The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  There was a silence. The next course was served. The dinner was far from the cheerful event that Emma had hoped for. There seemed to be as much tension between Frederick and Camilla as there was between her and Alex. No one ordered either dessert or coffee. It was not a table anyone wanted to linger over. At last they were through, and Alex insisted on picking up the tab.

  “Anybody for a drink?” Alex asked as they were leaving. It was raining, and they stood for a time under the canopy of the restaurant, hoping that an available taxi would whirl by.

  It was a vain hope, and in the end Emma had to run to the corner and flag down two cabs—first one for her brother and Camilla and the second one for Alex and herself. When she got into it, wet and breathless, she saw Alex hesitate. Then she got in. Relieved, Emma directed the taxi uptown, to her apartment. “Come with me. We have to talk. Unless you want to be dropped at your place.”

  Alex shrugged. Emma cleared her throat. “I don’t think it was very helpful, you being so negative about early publication.”

  “Why? It is a negative. You know she’ll get buried. They’re probably just doing it to fill a hole. They’re not making it a major offering, are they? Have they even sent it out to the book clubs?”

  “No. But it’s not a book-club kind of book. You still didn’t have to bring it up that way over dinner. It upset Camilla and embarrassed me.”

  “So what? That’s my job, Emma. It’s my job to protect Camilla and her book. Don’t make it personal. I know the publication date wasn’t your decision.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t talk to me about your professional duties. Tell me instead why you tried to lure Camilla away from our house.”

  Alex opened her eyes very wide. “Emma, I wasn’t ‘luring’ her. I was trying to do the best I could for her. It’s just business.” Alex paused and looked out at the rain. “Anyway, isn’t this Pam’s project?”

  Emma snorted. God, it was so unfair! “I sent her to you, Alex. How would it look if we lost her because of you?”

  “Nobody knew you sent her to me. It wouldn’t have damaged your reputation.”

  “I knew. You seem terribly worried about what’s best for Camilla Clapfish. How about what’s best for me?”

  “I think it’s best for you to calm down,” Alex said coldly.

  But Emma, for once, wouldn’t calm down. For once, she wouldn’t be a turtle. “I meet you and we see each other for weeks in a row. I send you clients. And then, once you sign them, you become so busy I don’t even hear from you. You try to steal an author, and when you don’t succeed you embarrass me in front of her. And you tell me not to take it personally? As Camilla might say, you’re mad.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you see things, maybe I’d better get out of this cab.”

  “Maybe you had better,” Emma snapped back, though it took all her pride to clip the words out.

  Alex rapped against the Plexiglas that separated them from the driver. “I’ll be getting off at this corner,” she told him. They were on the Bowery, somewhere below St. Mark’s Place. It was a dicey neighborhood, especially at night. The driver pulled over, and Alex, without a look or a word, stepped out into the rain, slammed the door hard, and began walking across the wide avenue. Emma’s last view of Alex was of the tall woman illuminated by headlights, flagging down a taxi of her own.

  66

  An absolutely necessary part of a writer’s equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.

  —Irwin Shaw

  Daniel couldn’t believe his luck. Just when everything was going perfectly, this trouble with Judith had to hit. He wondered for a moment if she might not be lying. How could she possibly have gotten herself pregnant? He’d always insisted they use a diaphragm. Had Judith purposely forgotten? He put his elbows up on his desk, placing his head heavily in his hands. On the desk lay the check for the movie option, made out to Jude Daniel and perforated along the bottom with its explanatory memo, “film right.” The number—so many dollars all at once—was exhilarating.

  There was a knock on the door. He sat in his hot, tiny office and spun the chair around. “Yes?” he called out. His voice sounded anything but welcoming. When Cheryl’s blond head intruded he couldn’t withhold a sigh of irritation. Just what he needed! Another dumb, dependent woman.

  “Daniel, I—”

  He rose and started walking toward her. “I’m late,” he said by way of explanation. “Walk with me to the car.”

