“No, the other bartender. Get my fucking scotch.”
I slowly get up and pour Walker a Chivas and water. The headache that has settled in is now compounded by blind panic.
“Look alive, sweetheart. What’s wrong with you?”
“Just a little headache. So . . . like, do you want me here for that call?”
“What? Like . . . no.”
“Why not?” My mind is furiously bailing water. Perhaps, I figure, if I’m here, I can try to smooth things over. Distract him. Pump him full of ether. Something.
“Because it’s none of your business.”
“Isn’t the book technically my business? I am your assistant.”
“Yes, and this is where your job ends. Now, shut up and give me that thing.”
In my agitated state, I’ve put too many pages in the hole puncher, which is now stuck. Apparently I’m even capable of messing up pretend work. “In a minute,” I say, hoping he’ll forget about it.
“I’m calling Larry,” says Claudia, gesturing to Walker. “You need a haircut, by the way.”
“Larry? Call Lesser. All of this time, why haven’t we talked to Lesser? What are we thinking? Do I have to think of everything? Claudia . . . Claudia! Get Lesser on the phone. For fuck’s sake. Now!”
“Who’s Lesser?” I ask, still trying to pry loose the manuscript.
“His lawyer,” Claudia says, reaching into the kitchen drawer for a pair of scissors. “One of them.”
From out of a drawer she grabs the small towel she uses to catch hair clippings when she trims Walker’s hair, wraps it around his shoulders, puts on her reading glasses, and stands behind him with a spray bottle of water. She lets one spritz go, and Walker turns like a ninja, grabs the bottle, and starts spraying her repeatedly in the face.
“Jesus, Walker. Fuck!” Claudia is trying to wrestle the spray bottle from him but is only getting more soaked.
“Are you the biggest moron to ever walk the face of the earth? I said to call Lesser.”
Just then, Devaney walks in, in her pj’s—a tank top and silky pj bottoms. She possesses a seemingly endless array of sleepwear, but evidently little sense of the effect this perpetual pajama party conveys. If she wants to be taken more seriously around here, an actual pair of pants might not hurt this late in the day.
“What the fuck do you want?” says Walker.
Devaney shoots him a withering stare, then goes to make a pot of coffee. She takes a mug from the cupboard and pours two fingers of Bushmills into it, then stands by the pot to wait, her hand resting on one hip, lips pursed. Meanwhile, Claudia is wiping her face.
“And what are you doing?” Walker says.
“Me?” I say.
“Stop saying that! Christ, who the hell else do you think I mean. You’re here, right? You are supposed to be helping me. Why are there so many people here and no one is helping me!?” Walker takes a handful of cigarette filters and starts throwing them at me one by one. “You and your office equipment or whatever the hell useless thing you’re doing over there.”
“Walker, stop. Please,” I say.
Claudia grabs his hand. “Walker, enough.”
“Everybody, out! And you . . .” Walker points to the manuscript in my now-sweating hands. “Leave it.”
I put the manuscript next to the typewriter—it sits there like a hand grenade with the pin pulled—and Claudia and I hightail it to the cabin while Devaney takes her Irish coffee, runs outside, and hops into her car—a crappy Toyota Corolla.
“Where’s she going?” I ask.
“Who the hell knows,” Claudia says. “Come on.”
Once we’re in the cabin, Claudia sets about fixing us a late lunch. She lights up two cigarettes and hands me one. Hers smolders away in an ashtray as she takes a loaf of rye bread, a spiral ham, a hunk of Brie, a bottle of grainy mustard, and two Heinekens out of the refrigerator. Claudia’s commitment to smoking is impressive and unwavering. I half expect to find her eating a Dunhill for breakfast some morning.
“You look like shit,” she says.
“Headache.”
“Did you take anything for it?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you see, in your room . . .”
“What?”
“The giant plastic jar acting as a bookend.”
“I thought that was decorative.”
Claudia goes back to my room and returns with the oversize jar that has been holding all of the books up. It’s labeled in her handwriting ASSISTANT ASPIRIN.
“That’s pretty funny.”
“It’s from Mexico.”
