The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Of course, Carl’s computer wizardry would begin to change all that. With Morton on the warpath, Gerald couldn’t afford any vulnerability. His book, at least on paper, would look as if it were doing respectably well. But meanwhile, Gerald knew that Pam, with her nose for an advantage, would be weighing his monies against hers. He’d received a $1.1 million advance on sales of thirty thousand copies while she’d gotten a paltry $250,000 payment on hardcover sales that were already approaching 750,000 copies. She felt she’d succeeded where he’d failed again. Next she’d be hitting him up for a book contract of her own.

  Gerald sighed. “The Annie Paradise book looks pretty good. Maybe we should goose it with radio ads. We need something to show Morton.”

  Dickie Pointer shook his head. “It’s topped out. It won’t sell any more than that.”

  Gerald looked at the initial orders for Susann Baker Edmonds’s book. They had been light, but there had already been some feedback from the field based on her tour. Slowly but surely the old bag was really charming the orders out of the sticks, and Gerald’s hope that this book would not be a fiasco rose. He’d shelled out such a monstrously big advance that Morton would surely use it against him if this book didn’t move. They had barely spoken since Frankfurt, and then only at board meetings. Gerald winced at the idea of another dressing-down.

  “What is Edmonds at now?” he asked.

  “Number seventeen on the Times list. It might move up.”

  More worrisome was In Full Knowledge, which, for a first novel, had received healthy orders after the ABA but hadn’t any apparent sell-through. Gerald knew the book would be a hit but was surprised at how slowly it was taking off. He didn’t even want to think about what he would do if the quarter of a million books he’d printed began to flow back to their warehouse.

  “I want the two of you totally prepared for the meeting with Morton. Pam, you better know your numbers inside and out.” Pam nodded. Dickie shrugged. Dickie never knew anything but numbers.

  “Anything else?” Gerald asked, facing Pam’s smirk for the final time before he dismissed them.

  Pam asked, in her very least inflected voice, “Did you see that ridiculous review?”

  Gerald looked up at her. He knew her well enough to recognize her lack of affect for a setup. “What review?” he asked.

  “The Times review of Twice in the Papers. You mean you haven’t seen it?” For a moment Gerald actually thought she was joking—a bad joke—and one he would have punished her for, but the smirk and her narrowed eyes told him she was serious. “The Times reviewed me?” he asked. It was impossible that it would happen without him knowing it. He was friends—or at least socially familiar—with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. But since his first book, the Times had politely not condescended to even mention his work—it was too commercial. Still, Gerald knew if they did review it, they would be savage, and he had been grateful. No mention was an accommodation rather than an embarrassment. “What are you talking about?” Gerald snapped, trying to sound bored rather than frightened.

  Pam was po-faced. “You haven’t seen it? Well, it’s running tomorrow. A friend faxed it to me.” She innocently looked through her messy pile of papers. “Wait, I’ll see if I can find a copy. I just assumed you had already read it.”

  Gerald shot his cuffs as an alternative to strangling Pam. He didn’t know who she blew to get any advance word from the Times, but she must have known he hadn’t seen a review from there: They were demons about leaks. She shrugged, shifting her large breasts.

  “I must have left it in my office,” she said. He watched her as she sashayed out of the room, and he and Dickie sat there silently, waiting for her return. It didn’t take long for Pam to reappear. Gerald tried to be prepared.

  Pam glided across the vast, carpeted space of his office and handed him the faxed page. Gerald scanned it. “This roman à clef pretends to be literature when it’s in fact a badly reported, fictionalized account of a long-dead scandal.” Gerald ran his eyes further down the page. “If this account of these tragic events was compassionately rendered or offered the reader some insight into why things happened as they did, the book might have a vaguely redemptive quality. Instead…” Gerald kept his eye moving, allowing himself to feel nothing, to show nothing. “Hackneyed…presumptuous…turgid…ultimately boring.” Gerald forced himself to smile. “Ah,” he crooned dismissively. “The Times. The bastion of middle-class morality.”

