The Living Room

by Robert Whitlow

  Amy laughed. She wished she could bottle Janelle’s enthusiasm and take a drink every time she needed a pick-me-up.

  At 11:57 a.m., Amy was set up in the conference room staring at a large screen where the caller’s face would be projected. Behind her were wood-paneled walls, a couple of oil paintings, and a bookshelf. She didn’t know where the editors would be sitting when they came on the line, but they couldn’t be in a classier environment. Her cell phone vibrated. It was Bernie.

  “Are we set?” he asked.

  “Yes. The receptionist will route the call to this conference room.”

  “Do you look like a lawyer, a writer, or a secretary?”

  Amy had tried to dress stylishly for the call. “I’m not high fashion, but there will be some color in the picture.”

  “Good. You’ll be talking to Diana Carmichael. Diana is from India, and members of her family are some kind of local rulers in the southern part of the country. She went to school in England and sounds British. She came to New York when the new owners took over the company a couple of years ago.”

  “That’s not the name you mentioned the other day. I spent some time researching Kate Heigel’s background.”

  “They’re on the same level. This is all about you, not them. Put some water and instant fertilizer on that little ego of yours so it can grow in a hurry.”

  The light on the phone connected to the video lit up, and Janelle’s voice came through.

  “Ms. Carmichael is on the line.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s holding on my end, too,” Bernie said. “Activate the call.”

  In a couple of seconds a woman who appeared to be about Amy’s age appeared. She had dark skin and was wearing glasses with modern frames. Bernie’s face appeared in the top right-hand corner of the screen. He immediately started talking.

  “Hey, Diana, thanks so much for setting this up. Is everyone connected?”

  “Yes,” Amy said. “Diana, it’s nice meeting you.”

  “And you as well,” the woman answered with a clipped British accent. She glanced sideways at a computer screen that was barely visible from the angle of the camera. “I’m sorry my assistant didn’t get in touch with you earlier. Kate pitched your book to the committee this morning. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we decided it doesn’t meet our needs at this time and won’t be making an offer.”

  Amy felt her face go pale. She looked in desperation at Bernie, who spoke. “Kate and I had a lengthy conversation about Amy the other day, and all signs were full-speed ahead.”

  “Not now. Feel free to resubmit either a concept or a completed manuscript in the future. The writing is passable, but we’re going in a different direction for this niche on our publishing calendar for the next twenty-four to thirty-six months.”

  “You’ve signed somebody else?” Bernie asked.

  “Bernie, you know I can’t answer that,” Diana said in a patient tone of voice. “Listen, I really must be going. Best of luck to you both.” The screen went blank. Amy slowly picked up her cell phone.

  “Bernie? Are you there?”

  “That really ticks me off!” the agent exploded. “Kate Heigel owed me the decency of a direct call letting me know that we’d been kicked to the curb. Sending a second-string player to do it was an insult!”

  “You said Diana and Kate were on the same level.”

  “Oh, they have the same title, but Kate is the queen bee. When I saw that Diana was going to handle the call, I assumed it was because Kate knew enough about you already and wanted Diana to pick up the scraps.”

  “Somebody knew enough to make a decision this morning.”

  “That’s because another writer swooped in and scooped your spot. I’ve kept all this confidential, which means Kate has been playing me to get someone else to jump on board.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kate told an agent who represented an author she wanted to sign that she was considering a hot, young, unknown writer in the character-driven romance genre, and if he didn’t act fast, the door would hit his client’s rear on the way out.”

  “So I was just a bargaining chip?”

  “Yes.” Bernie swore, then quickly apologized. “I know you don’t say stuff like that, but sometimes it fits.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Talk to Lynn Colville at 1:30 p.m.”

  “Will you tell her what happened with Diana?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ll let her know I’ve talked to Kate, who told me she was very interested in signing you to a three-book deal, and we’ve just finished a conference call with Diana.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “What part? Everything I said happened. I’m just leaving out the ending. When you tell someone about a book, do you tell them the whole story or just enough to make them want to read it?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Look, Kate was chomping at the bit the other day, and we both talked to Diana. The news from her wasn’t what we wanted to hear, but Lynn doesn’t have to know that. These editors are superparanoid about missing the chance to score the next big thing. It’s professionally embarrassing for them to read about authors they rejected who then hit the jackpot for another company. That’s the fear we have to play on.”

  “I’m not sure,” Amy replied slowly.

  “Just answer the writing questions. Leave the battle strategy to me.”

  thirty-three

  Stuck with an additional hour of uncommitted time, Amy returned to her desk. Mr. Phillips was at lunch. She checked her in-box, and there was a message from Chris asking her to contact him about the depositions of Beverly Jackson and Dr. Lawrence Kelly. She picked up the phone and buzzed his office.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “Any more dreams would be nice. I’ve been fantasizing about asking Dr. Kelly a question that would reveal I had information about him that no one else in the world could know. Do you realize how much leverage that would give me with a witness? If a witness thinks I already know everything, he’s much more likely to spill it all voluntarily.”

  “The dream puts him in the room under suspicious circumstances at the time of Mr. Dominick’s death. What more could you want?”

