The Best of Youth

by Michael Dahlie

  Henry was somewhat nervous at that particular moment, however, thinking about how to respond to the email—whether he ought to write back right away or wait a few hours so that the editors didn’t think that he was too needy. At last, though, after about ten minutes, he sat down at his computer and wrote that he would be honored to appear in the Wellfleet Review. He actually erased and rewrote the word “honored” several times before finally thinking that it was, in fact, a good word to use, because, after all, it was the truth. And after finishing the email with a friendly, “Let me know what the next steps are!” he stood up from his computer, put on his jacket, and headed out for another walk, although this time with quite a bit more to think about than his recent failures and disgraces. The fact was that the Suckerhead people would be truly impressed with this. Certainly most of the people at Suckerhead would be extremely glad to place a story with the Wellfleet Review (Henry could only assume), so perhaps now spending time with him wouldn’t be so easily described as “taking one for the team.” Perhaps he wouldn’t feel quite so nervous around them all.

  This did, however, make Henry think again about what, in fact, he should do about his position at Suckerhead, and the depression about the magazine made a brief reappearance. But as Henry thought the matter over (walking through McCarren Park, passing under the BQE, and stopping in three different cafés for cups of coffee), he eventually decided that perhaps he’d just stay in his role as editor-at-large because, after all, he now had a legitimate credential, as they say, and could speak with authority (informally and at meetings) as a Wellfleet Review writer.

  And along these lines, Henry even decided that he might have a better shot with Abby, although he again quickly forced this prospect from his mind, and with an honest attempt to remove it forever. This was no time to start scheming about how to get Abby to think of him as a romantic suitor because the fact of the matter was that he really needed her, he really needed Abby as a friend. He still wasn’t yet out of the woods with the fact that he had killed an entire flock of extremely rare Libyan goats, and there were numerous other things that still might come back to haunt him—perhaps he would soon be known around New York as the young author who kills goats and makes comical faces during sex.

  But it was more than that, it was more than somehow preserving Abby as a means of support when things got tough again. Rather, it was the idea that Henry might be better off not worrying so much, not trying to push things so much. Maybe that was his whole problem all along. He was always trying to force things. Maybe in the future, in the next stretch of time, he’d experiment with being a little more relaxed about his life. After all, he now had a story accepted at a good literary journal, so maybe he didn’t have to worry so much about whether or not he was doing the right thing with his life. In the end, a man in his mid-twenties with a story published in a literary magazine and $15 million to play around with didn’t have such a bad lot in life. Henry knew that he would find plenty of things to be depressed about soon enough. Still, he had Abby to keep him on the straight-and-narrow. And maybe he’d actually learned something in the past few weeks. It wasn’t impossible. So maybe now, at last, things really might finally get just a little bit better.

  PART

  II

  1

  HENRY WELL UNDERSTOOD that getting an agent was something of an accomplishment, although it had come about in such an inadvertent way, and led to such a strange literary project, that he wondered if he might have done better to have waited and not jumped at the first thing that came along. Of course, this was often the thinking he used in amorous situations with women (the few that he had) when he found himself with someone who wasn’t quite right for him. In the end, Henry mostly just stayed with the things that came his way, and certainly he avoided throwing anyone over. He’d never broken up with a single girl in his life—the alternative, loneliness, was simply too grim. And Henry had been feeling very low recently, before he and his new agent struck a deal, as they say. It was now September, nearly ten months since he’d slaughtered the irreplaceable Libyan goats and brought disgrace upon Hannah and her farm. Unfortunately, he was not able to use these ten months to move on, as it were, since Hannah followed through with her threats of lawsuits and Henry spent quite a bit of time with his newly hired lawyer, a man named Lawrence Barnett, who, because of his conviction that Hannah had no case at all against him, laughed with enthusiasm every time Henry called him in a state of panic because of some kind of new threat or legal letter he received.

  “Look, Henry,” he finally said. “She just fucking hates you. This woman absolutely fucking hates you. People sue for anything they can think of when they hate someone. But she doesn’t have a case. Not for her reputation, not for any of these things.”

  It was true that the financial damages were entirely covered by an insurance company. Hannah’s hedge fund manager husband was an obsessive insurer of things, apparently. She got exactly what the goats had been valued at—actually something quite a bit more than a million dollars—and the insurance company itself knew enough not to come after Henry, since any case of proper malfeasance against him would be very thin.

  “But she seems to think she’s owed more from us because they’re heirloom goats!” Lawrence said on the phone one day (laughing wildly). “Heirloom fucking goats! Well, she may be right that they’re irreplaceable, but from a quantifiable and monetary standpoint, she’s got well over a million bucks to buy whatever other damned goats she wants. As far as the courts are concerned, she’s been made whole, the crazy fucking bitch.”

