Amen, thought Lucas.
“So are you done with sex?” shouted an overeager member of the audience.
“Writing about it, or having it?” Carmen said, and everyone laughed. “Of course I’m not done with having sex. But I’m most certainly done telling you all about it. I spent so long thinking that sex was the singular source of my power and my voice. But that’s not true. So now I’m figuring out what else I have to say. Sorry, no more juice from me.”
* * *
Carmen signed books for over an hour. When she finally emerged from the bookstore, her writing hand numb, she almost walked right past the bearded figure leaning against the window.
“Lucas?” she asked, breaking away from her agent and editor.
He looked startled, despite the fact that he’d clearly been waiting for her. “Oh, hi,” he said. He shut the book he’d been reading. Truman Capote, she noticed.
“You grew a proper beard. I didn’t know you could.”
He reached up and touched his cheek as though this were news to him. “Yeah, me either. Finally hit puberty I guess.”
She chuckled. “It suits you.”
They looked at each other, unsure of what to say next. Carmen’s companions tittered. All they wanted in the world (aside from a glowing review in the New York Times and booking Fresh Air) was to meet Nice Guy in the flesh.
“You were really great,” he said.
“This is awkward,” she said at the exact same moment.
They laughed. She thanked him for the compliment and asked if he was coming to the party. “We’re taking a car.” She nodded at the Uber pulling up.
“Actually,” he said, “it’s such a nice night. Want to walk?”
This—the two of them alone again—had been a long time coming. She took a breath. “Just a few blocks,” she said. “Mira’s already there. I don’t want her waiting too long for me.”
They set off toward Fifth Avenue. The air wasn’t quite cool, and the leaves had barely turned. Had September always been like this—more summer than autumn? Carmen was excited for her book tour, but she would miss fall in Manhattan: the simple pleasure of sleeping with her windows open, apple cider donuts from the Union Square farmers market, the energy of everything revving up.
“How is Mira?” Lucas asked.
She felt him glance at her but didn’t glance back. “She turns eighty-nine this year, if you can believe it. This isn’t an easy place to be old, but she makes it work.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
Carmen nodded and they walked on in silence. They’d left the hubbub of Union Square and were approaching the Washington Square Arch. She wondered what Lucas really thought about the book, about what had happened between them. Maybe it was the beard, but he seemed so strange to her now, an entirely different person. After nearly two years, he probably was. It made her a little sad to think about the space between them, because they had once been so familiar with each other, so intimate. But the space, the strangeness—these were good. Over time, it had allowed her to forgive him. She hoped it had allowed him to let her go.
“You know,” she said, finally looking at him, “something crazy happened a while back.”
“Really?” Now he was the one avoiding her eyes. “What?”
“I’m sure you remember that Mira was going to be evicted? It was a huge mess. And then out of the blue, this law firm calls, saying they’d like to take on her case, pro bono. I mean, how in the world did that happen? How did they even know?”
Lucas bit his lip. “Wow,” he said. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about what he’d say if this ever came up. Shortly after meeting Mel and Cal at Grand Central, Lucas had joined Cal’s firm with an unusual arrangement. The firm would take on Mira’s case, and Lucas would do the bulk of the work himself for free. And whenever Cal had to jump in, Lucas would work twice as many hours, also gratis, on Cal’s other cases. In total, Lucas ended up spending five months on Mira’s case and an additional eight months wading through documents for Cal and the other associates. At night he waited tables and relied on the generosity of Tyler and his parents to help make ends meet. It was exhausting but satisfying. By the time he made the decision to take on a whopping hunk of grad-school debt, his emotional debt had mostly dissolved.
At times, he fantasized about revealing all of this to Carmen; he imagined it was enough to win her back. But he didn’t dwell too long on these scenarios, told himself it was foolishness. And also, not the point.
“I’m glad a law firm stepped in like that,” he said. “I mean, nobody is more deserving than Mira. And you, frankly, for taking such good care of her.”