  “But I wanted to—” They were in the hallway, and she was interrupted by a greeting from Dr. Esther Ruden. Since the news of Daniel’s book had traveled, he had more than regained his old popularity in the department. It appeared that divorce was permissible in an about-to-be published commercial author. In fact, when news of the movie option had leaked, Don and his wife had actually offered to throw a little party in his honor. And all of the faculty was planning to drop by—invited or not. No business like show business, Daniel thought ruefully.

  “Hello, Esther,” he said. Although he hated the witch—a women’s studies professor—he was tempted to stop and talk with her, just to deflect Cheryl. But he knew Cheryl would cling to him like a limpet. Moving into Fox Run had been, in the end, a bad idea. Cheryl had too much access. Esther nodded at him, but her slightly raised brow as she took in Cheryl at his side dissuaded Daniel inviting conversation.

  He quickened his steps, and Cheryl had to almost skip to keep up with him. “Will I see you tonight?” she asked.

  Daniel shrugged. “I have a lot of work to do,” he said, and saw Cheryl’s lip tremble. God! These women would drive him insane.

  Daniel had been thinking hard. A time came when each man had to act—to take action and change the course of his life. And you couldn’t do it halfway—you had to go the distance or lose out altogether. Most people didn’t get even one chance to change their lives. He was one of the lucky ones who had. If one missed that opportunity, lacked the courage to take all the actions, one could be lost forever. He would not wind up one of the lost, one of the losers.

  “Daniel, I really need to—” They were in the parking lot, and Daniel was already unlocking the door to the brown Subaru.

  “Cheryl,” he said, “you know how much I value your friendship. But I’m very late and I just can’t talk now. I’ll try to come up to your apartment tonight. We can talk then.” He got into the car and put the key in the ignition. But when he looked up, Cheryl was standing right at the door, her hand on the rearview mirror, tears flowing down her perfect, unlined face.

  “I just wanted to—”

  Daniel extended his hand and pushed her gently away from the side of the car. “Tonight,” he told her and drove out of the campus parking lot.

  It was very clear to him what he had to do. He would resign, pack up, and move to Manhattan. He had close to a hundred thousand dollars in his bank account. He’d get a deal to write the screenplay for In Full Knowledge. He would leave the school, the town, his ex-wife, his baby daughter, and leave Judith. She could have the apartment, their furniture, and the dog. She could get a job or finish school. He’d even offer to pay her tuition.

  Of course, with a baby…well, that was insanity. This pregnancy was the worst possible luck. But then, Judith’s timing had always been bad. The pregnancy, plus her threat to insist on credit for the book, had been enough to finally move him in the direction he should have taken before. Damn it. Now he couldn’t leave her. Not until the pregnancy was taken care of. Daniel thought of the ABA convention and the party for him there. He wouldn’t even tell Judith about it. He’d just go. But before he could leave Judith permanently, he would have to convince her that a baby was just not on. She wouldn’t like it, because of her past, but he could tell her that there was plenty of time, that they had other priorities, and promise her a baby later. He sighed. There would be a scene, and tears. He’d have to hold her and
comfort her. His skin crawled. He thought of Dreiser’s American Tragedy, which now seemed more poignant than he had ever realized.

  Daniel found himself gripping the wheel and grinding his teeth at the thought of the scene that awaited him. He hated to lie, but it was Judith who had put him in this position. All of this was Judith’s fault.

  “Cheryl’s called three times,” Judith told her husband. She had promised herself she wouldn’t greet him that way, but the third call was more than she could take. If the girl was this nervous about a term paper, she was a psycho. But Judith suspected that term papers had nothing to do with it. She remembered how she had felt, a student of Daniel’s, when they were having their affair. Was it her imagination, or did Cheryl have the same sound of urgency and fear? But Judith, unlike Cheryl, had never called Daniel’s wife. Of course, Daniel hadn’t moved her into the same building with his wife. Judith looked across the room at her husband. Was he sleeping with Cheryl? Or was Judith’s pregnancy making her oversensitive, dependent, and suspicious? “She says she has to see you,” Judith told him. Daniel threw his briefcase, not quite so new anymore, onto the chair beside the door.

