by Leslie Wells
Inside the loft, we sat on the floor as the puppy bounded back and forth between us. Suddenly it squatted and made a big puddle. I cleaned it up as Jack hooked it to the leash. “We’ll have him trained in no time,” he said as the dog lunged into the elevator.
While Jack was out, I called Dot. We caught up for a few minutes, and I told her our latest news.
“A puppy! What for? You’re at work all day,” she exclaimed.
I wasn’t about to get into the baby thing. “Jack had a lot of dogs growing up. And he really misses Oliver, so this will sort of fill in the gap.”
“When are you going back to England? It would be good to spend more time with his mother,” she said.
“He hasn’t said when he’s going back. They’re getting ready for this big tour, and I’m joining him midway through. I only have one week off now, with the new job.”
“I’d try to get more time off, if I were you. You know all those girls will be throwing themselves at him.”
I didn’t need to be reminded of that. “I can’t ask for more. I was lucky Ted would give me a week, so soon after I start. I kind of implied I had a family commitment.”
“I guess it’s better to make your new boss happy. You don’t want to be left hanging if it doesn’t work out with Jack,” she said direly.
There she goes, always looking on the bright side. “I’m aware of that, Mom.”
“I don’t know that living with him is such a good idea,” she continued. “You know what they say: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk?”
I pictured Jack surrounded by a bunch of mooing heifers. “I know, you’ve told me that before.” Many times. “But it was kind of the next step.”
“The next step would be a wedding.”
Another theme she liked to harp on. “We’ll see. And there’s something else: Jack wants me to get in touch with Dad.”
There was silence on the line. “Your father? Why?” Dot finally said.
“He thinks it would be a good idea, since I haven’t seen him in so long. I’m not sure if I’m going to, or not. But if I decide to, do you have an address for him?”
“That’s a horrible idea,” she said emphatically. “And I don’t have his address.”
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. “Well, I guess that takes care of that.”
“I’d tell Jack to drop it. I’ll talk to you later; I’m meeting some people at Buck’s.” She hung up before I could say goodbye.
As I cradled the receiver, something caught my eye. I went over to pick up one of the concert tickets that had fallen out of the mirror’s frame. FOUR TO THE FLOOR: LONG BEACH ARENA, Saturday July 18, 1971. That’s the year I was fourteen, I realized. The year my father had left.
I stuck the ticket back into the frame and stared at my image in the mirror, wondering if he’d even recognize me anymore. I had changed a lot from that gawky, skinny girl with glasses. He’d never even seen me since I’d gotten contacts; when my eyes had come out from behind those thick lenses. Back then, I was still my insecure Pikesville self. The new me hadn’t even started to emerge—not that I was the picture of confidence now. But I had managed to move to New York on my own, get a job in publishing, and make my way in an incredibly tough city that could chew you up and then spit out the mangled pit. And whether from indifference or other reasons I couldn’t even imagine, my Dad had opted to miss out on all of that. So why am I thinking of pursuing him? I asked myself. Just because Jack wants me to?
My father is 45 now, I realized. He’d been 21 when he and Dot had me, and he was 35 when he left. When he moved out, he was only two years older than Jack is now, I realized with a start.
Just then, Jack walked in the door. I knelt and the puppy trotted over, leaving wet brown footprints in his path. “Did you have fun?” I asked as I petted its damp head.
“He’s a gas.” Jack threw his coat over a chair. “What do you want to name him? I thought maybe Bhang. Or Ozone.” He folded his long legs and sat on the floor next to me.
“I was thinking more along the lines of Othello. Or Icarus.”
“Too fancy. What about Ribsy?” Jack said. “Good boy. Down.” The puppy was standing on its hind legs, paws on his shoulders.
I looked at the wet tracks leading from the door. “What about Muddy?”
Jack lay back and the dog climbed onto his chest. “You wanna be Muddy?” he asked as it started licking his ear. “All right then.” He held the puppy’s head and looked it in the eyes. “Muddy it is.”
Chapter Ten
Color Me Impressed
“First off, welcome to Julia Nash, who’s joining us as editor.” Ted pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded in my direction.
“Thanks. It’s good to be here,” I said shyly as everyone seated at the long conference table turned toward me. I was used to a much smaller group; here, fifteen people were gathered for the weekly meeting. A few smiled, some looked indifferent, and one or two looked positively unfriendly. I’d heard that the editors at Hawtey were pretty competitive with each other; Meredith and Vicky had both warned me to watch my back. But anything would be better than being a glorified secretary to a grabby boss.
The meeting began as the editors took turns bringing up books they wanted to pursue. Ted commented after each person made his or her pitch. The atmosphere did seem less collegial; more snarky and sharky. One attractive woman in particular seemed to shoot down everyone else’s projects. When it was over, I went back to my window office, complete with a brand-new IBM Selectric typewriter and a big ficus plant. Jack, Vicky, Meredith, and Suzanne, the wife of Floor drummer Mark, had each sent me bouquets, so my room smelled like a florist’s shop. I sat behind my desk and got ready to call a long list of agents to make lunch dates.
