“You take them with you?”
“No,” she whispered. “I have to go.”
The argument was getting louder. “Yeah?” she heard. “Well, Daisy Maryles might be interested in seeing my work-for-hire contract. And so would the Writers’ Guild.”
Emma knew that Daisy Maryles was the executive editor of PW—she also wrote its “Behind the Bestsellers” column. Emma threw the money on the counter, stood up, and hurriedly reached down to pick up her bag. As she turned to go, the screen to the dining room was pushed open and a thin dark man stepped off of the platform. Emma recognized him but couldn’t quite place the face. He grabbed his shoes but didn’t stop to put them on. He was out of the restaurant before Emma could move, and then it was too late.
There, on her hands and knees on the small tatami mat in front of her, was Pam, who looked up into Emma’s face.
“Pam!” Emma said, feigning surprise. “What luck.”
“Yeah,” Pam said. “All of it bad.”
82
Every novelist has a different purpose—and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.
—Irwin Shaw
San Diego was in reality a beautiful city, but that hardly mattered to Susann, who knew that there was no reality but the reality of her book sales. The view from her hotel window—sun splashed off the harbor and marina—could have been a dirty brick wall for the amount of pleasure it gave her. She was dressed and ready to begin her last day of book signing—all that was left was the New York satellite session that would include another dozen radio stations and television shows but would all be done from the comfort of a lower Park Avenue studio.
“Are you ready, Susann?” Edith asked. Susann nodded, though she’d never felt more exhausted in her life. She didn’t dare to glance in the mirror—she’d probably get so demoralized that she wouldn’t be able to show up at the superstore downtown.
She had worked very hard. No one could deny her that. On their last stop, in L.A., Alf had met them and cheered her with the news that sales were climbing and there was some interest from the network for a miniseries. But the meeting with NBC had gone badly. It seemed Alf had exaggerated their enthusiasm and had embarrassed both of them. She had failed. Despite the days, the weeks of touring, despite all of her smiles, her nights alone, and the discomfort of travel, she still had not made the Times bestseller list. The book had hovered in the high teens and then dropped down into the twenties, only to rebound to number seventeen.
“Let’s go,” Edith said, and puppetlike, Susann obeyed, following Edith down yet another hotel corridor into another elevator, through another lobby, and out into another waiting car.
The two of them were silent. They had spent so many hours together there was nothing left to talk about. But Susann found comfort in Edith’s presence. And it wasn’t absolutely hopeless. Tonight, Wednesday, the New York Times would fax the new list to subscribers of the early information. Maybe, just maybe…Susann thought of Robert James Waller and Alexandra Ripley signing thousands of copies of their books in advance. She sighed heavily.
“It isn’t the end of the world,” Edith said, patting Susann’s arm.
“No,” Susann agreed. “It’s just the end of my career.”
“Oh, aren’t we feeling a little sorry for ourselves?”
Susann looked down at her gnarled hands. “Aren’t we entitled to?” she asked.
“Entitled? Certainly not. We can pity ourselves if we choose to, but we are definitely not entitled to. Haven’t you wound up with more than you ever expected? Haven’t you had a good run up to now?”
“Yes,” Susann agreed, “but I don’t want it to stop.” She felt that with the late start she’d gotten she was owed more. “I don’t want it to change. Why should it have to?”
“Because everything changes,” Edith said. “It’s just the nature of things.”
“Well,” Susann said, setting her mouth. “I don’t want it to change yet.”
“Then you’re greedy,” Edith told her, but she softened her words by patting Susann’s arm again.
They arrived at the bookstore early, as they always did. It was one of the largest of the chain, and Susann had signed books here two years before. “Who’s the manager?” she asked Edith.
Edith consulted the card in her purse. “Stacy Malone,” she said. “But Stacy is out on maternity leave. The assistant manager, John Brooks, is going to be here. Ask about Stacy’s baby.” Edith kept complete notes on every bookstore they’d ever visited and corresponded (in Susann’s name) with many of the store managers.