“Is it not the same as US aspirin?”
“Stronger. Way stronger.”
“Is it safe?”
Claudia just smirks as if to say I picked the wrong time to care about that. “Two will do the trick. Here.” She hands me both pills—in an alarming shade of red—and gets a glass of water. “But don’t take more than two.”
“Thank you. But how come Walker is never hungover? The man is twice my age.”
“Basically, he just keeps drinking. It’s not hair of the dog, exactly . . . it’s, well, the whole dog. He’s been doing this a long time. . . . The most functional . . .” Claudia stares off, her face a map of compassion, sympathy, anger, resignation, pity, sorrow, and fatigue. “Why don’t you eat something, then go lie down.”
As casually as possible, I ask, “So . . . like . . . what happens when Lionel calls to go over edits? Is it, like, you know, big-picture stuff or line edits . . . ?”
“You know, a bunch of bullshit. Lionel rewrites him a lot at this point, so he just covers his bases. Why?”
“No, no reason. Just, you know, curious, you know, about the process.”
“It’s not exactly a process. It just has to get done one way or another at this point. I already talked to him anyway.”
“Who?”
“Lionel. Jeez, you are out of it.”
“What’d he say?” I almost don’t want to hear.
“He said what you sent him is not perfect but it’s workable—they’re workable pages. But look, Alley, I need to know what you’re doing over there so I can support it. Keep it going.”
“You know what we’re doing over there. A whole bunch of nonsense until two a.m., then hands on the typewriter. I’m just not leaving until I have the one page.”
“You’re persistent. That’s good. Whatever you’re doing, just keep doing it.” Claudia seems to be fishing. I’m just not sure if I’m supposed to take the bait. “We’ve got to get Larry out here. He always perks up Walker.”
Claudia lights another cigarette off the one already in her mouth, and the act is already so familiar, so comforting, that it almost makes me want to cry. It’s not like Claudia and I are mapping the human genome together. What we have amounts to little more than chain-smoking and meal preparation—or chain-smoking in lieu of meal preparation. But I’m attached to her in all of the ways I can’t be with my own mother. I don’t want to leave, but I fear within the next twenty-four hours that’s exactly what’s going to happen. For God’s sake: I’m editing Walker Reade’s book without his permission. How on earth did I think I was going to get away with that?
“What’s going on, Claude? With Walker.”
“It’s just one of his moods. It’ll pass.”
“It looks like full-blown delusional paranoia.”
“It’ll pass.” She waves her hand sharply, letting me know this part of the conversation is over. Claudia’s job description would fill a phone book. In just the few weeks I’ve been out here, it has included cleaning the toilet, procuring fireworks, faxing pages, cooking, grocery shopping, scheduling media interviews, cutting Walker’s hair, paying bills, going to the liquor store, general cleaning, polishing handguns, soaking cigarette filters, playing music, arranging personal visits, cleaning peacock cages, repotting flowers, organizing social gatherings, liaising with fans, mixing drinks, brewing coffee, holding off creditors, mollifying
magazine staffs, publishers, editors, and assistants, handling PR requests, and laundry. Not to mention the constant ego stroking and reassurance that is her bread and butter.
“I do not envy your position,” I say, as Claudia makes us both ham-and-Brie sandwiches at the kitchen table. Her hair is still wet.
“Beats data entry.”
“I don’t know, data entry sounds relaxing and predictable.”
“Exactly. C’mon. We’re all adrenaline junkies out here. You, too.”
“No, I’m not. I’m doing this as a means to an end.” I take a church key from the drawer and open both of our beers. I ponder mine, hesitating at my lips. “This might be a bad idea.”
“The hair. Just half. And you’ll see . . .”
“See what?”
“That it’s hard to stay here, but it’s hard to leave, too. I have my house, but I can’t be there more than a weekend without going nuts.” Claudia owns a small ski shack in Crested Butte—a place she’s only been to once the whole time I’ve been here. Her son, Cody, uses it as a massage studio.
“How long have you been out here exactly?”
“On and off twenty years. I’ve been fired eight times.”