  The phone rang, and he snatched it up. “Hello? Yes.” He listened for a moment. “I understand. She told me. I’ll try to drop by later.” Wearily, he hung up the phone.

  It must have been Cheryl.

  “Aren’t office hours good enough?” Judith asked. “You don’t have to go up there every time she buzzes for you.”

  Daniel walked past her to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. “Oh, come on, Judith,” he said. “Let it alone.” He looked into the fridge. “Don’t we have anything cold to drink?”

  Judith had herself finished the last bottle of soda water—it was the only thing that kept her from constant nausea. She’d been too tired and dispirited to trudge the four long blocks to the nearest 7-Eleven. Now that Daniel was back with the car, he could get himself something to drink or they could both go to the supermarket. But the idea of walking up and down the aisles of food made Judith dizzy and sick to her stomach again. She put her hands across the little bulge of her belly and sat down in the only comfortable chair.

  Daniel came in from the kitchen, making do with a glass of tap water. It wasn’t hot in the apartment—Judith had left the fan running on low all day—but Daniel was sweating. He sat down on the folding chair across from her. “We have to talk,” he said. For a moment, a terrible moment, Judith thought Daniel might admit to an affair with Cheryl. What would she do then? But he merely looked at her, paused for a moment, and asked, “What are we doing?”

  Judith looked back at him. “About what?” she asked and then followed his eyes as he looked down to her belly. “You mean about the baby?” And this time the wave of nausea that hit her was different; she broke out in a cold sweat and felt her mouth fill with bile.

  Daniel sat there saying nothing. Judith looked at him, frightened that she might have understood his meaning. For once, just for once, she out-waited him. “This isn’t a good time for us to have a child,” Daniel began. “It was never in my plans, but now, of all times, it’s a real problem.”

  “Why?” Judith asked. “Now that we’ll have some money coming in, and you’ll probably get tenure—”

  “Having a baby is tremendously expensive.”

  “The school’s insurance covers it,” Judith said. “And we’ll have more money now than we’ve ever had.”

  “You don’t understand,” Daniel interrupted. “This isn’t about money. I don’t plan to stay at school. We won’t have insurance. And there will be traveling for the book, and for the movie.”

  “What do you mean?” Judith asked, her voice a whisper. “Do you mean that you don’t want this baby?”

  For a moment Daniel refused to meet her eyes. Judith couldn’t believe it. She’d told him about her date rape in high school, about her father’s reaction to that pregnancy, and the forced abortion. He couldn’t…Daniel stood up. “It’s bad timing,” he said, turning away and walking back toward the kitchen.

  Judith stood as well. “You don’t want our baby?” she asked. It felt like the last straw.

  “It’s not that I don’t want our baby, I just don’t want it now.”

  Judith’s hands clutched her stomach, and then she dropped them to her sides as she followed him. “What do you mean?” she asked in a voice so quiet that she saw Daniel stop to hear her.

  “I just don’t think we should have this baby now. I have the book tour, and I am thinking of leaving the school, and I have to get started on the next book. We’ll have to go out to California when they start filming the movie. I want to write the screenplay. It’s just not a good—”

  “You son of a bitch,” Judith whispered. She couldn’t believe it, but it was time. “Why don’t you come out and say it? Be honest for the first time in your life. You want me to have an abortion? That’s what you want?” She picked up the lamp and, whipping the cord out of the wall, threw it directly at Daniel’s head. He ducked, but the plug at the end of the cord caught his neck and the lamp fell to the floor. The damned toxic carpet muffled the crash, but Judith picked up the next handy object—a copy of Melville’s Typee, and hurled it at Daniel. “You’re crazy,” she said. “You’re sick.” The book hit him in the chest, and he jumped up, knocking over the chair.