  Pam raised her eyebrows and ventured another small smile. “You know how I feel about being the bearer of bad news,” Pam said with exaggerated concern. Gerald knew exactly how she felt and would never give her the satisfaction of showing even a flicker of his feelings.

  “Well, this can only help,” Gerald said. “Exposure is the name of the game. Thank God.”

  Pam raised her brows, as if questioning his view. Ah, well, Gerald comforted himself, all the more mysterious to her, then, when—with the help of Carl Pollenski—Pam would see sales for Twice in the Papers escalate.

  “I think this may work in the book’s favor,” he repeated as cavalierly as he could manage. “After all, they spelled my name right.”

  Dickie reached for the review, but Gerald shook his head. “I’d like to go over it again later,” he said. He could not bear to have Dickie read it in front of him. Even less did he want to imagine David Morton gloatingly reading it tomorrow over breakfast. And Senior! His father would choke on his toast.

  Gerald managed a smile, though it felt to him more like a death’s-head grin. “Well,” he said, “with the full-page ad we’re running, that puts me twice in the papers. Which, as my book points out, is all that anybody needs in their lifetime.”

  72

  For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded.

  —Sir James M. Barrie

  Camilla looked up, responding to the knock at the door. It was probably Will Bracken, the writer from across the hall. Camilla didn’t want to leave her desk or her manuscript, but she rose and crossed the little room.

  The flat that she’d rented in Park Slope could be a lot worse. It was the front half of a floor in a brownstone, what was called a dumbbell apartment because of the two largish rooms with a tiny bath and kitchen in between. It reminded her a bit of the North London digs that students used to cluster in near Camden Lock. The floors here were just as splintery, the walls just as cracked and desperately in need of a paint job, and the light fixtures and appliances were truly ancient. It would not have been too grim if Camilla had had the time and money to fix the place up.

  But she had neither, nor the interest. Somehow, after living in Frederick’s pristine and truly beautiful apartment, Camilla didn’t feel there was much point in trying to make a silk purse out of this place. It would never be all right. For one thing, the light was all wrong, and so was the view—the back gardens reminded her of Birmingham. She missed Manhattan, the haven of Frederick’s apartment, the doormen, and Frederick himself.

  Seeing him in the evenings had punctuated her day. She wrote better, knowing that she would be reading her words to him later. And, while she had been alone at Frederick’s flat, she had never felt lonely. Why had she traded all that away? In retrospect, her prickly pride seemed stupid. In return, all she had gained was what she could laughingly refer to as “her independence”: her menial job with Craig at Citron Press, her lonely flat, and her distressing neighbor, Will, now knocking again at the door.

  “Who is it?” Camilla asked. There was no security in the building other than a front-door buzzer system that was broken as often as it worked.

  “It’s Will. You working?”

  Camilla opened the door. “I was,” she said pointedly, but Will merely shrugged an apology. He was tall, thin, and balding, with small blue eyes and a beaky narrow nose. William Bracken was a serious writer, and a good one, but life usually didn’t reward either trait.

&nb
sp; “I could come back later,” Will said, but Camilla shook her head and held the door open. Will had helped her move in, given her a few bits of furniture, and shown her around the neighborhood. He was a nice man, and she actually liked him and respected his work. It was just that he was so depressing, and that she had so little time for her own writing.

  Will sat down in her one chair and crossed his long legs. “So, how’s it going?”

  “Slowly,” she said, and he nodded understandingly.

  “The second one comes slow,” he said. He’d already written eight books, all of which had been published, most to glowing praise. But each dense and beautifully written novel had sold fewer copies than the one before. Will had explained that in the last decade of persistent writing he had seen his advances drop from their initial modest amounts to a pittance. “When Elmore Leonard was asked what was the best thing to write to make money, he said ‘Ransom notes!’” Somehow Will managed to exist without taking a teaching job or any other work. Despite sales of less than three thousand copies of his last book, despite the refusal of his publishers to put out another, Will had written on his beautiful text enough to keep him satisfied, his frugal way of life enriched only by his manuscripts.

