Seven Letters

by J. P. Monninger

  She sipped her tea. She smiled.

  “You look beautiful right now, Kate. In this light. He’s a lucky man. This weekend will go great.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I mean, you never know. But you have to try, right? You like him. He likes you. That’s a basis for something or other.”

  “You make it sound like mixing a cocktail.”

  “Well, in a way it is. Give it a shake and see what happens. But drink slowly.”

  I finished putting the last few things into my bag. Then I circled the bed and climbed in with Milly. It was cold outside, somewhere in the low twenties, but the cabin felt warm and dry. I had purchased it after returning from Ireland. It was a gift to myself, an attempt to make my life more stable. The finances pushed me to my limit, but I was able to swing it in the end. It was a simple structure, a one bedroom log cabin with a wood stove and a wide back deck. I loved being in it and I loved Milly being there beside me.

  “I’m scared,” I said.

  She grabbed my hand.

  “It will be okay. It will be great,” she said.

  “I don’t have a great track record.”

  “Don’t think of it as a record. Think of it as bouquets that have shared their beauty, but then fade. But they were beautiful once.”

  “You’re a poet, Milly.”

  “No, but you know what I mean. Just because something doesn’t last forever doesn’t mean it has no meaning or worth. You have to keep trying.”

  “You don’t. You hardly ever try that sort of thing.”

  “That’s because I am a cynical bitch who keeps life at a distance. The messy parts, anyway.”

  “And you do Jazzercise.”

  “And I do Jazzercise.”

  We stayed there until we finished our tea. The light changed from midday to afternoon light. When Milly left, her Wrangler started right up. She clunked down the hill, and forty-five minutes later, Lawrence pulled into her place.

  * * *

  His apartment was small. He smiled when he held the door open for me, one arm out. We carried our bags up from the Uber ride. I had a vague idea where we were located in Brooklyn, but it was only vague. He had mentioned Prospect Park as if he thought I would surely recognize that as a landmark. I didn’t. The apartment had a brick wall, a window that overlooked the street, and a black couch facing the window. Modern. A statue of a woman in a yoga pose, another of a man raising an ax, all done in wire. Indirect lighting. The kitchenette bled into the sitting area. The bedroom, from the way he motioned to me when he said the word, was back and off to the corner. It, too, looked out on the street.

  “Wow,” I said. “Great.”

  “Do you like it? Of course, Brooklyn is hipster right now. Everyone wants to be here. I should grow a long beard and go mountain man. That’s the style on the streets.”

  “I’ve seen that. Not sure you fit the part exactly.”

  I put my bag down. And my purse. We were here. Whatever was going to happen between us was probably going to happen here. I had to get my mind around that. I told myself I was a Doctor of Arts and Letters, a woman with a well-launched career, and I did not need to be timid or bashful. But I felt timid and bashful. I felt a little out of my element.

  “There’s a great Thai place right around the corner. I thought we could have dinner there. You like Thai food, don’t you, Kate?”

  “I do.”

  “They make the best drunken noodles I’ve ever had. Tomorrow I need to get a haircut. And if you didn’t mind, maybe you’d give my wardrobe a look. I don’t want to look too newly trimmed, but, you know.”

  I looked at him. He didn’t need a haircut. In fact, I had the strange sensation of seeing him for the first time. Maybe it was because we stood on new ground, or had traveled on a plane together, but I had a new understanding of his appearance. He was tall and lean, extremely lean—Like his wire statues? I couldn’t help thinking—with eyes that strayed a tiny bit to the side. An alligator profile. He wore black clothes, tailored to fit his chest and legs, and a navy pea jacket that he wore buttoned to his chin. He was handsome. He was. But he was not the sort of handsome that usually drew me. I went for the rougher, flintier types. He was trim and well kept; the shirt that he wore under the peacoat had a silky shimmer to it that caught the light in ways I didn’t usually associate with a guy. He was dark; he told me he needed to shave twice a day to look his best.