“She’s my grandmother. It’s not like I’m a saint.”
“Still, most people wouldn’t stick by her like you do.”
“I guess.” Carmen was starting to feel uncomfortable. She worried Lucas was gathering up his courage for an apology. She wanted to stop him, make him see that it was unnecessary; he’d apologized already, at Jays’ party. She looked at him, hoping to convey the message without having to speak: I watched your dumb, heroic act on that stage. Of course I did. But that’s behind us. The woman who could have forgiven you doesn’t exist anymore. She only lives inside my book.
“Carmen, I—”
“Was that In Cold Blood you were reading before?” she said quickly. “Very grad school of you.”
“Oh, ah, yes.” He was flustered, but he seemed to understand. “But you know, I am a grad student now! J school actually.”
Carmen laughed loudly. “So I was right all along!” she said. “That first time we met, I could have sworn you were a grad student. Turns out, I was just seeing the future.”
He smiled. “I guess I’m more predictable than I’d like to think.”
They walked another few feet in silence.
“You know,” Lucas said, “two years ago, we couldn’t have walked this far without being mobbed by paparazzi. And now here we are, two anonymous people.”
“It’s the best and worst part of fame. The minute you stop giving people a reason to pay attention, they forget you. After everything blew up, I thought I was marked forever, but, you know, people just—Oh! Oh!” Carmen suddenly interrupted herself. “You won’t believe! I was at this fancy event last week to promote the book, and Lucian Moreau was there shooting some model. Remember him, the photographer who shot us for all those advertisements?”
“How could I forget? ‘Jez Jacobzon hez a brrrilliant vision!’” Lucas said.
“Exactly. So I go up to say hello to him, and he looks at me, and it’s totally clear he has no idea who I am, and he says, ‘If your book becomes very big, maybe I shoot you sometime.’ And then he walked away.”
“Amazing,” Lucas said. “One day, Carmen, if all your dreams come true, Lucian Moreau might photograph you.”
Carmen laughed. “And you?” she said. “Has everyone basically forgotten you, too?”
“Mostly. My classmates recognized me right away. They were like, ‘Why did you come here if you already made it as a writer?’ I told them to be careful what you wish for. Also, I dated this girl for a while who said she’d never heard of me and promised not to read any of our columns.”
“She was obviously lying.”
Lucas shrugged. “She said it would be like skipping to the end of a book. She said it was possible to know too much.”
“She’s right about that. So what happened?”
“She went off and read everything.”
“As I said.”
“And after that, things just got weird. It was like she suddenly expected me to be Nice Guy—to think like him, act like him. And when I didn’t, she’d accuse me of being fake. Because she had all this evidence about who I ‘really’ was. It was crazy.”
“That sucks. But I assure you, not every woman will be like that. Some women will understand that the person you were then—and the persona you put on—isn’t who you are.”
“The rar
e woman,” Lucas said. He caught Carmen’s eye, then looked away. She was quiet just a moment longer than expected—and what did that mean? “But how about you?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t pushing too far. “Are you dating at all?”
“Like I said, it’s possible to know too much.”
Lucas went silent.
“I’m kidding.” Carmen nudged him. “You haven’t lost your sensitive side, I’m relieved to see.”
Lucas smiled.
“Not exactly celibate,” she continued, “but definitely not dating. A million lifetimes ago, when I told you I needed to move forward alone, I really meant it.”
“And how has it been?”
“Vital. Eye-opening. And lonely, I won’t lie. It may be time for something different. You know, it’s crazy, but there’s one kind of romantic experience that is totally new to me.”
“What’s that?” Lucas asked.
Carmen stopped a moment and looked at him, as though it should be obvious. “A serious, committed, monogamous relationship. I wonder sometimes: Can I even do that? How do I do that?”
