary.

  But there was no explosion. Alf merely nodded mildly.

  “Things will firm up as we get closer to the dates,” Wendy Brennon assured them.

  Susann couldn’t believe it. Alf just nodded again. “That isn’t good enough,” Susann said.

  The girl glanced at her and then back at Gerald, who had sat quietly throughout. “It’s a little difficult right now to set up things so far in advance.”

  But Susann was having none of that. If she had to drag herself to Fort Worth and to Portland and to Detroit, they had better be certain that at the very least she was on local radio and TV, the all-important local morning show. Otherwise, what was the point? She didn’t need to hide in a hotel room for hours only to duck out once or twice to bend her arthritic fingers around a pen and sign a few hundred books. “Well, this won’t do. How long will it take you to get a real schedule?” she asked. “Because I don’t leave for a tour unless a real tour is scheduled.”

  “It’ll come, Susann,” Alf said. “It will come.”

  Susann looked at him. Since when wasn’t he pushing for commitments? Since when was he so patient? Since he’d gone Hollywood? Since he was late for her meetings because he was busy with Jude Daniel talking to some famous woman studio head? She turned back to the pages. “I don’t see any national television here,” she said. “Nothing. How do we stand on that?”

  “I’m working on it,” Wendy assured her. “It’s just that with the sweeps at that time, and the way the talk-show lineups are going lately, there really isn’t a venue for you.”

  “Are you serious? I’m not booked for any national shows? I’ve done Donahue. I’ve done Sally Jessy. I’ve been on the Today show twice.”

  Wendy hunched over. “I haven’t been able to get much interest from producers for any of our writers, except for Jude Daniel.”

  That name again! Susann felt her mouth go bitter with bile. Jude Daniel. She hated him.

  “All the shows are piling on guests—ten or a dozen per show.” Wendy was gabbling. “They want screamers or celebrities. They don’t want novelists. They want cross-dressing fathers who sleep with their daughter’s guinea pigs. We don’t even know tha
t the talk shows sell books anymore.”

  Susann stood up. “You better find an angle,” she spit. “And if you don’t get me on television, you can forget the tour.” She looked over at the publisher. “There goes all that advance money you paid out down the drain, Gerald. I don’t think Mr. Morton will like that. So I’ll wait until you find an angle.” She walked to the door. She would not be treated like some paperback original, some drugstore romance writer. “Meanwhile, we have a meeting with the marketing department,” Susann reminded Alf. “That is, if you don’t have any Jude Daniel Hollywood business to attend to.”

  Leaving his coffee unfinished, Alf followed her out of the room.

  “That is the worst cover I’ve ever seen,” Susann said to Jack Weinstock, who winced. “I don’t mean it’s the worst cover I’ve seen for one of my books. I mean it’s the worst cover ever. On any book.”

  She surveyed the sick green-and-beige mottled jacket with the black type. Jesus! Did they think she was writing textbooks? And why was her name so small? And her photo! She was used to a huge airbrushed glossy portrait on the back cover. Instead she had been reduced to a postage stamp on the top of the back flap!

  “We were trying for a Bridges of Madison County kind of look,” Jack stuttered. “You know. Subdued. Classy.”

  “My jackets have always been classy. But not boring. This is boring. And ugly. This is not a bestselling cover.”

  “A bestselling cover is the cover on a bestselling book,” Alf quipped. “I don’t think it’s bad. It’s a departure, sure, but maybe you need something new.”

  Susann narrowed her eyes and turned on him. “Maybe I do,” she said.

  62

  When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it’s going to be till I’m under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn’t. But I don’t sit back waiting for it. I work every day.