“Christ, you’re a regular Billy Martin.”
“Walker and I go way back.” She takes a long draw off her cigarette but doesn’t say anything else. We sit quietly, eating our sandwiches, drinking our beers, smoking.
“What are your thoughts on Devaney?”
“Minimal,” Claudia says. She takes a long pull on her beer and then crushes the butt of her cigarette into the dolphin ashtray. She’s barely touched her sandwich.
“She seems nice enough.”
Claudia’s either not biting or she didn’t hear me. She stares out the kitchen window, distracted by a peacock that struts purposefully by. “I have to run a few errands,” she says abruptly. “Why don’t you rest up for later?”
“Okay.” It seems appropriate to “rest up” for what will surely be my imminent evisceration.
I wash the dishes and tidy up the kitchen. Then I do what I always do when I’m feeling stressed-out. I grab my manuscript from the bedroom and lie on the couch next to the potbellied stove, throwing a quilt over my legs. The feel of the manuscript’s heft always relaxes me—reminds me that I’m capable. That I did this without anyone else’s help or guidance. The book is eighty-five thousand words and I’m on my third revision. When people ask me what it’s about, I take great pains to tell them that it’s not autobiographical, even though it’s a fish-out-of-water story about a girl from a blue-collar family who navigates the gin-and-tonic lifestyle of the Ivy League. Even I have to admit it sounds autobiographical. Some things are undeniably real: the humiliation of doling out food to my dormmates my freshman year when I worked in the food hall and how learning to tend bar effectively turned the tables. There’s the girl who finds her place at the writing center, the attentive professor who decides to mentor her, the failed romance with a rich boy. Like they say—write what you know. But I’m distracted, glancing repeatedly at the clock, which now reads five thirty. In a half hour the jig—and the gig—may be up.
I’m just taking my cap off the red pen when Devaney walks in with her coffee mug and a bag of doughnuts from the Aspen Bake Shop. She throws them on the couch—either a peace offering or a bribe. Her platinum bob is mussed just so. She looks like a rock star.
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
I can’t tell if she’s searching for an honest assessment or on the verge of making an accusation. “Um, no.”
She opens the bag and shoves it toward my face, offering a napkin with her other hand.
I take out a cinnamon-sugar doughnut that smells like apple cider and take a bite. “God damn.”
“Good, right?” She reaches in and takes a doughnut for herself. “Because Walker thinks I’m stupid.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He says it all the time.”
“He says it all the time to everyone. ‘Moron . . . stupid . . . idiot . . . dumbhead . . .’ It’s like a verbal tic.”
“I want to become more involved in the writing process,” she says finally, as if she’s at her annual review.
“You are, Devaney.”
“No, I’m not. I just sit there and drink and do drugs.”
“That’s kind of the process. It’s a shot in the dark. What am I doing that’s any different?”
“Then why does he need both of us?”
I’m not sure I like where this conversation is heading. “Well, I do edit his pages, Devaney. I have some experience.”
“You do?”
“A little.” I leave out the part about how this might actually land me on the first plane home tomorrow.
“Show me how to do that.”
I can’t tell if Devaney is trying to make me dispensable or if she is looking to get on a career track that doesn’t involve carrying menus and batting her eyes at tourists all night. “That’s not my decision to make.”
“But you get to spend nights with him.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Devaney. I’m not interested.” The moment these words pass my lips, I realize they might not be entirely true. “I may spend the nights with him, but you go to bed with him.”
“Yeah, and that’s a hoot and a holler.”
“I don’t really need to know—”
“How exciting do you think that is after all the booze and the drugs? I couldn’t talk that thing up if I was in PR.”
I pause and look at her for a minute. “That’s funny. Really funny. Maybe you should be a writer.”
“I’m telling you. I think I would be good at this.”
“Wait here.” I head to the back bedroom and grab one of my nice notebooks—an empty one with a leather cover. I give it to Devaney and grab one of my favorite Uni-ball pens from my purse. “The best thing I ever did was start keeping a journal. Otherwise you forget stuff.”