“Did we send Stacy anything for the baby?” Susann asked.
“You knit her a sweater,” Edith said with a smile.
Susann looked down at her hands. “I think we’re going to have to stop using that one,” she murmured. They got out of the car to be met by John Brooks.
The cheerful bustle inside the store perked Susann up. She really did love bookstores; all the fuss that was made over her, and the opportunity to meet her readers. John Brooks had a very nice table set up, complete with a cloth and a vase of flowers, though they were only chrysanthemums.
“We have more than a hundred people waiting,” John said. “It looks like it’s going to be a really big signing. Stacy wishes she could be here.”
“Well, the baby’s much more important than I am,” Susann said with a smile.
“Would you like to put your things in the back?” John asked, smiling at her modestly. “A few of our own girls wanted to meet you, and they have books they’d like you to sign.”
“Of course,” Susann said. How could there be all this interest, all these people, and yet no place for her on the list? She knew her touring would have a cumulative effect—that lists were based on sales of two weeks prior. She just felt that there was a build to this tour—that finally her perseverance would pay off and she would be rewarded. This would be the week.
She met the staff in the storage room at the back of the store. “What a beautiful sweater you knitted,” one of them said.
“Stacy loved it so much,” another one told her. “She sends her love.”
A third clerk took out a picture of a young blond woman with a surprisingly dark baby. “Here’s Thomas,” one of them said.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” Susann cooed. “And Stacy looks great. She didn’t gain any weight from her pregnancy.”
There was a moment of silence, and Susann looked around the room while the clerks looked at one another and avoided her eye. What had she done? John Brooks cleared his throat. “Your public is waiting,” he said, and he opened the door to lead Susann out to the table. Edith followed her.
“That wasn’t Stacy,” Edith whispered. “Stacy is black.” Susann shook her head. This was the sixtieth bookstore on her tour. There was no way to keep up with this sort of thing. How was she to know? Susann sat down behind the table, flustered after her gaffe but smiling brightly. There was a long line of readers, as well as a tall pile of books stacked behind her, ready to be signed. John Brooks patted her on the shoulder. “We’re going to work you really hard,” he said. “It’s such a relief to have a pro like you come in. We had an author scheduled last month who never even showed up. Didn’t even call.” He shook his head; then smiled at Susann and eyed the big crowd. “This is great,” he said. “It’s so nice to have a fill-in until Waller’s book comes out next week.”
Susann froze. Her hand painfully clenched the arm of the chair. “Fill-in?” she said. She turned to Edith. “Robert Waller has a book coming out next week?”
The assistant manager nodded his head. “We received them today.”
Susann looked from Edith to the bookstore manager and then back at the crowd. Waller would blow her off the list! There’d be no space, no hole for her to fill. Susann stopped and swallowed. Fill. That’s what she was now. What had this boy just called her? A fill-in. Susann turned to the crowd and then burst into uncontrollable sobs.
83
—Irwin Shaw
Gerald sat drumming his fingers on the side of his chair while Dickie Pointer droned on. He glanced down at the printout. After all these years, he still couldn’t read the goddamned things. They were confusing and badly organized, but he supposed he should be grateful for that. After all, if they weren’t so obfuscating, it would be far more difficult, or even impossible, to “borrow” sales credits the way he had. Yet even with the extra “sales,” Twice in the Papers wasn’t performing well enough. Still, it was early. The official pub date was a week away. There was time, and Gerald was about to redouble his campaign for column mentions and advertising. He’d see Wendy Brennon about publicity this afternoon, and if she couldn’t deliver more, she’d better be prepared to start looking for another job.
Mrs. Perkins, wearing a dress with a campestral print strewn across it, entered the room and made her way around the conference table to Gerald. She handed him a pink message slip. There was nobody that Gerald would interrupt the sales meeting for, with the exception of David Morton. He frowned at Mrs. Perkins for her bad judgment and then looked down at the slip. It said, “Your father on the line. Bad news.” Gerald shrugged. He hadn’t heard from his father since the reader’s copies of his novel had been sent out. It was the big chill. This could only mean that his mother had—at long last—taken a turn for the worse or even died. Well, she’d been as good as dead for more than a decade.