  “Let me take you for a walk,” Will said. “You could use a little stretch, and I want to show you something.”

  Camilla looked at the manuscript but only for a moment. She respected Will’s advice. “All right,” she agreed and grabbed a jumper. They walked out the narrow hall and down the two flights of stairs to the street. Prospect Park was to her left, so Camilla was surprised when Will turned to the right and began walking in the direction of the little street of shops and services that catered to many of the Park Slope residences.

  “How’s Craig?” Will asked.

  “Hyper and enthusiastic as usual,” Camilla told him. Will worshipped Craig, who had found him in his obscurity. Will’s long-suffering wife had finally tired of him and left. Shortly after that Will’s publisher had refused his seventh novel—which Will felt was his best. Will had contemplated suicide, but soldiered on for the sake of the books still unwritten. Then, after a really rough year, Craig had found him in Brooklyn and not only offered him a three-book contract but told him how much he’d always admired Will’s work and how proud he would be if Will would sign with the newly formed Citron Press. It had been like a rebirth for Will, and he wanted to sing Craig’s praises at every opportunity.

  Craig and Camilla had given him renewed hope. In return, Camilla had learned from Will’s example just how easy it was for a novel and for a writer to be lost. Alex had promised her that she would fight for additional advertising dollars, book signings, and publicity, but Camilla had been more frightened by Will’s life than she liked to admit, even to herself. This was not the life she had envisioned. Will had admitted that he couldn’t even pay for the dental work he desperately needed and had been suffering a toothache for weeks.

  Now Will seemed to be over the pain—his jaw was no longer swollen—and was leading her past a few cafés and the greengrocers. He turned and opened the door to the bookstore. “Here,” he said, “I’ve got something to show you.” She followed him into the cool darkness of the shop, and he led her to a shelf beside the window. “Look,” he commanded. He pointed to the bookshelf. There was Pat Conroy’s latest, along with books by Tom Clancy and…she blinked at what she saw: the cover of A Week in Firenze, and under the title her own name.

  “But, but…” Camilla knew she was gasping like a fish. Although she had received her first copies of the book, it was not due out yet. “I thought its publishing date was next month,” she said. “How could it—”

  “Oh, no one pays attention to pub dates in this country,” Will said, “except maybe reviewers. They have such a backlog of advance copies that they publish their critiques by pub date. But bookstores receive copies in advance.”

  Camilla stared at the book, taking its place there in the orderly rows among the others. Her book. “How extraordinary,” she said.

  Will nodded. “Quite a feeling, huh? Now I’ll tell you something. You don’t get tired of it.” He grinned. “I’ve never passed a bookstore anywhere where I didn’t go in and check. And I feel a thrill every single time I find my books.” He paused. “I check libraries, too,” he admitted.

  Camilla could only stand in the little Brooklyn bookstore, far from Birmingham and Firenze, and experience the greatest thrill of her life.

  “Congratulations,” Will said and stuck out his hand.

  “Thank you,” Camilla responded, taking Will’s hand and suddenly, desperately, wishing Frederick were there.

  73

  The family only represents one aspect of a human being’s function and activities…

  —Havelock Ellis

  “You know what Mother would say,” Frederick told Emma.

  Emma nodded, though she wasn’t sure Frederick could see her nod. “You can’t be nice to some people,” she said, in a perfect imitation of her mother’s intonation.

  Frederick laughed. “I was thinking she might say we’ve been dissed by love.”

  Emma laughed. “There are a lot of things that Mother says, but dissed is not one of them.” Talking about loneliness and failure wasn’t something Emma did easily, but she knew it wasn’t easy for Frederick, either. “I think we try too hard,” Emma ventured.

  Frederick nodded. “Our generation of Ashtons seems to have lost all feeling of entitlement,” he said. “Along with some of their eyesight. Why do we give people things? Why did you give clients to Alex? Why did I give the apartment to Camilla?”