All it takes is generosity, which you have in spades, Lucas wanted to say. But he wasn’t sure how far down this path she, or he, wanted to go. “Or maybe,” he said instead, to lighten the mood, “a groupie will fall for you on the road. He’ll be loitering next to the cheap white wine, hoping you’ll take him back to your Courtyard Marriott midlevel whatever hotel.”
“The glamorous life of an author.” Carmen sighed. “At least, for a moment, we had a tab at the Mandarin Oriental.”
They were approaching the park.
“We should probably get a cab the rest of the way,” she said. “I’m pretty late to my own party and these stilettos are killing me.” It was an invitation but also an exit. Lucas wished they didn’t have anywhere to go. He wished they could just keep walking. But already he’d gotten more than he expected from her. So now, go to the party with Carmen or go home? He imagined the night—being spied as Nice Guy by everyone in the room while just longing to talk more to Carmen, who wouldn’t have the time. It wouldn’t be good for either of them. He should take a lesson from Carmen herself and walk on alone. For now anyway.
“I’ve actually got an early class tomorrow,” he said. “But when you’re back in town, I’d love to hear about the tour and, you know, your life for the last two years. If you’re up for it, I mean.”
“I think we can make that happen,” Carmen said, and as she stepped into the street Lucas swore she winked at him.
As Carmen often did when hailing a cab, she thought of Mira. She liked to boast about her youth: how she routinely walked thirty or forty blocks in pussy bows and pumps, navigating the grit of a far less welcoming city. “Young ladies today are so spoiled,” she’d joke. And yet both women knew that Carmen had made her own long walk these last few years and navigated plenty of potholes. She’d tripped on some of them, but like her grandmother before her, she kept on going.
A taxi pulled up.
“It was really good to see you,” Carmen said. “A welcome surprise.”
They hugged and Carmen opened the door. Just before she climbed in, she turned back to Lucas. “I noticed that your messenger bag says ‘Palmer and Coletta,’” she said.
Lucas looked down. He’d been using this messenger bag for years, and it had become so common to him that he’d forgotten the significance. “Oh,” he said. “Yes, it does.”
“What a funny coincidence. Because the law firm that took on Mira’s case was also Palmer and Coletta.”
“Wouldn’t you know it,” Lucas said.
“Wouldn’t you know it,” Carmen said, and climbed in.
* * *
Lucas crossed the street and looked up at the Washington Square Park arch. It seemed incredible that the majestic edifice was simply here, in what was otherwise a regular park, populated by students and, currently, a large group of Jedi cosplayers, balletically waving their light sabers. There was so much strangeness in this city, so many particular cultures. Each had its own social hierarchy, filled its adherents with unique ambitions and desires. But maybe the trick to wrestling these insatiable wants was to try to live across cultures. Instead of letting the city trap you—in the magazine world, the society world, the Jedi cosplay world, the grad-school world—you could use the city to be free. It wasn’t Sofia’s kind of freedom, that total abandon, but the freedom afforded to those with a strong sense of self and generous friends. With these things, you could walk through new doors and never get lost. With these, it was possible to do what Carmen said was so difficult: to simply live.
So many people came here to escape their simple lives. This, Lucas realized now, was why everyone at Jays’ party laughed condescendingly when the Editor made fun of “irrelevant” places like Kansas and Idaho. It’s because they’d all come from someplace equally irrelevant. They’d come to shine, to be bigger and brighter. Some, like Jays and Nicholas Spragg, had gone to extreme lengths to prove the totality of their transformation. But Lucas was equally a New Yorker, even if his life was smaller and dimmer. What mattered was that he was here to make it his own. And that he was happy.
