West 57

by B. N. Freeman

  “My point is that I don’t need another agent in my agency. I’m already an agent, and I am the best in the world.”

  “Except for me.”

  “All right, except for you. I want a partner, someone to help me build something completely different. Today it’s all about owning and developing content, not selling it to someone else. I want a publishing wing, a film wing, a theatre wing, a music wing, a television wing, a gaming wing. I told you, I want to rule the world. I want you and me to find exciting projects, and I want us to do them. Not hand them off to other people. I want to find them, publish them, film them, put them on stage, whatever it takes.”

  “That takes tons of contacts.”

  “Which we have.”

  “And money, which we don’t,” I said.

  “So what? Banks have money. Your mother has money. Gernestier has money. Thad has money. Lots of people have money, and they will invest it with brilliant bitches like us who can turn it into even more money.”

  “You’re crazy, Bree. It’s a crazy idea.”

  “Absolutely true! It would be the craziest and most exciting thing we’ve ever done. Come on, darling! I can’t make it work alone. I want you with me. Can you think of two people better situated to turn the whole industry upside down?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “I’m not like you, Bree. I need more security.”

  “By moving back to your mother’s nest?”

  “That’s a cheap shot.”

  “Fair enough. I’m sorry. Slap me if you’d like. I just wanted to make my pitch before you jetted off to L.A.”

  “I appreciate it, but I’ve made up my mind. Okay? I’m moving west, end of discussion. I’m also done with work talk for the evening. It’s a girls’ night out, and I just want to celebrate.”

  “Agreed. Fine. Fernando, another ’rita! And more rioja! We will celebrate the Californization of Julie Chavan.”

  Our next order of tapas came. It was sausagey and spicey and paprikaey. I loved it. More little plates followed, and we emptied them one after another. The hours flew by, tick tock tick. Other diners joined our private restaurant. The band began playing. I drank more wine. A lot more wine. Regardless of my willpower or inhibitions, I cannot seem to spend an evening with Bree without getting drunk.

  We spent the hours talking about nothing. Lady Gaga vs. Madonna. Jonathan Franzen vs. Jodi Picoult. The Yankees – well, that’s everything, not nothing. I tried to explain the intricacies of American baseball to Bree, including the infield fly rule. She didn’t get it. She tried to explain why the rest of the world is so nuts about soccer and why Chelsea is the world’s greatest sports team. I didn’t get it. We talked about cats, which we both love. We talked about licorice, which we both hate. We talked about New York taxi drivers (I mean you, Farouk). We talked about everything except me and my day, which was just fine with me.

  However, Bree wasn’t about to let me off the hook altogether.

  “So,” she said, when the restaurant was so crowded and loud that we could hardly hear each other, “what’s really bothering you, darling? You’re supposed to be happy, but you look sad.”

  “Absolutely nothing is bothering me, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Does it bother you that you’re doing what your mother wants for the first time in your life?”

  “How is that not talking about it?” I asked.

  “Does it bother you that you have a knot in your stomach the size of a basketball?”

  “Still not talking about it.”

  “Does it bother you that you’re sleeping with Thad but you’re in love with Garrett?”

  That one got me. She knew that one would get me. Damn you, Bree Cox.

  “I am not in love with Garrett,” I said.

  “I don’t know, darling,” she said. “You look starry and moon-eyed like a woman in love.”

  “That’s the wine. I’m not in love with Garrett. He’s not in love with me. Period, end of story, no sequels. I’m not in love with Thad, either. I’m not in love with anyone.”

  “Except me, of course.”

  “Except you,” I said.

  “Well, good. Come on, then, I know what you need.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let’s dance,” Bree said. “I haven’t danced in ages, not vertically anyway. It’ll be like old times. Remember?”

