By the Book

by Julia Sonneborn

  “You need some help?” I asked.

  “Just leave me here,” he groaned. “Put me out of my misery.”

  “Can you at least move so I can get by you?”

  Larry rolled over obediently, lying on his back, arms splayed open. I poured two cups of coffee, stepped over his body, sat on the couch, and handed him a cup.

  “So thanks for ditching me last night,” I said. “What the hell happened?”

  Larry slowly pulled himself up on one elbow, taking a sip of the coffee and pinching his nose between his eyebrows. He noticed the film of dried vomit on his coat lapel and grimaced. “I’m crunchy,” he said.

  “You should see your car,” I said. “It’s Barfalona in there.”

  “Someone must’ve slipped roofies in my drink.”

  “Larry, we were at a gala, not a frat party. You just drank too much.”

  “You’re mad at me.”

  “You met up with Jack, didn’t you? You ditched me at the party so you could hook up with him.”

  Larry hung his head in shame.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’re officially the worst date ever.”

  “I couldn’t help myself!” Larry cried. “You know me. I can resist everything but temptation. Jack texted me to meet him at the hotel bar ASAP—he said he had something important to tell me. I couldn’t not go.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Terrible news. We have to stop seeing each other for the next few months. A total blackout period. His people are adamant—the studio’s got a ton of money riding on his new movie. He just can’t risk being found out cheating on his wife.”

  “So he’s breaking up with you?”

  “He swore it’s not a ‘breakup.’ It’s just a ‘break.’ I told him that was just a question of semantics, but he insisted nothing had really changed and that we could still text each other.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “What choice do I have? I love him!” Larry moaned. “I was just so happy to see him last night and so distraught that it was the last time I’d see him for God knows how long. It made me reckless. I had a double scotch and then another one and another one and soon I was sloshed. We ended up in his hotel room—at least I think it was his hotel room. I can’t remember. All I can say is that the Bel-Air is much, much nicer than a Best Western.” He reached over to grab my hand and kiss it apologetically. “I’m sorry, Anne,” he said. “I’m a sucky friend. Will you ever forgive me?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “But you owe me big time.”

  “Anything. I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

  “Anything?”

  “Yes, I swear.”

  “Well, Tiffany does have another phone drive scheduled for next week. You’re in charge.”

  Larry winced.

  “You said anything.”

  “OK, fine, I’ll do it.” He dropped my hand and lay back down. “Now I have to rest a little. Do you have smelling salts? I think I’m having the vapors.”

  The next day, Larry had an enormous bouquet of flowers delivered to my house, along with a card that read:

  Roses are red

  Violets are blue

  Your friend is a jerk

  Who can’t hold his booze

  *

  “YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT Adam,” I told Rick. “He’s not a good guy.”

  I was at Rick’s house, getting ready for class. He’d gotten back from New York the previous night and had brought a bag of coffee beans from his favorite coffee shop in Brooklyn, offering to brew me a cup in his Chemex before I took off for campus.

  “What happened?” Rick asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “He was just his usual patronizing self at the gala. I can’t believe I ever tried to defend him.”

  “So the gala was a bust, huh?”

  Rick handed me a cup of coffee and sat next to me on the couch, affectionately putting his arm around me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there,” he said. “I’m sure you looked absolutely smashing.”

  I sighed. We were into the final stretch of the fall semester, and I felt swamped with work. I took a sip of coffee and scrolled through my phone, suddenly stopping at an e-mail message from Ursula Burton with the subject line: “Oxford UP Reader’s Reports.”

  “Oh God,” I said.

  “What is it?” Rick asked, drawing my hair back and resting his chin on my shoulder.

  “It’s my book,” I said. “The reports are in. I wasn’t supposed to hear for another month!” I tremblingly opened up the e-mail, feeling myself tense up with anticipation.

  Dear Anne Corey,

  You will find attached two anonymous reader’s reports on your manuscript, Ivory Tower: Nineteenth-Century Women Writers and the Literary Imagination. As you will see, both readers recommended publication of the manuscript, with reader #1 praising its “originality,” and reader #2 calling it a “valuable contribution to the field.” Both readers felt your profiles of the six women writers brought new light to the inner workings of the nineteenth-century publishing industry and advanced existing feminist scholarship by figures such as Ellen Russell and Philippa Conrad-Jones. Reader #2 felt a bit more could be added to the Introduction regarding the Married Women’s Property Act (1884) and the regulation of female desire, and Reader #1 wondered if an epilogue might make sense, tying your research to the current wave of literary and cinematic retellings of novels by Austen, Brontë, and the like. Both readers praised the manuscript as “highly readable” and “blessedly free of jargon.”

  If you could write a short (1–2 page) response to the reader’s reports, addressing concerns and laying out anticipated revisions, I can bring your materials to our board at our next meeting, scheduled for December 10. Once we receive board approval, I can immediately draw up a contract and send it to you for your signature. We are anticipating a publication date of next December.

  Please contact me with any questions, and congratulations. I look forward to working with you.