* * *
Despite the vast amount of course reading he had to do, the night was too inviting. Lucas headed across the park, crossed West Houston, and wandered through SoHo. Soon he’d entered Tribeca, which meant he was closing in on One World Trade. His old stomping grounds. He decided to settle into a quiet bar and do his reading there, for old times’ sake. He knew just the place, back from his days at Empire. He wandered along Hudson and turned onto Jay Street, a mere slip of sidewalk tucked between two larger avenues. But a block shy of his destination, he halted. Before him was an angled building of glass and chrome: a mini One World Trade, something Disney might have created for Epcot. The incongruity of the structure, among so much stone and brick, made for a disorienting sight. Then Lucas saw the flag, pointed stiffly over the sidewalk, like the sail of a warship. Smack in the center, embossed in gold, was an enormous C.
At that moment, the front doors swung open and a coterie of young, beautiful people spilled onto the sidewalk. The women wore lamé and silk, their dresses oozing over their almost nonexistent hips. The men were outfitted in velvet and plaid, their collars popped, their wing tips aggressively narrow. With their cigarette smoke and raucous laughter, the crowd was taking up too much space on the sidewalk. But did they care? No, Lucas thought. Caring was obviously something they didn’t care much about.
And then, two more people appeared. Nicholas Spragg came first, dressed in simple slacks, a well-tailored button-down, and a preppy-ish haircut. He was unattractive as ever but cleverly remodeled by the man who followed. Jay Jacobson, erstwhile Editor of Empire Magazine, paused on the top step, assessing his protégé: his mentee, patron, lackey, and, Lucas was certain, constant irritant.
Of course! This was The College, the flagship location. Lucas pulled out his phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Carmen. A moment later, she replied: “Like I said, nobody’s marked forever.”
She was absolutely right. But if it didn’t bother her, Lucas decided it wouldn’t bother him. From the shadow of a doorway, he watched Spragg smoke and smile, ingratiating himself with the group as they ingratiated themselves right back. Jays, meanwhile, had not moved from the steps. Lucas saw him grimace and his eyes squint with uncharacteristic exhaustion. He saw Jays draw in a breath, as though readying himself for an unpleasant task. And then, Lucas saw this process reverse itself: the blue eyes brighten, the handsome mouth smile. Jay Jacobson jaunted down the steps, his hand extended in greeting.
Observing all of this, Lucas felt a twinge of sympathy—or maybe just pity—for his old boss. Then it passed. There were too many other people and pursuits that now deserved Lucas’s attention. Which meant that he was wasting his time here, hiding out in a doorway. He needed to be on his game in class tomorrow. So Lucas readjusted his tote bag and continued on his way, unconcerned about whether anybody notic
ed him.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, Jason and Jen would like to thank each other: Hey, we wrote a novel together, and it was about two people viciously criticizing each other’s sexual performance, and our marriage is still intact! (High-fives!) You, our reader, are surely wondering how much of our own personal perspectives were conveyed in Lucas’s and Carmen’s columns. It’s a good question! Moving on, now …
But seriously, if you would like to interview us and then tell a large audience about this book, we will gladly answer that (and any) question.
We’d also like to thank our families, and particularly our parents, for above all being supportive and caring. We are who we are because of them. They are so wonderful, in fact, that they enthusiastically read this book despite how awkward the reading experience must have been. Jason and Jen hope their toddler, Fenn, grows up to do whatever he sets his mind to, except, perhaps, to also read this book.
To the industry: Thanks to our agent, Libby McGuire, who provided us invaluable enthusiasm, confidence, and know-how—as well as the title of this novel! (We’d originally called it Screw the Critics.) Anna Worrell, we’re lucky to have you spiriting this book across the finish line. Thanks to Adam Gidwitz, for connecting us with Libby. And thanks to our editor, Leslie Gelbman, for her thoughtful eye, and to the rest of the St. Martin’s Press crew who has worked with us to launch this puppy: Brittani Hilles, Marissa Sangiacomo, and Tiffany Shelton.
Jen has written three previous books, which means she’s written three acknowledgment sections, which means she’s running out of people to thank. But for inspiring elements of this novel, she would like to give a nod to The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. Also, if fictional characters can have real-life stylists, then Nick Marino, that’s you.
Mr. Nice Guy Page 32