  Bree was right. We used to dance together a lot, whenever we were in New York or London. We’d spend hours on the floor. It didn’t matter whether it was rock or electronica or soft jazz or country or the boom-boom beat of the clubs. It didn’t matter whether it was live or DJ. We’d spend our nights together shaking, hustling, tangoing, boot scooting, whatever. It was our thing, the two dancing chicks. I missed it.

  So we danced.

  It had been a long time, but it all came back like we were younger and it was yesterday again. The band shot up the tempo for us. We kicked and stomped and wiggled our backsides and jiggled our frontsides and whipped our hair and laughed like schoolgirls. The other dancers eventually gave us the floor. Everyone in the restaurant watched us, smiling and pointing, because it was so obvious we were having a good time with each other. I don’t know how much time we spent out there. It was well after midnight when we collapsed back at our table, arms around each other, sweating, grinning, panting like we’d run a marathon. We leaned our heads together, because we could barely prop them up.

  People applauded, and we waved and bowed. Fernando brought us liqueurs on the house. Licor 43. It tasted like vanilla ice cream. We downed our shots and licked our lips.

  It was great.

  “Darling, you’ve still got the moves,” Bree said.

  I tried to catch my breath. “So do you.”

  “You and that swirling hair. Never cut it. It’s the sexiest thing imaginable.”

  I kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  For saying I should never cut my hair, I thought.

  “For tonight,” I said. “For the whole evening. This is exactly what I needed.”

  “We’ve always made a good team, darling.”

  “When you weren’t sleeping with my boyfriends.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Do you know what?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “I am moving to Los Angeles,” I said.

  “So you’ve been telling me.”

  “I am sleeping with Thad Keller.”

  “Now you’re just rubbing it in.”

  “I am done with King Royal and Irving Wolfe and Captain Absolute and West 57. I don’t care about any of it anymore. It is Helmut’s problem now.”

  “It’s just a book,” Bree said.

  “Exactly right, it’s just a book.”

  “So now you can go home and sleep like an angel,” she said.

  I shook my head, back and forth, back and forth. I wasn’t sure if Bree would understand if I told her the truth. I’m not sure I understood myself. I just knew I had something else to do.

  “Not quite yet,” I said. “I have one stop to make before I go home. There’s one more person I have to explain all this to.”

  34

  Lionel the Security Guard looked at me strangely when I arrived at the building so late, dressed for partying, obviously tipsy, my face still flushed from dancing. However, I’m the boss, and I do what I want. I went upstairs into the dark offices of West 57. It was too late even for Garrett to be there, and I was glad. I didn’t want to see him. I wanted to be alone with my father.

  He was waiting for me. Sonny, I mean. I knew he’d be there.

  He wasn’t behind the desk. He was in the armchair. I guess he’d decided the desk was mine now. With the lights off, he was a burly silhouette. I sat down, dropping the movie scripts in front of me, next to the manuscript of Woodham Road that Garrett had left there and next to the first chapter of Libby’s new book.

  I turned on the T
iffany lamp, which cast a weak glow. Sonny stared at me with hawk-like eyes. He looked fit and strong, not dead, not gone. His black hair was like a crown. The cigarette in his hand, which sat on the worn armrest of the chair, sent a spiral of smoke toward the ceiling. The lamp reflected on the shiny polish of his leather shoes.

  “Drunk again, darling girl?” he asked, amused with me.

  “Yes.”

  “Bree?”

  “Yes.”

  “You two are dangerous together,” he said, shaking his head.

  “We are, aren’t we? I’d forgotten what that was like.”

  “I always liked dangerous girls,” he said.

  Sonny cast a nostalgic look around at the bookshelves and sniffed the musty air. He knew the clock was ticking. Our lease was up. “So you did it,” he said. “Gernestier.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t blame you, darling girl.”

  “I hope that’s true,” I said, “because I feel guilty.”

  “No, no, I blame myself. It’s all on me.” He shook his head and caressed one of the leather-bound books on the end table beside him. “I was a relic by the end, Julie. I was a dinosaur in this world, and when the meteor hit, I was unable to evolve. I wandered through the scorched ruins, thinking everything would go back to the way it was, and it never did.”