  “How about some wine?” he asked, dropping his bag and stepping behind the small kitchen island. “I should have a decent vintage around here. Let me look.”

  “Thanks, I’d love some. Is the bathroom…”

  “Through there,” he said, and pointed to where it had to be located unless the apartment was larger than I imagined.

  I stepped through the tiny attached hallway, wondering as I did so what the protocol of this situation might be. Did I carry my bag to the bedroom and plunk it down? How did we play house, exactly? I felt out of practice. I felt rusty. It was true that I had consummated two brief flings—very flingy, very brief—but it had been a long time since I had been with someone to whom I felt well matched. Although he wasn’t exactly the flavor, maybe, of the man I expected to be with, he was suitable and smart and ambitious. He was somewhat anti-Ozzie, which I didn’t take as a bad thing.

  In the bathroom, though, he had a black-and-white photo of himself with Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist and social activist from Harvard. They both smiled at me as I used the facilities.

  “Noam Chomsky,” I said when I came out.

  “Oh, yes, a bit of a hero of mine. Great man. I don’t agree with all his politics altogether, but I never questioned his sincerity.”

  He had two tall glasses of wine set out for us. I took a seat on one of the stools. He stayed behind the island.

  “To us,” he said, toasting. “To getting to know one another.”

  “To us.”

  “How hungry are you?”

  “Not famished. How about you?”

  “Maybe let’s have a glass of wine, then mosey down to the restaurant.”

  “That sounds great.”

  But before we could mosey anywhere, my phone buzzed. I looked quickly at the number, expecting to see Milly’s address staring back at me, but instead the number said Broadman Publishing. I didn’t know anyone from Broadman Publishing. I knew the publishing house, however. It was an academic press, a branch beneath a larger publishing house with a famous imprint, and I recognized it because colleagues had published books with them.

  I held up a finger to Lawrence and slid the accept bar to the right.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  “Is this Kate Moreton?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “My name is Edna Barrow. I’m an editor here at Broadman and I was calling about your doctoral thesis. Do you have a minute?”

  “Yes, I guess I do. Can you give me one moment?”

  “Certainly.”

  I pushed the mute button and looked at Lawrence.

  “A strange thing. Broadman Publishing…”

  “Take it, take it. You can jump in the bedroom. Go ahead.”

  I did. I pushed the mute button and said hello again. A black and white duvet covered Lawrence’s bed. It looked like the tile floor of a diner. I sat on the corner of the bed.

  “A friend recommended your book to me,” Edna Barrow said. “I’ve read it and loved it. I am a bit of an Irish junkie. I was wondering what plans you had for publication.”

  “Well, I don’t have any plans, honestly. Not beyond what I’ve already done with it.”

  “I see. Well, we see some potential here. Interest in Irish works is always strong. You’ve captured the poignancy of the Blasket Island move, the expulsion. I called your office and they said you’re in New York for the next couple days. Would you have any time to meet to discuss the possibilities?”

  I felt out of my element, but I knew enough to fake it.

  “Sure. That would
be great.”

  “How about coffee tomorrow? I have an evening appointment, but the morning up until noon or so I am wide open.”

  We made a date for ten. I asked her to text me the restaurant address. It felt a little awkward to be making a date with someone else when I was here with Lawrence, but opportunity had knocked and I had answered. Or something like that.

  “She wants to discuss my book,” I said when I stepped out of the bedroom. “That’s out of the blue.”

  “Congratulations,” he said, although his eyes stayed on the screen of his laptop. “Hold on, I’m just finishing things here. It’s about the appearance. My agent.”

  I sat and sipped my wine. I felt a bubbly thrill in my stomach. Although my dissertation had been well received, and I had defended it skillfully, I felt, it had been read by a mere handful of people. Maybe ten, all considered. Maybe one hundred, if I squinted my eyes and pretended a little. It was an academic volume on an academic subject. I was pleasantly surprised and grateful to hear it had somehow made it into the hands of an editor at Broadman Publishing.