She looks at the notebook and flips the pages. “Thank you. Here.” She offers another doughnut, which I take, and she grabs the last one. I go into the kitchen and take two highball glasses down and fill them with ice. Claudia and I have a full bar in our pantry, and I pour Devaney and me two fingers of Irish whiskey each.
“Might as well not mix this early in the day,” I say, handing her a glass. “Plus, this will be amazing with these doughnuts.”
Devaney takes a slug of the whiskey, then grabs the pen and clips it over the front page of the notebook. I briefly consider that by tomorrow Devaney could be using that very pen, and the notebook in her hand, to do my job.
CHAPTER 10
“You wanted to see me?” I’m standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the breezeway, not wanting to come all the way in. Walker takes a sip of his scotch, sits back in his chair, and looks me up and down.
“Why, yes. I wanted your thoughts on the long-term impact of glasnost and perestroika on the Russian economy. While you’re at it, I want you to write a report on the significance of the relationship between Gorbachev and Reagan vis-à-vis the end of the Cold War.”
“Really?”
“No, you moron. I’m ready to write. Why else would I ask you over here?”
“No reason.” It occurs to me that this call might not have happened after all. “You talk to Lionel?”
“Yes, the beast has been fed.”
“What did he have to say?”
“What do you care?”
“I’m your assistant, right?”
As my question hangs in the air—half query and half plea—the CD player changes, a disc of sixties favorites. The opening notes of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” start. Ping . . . ping . . .
“There’s somethin’ happenin’ here / What it is ain’t exactly clear . . .”
Walker is hunched over his typewriter, staring at a blank piece of paper like it owes him money—or drugs. As the opening lines to the song play around us, I’m struck by
the notion that I don’t actually know if Buffalo Springfield was a man (like Bruce Springsteen) or a band (like Steely Dan).
“You’re too young to really understand this song,” Walker says. “I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard it.”
“Where?”
“Shhh . . . Just listen. ‘There’s a man with a gun over there . . .’ ” Walker sings along softly, then lets out a barely audible sigh. “I feel sorry for your generation. You little fuckers don’t know anything. You have no good music, no good wars. One way or another you’re about to get an awful president.”
“I’m sorry, what constitutes a good war?”
“One that doesn’t need to sound or look like a video game for you to process it. ‘Operation Desert Storm’? Please. The whole thing looked like a day at the arcade. And that’s what you think war is. Targets and night vision and explosions.”
Though I feel the need to defend my generation to Walker, I did, in fact, watch footage of targets in Baghdad being hit while nursing a pitcher of beer and a small pepperoni at the pizzeria across the street from my dormitory.
“You want a real war? Try anything with a World War before it. Or Korea. Or Vietnam. Those were wars. Long and tragic.”
“Okay, what’s wrong with the music?”
“Christ, I don’t even know where to begin with that one. Listen to this . . . and then put in some MC Hammer or Madonna or whatever. Those people might as well be making music for dogs—that’s how far off my aural spectrum they are. It’s not even music. It’s just sounds and mugging for the camera and stupid-looking pants. You listen to some Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell, then throw in Manilla Ice, or whatever his name is, and tell me how good it sounds.”
“Fair enough.”
Walker closes his eyes, leans his head back, and lets the music work its spell. An hour later, we are drinking, laughing, and enjoying an intimate, drama-free evening. I am confused as all hell. If this is Walker’s way of building up to the moment he confronts me for having defiled his pages, then he’s an even bigger screw-job than I’d imagined. But as the minutes tick by, and the booze does what the booze does, I begin to exhale. What I feared might be my last night might, instead, just be another night. Or at least it is until Devaney comes storming in looking like she’s either going to a slutty catering job or she’s prepped for the first four minutes of a porn scene involving a “job interview.” She’s in a smart, black pencil skirt and a high-collared, white lace top with black vanity glasses and four-inch heels. Her lips are a blinding shade of crimson, and her hair is up in a tight bun. She perches herself between me and Walker with the notebook I gave her open on the counter. The pen she holds says Aspen Bank and Trust on it. She grabs herself an ashtray and pours herself a shot of straight tequila over ice with a wedge of lime.
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