by Dan Begley
“Hmm, well, if that’s what they were, don’t worry about them.”
“Who said I was worried about them?” I snap. “I’m not worried about them. You shouldn’t be reading them anyway. They’re garbage. I did you a favor.”
It’s clear now all she really wants to do is put space between us. Her shoes make a clickety-click as she goes up the steps, and there’s something about the way it sounds so grown-up, so professional, so… successful that lights my skin on fire.
“Then again,” I yell up to her, “maybe you should be reading that Vogue.”
The clickety-click stops; I’ve got her attention.
“Goodwill called. They want their outfit back.”
She exhales a loud, disgusted breath.
“Asshole!” she screams, and with quite the echo. Then she stomps to her door and slams it.
I do that little head-bob, chin-thrust, pigeon-looking thing you tend to do when you feel cool and cocky and confident, because that’s how I feel right now: Yo, check it out, my novel might be confetti, but my trash talkin’ ain’t lost a beat. And this feeling of bad-boy bravado lasts for approximately eighteen seconds, till I realize what I’ve managed to do. I took a situation in which I was the wronged party, the victim, the neighbor guy worthy of “Sorry to hear it” condolences, and I’ve thrown it all away by being a smart-mouthed, ignorant prick. And now what Brandon did to me, and all the self-righteous indignation I’m entitled to, it’s all swallowed up—every flippin’ ounce of it—by guilt and regret over what I said to Rhonda. Rhoda. Randi. Fuck. Which means I know what I have to do.
First, I scoop up the mess, stuff all the manuscript and magazine pages into my backpack. Second, I go upstairs and call coward-ass Brandon and give his answering machine a profane and pissed-off piece of my mind. And finally, I set out for the bookstore to replace the magazines I destroyed, since I won’t have the proper peace of mind to wallow in my rejection until I’ve eased my conscience about being a jerk. And, since the bookstore I go to doesn’t carry that type of magazine, my penance is even stiffer: a trip into the bowels of Bookzilla.
Here’s how ridiculous the parking lot is at Bookzilla: drivers are actually following departing shoppers to their cars, to get their spots. And it’s not Christmas Eve. It’s the bloody Friday night after Labor Day. But what do you expect when you squeeze a bookstore in with a Linens-N-Things and Petco and Home Depot and Target?
The inside of Bookzilla is just as bloated as the parking lot. It’s women, mostly, and hordes of them, all ages and sizes and hair colors, squealing and heading upstairs. Oprah must’ve had a writer on her show today, someone who wrote a book about shopping or dieting or sex, or maybe she was talking about something like Love in the Time of Cholera, which everyone skipped twenty years ago when it was required reading in high school, but now that Oprah loves it, “Girl, I just gotta have it!” My goal is to get in and out of this place without being trampled or lobotomized.
I find the magazines right away, since, thankfully, Bookzilla gives prominent placement to high-minded publications such as People and Vogue, and make haste to the checkout line. That’s where I’m standing when the night-beat reporter for Channel Five breezes in with a cameraman in tow and, like the panting women, they head upstairs.
“What’s all the commotion?” I ask the cashier when my turn comes. I’ve already broken my vow not to say more than “hi,” “cash,” and “bye.”
The woman actually clutches her chest. “Oh my god, you didn’t hear? Katharine Longwell is here! Tonight. In the store.”
It’s a name even I recognize. “The Katharine Longwell?”
“The one and only!”
Jesus. So the high priestess of chick-lit is here, the prima donna who’s been on Kimmel and Letterman and the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and has had a Showtime series and two movies made from her books, and has forty gazillion copies in ten thousand languages of her books in print and has yet to meet a cliché she wouldn’t take to bed. What, and no embossed invitation for me?
“She has a new book out,” the cashier gushes. If she were a dog, her tail would’ve already flown off from wagging too hard. “You should check it out for your wife or girlfriend. It’s so great!”
Here’s what I’d like to tell her: a) I have no wife or girlfriend, thanks. b) If I had a wife or girlfriend who read Katharine Long-well, she wouldn’t be my wife or girlfriend. c) Give me my fucking change. But I don’t. I just glare.