  “Ready?” Lawrence asked, folding the laptop shut. “Are you hungry now?”

  “I am.”

  “My agent really thinks this could put me on another level. Speaking tours and that sort of thing.”

  “That’s terrific.”

  “I hate to say it, but I am feeling some pressure. I have a couple things I want to prepare … but, you know, make them sound off-the-cuff, so to speak. Casual.”

  “I get that.”

  “Well, drink up. Two-minute walk, tops. That’s what I love about Brooklyn. So much diversity.”

  I drank off the rest of my wine. I watched, waiting to see if he would circle back to the call about my book. But he busied himself rinsing out the glasses and corking the bottle. He ran a dry dishcloth around the sink to make it shine.

  “So glad you’re here, Kate,” he said, helping me on with my jacket. “You’re going to love this place.”

  28

  We didn’t sleep together.

  Or rather, we didn’t sleep together. We slept together. As in the same bed. As in the same room. As in touching, but not abracadabra.

  To his credit, he didn’t pressure me. He didn’t assume. He was a gentleman, although he was enough of a guy to bait the trap anyway he could. Late in the night we had a nice talk about teaching, and about books, and he asked me about the Broadman editor at last. It had taken him a while, and I suspected it would always take him a while to show an interest in anyone beside himself. It was nearly acceptable in his personality. It was like having blond hair or a funny ear lobe. He couldn’t do anything about it. Besides, he was about to appear on television for the first time, and I accepted that it was a big deal. It’s just that it wasn’t the only deal. I wasn’t sure he got that.

  In the morning, we had coffee and then made plans to meet Sylvie and her mom near Rockefeller Center. It felt a little stepmom-ish, but what choice did I have? He gave me solid directions to the restaurant where I was to meet Edna. We kissed goodbye. Doing the couple thing reminded me of trying to learn the steps of a complicated line dance that you wanted to master, but still felt clunky doing. You had to watch each step as you took it.

  But it was good to be in New York City. It felt lively and smart and vibrant. A young man on the street corner played a gorgeous cello piece; another fellow beat on a white five-gallon bucket with drumsticks, doing a kind of scat chanting unlike anything I had heard before. I took a subway to midtown, then crossed three blocks and found Edna sitting at a small white table in a small white window in a small cute restaurant.

  “Kate?” she asked when I stepped inside.

  She stood and shook my hand. I liked her immediately. She was about my age, her hair two shades blonder than mine. Strawberry-blond. She wore a fleece, running shoes, and leggings. She held a cup of tea in front of her. I had a suspicion that she was Irish in her ancestry, and that some of the interest in my book came from that heritage. She motioned me to a seat and I squeezed in as a waitress fluttered by and took my order. I ordered tea and a croissant. Edna ordered a poached egg with rye toast.

  “Are you down long?” Edna asked. “In New York?”

  “No, just the weekend. We’re flying back on Sunday.”

  “Oh, nice. Sometimes I think that’s the way to handle New York. Think of it as a mad affair and only dip into it once in a while.”

  “But you live here?”

  “I do. I was raised here, actually. Born and bred.”

  “Isn’t that a strange phrase? Born and bred. What does it mean to be bred in that context?”

  “I guess it means by birth and upbringing. I guess I never thought about it.”

  Then she said many kind things about my book. She said she found it compelling. She said she thought its audience could be enlarged without great difficulty. She said she thought it needed a rewrite with a more commercial slant in mind. Not too commercial, she added quickly. She pointed out two or three places where I might focus more sharply on a particular strand within the narrative. I was impressed with the closeness of her reading. I was impressed with the kind but serious tone she adopted. Her recommendations were excellent. She had a vision for the book that I hadn’t quite met. Her critique was a little like suggesting we move the couch over there, the end table over here, but it also suggested the room might have a different purpose. I saw my own work in a different light.

  She paused when the waitress came with our food orders.

  “So how does that strike you, Kate? That was my takeaway. I admire your work on this and I think the subject has a broader appeal than you might know.”