  “Something that will really shake him up if he tries to deny having anything to do with it.”

  “I think the best approach is to bring out inconsistencies between his testimony and Beverly Jackson’s. She won’t be present when you depose him, will she?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “Okay, but maybe you’ll get something else before next week. Is Mr. Phillips asking you to help him prepare for Ms. Burris’s deposition?”

  “He never does,” Amy answered. “The only thing he asks me to do is run background checks.”

  “Will you do that for me with Kelly and Jackson?”

  “I already did—”

  “No, I mean everything. Run down every rabbit.”

  Amy was startled. For a second, Chris sounded like Bernie Masters.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Not wanting to start a new project, she logged on to the system. It took only a few minutes to come to a dead end for additional information about Beverly Jackson. The nurse had lived a vanilla life. She’d been married to the same man for twenty years and had two children. She’d never been fired from a job and had one traffic ticket received in a town on the coast that was notorious for setting up speed traps for tourists.

  Then Amy stumbled upon a new nugget of personal information. Jackson’s younger child, a teenage boy, suffered from a severe case of cerebral palsy. Seeing a poignant picture of Jackson with her son made Amy wonder how the nurse could have justified her participation in Mr. Dominick’s death. But as she stared at the picture for several moments, a possible rationale for Jackson’s involvement with Mr. Dominick’s death hit her.

  Better than most people, the nurse would understand
why a person might reach the point that continuing to live was an overwhelmingly negative prospect. Even in the last stages of life, Sanford Dominick may have retained the force of personality that could influence others to do what he wanted. If so, Jackson could have been a willing partner in helping the elderly man end his life on his own terms. Amy quickly sent the information gleaned from her research along with her own thoughts to Chris. He replied in less than a minute: Yes! Keep digging.

  Further digging would have to wait until after her video call with Lynn Colville. Amy passed Janelle’s desk on her way to the conference room.

  “My second call should come in about five minutes,” she said to the receptionist. “It will be from a woman named Lynn Colville.”

  “Okay. How did the first one go?”

  “Short and disappointing,” Amy replied bluntly. “But this is the one my agent thinks has promise.”

  “I hope so,” Janelle replied. “Once someone spends five minutes with you, they can’t help but see how smart you are.”

  “I’m not sure my daughter agrees.” Amy shrugged. “And she’s known me all of her fourteen years.”

  “That’s different. I’ve always loved my mom, but it wasn’t until I turned twenty that I really came to appreciate her.”

  “Megan will be fifteen in a few weeks. Maybe I can hold on to hope for five more years.”

  Amy went into the conference room, turned on the equipment, and called Bernie on her cell phone.

  “Anything I need to know before this call gets started?” she asked.

  “No worries. I confirmed with Lynn’s office that she’s good to go for a full hour to an hour and a half. There’s nothing else on her calendar until three o’clock.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want you to lie to her about anything.”

  Bernie was silent for a moment.

  “Did you hear me?” Amy repeated.

  “Yes, but you need to remember that Lynn is an acquisitions editor, not a priest. She’d think I was nuts if I didn’t advocate for my client. I know where the lines lie. But you need to stick to the script and not offer any unsolicited mea culpa.”

  “What script?”

  “Lynn’s script, which means your job is to answer her questions. Don’t editorialize or go off on tangents. Isn’t that what the lawyers in your office tell witnesses who are going to testify in court?”

  “Yes.”

  “Apply the same advice to yourself.”

  Amy could hear the tension in Bernie’s voice. The light on the phone lit up, and Amy pushed it.

  “Your call is on hold,” Janelle said.

  “She’s on with me, too,” Bernie said. “Take a deep breath, relax, and go with the flow.”

  “Send it through,” Amy said to Janelle.

  When she saw Lynn Colville’s face, Amy was immediately reminded of her fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Edmondson. The similarity was so striking that Amy had to resist the urge to ask if they were somehow related. Like the teacher, Colville’s auburn hair was cut short, and there were rimless glasses perched on the end of her slightly upturned nose. She had thick eyebrows that she didn’t tame by plucking. After very brief preliminary pleasantries, Lynn launched into her questions, which were similar to the ones forwarded to Amy by Bernie. Amy had placed her cheat sheet on the shiny table in front of her.

  “I like the concept of Deeds of Darkness,” Colville said after Amy had repeated her elevator pitch. “But tell me how you will make the transition from the heavy Christian influence in your other writing to a more literary romance novel with a strong dose of drama thrown in.”

  It was one of the questions Amy had anticipated, but hearing it from the lips of the New York editor made it sound more intimidating.

  “It’s my plan to avoid the stereotypical template used in most mainstream romance novels—”

  “If I thought otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Colville cut in. “Talk to me about Christianity. We don’t print books intended to proselytize.”

  Amy swallowed. “I’m writing a novel, not a sermon, so I won’t be proselytizing in the traditional sense of the word. The Christian influence will still be there, but I’ll introduce it in a way that’s supported by the nature of the characters. And I’ll use archetypal structure to give them texture and keep them from coming across as flat. For example, the protagonist is a damsel in distress even though she’s married with a child.”