“Julia. I’m Erica Graham.” It was the woman who’d put the kibosh on everyone’s projects. She looked to be in her early thirties, had shoulder-length brunette hair, close-set eyes, and an aquiline nose. She struck me as very cool and polished in her fitted suit and heels. “I’d heard Ted had hired someone new, but he was being secretive, for some reason.” She gave me a dismissive glance.
“Nice to meet you.” I watched as she took in my bare bookshelves.
“Did you bring any of your authors over with you?” she asked pointedly.
I started to say that I only had a few of my own, but her haughty expression made me catch myself. “They couldn’t get out of their contracts, so no. I didn’t bring anyone with me. I’m looking forward to starting with a clean slate.”
Erica seemed to consider this. “I suppose there’s something to be said for a clean slate.” She gave a little smirk as she left.
I was waiting at the elevator to go out for a deli salad, having sworn never again to eat lunch from another vending machine. A woman with curly brown hair pressed the button. “They take an eternity in these durn skyscrapers,” she said. “I’m Cathy. I’m two doors down from you, in what’s known as the manuscript graveyard.”
I laughed. “Nice to meet you. This building’s so much fancier than what I’m used to. My old office had only eight stories, and the carpet was circa 1960.”
“You won’t think it’s so slick when there’s a power outage.” Cathy rolled her eyes. “That happened twice last year, and we had to walk down fourteen flights. Want to grab some lunch?”
“That would be great!” I was happy to have an invitation on my very first day. Cathy took me to a shoebox of a sushi place, and over California rolls we found that we had mutual acquaintances. We also compared notes on the literary agents we dealt with, and by the time we got back to the building, I felt that I’d made a new friend.
As we waited with a large group of people in the lobby, Perry Stroud came forward and pushed the elevator button. The door opened and I started to get on, but Cathy grabbed my arm. “Perry doesn’t like anyone to ride up with him,” she said under her breath. Sure enough, everyone who’d been waiting at least ten minutes held back; t
he door closed, and Perry rode to the eighteenth floor alone.
We all crammed into the next car, at the last minute making room for a woman wearing pink bedroom slippers. “Thanks,” she gasped, edging in sideways, her hands bracing her beach-ball belly.
“How’s it going, Brenda?” a guy asked.
“Only two months left ’til my due date. I’m gaining five pounds a week, but at least I’ve finally gotten over the morning sickness. Or should I say, the 24-hour sickness.”
Everyone nodded politely as she got off on her floor.
“That’s Brenda from accounting. She’s had a rough time with this pregnancy,” Cathy commented.
“Why was she wearing slippers?” I asked as we exited the elevator.
“Water retention. Her feet have gone from a size seven to ten and a half.” Cathy stopped, listened, and then darted down the hall at the sound of her phone. “Stop by later!” she called over her shoulder.
The phone was ringing when I got home. I almost tripped over Muddy in my rush to answer it. “Jack?” said a woman’s voice.
“He’s not here. Can I take a message?” I asked, but the line went dead. Ten minutes later it rang again, and this time I was pleased to hear his half-sister on the line. Usually Sharon called Jack in the afternoon, given the time difference.
“You’re up late, aren’t you?” I asked. It was seven here, so it must be midnight in England.
Sharon sighed. “I couldn’t get Oliver to bed. He keeps going on about the balloons in New York. Where did you get them?”
She sounded deeply exhausted. “Sammy bought them at the zoo; they were regular helium balloons. Did he tell you Jack filled them with water and they dropped them out the window?” I knelt, letting Muddy bump against me.
“Oh yes, he’s all about wanting to do that. I keep telling him it’s a different effect from two floors up, versus twelve. Did you ever catch all the mantises?”
“I think we got most of them. They’re really fast; it could have happened to anyone.”
“That’s nice of you to say. Well, I’m going to try to get some sleep. Tell Jack I’ll call him later this week. I hope we’ll see you again soon, Julia.”
“I’d really like that.” I hung up and got Muddy’s leash. “Come on, puppy. Let’s go for a walk.”
After we finished our takeout, I remembered to tell Jack about Sharon’s call.
“I’ll ring her tomorrow. But I promised Oliver I’d write to him.” He put a piece of notepaper on an album cover and scrawled his message in capital letters. At the bottom, he drew a picture of a scruffy guy holding a guitar, and I added a P.S. about our puppy. “You really should try writing to your father,” Jack said, licking the thin blue airmail envelope. “Does Dot have an address for him?”
The thought made my stomach clench. “She said she has no idea where he is.”
“You know, my own Dad died three years ago, and I always regretted not getting to know him better. He didn’t think much of my being a musician; thought I should get a real job. Even when I started making scads of money, he didn’t really approve.” Jack patted the couch, and Muddy jumped up onto his lap. “And he definitely didn’t approve of the lifestyle. So we had our differences. But now I really regret not spending more time with him.” Jack looked at me, his depthless dark eyes reflecting the low lamplight. “It might be good for you to track down your father; get to know him as an adult. Isn’t it time you heard his side of the story?”
