The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Yeah,” he had said, “but his line was way too long.”

  Waller! Waller! Always Waller! Or Grisham. Last year the very average-looking John Grisham had been listed by People magazine as one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world. Susann still seethed over that. Why have plastic surgery when book sales made you beautiful? And without book sales, was she then…There was no way to deny that her line was not nearly as long or robust as Anne River Siddons’s, James Finn Garner’s, and Chad Weston’s. Janet Dailey seemed to have a pushing, endless stream of readers begging for her inscription. Peterson had—due to her leaving—dumped her book on the market with virtually no publicity. It was out, but Peterson was having no signing of it. But that only emphasized the spindliness of Susann’s own line, where there used to be an endless and sometimes even violently enthusiastic crowd, complete with an occasional fracas. Susann knew what it meant when she was visibly reduced to a very thin trickle of supplicants. Perhaps they all were right, Susann thought. Perhaps she did need to tour the country and get closer, reconnect to her readers.

  She looked at Pam Mantiss, who was obviously bored and distracted, waiting for the next bookseller to come by. The woman looked as if she had thrown her clothes on. Why couldn’t she, Susann, work with a stylish, enthusiastic editor like Susan Sandler?

  An older woman approached Susann and from out of a shopping bag pulled a battered copy of A Woman and a Lady and laid it on the desk. “I can’t tell you how much this book meant to me,” she said. “Could you sign it for me?”

  Susann knew she shouldn’t, it was a Peterson backlist title, but then again this was someone who had probably been reading her books from the start. “Certainly. And thank you, my dear,” Susann told her, signing it gratefully.

  “I’m your greatest fan,” the woman said and pulled out a copy of A Woman with a Past. “Would you sign this, too?”

  “Of course,” Susann told her. Readers still did care. This woman had carted these books all the way to the ABA because they meant something to her. Susann’s fingers were cramping, but she was touched, and signed her name with a flourish.

  The woman now pulled out of her bag a paperback copy of The Lady of the House, truly dogeared and missing its cover. “Would it be asking too much?”

  Before Susann could take the book, Pam Mantiss came from behind her, putting her face almost offensively close to the fan. “I’m afraid it would,” she said. “You see, Miss Edmonds is very busy right now.”

  Susann looked at her editor, shocked. “Surely I can—”

  “We didn’t publish any of those fucking books,” Pam hissed at Susann. She turned back to the tiny woman. “Ms. Edmonds only signs hardcover. You can get her to sign a copy of her new book when it comes out.”

  The woman turned to Susann and looked embarrassed. “I won’t be able to afford to buy it until it comes out in paperback. But I’m sure I will like it,” she assured Susann. Humbly, she put the unsigned book back in her bag and walked away.

  Just then a bookseller came up and started talking with Pam. Pam approached Susann and slapped a copy of her last book in front of her. “Sign this. Write ‘to my niece Rachel, with love from her Aunt Sissy.’”

  Susann looked at Pam in dismay and blinked. “I can’t write that,” she explained. “After all, Rachel isn’t my niece. And besides, you just said that I—”

  “If you want these guys to order your new book, you’d better start writing,” Pam snorted, handing Susann a pen.

  Alf Byron was just hitting his stride. He had walked up and down the ABA aisles as if he owned them. He was back in the action, respected by all. The buzz about Jude Daniel’s book was getting louder and louder. And when he walked into the party for Jude, Alf felt as if the party was in fact for him and his return as a player in the New York publishing scene.

  It had been a long time between rains, but Alf had weathered the drought. For too long he had been thought of as an agent with one client, a kind of joke, a literary gigolo. And with Susann fading, whatever positioning he’d managed had been fading too. But now Susann was reborn. And the icing on the cake was the heat being generated by Jude Daniel, his new boy wonder. Had he been an Italian gavone, Alf would have clutched his crotch and readjusted his testicles; the fact was, he had a pair of balls now.