Unfortunately, Tammy—that’s what the nametag says—is oblivious to glares. “There’s a display right there,” she says, pointing exuberantly over my shoulder.
“Super. Can I have my change?”
“Oh, sure.” She titters and gives me my change and slides the bag my way.
My plan is to beat it the hell out of there before they run out of Katharine Longwell books and the riot starts. But my eye catches something in the middle of the store: it’s Demi Moore, standing next to a display of books, wearing a clingy white blouse that’s opened oh so low and tight jeans, and her hair is windblown, and her mouth is opened in a way that’s not quite porn star, but not kindergarten teacher, either. But as I get closer I see it’s not Demi Moore in the flesh, only a cardboard cutout, then I see it’s not Demi Moore at all, it’s… her. Katharine Longwell. But she’s a blonde, or at least she was a blonde, last time I tried to avoid seeing her on some show. Now she’s a brunette? And from the way those buttons are busting on her blouse, the hair isn’t the only thing she’s had worked on.
By this time, I’m close enough to make out the title of her latest masterpiece—The Cappuccino Club—and it’s like being at the scene of a car wreck: you know you should look away before you see something horrifying that will give you nightmares, but you can’t help yourself. I pick up a copy. According to the jacket, Sasha and Gisella and Vanessa are best friends, and each is an American Princess—Jewish, Latina, and Black (or JAP, LAP, and BAP, as they would have you know)—and they’ve been through it all together—men, engagements, breakups, surgeries, broken heels, bad hairstyles—and discussed it all together, usually—you guessed it—over a cup of cappuccino. But lately things have been worse than usual, their men distant or disloyal, their jobs beating down on their self-worth, so they decide to take matters into their own hands: they’ll go into business, open up their own coffee shop. Sisters doing it for themselves. What follows, of course, in this “compelling and beautifully written valentine to dreamers” is a year in their lives filled with more heartbreak and laughter, tears and romance, than any of them ever imagined, as they finally discover the true meaning of friendship, life, and love. In other words, another Pulitzer Prize–winning plot about women who just need a good lay.
It’s easy to make fun of her books, and fun to do it, and that’s what I’m doing, having a merry old time with myself, until a whole ugly parade of not-so-fun thoughts creeps into my head: 1) I’ve been rejected by Brandon, and everyone else. I can’t get my book into print. 2) Katharine Longwell has her books in print. Dozens of them. Like The Cappuccino Club. 3) Katharine Longwell’s novels are horseshit. 4) Katharine Longwell has sold millions of copies. 5) Katharine Longwell is a millionaire. 6) I’ve been rejected by Brandon, and everyone else. I can’t get my book into print.
And suddenly I don’t feel so much like making fun of Katharine’s book anymore. My hand is trembling and my breathing’s a little ragged, and I’m going rejected writer again, like I did in the vestibule of my apartment building, having wild and desperate thoughts, but these are worse than before, because they’re so vivid, so tempting, so delicious, as in getting gasoline-soaked rags and a blowtorch and burning down the whole goddamned display, turning it into a blazing inferno, like a scene from Fahrenheit 451, only now we’re not burning books with dangerous ideas, but books with no ideas at all, and everyone, Run! Run for your lives! because I’m not stopping here; I’m going through all the books, incinerating the garbage, and the flames are only going to get hotter and
hungrier and higher, and you could be next, so Run! Run for your lives!
But I don’t do any of that. Instead, I dump the book in my bag and leave without paying.
I lay the replacement Vogue and People on my neighbor’s doorstep—with “Sorry!” scribbled on the receipt—then across the hall, at my place, the first thing I do is have a drink. It’s also the second and third thing. At some point I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to eat—when was lunch, anyway?—and that whiskey from a plastic cup on an empty stomach is not a good combination, but by that time, the info strikes me as more an NBC The More You Know public service spot than something that applies to me, here, now; and anyway, I’m too comfortable on the sofa, which is too far from the fridge, which would require walking to get to, and I’ve decided I’m not up for any exercise unless the building catches fire, and then, only if I must.
Besides, there’s something on the TV, and it’s the greatest show, ever, of all time, in the history of the world—look at those colors! and how the people move! and talk!—and it’s a program on the Trojan War, and there are lots of battle scenes, and Jesus, how did they get that footage? and at one point I’m fairly certain that Hector and Achilles actually make an appearance on my living room floor, throwing punches. Then I pass out.