  “You’re the crazy one,” he said, but Judith merely hefted a flowerpot from the windowsill and sent it flying toward him. It hit the wall with a satisfying smash, pottery shards and soil flying everywhere. “Judith, stop. You have to…” he took two steps toward her, his arms out as if to restrain her.

  The phone rang, and Judith snatched it up and threw it at Daniel, the receiver hitting his forehead with a satisfying chunk. “It’s for you,” she said. “It’s always for you.” He moved toward her. “Don’t come near me. I hate you. And I am not going to have an abortion. I won’t.” She knew she was screaming, that her spittle was flying, but she didn’t care. “You’re disgusting. You’re a liar and you’re disgusting.” Judith started to sob, but she didn’t want to cry. She wanted to kill him. She ran to the kitchenette and picked up the saucepan beside the sink.

  “Judith, don’t,” Daniel began, but when he saw the heavy pot in her hand he turned and ran for the door.

  “You’re disgusting!” she screamed and threw the pot, but he was already out of the apartment. She knew where he was going, but suddenly she didn’t care. She looked around at the havoc and realized it wasn’t enough. This apartment, this stupid life they had made together, should be torn apart, just as he wanted to tear apart the life that was inside her. She ran to the bookshelf and began pushing his precious volumes off the shelves, onto the floor, almost taking the fax machine with them. In moments, the carpet was littered with books. She threw over the table and then went to his desk and dumped each drawer into the middle of the room. Still, it wasn’t enough. Then she saw his briefcase.

  She got the vegetable peeler from the kitchen and sat down with the case. The leather was very fine. She slid the vegetable peeler across the smooth surface. A satisfying curl of brown leather lifted itself, leaving an ugly scar. She worked at the case for a few minutes, then opened it and dumped the contents onto the floor, along with everything else. She picked up a notebook and tore, it in half. Childishly, she crumpled all the papers into small spheres and threw them in different directions across the room. Let Daniel try and grade those papers! Then she noticed a perforated bit of paper that looked, almost, like a check. She lifted it up. It had clearly been torn off a check, but it seemed to be the long stub or memorandum. “To Jude Daniel, option payment for In Full Knowledge, first installment $50,000 less agent commission of 15%.” Judith stared, blinking at the amount. Daniel had received forty thousand dollars and hadn’t told her about it. He had said that it would take months, or maybe more, before any money came in from the movie option! She had believed him. She was stupid. She scrabbled through the rest of the papers from the brie
fcase, but there was nothing else there. Then she went through everything that she had dumped out of the desk. Nothing. Then she noticed his sports jacket. She got up from the floor and went through his pockets. There, in the inside breast pocket, was a checkbook. She pulled it out.

  The checks were printed with the name Jude Daniel. They used Daniel’s school address. Judith wondered how long he had had this account. She flipped to the check register. There was an initial deposit of twenty dollars, followed by a deposit of twenty-five thousand, then another twenty-five thousand dollars deposited more than a month ago, followed by the forty thousand that was dated today. Despite a few small withdrawals, there was close to ninety thousand dollars in the account! Judith stared at the register. Why hadn’t Daniel told her about this? Was he a thief as well as a liar?

  It was then that she heard the whimpering. She stopped for a moment and, confused, wondered if it was the baby. That was crazy. On her hands and knees she followed the noise to the corner, behind the TV. Flaubert was lying there, whimpering, his long nose buried in the deadly carpet, his paws on top of his nose. She had never heard this noise from him. In fact, she realized that he had never been frightened or abused since they’d adopted him. Now the noise that came from his throat was a frightened, heartbreaking sound, and it seemed to express perfectly her own emotions. Gently she reached out to him and put her hand on his head. On her hands and knees, she put her face up against his. The dog was trembling all over, and she tried to hold him.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right. You’re okay. No one’s going to hurt you.” But the dog continued to shake, and Judith knew that he doubted the words as much as she did.