  The moment he walked into the crowded room, Pam Mantiss spotted him and made her way over. After the bitter negotiations over Susann’s contract and the possibility of a bad performance of her first book for Pam, this was a nice change. For a moment Alf felt guilty, because he knew he’d given Jude’s book away. But he’d make it up on the next contract. Once this one hit the bestseller list any publisher would be happy to pay six figures to get a hold of the professor. Pam knew that as well as Alf did, and her smile and extended drink were only a premium on the insurance policy she was trying to establish.

  Alf accepted the glass and took a sip. “Not bad,” he said. The white wine was crisp and chilled, not the usual lukewarm Gallo chardonnay.

  “I’m drinking it,” Pam said, emptying her glass. She looked around the room. “Don’t you hate this shit? People who hate you pretending they don’t, and people who are envious pretending they aren’t.”

  Alf nodded, but he actually loved it. “Well,” he said, “a lot of people are envying both of us tonight. Editor of the Year, huh?”

  Pam nodded. “Big fucking deal,” she said.

  “Well, you got a hell of a list,” he said. “I don’t know how you manage to pull it out time after time.”

  “Neither do I, Alf, neither do I.” Pam grabbed two more glasses off the tray of a passing waiter and offered one to him. Alf shook his head, his glass still half filled. Pam shrugged, drained the first glass, and placed it on the floor, where it was sure to be stepped on. Then she gulped half of the wine from her second glass. Alf decided she would not be good company by the time the glass was empty.

  “Where is the professor?” he asked.

  “Look for the knot of women. He’ll be in the center.”

  The room was jammed with the usual crowd. Binky Urban was talking with someone Alf didn’t recognize. A new writer? If Binky was interested, so was Alf. Fredi Friedman, blond and elegant, was coolly listening to some minor agent. Alf walked by and heard the guy saying, “I have the hottest book in town, and we want two point five for it.” Alf nodded to Michael Korda and was gratified to receive a nod in return. Finally, he made his way to the tight group near the bar. It was all women—editors, bookstore owners, and two of the buyers from the chains. The professor was in the middle of them, and as Alf shouldered his way into the crowd, they all laughed at some remark he had made.

  “Well, you know it’s true,” Daniel continued. “Most men think there are only four things a woman should know.”

  “What are they?”

  “How to look like a girl, how to act like a lady, how to think like a man, and how to work like a dog.”

  Again, the crowd broke into convivial laughter. “Of course, you’re married,” one of the women said flirtatiously. “None of us would be lucky enough to find out you’re not.”

  Jude’s face got serious. “Actually, I’m not. I was, but we’re in the process of divorce.” He sighed. “It isn’t easy to live with a writer.”

  Alf looked around at the faces of the women. They looked as if they’d like the opportunity to see how hard it might be. The professor played them like a violin. The kid had a big future. Across the room, standing with Wendy Brennon, was Susann. Her eyes were on him, but when he looked at her she didn’t change her expression or acknowledge him. Alf felt a momentary stab of guilt. For years, at parties like these, Susann had been the center of the group of women. He ought to go to her. He ought to find out how the book signing had gone. But here, in the center of the action, it was as warm as a Caribbean beach. Alf couldn’t face the trip across the room to the frigid look, the tundra, that was Susann’s corner of the room.

  Alf elbowed a short woman asi
de and put his hand on Jude Daniel’s shoulder. “Well, Professor, you don’t seem to need my help now,” he said heartily. “Not like when you first brought that manuscript to me.”

  The women turned their heads to look at him. Jude made some introductions, but Alf waved his hand. “I know most of you,” he said. “Some talent we got here, huh? And I was the one who found him.” Then he launched into the story of the letter he got from an obscure college professor to sit on a panel and how he, Alf Byron, had encouraged and created this new literary star.

  PART FOUR

  The Bestseller

  The release of a book is rather like Jesus’ presentation to the Temple: Anything might happen, from worship of the rabbis to attack by the Philistines. But whatever the initial reaction, over time very few books are remembered. Of the fifty thousand published each year in America perhaps three dozen become true national bestsellers. As the Bible puts it in Matthew 22:14, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

  —Gerald Ochs Davis, Sr.

  Fifty Years in Publishing

  68

  When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.