CHAPTER FOUR
I’d like to say I wake in the morning to the realization that everything about the last twenty-four hours was a dream: Dr. Ruth, the rejected manuscript, the scene with my neighbor, the trip to Bookzilla, the drinking. After all, Bobby Ewing got rid of an entire season of Dallas just by stepping out of the shower. I don’t need an entire season wiped out, just a day. Unfortunately I’m on the sofa, in my clothes, my head is throbbing, the whiskey bottle is on the table, next to a plastic cup, and my backpack is on the floor, stuffed with crumpled manuscript. I think it all happened. Unless, of course, my waking up and thinking it all happened is also part of the dream, which may not turn out so bad, provided I, too, am married to the eighties version of Victoria Principal. But I doubt it.
The Bookzilla bag is lying on the chair, The Cappuccino Club wrapped tightly inside. I pull it out to give the ladies some air. It’s a heavy book, which means I have options: I could use it as a giant coaster, or doorstop, or cockroach squasher. Good ideas all. But I have something better in mind: I’ll read it, or some of it, just to see how wretched it is, which will make me feel loads better about myself and the type of writing I do. But I can’t do it here; that’d be blasphemous, like reading Playboy in church. I need a place where I won’t be seen by anyone I know or respect or care about and I’ll fit right in with my Katharine Longwell tucked under my arm. I know exactly the place.
The menu at Starbucks is such that I have difficulty finding a cup of coffee. Not a mocha Valencia, or espresso con panna, or iced caramel macchiato, or double chocolate chip frappucino. Just coffee. And not a tall or venti or grande. Just a cup. Finally, I get it worked out, I think.
I find a table that’s right where I want it: out in the open, in plain view, where everyone can see me. I take a long, hearty breath, even puff out my chest a bit, and open my book, proud. I glance around and catch the eye of a woman a few tables over in a velour tracksuit, lots of clunky jewelry, and a turban of frosted hair. She has a twinkle in her eye, admiring, no doubt, my good taste in literature and the double mocha espresso caramel latte alpacino she thinks I’m drinking. Smile on, oh kindred spirit. Thus, ensconced on my throne with my favorite Starbucks beverage, I begin the task at hand.
It’s as bad as I thought. Thirty-five pages in, and the characters have already whined, guffawed, chortled, intoned, babbled, mused, and chirped. Apparently, no one is much for “saying” anything. And how about these gems: “Man does not live on bread alone, but a woman can survive on shoes”; “For Vanessa, a piece of double fudge cake and an orgasm differed only in this: one she had and felt naughty, the other she had only when she felt naughty”; “Gisella knew all about men like Gleason McNeil: tall, dark, and handsome, with enough lines to fill a fisherman’s boat”; “Sasha was getting to the age where wrinkles were her friends, but the kind who said nasty things behind her back.” One thing Kitty can do, though, is plot. Something is always happening to Vanessa and Gisella and Sasha, and the men who are their husbands and lovers (and sons: a couple of them are up there, in terms of age). But it’s so easy to see where all this is going, and who’s going to wind up with whom, and it’s cloying and trite and formulaic, and if I taught an introductory creative writing class instead of comp and lit, I wouldn’t accept it. Rewrite. Try again. You can do better. Because they could.
My coffee is finished and I’m done with the book (not done, as in reached the end, but done as in, must throw away before brain damaged permanently). That’s when I sense the lighting has changed in front of me and I’m not alone. Some vulture has already swooped in to claim my table. I look up.
At first I think the guy’s planning to mug me, because it’s that sort of outfit: baseball cap, oversized sunglasses, black T-shirt. Disguise-ish. But then I see the guy has earrings and breasts, and not just the breasts a man can sometimes have when he’s a bit overweight, or has that kind of build; these, if you’ll pardon my saying it, are the real deal, though how real, C-cup or better, is questionable. My visitor nods at the book.
“What do you think?” she asks.