  It was a relief to have Lawrence on his side, but as time dragged on over the next many months following that awful Christmas Day, even the most mundane legal issues made Henry sick with worry, including parking tickets, a jury summons, and a drunken night when he’d relieved himself against a fence only to discover that a surveillance camera was pointed at him and that the lot beyond belonged to the city’s Department of Corrections. He was not arrested for this, but, given what he often saw on TV, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of a vengeful authority doing some kind of high-tech facial scan to locate and arrest the obnoxious Brooklyn kid who didn’t properly respect public institutions. It was irrational, of course, but reason was never at the root of Henry’s worries, although this particular fear was far-fetched enough that it went away in a few days.

  At any rate, the fact was that signing a formal (legal) agreement with an agent had been just a bit unnerving. Still, Henry was well aware that getting an agent really was something to feel good about. Henry had published two more stories that summer and had one coming out in the fall, but a short story writer is a terrible prospect for proper representation, although the truth is that Henry’s particular relationship with his new agent was fairly unusual and, in fact, based on a project that took him some distance away from his short stories and his so-called literary work.

  2

  HENRY HAD MET Merrill at a benefit for an “up-and-coming cancer charity, ” which he mostly attended because an aunt of his who sat on the board had asked him to. At that time he had very few romantic prospects and thus invited Abby to be his date, acknowledging to himself (with some equanimity) that she was not a romantic prospect herself. It was now the end of September and, since the past Christmas, Henry had worked with diligence to eradicate any sort of aspirations he had for their relationship, and Abby agreed to Henry’s invitation (he’d not announced any sort of confusing feelings for some time), saying that she’d be thrilled to hang out with all the well-heeled people who were sure to be there.

  “And there’s a great party we can go to later that night,” she said as she and Henry walked below the BQE one evening on their way to dinner. “And I’ve got the perfect thing to wear!”

  “Yes, to the party afterwards,” Henry replied, “but, so you know, the benefit is black-tie.”

  “Yeah. I figured,” Abby said. “And I’ve got just the thing to wear.”

  “I can’t wait t
o see it,” Henry said.

  Of course, when Henry met Abby at the bar at the Carlyle (the benefit was a block away, at the Mark) it occurred to him that she was wearing what was, if he were ever forced to use such a tedious word, entirely inappropriate. It was, in fact, a wedding dress (a wedding dress that could not be mistaken for anything else), and although it had been retailored and had no train or cumbersome hem to prevent a woman from enjoying herself at a party, the elaborate white lace and somewhat bizarre beading on the elevated shoulder pads made it clear that this dress was meant for things other than attending charity fund-raisers for people dying of cancer—it seemed, rather, the sort of thing a wealthy young woman from 1950s Westport might get married in.

  “I told you this was black-tie,” Henry whispered as he approached Abby, astonished but not quite allowing himself to be angry.

  “I know,” Abby replied, “that’s why I’m wearing this.” Then, seeing that Henry was flustered, she added, “trust me, Henry, this dress goes over well at this kind of thing. I wore it this summer to an event in San Francisco, and those people are the worst with this shit.”

  “But it’s not a formal dress,” Henry said, still at a whisper, “it’s ceremonial.” (It was an interesting distinction—just the sort of insight that might have earned him praise in his literature classes at Harvard—but as Henry said this he also couldn’t help but notice how beautiful Abby was and how good she looked in the dress.) And Abby was absolutely right in her predictions about how her appearance would be received. When they arrived at the Mark, Henry quickly saw that the dress didn’t look as out of place as he’d imagined it would—Henry, after all, was hardly an authority on current styles and fashions—and Abby simply had a kind of ready and easy charm about her, as Henry also couldn’t help but acknowledge. Additionally, since the average age of the guests of the benefit was surely close to sixty, Abby’s youth and mysterious Williamsburg élan were quite appealing to nearly everyone, as was clear by how many people (both men and women) turned to smile at them as they first walked through the main ballroom.

  The schedule that night was the customary schedule at such events, starting with cocktails, an opportunity to look over the silent auction items, and warm but efficient mingling on the part of the board members and other distinguished volunteers.

  Henry was certain he wouldn’t know many people, but as he looked over the room when they first arrived, he discovered that his aunt had apparently invited half of his extended family (not Abby’s side) and soon Henry was standing with assorted cousins and uncles chatting about family topics and exchanging news of each other’s lives. This was, in fact, the first time Henry had seen some of these people since before his parents had died—those who hadn’t made it to the funeral—and in these instances, Henry found the discussions to be somewhat awkward. Such discussions always were, though, and there weren’t many ways around it, and Henry certainly never felt any sort of anger over some elderly aunt struggling to say something reassuring.

  Henry did, however, feel bad for Abby having to be part of all this conversation. This was not her side of the family, after all, and after about ten minutes, Henry began to wonder how he might do a better job of entertaining his guest. But just as he was ready to announce that he’d “really like to get a look at those silent auction items!” (hoping this might allow them to escape), Abby said, “Hey, there’s an old boss of mine. I put up a website for her.” And before Henry could say, I’d love to meet her, she said, “I’ll catch up with you,” and walked off, leaving Henry with another elderly uncle who was telling Henry with wistfulness about the astonishing and crushing unpredictability of life and death.