  —Jorge Luis Borges

  Opal pulled hard, feeling as if her knees were about to give way. She was in an undignified and uncomfortable squat, clutching the narrow trunk of the weeping cherry tree that had been delivered just the day before. Aiello had worked most of the previous afternoon digging the hole, and now he, Roberta, and Opal had managed to drag the surprisingly heavy sapling to the center of the little lawn and sink the root ball into the waiting site. As Opal and Aiello strained, Roberta stood at the other side of the little garden and directed them to be sure that the trunk was perpendicular to the handkerchief square of lawn. Opal, usually appreciative of Roberta’s perfectionism, snorted. It was almost as frustrating as having a sidewalk bystander help with parallel parking.

  “Still more to the right,” Roberta said, motioning with her long hands. Opal pulled in that direction as hard as she could. Sweat had broken out on her forehead. The sun was surprisingly hot. Who would have thought such a slender tree would have such heavy roots?

  “Is this all right?” she managed to shout, despite her breathlessness, and Roberta paused before she nodded, as if she wasn’t quite certain.

  “Quick, Aiello,” Opal gasped. “Get the dirt in. Pack it around to hold the tree at this angle.” To her it seemed the tree was lopsided, as if she were pulling it over herself in an almost recumbent position. But she knew she was probably too close to it to tell and—as with a few other things she was too close to judge objectively—she would have to trust Roberta.

  She was trusting Roberta more and more, anyway. They worked together now at the store every day and usually lunched or dined together several times a week. Roberta had introduced Opal to off-Broadway theater, and in return Opal had bought them a subscription to the symphony. Roberta had helped Opal with the garden and had brought her to the banker she herself had used for more than twenty-five years. Now Opal’s out-of-state checks were credited as cash when she requested it, instead of after nine seemingly endless business days. It certainly made New York City a friendlier place when you knew people who knew people.

  And Roberta knew people. She had told Opal all about the disappointing placement that Terry’s book had gotten at the ABA. Then Roberta had handed Opal a letter, a letter that beautifully described Duplicity and urged booksellers to stock it. Roberta had asked permission to send it out to the list of independent bookstore owners, many of whom she knew. Needless to say, Opal had agreed. Yes, she was trusting her friend. Roberta had even found the Westchester nursery from which Opal had ordered this beautiful tree, this memorial to Terry.

  Opal kept pulling at the trunk, though her arms felt as if they were being pulled from their socket. “Hurry up, Aiello,” she said. “I can’t hold it much longer.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m literally sweating bullets.”

  “You are not speaking literally,” Opal had to say. She couldn’t bear it when people used literally as an emphasis. “You might say virtually.”

  “I might say ‘shut up and hold the tree.’” Aiello shoveled in two or three more spadefuls of earth and then stood on the spot, stamping the soil down around the tree. “Anyway, what’s the diff?”

  He was hopeless in a lot of ways, but he did know how to plant a tree. For the first time, Opal felt the pull the tree had been exerting start to lessen. She dared to loosen her grip and turned her head to Roberta, across the way. “Is it okay?” she asked, and Roberta nodded, coming to hold on to the trunk herself. Aiello went back to shoveling, and Opal slowly managed to come out of her undignified squat, listening to her knees crack, stretching her legs, and moving her arms in circles in their joints. She’d be sore tonight.

  “Take a look,” Roberta said, and gesturing with her chin. Opal walked back to the farthest corner, near the door to the apartment. She turned around, and the tree was perfectly centered in the middle of the perfect new green lawn. Behind it the white flowers, mostly impatiens and stock already in bloom, and the dark green of the two budding rosebushes made a perfect counterpoint to the brick wall behind them and the graceful tree in front.

  Her two helpers, one on each side of the tree, looked at her expectantly. Opal nodded to show her approval, but she couldn’t say anything more because her throat was choked with tears.

  “Looking good?” Aiello asked, and Opal nodded again. Even Aiello was looking good to her. I must be on sentimental overload, she told herself. But he had been more than kind. In his own berserk New York way, he was a friend, too.