  All best,

  Ursula Burton

  * * *

  Acquisitions Editor

  Oxford University Press

  Academic Division

  Attachment 1: CoreyReader’sReport1

  Attachment 2: CoreyReader’sReport2

  I screamed, startling Rick and, I’m sure, the whole neighborhood. “Oh my God! My book’s getting published! I’m going to be a real author! It’s happening!” I showed Rick the e-mail, doing a little dance in his living room and cackling.

  “Nicely done,” Rick said, giving me a big hug. “It feels great, doesn’t it?”

  “You pulled strings, didn’t you?” I said. “I know you did.” I felt a twinge of guilt and even shame at being beholden to Rick, but I shook it off. A book contract was a book contract, and I desperately wanted to keep my job.

  Rick shrugged innocently. “Ursula has good taste. What can I say?”

  “I’m sure it’s no big deal for you,” I said. “You publish stuff all the time. But this is my first real book. I’ve spent half my life writing about women writers—and now I’m one of them!”

  “It never gets old,” Rick said, “but you always remember the first time.” He pulled me over and gave me a kiss, and I felt myself thrill as he ran his hands over my back and fumbled at the zipper of my dress.

  “Want to celebrate?” he asked.

  “I have to run to class,” I said, pulling away and laughing. “But maybe later.”

  “Promise?” he asked, letting me go with a flirtatious squeeze.

  “Promise.”

  I ran to class feeling elated and invincible. A book meant I’d get to keep my job. It meant I wouldn’t have to move. And it meant I was a “real” writer, someone worthy of having her words in print.

  Larry wasn’t answering his phone, so I barged into his department office, yelling, “I have awesome news, Lar!”

  Larry was sitting at his computer, engrossed in something on the screen. He looked startled and emb
arrassed as I came in, minimizing whatever he was reading with a nervous click of his mouse.

  “Oooooh, Larry—are you watching porn?” I asked. “Bad, bad boy.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “This is a school computer. I don’t want to get fired.”

  “Then why’re you looking so sneaky?” I teased.

  “OK, you busted me,” he said, raising his hands up. “I was watching old YouTube videos of Jack doing the ice bucket challenge.”

  “I heard from Oxford!” I screamed. “The reader’s reports were positive!!! They’re going to publish my book!!!”

  Larry’s face broke into a huge smile. “I knew it, Annie,” he said, getting up to give me a bear hug. “I knew it would work out.”

  “Thank you, Larry,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I owe you so much.” I felt tears spring to my eyes and brushed them away with a happy laugh.

  He spun me around his office. “You don’t owe me anything. You’re a rock star.”

  I arrived in class in a great mood, feeling giddy and magnanimous. As if sensing this, one of my students raised her hand and said, “Professor Corey, have you seen the ads for Jane Vampire?”

  “Of course,” I said. They were impossible to miss, plastered on bus shelters and billboards around town and featuring a young actress whose name I couldn’t remember wrapped in a passionate embrace with Jack Lindsey. They were both spattered with blood, and Jack stared sullenly at the camera, his forearms bare and clutching the starlet’s bare back. “Can you love someone to death?” the ad copy read. “Jane Vampire. In theaters November 20th.”

  “Can we get extra credit for watching the movie?” the student asked. “Pretty please?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We didn’t read the book in class.”

  “But we read Jane Eyre! What if we write a review comparing the two? If the movie sucks, we can talk about why it sucks. Please, Professor Corey???”

  My students looked at me eagerly. I felt myself relenting. I’d have to watch Jane Vampire, too, in order to write that requested epilogue to my book. Maybe I’d learn something from what my students had to say.

  “OK, why not?” I said. “I’ll give you extra credit, but the review has to be in by the last day of classes.”

  The class cheered.

  “And please no fanboying or fangirling over the actors. I want a real review, not some random gushing about how hot someone is.” I gave a knowing smile, and there was a burst of laughter.

  “I’ve read the whole Jane Vampire trilogy,” I heard them say to each other.

  “Me, too! I stayed up all night!”

  “Jack Lindsey is so hot.”

  “What did I just hear?” I interrupted, cupping my ear.

  “Oops!” the student laughed. “Um, yeah, I meant Jack Lindsay inhabits the character of Edward Rochester with, uh, smoldering physicality.”

  “Much better,” I said.

  I let class out early and headed back to my office, practically skipping along the way. I even smiled at Pam as I walked past her desk.

  “My, it looks like someone’s in a good mood,” Pam teased me as I passed by. “And I have a feeling I know why!”

  I looked at her in surprise. No one besides Rick and Larry knew about my book acceptance yet.

  “Oh, honey, it’s no use pretending anymore. People have seen you riding around campus on Rick’s motorcycle. You know people can still recognize you under that helmet, so don’t act all innocent!”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “We’re just having fun. It’s casual.”

  “Sure, hon. Just be careful. You know what they say . . . Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”

  “Pam,” I said, trying not to sound exasperated. “I’m in my thirties. It’s the twenty-first century. And I’m not a cow!”

  “It’s a metaphor,” Pam said. “You’re not getting any younger, and as I always tell my girls, it’s better to be safe than sorry.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I mean, look at what happened to Tiffany.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked. I hadn’t seen Tiffany since the gala, and I assumed she was off lining up more multimillion-dollar donations.