For a moment Gerald played with the idea of snubbing his dad, letting Senior hold on, only to be told by Mrs. Perkins that his son was in a meeting and unavailable. But that was childish. Best to make up and help with whatever preparations were necessary. It would heal their little breach. Gerald hated funerals. He wondered if his black Armani double-breasted suit would still fit; he’d put on some weight.
He nodded and walked from the room without excusing himself. Dickie stopped momentarily, but Gerald heard his drone resume as soon as he stepped beyond the door. Mrs. Perkins, always one to appreciate a possible drama, looked whey-faced. “He said it was urgent to reach you,” she whispered, as if there was anyone in the empty hall to disturb. Gerald just nodded calmly and walked to his office. He thought, for a moment, of the length of time Senior had been on hold.
Mrs. Perkins followed him into his office, as if she could give him some kind of moral support. The woman was presumptuous. He looked at her, arching a brow. “Please close the door as you leave,” he said coldly, and lifted the phone. She went.
“Hello, Gerald. Is that you?”
“Hello, Father. Is Mother—”
“Your mother is fine, Gerald.” He hesitated, always a stickler for accuracy. “Well, she’s as fine as she usually is. Thank God she’s in her condition. I don’t think she could bear this.”
Was it Senior himself who was ill? Cancer? Gerald stood at the desk, his imaginary world expanding. What had prompted this call? “What is it, Father? Are you all right?”
“I certainly am not, nor should you be. But I’m calling about your Uncle Bob.”
“Uncle Bob Ochs?” Gerald asked.
“Yes, your Uncle Bob Ochs,” Senior snapped. “The man whose privacy you invaded for profit. Your mother’s brother. The man who lived down a terrible scandal and had some peace in these last years. Your uncle, who blew his brains out this morning.”
“What?” Gerald fell into his chair. “He couldn’t have! He was so old.”
“Not so old that he couldn’t pull the trigger on a forty-five,” Senior said coldly. “Not so old that he could ignore all the new talk and innuendo that you started up again.”
“When did this happen?” Gerald managed to ask.
“Last night, or early this morning. His housekeeper found him. Unfortunately, she didn’t call me. She called the police. I’m afraid the story will definitely make the papers.”
Gerald was silent. His uncle was nothing to him—a distant figure. He’d been there at family occasions, and he’d always sent the obligatory gift at Christmas and birthdays. But he had been ghostlike for years. Still, the knowledge that he had caused the man’s death frightened Gerald for a moment. He’d never been responsible for a death before, even if it was only the death of an eighty-two-year-old living ghost.
“I’m very sorry,” Gerald said. “Are you sure this had anything to do with the book?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Senior snapped. “Of course it was the book. Charles at the club told me that Bob had stopped coming in. He lunched there every weekday for the last eighteen years, and right after your book came out he stopped. When I called him he was deeply shaken, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. Of course I didn’t, or I would have done something. Apparently, he stopped going out altogether. The housekeeper said that he mumbled about how everybody knew. That everyone on the street stared and pointed.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Gerald said. “The book isn’t even selling that well, and how would people know it was him?”
“It was his delusion, Gerald,” Senior explained, using the tone of voice he’d used when Gerald had failed a subject in school. “But you sparked the delusion.” The old man paused, and Gerald tried to brace himself for what he knew was coming. “I asked you not to do this book, Gerald. You told me that you wouldn’t, or you led me to believe that you wouldn’t. And then, without as much as a rewrite, you published it. You killed your uncle, and if your mother knew, I’m sure it would kill her. It was an utterly craven, selfish act, and I am deeply ashamed of you. I want you to know that you no longer have my support. There is no forgiveness for this. Your Uncle Bob was not an easy man to know. He was distant, and he had his own demons to fight. But he didn’t deserve a death like this. They’re still cleaning his brains off the walls.” He paused, and Gerald wondered, for the briefest moment, if his father was crying. But Senior merely took a breath and continued relentlessly. “You are an unnaturally ambitious, avaricious man. You were born with more advantages and gifts than most, and they still weren’t enough for you. You’ve managed to choose the low road over the high one at every juncture. And I am deeply, deeply ashamed of you.”