  Emma shrugged, then realized that Frederick couldn’t see her response. “I don’t know. What’s your theory?” She took his arm. They were walking through the Conservatory Garden, a fenced-in section of Central Park that was beautifully planted and maintained. Frederick liked it because the ground was even, and there was a statue in the south garden that he could run his hands over. There were also the scents from the herbs, roses, and what was left of the perennials. It was a small oasis in the city, a beautiful place, and Emma was glad that her brother could enjoy it, even with his dimming vision.

  “It’s a very bad thing to have someone feel indebted to you,” Emma opined. “I think it makes us paranoid—we feel we’re in danger of being used—and it makes them resentful.”

  Frederick laughed. “So, why do we seem always to put people in our debt?” he asked. “Well, no good deed goes unpunished.” He looked at his sister, tilting his head, birdlike. “You know,” he said, “I really love her.”

  “I know,” Emma said softly. “But I think you scared her off. I’m sure she felt odd being kept by you.”

  “Emma, that wasn’t my intention! Kept? You don’t keep people. Not in the nineties. I was only lending her my empty apartment.”

  “Oh. So you never slept with her?”

  Frederick paused. “Well, not in New York.”

  “What did you do? Go to Jersey?”

  Frederick didn’t even laugh at her joke. “No,” he said. “What I mean is, that part was over before we came to New York.”

  “Say what?”

  “We slept together in Florence,” he explained. “I hadn’t really meant to, but then we did. Afterward I told her about my sight, and that I wouldn’t bother her in that way.”

  “Let me get this straight: You slept with her and then you told her?”

  Embarrassed, Frederick merely nodded. “And then you told her you wouldn’t have sex with her again?” Frederick winced.

  Emma kept quiet and waited. Frederick broke first. “I hadn’t told her yet,” he said. “I meant to. Then she invited me up to her room, and I—”

  “She invited you up, you slept with her, and you told her about your eyes. Then you never slept with her again?”

  Frederick nodded.

  “Was the sex awful?”

  “No! It was wonderful. But she wouldn’t want to be put in the position of having to r
eject me—”

  “You’re an asshole, Frederick,” Emma said, shaking her head. “I’m surprised she didn’t kick you in the nuts. You know, you were my only proof that all hetero men aren’t jerk-offs, and here you go, blowing my theory.”

  “What did I do? I mean, I know I should have told her first. But then I made up for it. I let her off the hook.”

  “Did you give her the choice? Did she want to be ‘let off the hook’ as you so quaintly and I hope only figuratively put it? Maybe it feels like you rejected her. It would to me.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?” Frederick wanted to know.

  Emma looked at him. “No. It was different for me. Alex acted as if she liked me, then I gave her Camilla and Opal O’Neal as clients, and then she ignored me. I didn’t ignore her, she ignored me. She was using me.”

  “Maybe she was just busy.”

  “No, Frederick. I didn’t hear from her for a week at a time. Then she would call me and yell at me about how Camilla’s book wasn’t being handled properly.”

  “That doesn’t sound like ignoring.”

  “Once she got so mad she got out of the taxi we were in and left me on the Bowery.”

  “That doesn’t sound like being ignored either. It sounds like you were mixing work and your personal life, but it also sounds like she’s passionate about both.” He paused. “She yelled. Then I bet you got too proud to call her.”

  Emma looked at him. “Are you speaking from experience?” she asked. Frederick laughed. “How about a new book? I could write it. The Ashton Siblings: Love Fuck-ups.”

  “Is it fiction or nonfiction?” Emma asked, grinning.

  “It’s self-help.”

  74

  Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men.

  —Joseph Conrad

  Judith didn’t know where to turn. Because she knew now that she had to turn somewhere, take some action to try and protect herself, to take back what was hers. But how hard would it be? Humiliated and enraged, she still couldn’t face calling her father, the only person she knew who dealt with lawyers and courts and suits. Admitting to her dad that his low opinion of Daniel was right was beyond her.