  “I appreciate your comments,” I said, so pleased that I had trouble forming coherent thoughts. “I didn’t expect anyone outside of my field to take an interest.”

  “With the proper handling, Kate, we think it could be a bigger book. It’s hard to predict these things, but it has support in-house. Ann Grisham liked it very much, and she is in charge. We’d like to come up with a better, stronger title. And the cover could make all the difference. The Ireland angle is appealing on all kinds of counts.”

  “Are you…?” I asked, then stopped because I felt myself blanch.

  “Yes, we’re offering a publishing contract. We’ll do the best we can moneywise, but it won’t be much. Nothing to retire on, but it’s possible the book will do well. People have made careers writing history. Think of Doris Kearns Goodwin or Ron Chernow. Some books cross over and snag a more general audience. We think your book has a chance to do that.”

  “I’m blown away. That’s not a very elegant way to put it, but it’s how I feel.”

  “Well, it’s a great subject and the treatment is excellent. I didn’t know the first thing about it when the book came onto my desk; about the subject, I mean, but when I dug into it, I found myself entirely absorbed. As you can imagine, I see plenty of books that have something admirable, but not precisely what we need.”

  “How did you even come across my dissertation?”

  “We scout dissertations. And we pay attention to scholarly publishing. We’ve dug out a number of good titles from research doctorates. It’s how we stay in business. And I had a friend in Hanover who had caught wind of it. Do you know Amy Eisen?”

  “Name doesn’t ring a bell. I’m sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter in the end. It landed on my desk and I read it and loved it.”

  “I’m flattered. Truly. And thrilled.”

  “Well, I’m glad,” she said and began eating her egg and toast. “It would make a very strong entry into the market.”

  My hands shook as I broke apart my croissant. I felt enormously, over-the-moon pleased. I had difficulty sitting in one place and eating with proper table manners. But Edna was charming, and she did most of the talking. She told me she would prepare her notes and send them to me. I could look them over and see whether the book, the adaptation of my book, made sense when I had time t
o consider it. From that point, if we were of a mind, we could go forward. She told me that Broadman was a solid publishing house with strong financial underpinnings. She told me that editors at Broadman tended to stay in place, not like many other publishing houses, because history and scholarly work demanded different muscles than more purely commercial publishing.

  When we finished, we stood. Although I felt as if I wanted to hug her, hug everyone in the restaurant, we shook hands instead. She said she was going to meet people for a run around the reservoir. I told her I had a date at Rockefeller Center.

  “They put up the tree, didn’t they?” she said as we stood for a moment outside the restaurant. “I always love that.”

  “You know, I’ve never seen it in person.”

  “Oh, you’ll love it. It smells good, for one thing. And the lights are pretty.”

  “Thank you, Edna. You’re made my day. You’ve made my year, actually.”

  “It will be a good book, Kate. Together, we’ll make sure of that.”

  She turned and walked north. I watched her go, my heart soaring. More than soaring.

  * * *

  I saw them from a good distance away. Lawrence and his ex had the we-were-once-a-family-but-now-we’re-trying-to-be-kind-strangers-with-one-another look. I didn’t know a great deal about their breakup, but Lawrence had repeated many times that they were being mature and reasonable about it. By their outward appearance, I wasn’t sure he saw the situation the same way his ex did. She held her hand out on Sylvie’s collar, keeping contact, while the little girl pointed at things on the extravagant tree. The ex also had her cell phone out and seemed locked on to it. Lawrence, meanwhile, scanned the crowd for me, I guessed. It was a lot to walk into it, but after the talk with Edna—and a quick, squealing call to Milly, abook!abook!abook!—nothing could bring me down. And Sylvie, from my quick glance, was nothing but darling.

  “There she is! Hi,” Lawrence called as I approached them. “Hi, Hi,” he said too many times.

  “Hello,” I said, wondering if he would try to kiss me hello in front of his ex and child. To my relief, he didn’t.