  I got up from behind the desk, and I went to him. I knelt in front of him, at his knees, the way I’d done so many times as a little girl. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t know what would happen if I did, if he would disappear like a cloud when I discovered there was nothing to feel. I wanted to preserve the image of him in my brain for a while longer.

  “That doesn’t change the last thirty years, Sonny.”

  “You’re making excuses for me. I don’t want them. I became another old man, reminiscing about the glory days, wishing the world hadn’t changed so much from what I remembered.”

  “You would have found another chapter to write,” I said.

  “Alas, there were no more chapters.”

  I looked up at my father. He looked vital, a man in his prime, not a man whose heart had expired. “What would you have done, Sonny? I keep thinking I’ve missed something. There was some other alternative, some other way to save the business. I’ve gone over it again and again, and I just don’t see what else I could have done. And yet I know you, you would have found a way.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “Yes.”

  Sonny chuckled softly. “That’s sweet. Julie, I do believe you loved me more than anyone else in my life.”

  “You know I did.”

  “Even when I tried to rule your life?”

  “Even then.”

  “I’m glad you always stood up for yourself,” he told me. “I was proud of you every time you said it was your life and you were going to run it your way. I think I would have been a little disappointed if I actually won.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he said.

  “You didn’t answer my question. What would you have done about West 57?”

  He smiled at me the way he did when he would hold my hand as we walked through the Park. “I would have done the same thing as you.”

  “You? You would have sold to Gernestier?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “No, I knew West 57 was dying, darling girl. I did everything I could, but the resources weren’t there to turn it around. I wouldn’t have shut the doors and put these people on the street and let the name disappear. I would have swallowed my pride and signed on the dotted line and cursed about it to everyone who would listen. That’s what I would have done.”

  “Just like me.”

  “Just like you. And I wouldn’t have been smart enough to get my photo in the lobby at Gernestier. I love that!”

  It was good to hear him laugh again. I smiled happily and went back to his desk. My desk. At least for a little while longer. “I wish you’d told me that the business was in trouble,” I said. “I’m sorry you went through it alone. Maybe I could have helped.”

  “There was nothing anyone could do. The writing was on the wall. I was holding the place together with duct tape.”

  And yet you paid King Royal four million dollars.

  I didn’t say that aloud, but you can’t fool a ghost.

  “You haven’t asked me the other question,” Sonny said. “Come on, I know you want to.”

  “What question?”

  “Oh, don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you, darling girl. You haven’t me asked about King. The book. The advance.” He paused. “You haven’t asked me about Irving Wolfe.”

  “You’re right, I haven’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I leaned back in the chair. “Because I don’t care about the answer. Not anymore.”

  “Don’t lie to your father.”

  “No, it’s true. I don’t want to know. It has nothing to do with me.”

  I didn’t know what else to say or do, so I picked up the first chapter of Libby’s new book. I wasn’t sober enough to read the whole thing, but I read the first paragraph. It was nothing like Morningside Park, but then again, years had passed in the interim. Libby was a different person today than she’d been in her youth. Honestly, I didn’t particularly like what I saw. It felt as if she were forcing the words. I put it down, but I thought Sonny would enjoy hearing what she’d written.

  “Do you want me to read it to you?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  “It’s Libby’s work. You love her.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not sure I like it,” I admitted.

  “Blame me. I pushed Libby to do another book. It was a mistake, and I regret it. Morningside Park should stand on its own, not be measured against a second novel.”

  That was true.

  I picked up Woodham Road from the desk. This was the novel that Garrett had fallen in love with, and in a single page, I knew why. I was transported immediately to the eighteenth century, into the wilderness, where a scout’s horse dies by an Indian’s arrow. I felt the animal’s suffering. I felt the scout’s sense of loss. Garrett had told me that the book was ultimately not what it appeared on the surface, and I wanted to know its secrets. It was impossible to put down.