“Ah, what do I think?” I say, closing the book and laying it facedown on the table. “Let me see…” I’d like to couch it in something clever and literary, if I can swing it—“How do I hate this? Let me count the ways”—though I also see the virtue of just being blunt—“It’s a pile of shit.” But as I’m weighing my options, really giving it some thought, she removes her glasses, and this unobstructed glimpse of her face mingles with my recollection of a cardboard image last night at Bookzilla and the author photo staring up from the table, and the faces all merge into one until I realize who it is: Katharine Longwell. In the flesh. And she’s asking me what I think of her book!
“Hmm. Well, what I think…” I repeat, stalling, marveling, rejoicing, “is that it’s hard for me to put it into words. Ms. Long-well.” I flash her my best Gleason McNeil smile, which, if I’m getting it right, is “boyish yet confident,” and then add, “Please, won’t you have a seat?”
She’s pleased I’ve recognized her, but then grimaces. “I’m on a tight schedule to make it to the airport. I just popped in for a coffee.” She looks at her watch, then back at me. “But maybe I have a minute. If you’ll call me Katharine.”
“Okay, Katharine,” I say, helping her into her chair. “I’m Mitch.”
No one else in the place seems to realize who just sat down with me. But why should they? On a scale of one to ten, in terms of conspicuousness, she’s about a two, and only because of the size of her… glasses. (Got you, eh?) She’s just a woman getting a cup of coffee. Two cups, actually. And since I try to be fair in all things, I will say this: even without gobs of makeup, her face is not unattractive. Her eyes are her best feature, wide and brown and darker than Hannah’s, though they do have a fleck of something that picks up the light and brightens them. Of course, maybe she’s just wearing colored lenses, since I wouldn’t put it past her.
“You must really like your coffee,” I say. “Two cups?”
“Skim latte for me, café breve for my assistant.”
“And she doesn’t get the coffee for you?”
Katharine Longwell shrugs. “I wanted to stretch my legs. And she’s a he, by the way. Brent. Which is why I came over. Other than Brent, you’re not my typical fan, a young man like yourself.” Her voice is a little husky, Catherine Zeta-Jonesish in a way. “I’m intrigued.”
It comes across like a pickup line. Then, when she makes no bones about checking out my arms and chest, I’m certain of it: she’s flirting. With me! For a moment I almost feel bad for her, since she’s in her forties if she’s a day and she thinks I might actually be digging on her.
; “To be honest, Katharine, I wouldn’t exactly call myself a fan.” I lean a little closer. “I’m reading your book for another reason.”
“Oh?” she says, taking the bait, her lips curling into a smile. I’ve got her! I have her wrapped around my little finger. Katharine Longwell is my pinky ring. She thinks something delicious is coming her way. And that’s when it happens.
There’s a clip of Michael Jordan playing against the Lakers in the early nineties, ready to slam it home, another easy two for His Highness. But as he soars toward the basket, eyes wide, tongue waggling, you see his body instinctively seize upon the moment, recognize something greater, so he windmills the ball, drops it lower and switches hands, then lays it up and off the glass, kissing it in. A slam dunk, impressive in its own right, has become a shot for the ages. That’s where I am today. The lane is open, my path is clear, I have only to stuff it home: “Your book is a load of crap.” Slam dunk, in your face! But it’s too easy. So my brain pulls a Jordan, ratchets into a higher gear, realizes something more spectacular is there for the taking. My mouth simply needs to follow.
“Actually, I’m reading it because of my cousin. She’s a huge fan.”
“Oh, really.”
“The biggest. She’s read everything you’ve written.” I flip to the “Also by Katharine Longwell” page. “Like Confessions of a Serial Virgin, You’ve Got Male, Ms. Opportunity, Dolce & Gabbana & Heather. Those are the ones she’s always talking about. And the new one here, The Cappuccino Club, she told me I’d be amazed. And I am.”
She tilts her head in a schoolgirl sort of way. “Nice of you to say, Mitch. And your cousin.”
But I’m just revving up. “And here’s the thing. She’s a bit of a writer herself. Not in your league, of course. But she’s serious about it. She wants to be just like you. In fact, she dropped out of college to do it. She was studying genetic engineering or something like that, but how could she do that and hold on to her dream? Because you know how it is: when the writing bug bites you, you’re a goner.”