My mind was churning. I didn’t want to stir up all the hurt, which I had thought I’d managed to tamp down. I had only made my peace with my mother last November, after years of blaming her for the divorce and all the bad things that followed. When Dot revealed that she hadn’t had an affair with her boss—that my father had just been irrationally jealous—suddenly the man I’d put on a pedestal all my life fell to earth with a loud crash. Did I want to get involved again with someone who’d falsely accused his wife, and then abandoned his only child?
“I have an idea.” Jack broke into my reverie. “Why don’t I have Mary Jo hire a private detective to find him?”
“I wouldn’t want to bother her with that. It’s way outside her job description.” And to be honest, I didn’t want his manager poking around in my personal life. She and I had reached an uneasy truce since I’d moved in with Jack, but I’d never forgotten the look she gave me backstage at a concert last summer. It was one of deadly envy, as in: I would feed you a poisoned apple if I could just get my hands on one.
Jack frowned. “Her job is anything I ask her to do. I’m curious about the guy myself; it sounds like he had good taste in music.”
I had told Jack some of my memories of my father: sitting with Dad on the front porch of our old house, listening to 45s on the record player he’d given me. Being swooped up in his arms and dancing whenever a great Motown song came on the radio. My favorite night of the week—Saturdays, when Dot was moonlighting as a cocktail waitress—when Dad would put me on a stool in my pajamas and wash my hair. I’d always felt closer to him than to my impatient and less cuddly mother, which made it even harder to believe it when he left me behind.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But what if we find him, and he doesn’t want to see me?”
Jack gave my thigh a squeeze. “Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it. C’mon, Muddy,” he said to the snoozing dog in his lap. “Let’s go to bed. I’m zonked.”
“Should we put him in the crate, like the shelter said?” I asked.
“Nah, let’s let him sleep with us. I always had a dog in my bed growing up.”
Chapter Eleven
Every Day I Write the Book
“When I was editor of the Harvard newspaper, I always went with my gut,” Ted said. I’d gotten used to his habit of working his Ivy League education into almost every conversation. “So if you’re excited about this little book, go ahead and make a modest offer. Somewhere in the ten-thousand range. We have a hole in the upcoming list; we can rush it out and plug it in there.”
I stared at Ted; at my former company, a “modest offer” was a couple grand. I’d felt a tingly premonition when reading the self-help manuscript, which was only a hundred pages long, and aptly titled Little Things Can Be Big.
“And be sure to get world rights. Our new rights director is champing at the bit for things to sell at Frankfurt this fall,” he added, referring to the big book fair in Germany.
“Okay, I’ll try.” Thrilled to be making my first offer since I’d arrived at Hawtey, I got on the phone with the agent. Fifteen minutes later I was the proud owner of a guide to appreciating the smaller things in life, which often led to larger opportunities. The agent told me to go ahead and call the author, so I had a nice chat with the friendly insurance salesman from Omaha who’d written the whole thing on his days off.
I stopped by to tell Cathy my news. “Congrats! You’re off and running,” she said. “Take a look at this.” She handed me a xeroxed form with Perry Stroud’s name at the top.
“Perry’s expense account?” I asked, wondering why she had it.
“His assistant asked me how to code it for accounting. Look at item number four.”
I gazed down the list; lunch with this agent, that agent…Boy, he spends a lot on meals. Number four seemed to be a dry cleaning bill. “He puts his shirts on his expense account?”
“And see what he put for the ‘Purpose’ column? To look good.” She laughed.
“Huh. I guess that’s one of the perks of being publisher,” I said. “Along with riding up in an empty elevator.”
Cathy nodded. “That isn’t the half of it.”
I was returning from my own agent lunch when a tall, well-dressed man jumped into the elevator at the last minute. “What floor?” I asked, since I was closest to the buttons.
“Fourteen. The same as you.” The man seemed to look me over. He was very handsome in a polished way; dark wavy hair, piercing blue eyes, open jacket with a crisp light blue shirt, I
talian loafers. His tanned face seemed familiar. Suddenly I realized that it had been staring down at me from a huge poster in our lobby. Dermot Chase was one of Hawtey’s biggest authors; that rarity who wrote highly acclaimed literary fiction, yet also managed to sell by the bucket-load. His last novel had spent four months high up on the bestseller list.
“I don’t recognize you from my last visit,” he said, extending his hand. I shook it quickly, feeling nervous.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Julia Nash, the new editor. We’re all big fans of your work here,” I said, edging around the fact that I hadn’t read any of his recent books. I had only made it through one of his novels years ago, and thought it was kind of pretentious.
“My previous editor has left for greener pastures,” Dermot said. “It’s good that Hawtey’s getting some fresh talent. It doesn’t do to get stale.”
He held the door for me as we went into the lobby. “Good luck with your next book,” I said in parting.
He smiled. “I expect I will get lucky.”
I’d spent half an hour returning calls when my line buzzed. “Can you come in for a sec?” Ted asked.
“Sure.” I grabbed a form that I needed him to sign and rushed down the hall. I was surprised to see our big author sitting in his office.
“Dermot tells me you met in the elevator, but I wanted to introduce you formally,” Ted said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Julia is the bright new star in our galaxy.”
I flushed at his overstatement. “Nice to see you again.”
“Dermot wants you to work with him on his next novel,” Ted said.