  “Garrett loves this book,” I said to Sonny.

  “Then it must be tremendous. Garrett never loves anything that isn’t unique and memorable.”

  I wondered, fleetingly, if he meant me.

  “Gernestier will never publish it,” I said.

  “Then someone else should.”

  Yes, someone else should. Someone should take it and turn it into a masterpiece, the way Sonny did with Morningside Park. Someone should make it into a story heard round the world. A book. A movie. But not me. I will be filming “The Newest Oldest Profession.” I will be thousands of miles away.

  “You haven’t said anything,” I told him.

  “About what?”

  “About Los Angeles. Cherie. Thad. Me.”

  “If I gave you advice, wouldn’t you run the other way?” Sonny asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Then I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.”

  I kept procrastinating. It was late. It was time to go home, but I hated to leave. Every time I left, I wondered if I’d see him again. Sooner or later, he would be gone forever. Sooner or later, I would have to let him go. Not yet.

  I saw an empty book box on the floor, and I retrieved it. I began packing up some of the mementos from the desk. It was silly, because I had plenty of time to worry about those things, but I wanted him to see me taking them with me. Things of his. Things I would treasure forever.

  I put pictures in the box. “Look at you, this was at the Edgar Awards in 1986,” I said. “Nice tux, but who tied your bow tie?”

  “You did,” Sonny reminded me, smiling.

  “Oh, yeah.”
r />   There was more. His fountain pen. One of the old-fashioned ones. Norman Mailer had given it to him. “Do you remember the time the pen leaked all over the cover of your first edition of To Have and Have Not? You made Mailer get you another copy at an auction.”

  “I remember.”

  There was a baseball by Coach, heavy, like a medicine ball. Sonny used it as a paperweight. He used to toss it in the air over and over as he sat in thought. I dug in the drawers of the desk. I found a pulp paperback by Brian Garfield from the 1970s. A letter in pencil from Leon Uris. I found a music box with an inlaid wood top, and when I opened it, it played the haunting movie theme from Morningside Park crisply and quickly, as if someone had recently wound it.

  Treasures.

  In the bottom drawer, I found his calendars. Stacks of them, going back years. Sonny had never relied on Palm Pilots or BlackBerrys or iPhones. To his dying day, he’d written every appointment in the same small 365-day pocket calendars he’d been buying at Duane Reade since the 1970s. I pulled them out of the drawer and began randomly flipping through the pages in each diary, and it was like tiptoeing through Sonny’s life. His lunches. His meetings with agents, authors, artists, and booksellers. His notes from each meeting scrawled in the margins like he was editing a book.

  His whole life, day by day, year by year, going back to the very beginnings of West 57. I began placing them in the box reverently. Someday, a biographer would want them. Or maybe I would write his biography myself.

  One of the calendars, a recent one from last year, fell open in my hand as I was putting it away. It was odd, because the spine was broken. It felt like a used paperback that always opens to the sex scene that people had read a million times. Looking down at the calendar, I saw that a page had been torn out. I could see the frayed edge. Something was missing; something had been taken.

  I looked up at Sonny, and he looked at me. His face was dark, as if he were pleading with me to forget what I’d seen. As if he knew I never would. As if he knew, for all my protests, that I couldn’t let it go.

  “You mustn’t let him talk, darling girl,” he told me.

  “Who?”

  “King Royal.”

  My eyes flew to the calendar page. I looked at the day before and the day after, and I struggled for a moment to place the significance of the missing page – but only for a moment. I’d re-read Captain Absolute days earlier. I remembered the chronology. This was the date that Irving Wolfe and King Royal had taken Wolfe’s yacht out into the Atlantic waters for the last time. This was the date when King had awakened to discover that he was alone and that Wolfe had taken a final, fatal swan dive from the boat, escaping justice once and for all.