  “So. We got something else for you,” Aiello called and looked over at Roberta. “Just stay where you are.” The two of them left the garden through the back doorway and reappeared a moment later, struggling with a bulky, heavy burden. It was a white wrought-iron bench, which they moved with difficulty into position under the tree.

  “Is this about right?” Roberta asked.

  “Do you like it?” Aiello called.

  Opal nodded and came across the grass to the two of them. She was deeply touched. How had Aiello gotten the bench? As if he knew what she was thinking, he shrugged and said, “I had a friend in Queens. He gets this stuff sometimes.”

  Roberta looked at Opal and then put her finger on the plaque at the center of the bench back. Opal didn’t have her reading glasses, but from where she stood she could make out the inscription.

  In memory of Terry O’Neal,

  beloved daughter of Opal O’Neal

  and author of The Duplicity of Men

  Opal could barely read the dates under that because of her tears. They rolled down her face and mixed with the sweat and the dirt she had unknowingly smeared across one cheek and the bridge of her nose. “Oh, it’s really beautiful,” she told them. “And a beautiful gesture,” she added. Roberta nodded, silent.

  “We got a great price on it,” Aiello said. “My friend gave me a real break.” Opal couldn’t help but wonder whether the bench might have fallen off a truck or, worse, whether it might have been “liberated” from someone else’s garden. One never knew with Aiello. But her thoughts didn’t stop her tears or her gratitude. He took out a surprisingly clean handkerchief from his back pocket, blew his nose, and then offered it to Opal. She smiled and shook her head, preferring to wipe her cheeks with the back of her hands. “You got dirt all over yourself,” Aiello informed her.

  Opal looked down at her grimy hands. “I think I better wash up,” she agreed, needing time to gather herself, so all three of them walked across the little lawn and into the apartment. When Opal looked into the mirror in the bathroom she very nearly burst out laughing. Her face was a mess of gritty black dirt and tear tracks, complicated by what looked like a sunburned nose and the mottled perspiration rash she sometimes got at her hairline. “You’re no beauty, Opal O’Neal,” she told her reflection, shrugged, and washed her hands and face. As she came out of th
e bathroom, Roberta was taking a bottle out of the refrigerator.

  “I don’t know if we should drink this or break it over the bow of the bench,” Roberta said, indicating the champagne bottle.

  Another lovely gesture! Roberta was so thoughtful. “Oh, I don’t think the bench needs a christening,” Opal exclaimed.

  “Thank God,” Aiello answered, “’cause I need a drink. But do you got any beer?” Sadly enough, Opal didn’t. But she looked up at her two friends.

  “Why don’t I get some for you, and make a pitcher of iced tea? It’s a bit early for drinking. We can have some lunch and save the champagne for after.” She looked at Roberta, careful not to hurt her feelings. “Would that be all right?”

  “Of course,” Roberta told her. And then the doorbell sounded. Aside from Margaret, at the bookstore, Opal couldn’t think of anyone else she knew who might drop by. She went to the virtually useless intercom and inquired who was there. Through the static it was hard to hear, but it was certainly a woman’s voice, so Opal pushed the buzzer. They had a female mail carrier, but she did not usually buzz. Perhaps there was a registered letter?

  Opal opened the door to find Emma Ashton standing there, beaming at her. “I took a chance you might be in,” Emma said. “I wanted to surprise you.” Then she saw the other guests and paused. “Oh. Perhaps this is a bad time,” she said. “It’s just that—”

  “These are my friends, Emma.” Opal made the introductions. “How very nice of you to come by. And it couldn’t be a better time.” She was about to take Emma’s arm and show her the tree and bench, just visible from this angle, but Emma interrupted.

  “Yes, it is a perfect time,” she said. “Look what I have for you.”

  “Another gift?” Opal asked. “I’ve certainly been treated well today.” And then she saw what Emma was extending toward her and stopped talking. It was a book—a really thick book bound in maroon buckram and covered in a midnight blue dust jacket. Emma held the book up, and Opal could see the title—The Duplicity of Men—in dull gold across the top. And there, in smaller letters across the bottom, “A novel by Terry O’Neal.”