  It took Henry some time to rejoin Abby—he went to look for her when it was announced that it was time to sit for dinner, and Henry wasn’t sure if Abby knew where their table was. When he found her, though, she was not with her former boss but instead standing with a man who looked to be about fifty, and she was laughing quite uncontrollably as he told her some sort of story. Again, Henry’s feelings for his fourth cousin were well controlled at this point, but this man in particular made him swallow a bit harder than usual. He was tall and handsome (as far as common notions of such things go) and he was wearing the sort of high-end and modernized tuxedo that Henry himself would have liked to have worn. And on top of that, he was apparently very funny, as Henry again concluded as he approached, because Abby said several times within his earshot, “You are so, so, so funny!”

  As Henry arrived, he smiled too, wanting to join in on whatever fun was being had, and Abby seemed delighted to see him. “Henry,” she said, “I’m glad you found me! This is Merrill. I’ve been telling him all about your writing. He’s a literary agent.”

  Merrill smiled, put out his hand, took Henry’s, shook it, and said, “It’s great to meet you. Abby here made me write down your name. I’ll keep an eye out for your stuff. I hear you’ve had a few stories published this year and, according to Abby, you’re absolutely brilliant.”

  Henry wasn’t quite sure how to reply to this. He was happy to hear that Abby had been talking about him, but the situation was still troubling, and, after quickly denying (with appropriate modesty) that “brilliant” was at all correct, he said to Abby, “My aunt wants us to be seated. There are going to be a few remarks before we eat, so we should really sit down.”

  “I should sit too,” Merrill said, smiling. “It was a pleasure to meet you both. Truly.”

  After a few more smiles and nods, they all turned and went to their respective tables and, to Henry’s great relief, did not run into each other again that night. In fact, Henry soon forgot Merrill as he focused on his dinner (a strange kind of mushroom lasagna) and then the small amount of dancing he did with Abby to the fairly pleasing band before she insisted they head back to Brooklyn for the other party that would soon be under way.

  “Music people will be there,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Yes,” Henry said, thinking suddenly about his own career, although just at that moment he couldn’t also help but notice once again how appealing she looked in her beaded white dress.

  3

  AND SO IT WAS a fun night, and Henry didn’t have to watch Abby leave with some fifty-year-old handsome literary agent, although he also concluded once again that he was definitely over his feelings for her. But it was subsequently also just a little jarring nearly two weeks later when Henry came home one afternoon to a ringing phone, answered it, and found Merrill on the other end.

  It took Henry some time to figure out who was on the line, but at last he understood that it was the man from the benefit, and then assumed (concluded with deep conviction) that he was trying to track down Abby’s phone number. After a few customary remarks, however, Merrill said something that truly surprised Henry.

  “I read your stories,” Merrill said. “Three so far? That’s how many you’ve published?”

  “Yes,” Henry replied, just a little hopeful now.

  “Well, look, Henry, what I’d say is that you’ve got a long road ahead of you if you’re looking to put out a collection. Pretty impossible. And even a novel in your particular vein would be tricky, given what the market is today. But the fact is that your stories, I absolutely adored them. Again, there’s not much I can do for you right now. But later on I think I can help. If you wrote a novel. I might be able to sell a novel of yours. Others might not be able to, but I bet I could.”

  Henry didn’t know how to respond, but he did (despite his happiness) wonder what was appropriate concerning his cousin’s telephone number. Should he just give it out to this man? Was flattery and the lure of representation enough to justify such a thing?

  “The reason that I’m calling,” Merrill quickly continued, “has to do with something else. Something related. But I really am sincere with my praise. Your stories were very, very moving, very funny, and extremely heartbreaking. And so, because of that, the purpose of this phone call is that I’m looking to set up one of
my clients—not really a long-form writer but a longtime friend—with a ghostwriter.”

  Here Merrill paused, but just as Henry felt obliged to say something, he continued. “We need the project to have a literary feel,” he said, “so we’re trying to steer clear of the normal hacks, but it’s hard to hire quality writers because, obviously, if you’re the real thing, established, you’re probably not interested in writing your good stuff for other people. And it’s risky to take a chance with less accomplished writers because they haven’t done enough to prove themselves yet. But you, believe me, Henry, have done more than prove yourself, to me, at least. And I’m pretty sure my client will agree.”

  “Well, that’s really nice of you to say,” Henry said. He thought he ought to add more, but Merrill continued.

  “Yeah, and I mean every word. There is one complication, though, or one requirement, and that’s that we’ll need absolute discretion on your part. And when I say absolute, I mean legal and contractual. You’ll have to sign a nondisclosure form before I even tell you who he is. He’s a big deal. But he’s branching out, or he’s expanding on certain things he’s already established, and he wants a novel. He has an idea for it. It’s actually a young person’s novel, for the young adult market. I don’t have all the details of his idea, but it has to do with an old guy and a young guy and, well, it seems you’re absolutely perfect for this, given your literary inclinations.”