Gerald opened his mouth, about to protest or apologize, he wasn’t sure which. But the phone clicked, and in a moment a dial tone buzzed. Slowly, he put the phone down.
He sat for a few moments. Well, it was unfortunate that his uncle had taken his own life, but the man was eighty-two. He was probably senile. His sister was—had been for years. And really, how tragic was it? What did he have to look forward to at that age? Not that it was his fault, no matter what his father implied. Gerald hadn’t used his uncle’s name, and he had changed plenty of the details. Nobody was pointing the finger at Robert Ochs. The only finger that killed him was his own finger on the trigger. I actually depicted him sympathetically, Gerald thought. For all I know, he never even read the book.
And then the thought occurred to him, small and flickering, at first like the tongue of a snake: How much coverage would this get? And if it did get a lot, what would it do for the sales of Twice in the Papers? After all, he thought, Bob is already dead. He has no survivors. It can’t hurt him, and it could significantly help me. The spin on this matters. Coverage could bring the scandal right into the present again. And I could issue a statement, be bereaved and saddened by this tragedy. Perhaps People could do a coping piece on me, the tragedy and my remorse. Remorse sells.
Gerald leaned forward and buzzed Mrs. Perkins.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and he was repulsed by her morbid curiosity.
“Get Wendy Brennon up here right away,” he snapped.
84
At some point those of us who are about what is called “truth” have to be as willing to fight for our reality as those who are fighting against us.
—Nikki Giovanni
“And you had never even read the book during your daughter’s lifetime?”
Opal blinked at the question
. It didn’t really matter: This was National Public Radio, and listeners couldn’t see her face. All she had to do was answer Terry Gross’s questions and not shuffle the papers in front of the microphone.
“I read bits over the years, Terry,” Opal said. But so little. So very little. Her daughter had been so secretive, so alone, so bitter. Opal blinked back tears.
Saying her daughter’s name aloud to this woman was very painful. As if she understood, Terry Gross reached out and touched her hand.
“The important thing is that it’s a wonderful book, a brilliant book, that traces the emotional failure of American men. Their inability to love, their irresponsibility to themselves and to their families,” Terry Gross said while Opal recovered herself and nodded.
“We have a nation full of single mothers and motherless children. Deadbeat dads. My daughter’s father was one,” Opal admitted. And we have a corporate structure in the United States as irresponsible as the fathers running it. Terry’s book illuminates the tragedy.”
“I understand the manuscript was very nearly lost.”
“It wasn’t lost. It was destroyed. My daughter burned it and all of her notes before she died. It was only by luck that a publisher had retained a rejected copy and forwarded it to me.”
“Amazing!”
These questions were irritating her. “What was amazing? That my daughter was rejected twenty-seven times? Personally, I only find the twenty-seven rejections amazing.”
“So how did you go about getting it published?” Ms. Gross asked. “Did you have any connections? Did you know any agents or members of the literary world?”
Opal snorted. “We don’t have a lot of them in Bloomington, Indiana.” Then she launched into the story of how she’d gone from publishing house to publishing house.
Pam Mantiss and Wendy Brennon had been nervous about this. They had even insisted that Opal be sent to a course in communication strategies, where a woman with too much makeup had set her in front of a video camera and pretended to interview her. Then Opal had to watch the tape while the woman critiqued her. It was all pretty foolish: The only thing it had changed was Opal’s hairstyle—when she’d seen herself on the TV she realized she needed a new perm. Pam had told her to give short answers and to mention both the title and Davis & Dash whenever she could. Instead, Opal just answered Ms. Gross’s questions. That was enough.
The Bestseller Page 55