  “I see that.” Colville wrinkled her brow in a way that again reminded Amy of Ms. Edmondson. “By spiritual, do you mean supernatural? I don’t want to publish a book that relies on deus ex machina.”

  Amy was familiar with a writer’s use of a contrived event, circumstance, or influence to solve a difficult plot point. The technique had been criticized since the days of Horace and Aristotle.

  “Christianity is supernatural, but it can be a part of real life without creating an unsupported basis for resolution of issues in a story.”

  “I want a guarantee that you’re not going to rely on God riding in on a white horse to save the day.”

  Amy recalled that was exactly what happens in the book of Revelation.

  “What Amy is saying,” Bernie cut in, “is that her writing has depth and doesn’t need tricks.”

  “One writer’s trick is another writer’s stock-in-trade,” Colville replied. “And before I take another step with the two of you, I need to know where the road is going.”

  “To big sales,” Bernie said. “Amy hasn’t started to tap into her potential for—”

  “Save it, Bernie,” Colville replied.

  Bernie shut his mouth. Colville stared into the camera at Amy before speaking.

  “Do I have a guarantee that you’re not going to hijack a good story and turn it into religious pabulum?” Colville asked. “It’s better to get this out on the table now rather than you waste six to nine months.”

  “I agree with you about that,” Amy said. “But I want to tell the story the way I believe my heart and mind dictate.”

  “I’ve heard enough for today,” Colville said. “Bernie, what’s the status of discussions with other publishers?”

  “We talked with Diana Carmichael earlier today.”

  Colville raised her eyebrows. “Where was Kate Heigel?”

  “She asked Diana to handle the preliminaries,” Bernie answered.

  Amy squirmed in her chair.

  “Because she didn’t want to give you the bad news herself.” Colville nodded knowingly. “That’s how Kate operates. She’s too nice for this business. She hates having to pull the plug. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” Bernie replied, glancing at Amy.

  “Don’t try to finesse me,” Colville said. “My hand is holding the chain attached to the plug, too. Amy has real talent, but if I can’t get comfortable with how she’s going to corral her religious zeal, I’m going to pull it, too.”

  “It won’t be a problem,” Bernie said. “Amy is ready to step up to the plate for a big-league team.”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Colville asked. “Should she play in the major leagues or a church league?”

  “This isn’t a problem; it’s an opportunity,” Bernie said. “When can we expect to hear from you?”

  Colville glanced at her computer screen, then at Amy.

  “Can you send me any more sample chapters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do it tomorrow, and I’ll get back to you next week. Bernie has my contact information.”

  “Thanks, Lynn,” Bernie replied. “You won’t regret—”

  The screen went blank as Colville abruptly ended the video call. Amy picked up her cell phone.

  “Are you there?” she asked Bernie.

  “Yes. That went well.”

  “Are you kidding?” Amy asked. “She thinks I’m a religious fanatic.”

  “And a talented writer. Lynn grilled you because that’s what she’s going to face from her bosses. If she didn’t like your a
nswers, she would have yanked the chain she mentioned and ended the call. She wouldn’t waste her time reading more sample chapters if she didn’t believe they would be good.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Amy replied doubtfully. “You sound overly optimistic.”

  “You’d better hope I’m right,” Bernie replied. “Because if I’m wrong, you’re going to be an orphan writer without a place to lay her head.”

  Amy swallowed. Bernie had never sounded so harsh.

  “I do,” she said.

  “I’ll send you her e-mail address. Send the chapters to me, too.”

  After the call ended, Amy went to the kitchen, poured herself a rare cup of afternoon coffee, and resolved to dive into her office work. Her writing career might be teetering on the edge of a cliff, but she had skills that Mr. Phillips appreciated.

  She logged on to the information database and entered specific information about Dr. Lawrence Kelly. She retraced her steps and reviewed the personal information she’d already found. The doctor was as squeaky clean as Nurse Jackson, without the added complication of a special-needs child. His two children attended a public elementary school, and his wife worked as a part-time teacher’s aide at the school. That made Amy wonder if the doctor might be in some sort of financial difficulty. Student loans for college and medical school could be astronomical, and the amount of money a doctor could earn as an internist in a small town might not be that great. But unlike Beverly Jackson, there was no indication that Dr. Kelly was a beneficiary of Mr. Dominick’s will. Amy paused.

  Unless there was a secret side agreement between Jackson and Kelly.

  If such an agreement existed, it would be virtually impossible to prove. It wouldn’t be in writing, and Amy couldn’t imagine either of them admitting such an arrangement in a deposition. Nevertheless, she entered her thoughts into the information she was going to send Chris.

  Continuing her research, she saw a reference to a Lawrence Kelly with a California address. Beside Kelly’s name was an icon indicating the presence of a criminal record. Even though there was a few months’ difference in the dates of birth for the two men, Amy followed the link. When she did, she found a conviction for sexual battery against a minor, Internet child pornography, and a requirement that this Kelly register as a sex offender. The possibility that her Dr. Kelly was living a double life on opposite sides of the country was too remote to include in the memo for Chris. Asking a witness an inflammatory question with no basis in fact never served a valid purpose and made the lawyer look stupid.