  “You didn’t hear? She and President Martinez broke up.”

  “What?” I said, trying to hide my surprise. “What happened? I thought they were serious.”

  “See?” Pam said. “That’s what Tiffany thought, too! But President Martinez thought it was just—what was the word you used? ‘Casual.’ Luckily, she figured it out, and now she’s engaged to a Boeing exec. My friend in the development office saw the ring. It’s huge!”

  “That was fast,” I said. “What happened? Did he propose to her after a week?”

  “Oh, Tiffany’s no dummy. She didn’t put all her eggs in one basket. She’d been dating this Boeing guy since last year, and once she saw that President Martinez was stringing her along, she moved on. You might take a page from her handbook,” she said, “is all I’m saying.” Pam looked at me keenly.

  I saw Tiffany the next day at a fund-raising meeting, basking in her newly engaged status, happily flaunting her ring and telling anyone who would listen the story of how her fiancé proposed to her over the Jumbotron at the Staples Center during a Lakers game.

  “When’s the wedding going to be?” someone asked.

  “Next winter, sometime,” she said. “I’m thinking destination wedding in Cabo, barefoot on the beach, all-white color scheme with teal accents.”

  Catching sight of me, Tiffany motioned me over, putting a chummy arm over my shoulder.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Oh, thanks,” Tiffany said, giggling. “So I see that you and Rick Chasen are getting close,” she said, lowering her voice. “That was so sweet of him to help you carry your books.”

  “Yeah, it was,” I said.

  “You guys are so perfect for one another! You’re both so . . . bookish. So tell me—is it serious?”

  I shrugged. “We’re dating. It’s only been a couple months.”

  “You only need a couple months to know,” she said coyly. “Take my advice. If he’s serious, tell him to put a ring on it.”

  *

  RICK AND I BEGAN meeting at Chandler Library regularly for writing dates—I had to revise my manuscript, and Rick had a draft of his novel due to his publisher in the spring. The building was old and drafty, with questionable plumbing and spotty Internet service, but it was still the best place on campus to get work done and so impressive-looking that it was often used as a setting for movie shoots. On the first floor was a large, sun-drenched reading room with leaded windows and long wooden desks, full of Fairfax students with their headphones on and laptops open, cramming for their upcoming finals.

  Rick was seated at one of the tables, waving me over to an empty seat beside him. I slid in next to him, plugging in my laptop next to his and unpacking my bag. As I was about to turn on my computer, I heard Rick curse under his breath.

  “What’s the matter?” I whispered.

  Rick was studying his computer with disgust. “It’s this wanker who’s been sending me these harassing e-mails. Claims I’ve been recycling some of the writing for my blog.”

  Rick had recently started writing a weekly column for the website of an acclaimed literary magazine. While the gig was prestigious and well paid, he’d been complaining to me about the frenetic publication schedule.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He claims I’m self-plagiarizing. Have you ever heard of such a thing? It’s like accusing me of raiding my own fridge! So what? Who cares if I’m recycling earlier work? It’s a blog.”

  “What does he want you to do?”

  “Who the hell knows? Print a retraction? I mean, what a prick. Some people just have too much time on their hands.” Rick’s voice rose in anger, and some students now looked up from their work.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to calm him down. “He’s a troll. Ignore
him.”

  “Let me give you a piece of advice,” Rick said. “Never ever read the comments section. It’s a cesspool of illiterate bile.”

  Noticing the students staring at us, he lowered his voice and smiled at me wryly.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “See what you have to look forward to once you become a published author? Suddenly everyone’s out to get you.”

  We heard a rustle as a group of people walked into the reading room, led by a man in shirtsleeves and a tie. For a moment I thought it was a campus tour for prospective students, but as they came closer I saw that it was a group of architects, engineers, and administrators carrying large rolls of plans and clipboards. The school paper had recently reported that Bex’s gift would help fund a major renovation and expansion of the campus library and that Bex, with her background in art and design, would assume a significant role in the process. Toward the back of the group, I saw her standing with Adam, her golden hair pulled back in a loose bun, nodding seriously at what the architect was saying.

  “Look who’s making the rounds,” Rick whispered to me. “Your favorite person. Who’s that blond lady beside him?”

  “Bex Lindsey. She went to college with us. She just donated a huge amount of money to the school.”

  “Well, Martinez is certainly cozying up to her. That’s one thing I have to give the man—he’s sly, that one. Knows how to charm dollars out of donors.”

  “Shhhhh,” I said. Adam and Bex were walking over.

  “Sorry to bother you while you’re working,” Adam said, “but I wanted to introduce Professor Chasen to Elizabeth Lindsey. She was very excited to hear you’re teaching here.”

  “It’s such an honor to meet you,” Bex said, shaking his hand. “I just finished Subterranean City—I couldn’t put it down.”

  Rick smiled modestly. “Thank you so much,” he said. “I’m delighted you enjoyed it.”

  “Are you working on anything else now?” Bex asked, glancing at his open laptop. “I hope that’s not too invasive a question to ask—I know some writers don’t like talking about their current projects.”

  “Oh, not at all,” Rick said. “I’m not precious about that kind of stuff.”