Blind Submission (3 page)

She looked up at me then, an expression of abject despair on her face. The words
I hate my job
might as well have been printed on her forehead.

“Can I help you?” she said as she pulled herself out of her chair and walked over to me. She was painfully thin and the paleness of her skin made a stark contrast to the sheets of straight black hair that hung below her shoulders.

“I'm Angel Robinson. I'm here for an interview. I spoke to Anna on the phone. I'm sorry, are you Anna?”

“No,” she said. Her wide gray eyes were too big for her face. Close up, they looked like windows onto a bleak, rainy day. I thought she might be older than I'd first guessed. Her skinny body was that of a little girl, but her face was lined and pinched.

“Anna's in the bathroom. She should be out in a minute. Do you want to sit down?”

I took a quick scan of the room and saw that there was no chair available that didn't belong to a desk. “I'm fine,” I told her, wondering if she was going to offer her name. “Thank you, uh…”

“My name is Kel—I mean, Nora. My name is Nora.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, Nora.”

Kel-I-mean-Nora went back to her desk, where she busied herself pulling cards from three separate Rolodexes. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I stood there like a piece of driftwood for an uncomfortable minute or two until I heard a toilet flush somewhere out of sight and saw another young woman approach me.

“Hi, I'm Angel Robinson,” I said, extending my hand. “Anna?”

“Yes, hi, nice to meet you,” Anna said without taking my hand. Anna was the polar opposite of Nora. She was stocky and had bobbed blond hair tucked behind her ears and smallish, squinty blue eyes. Her cheeks seemed unnaturally flushed and she gasped a little, as if she were short of breath. She also had a rather unpleasant expression on her face that I put somewhere between petulance and condescension.

I noticed, with dismay, that both Anna and Nora were wearing jeans. Clearly, in spite of all that posturing in front of the mirror, I had overdressed.

“Lucy's in a meeting with Craig at the moment,” Anna said, gesturing to the closed door in the middle of the round wall, “but she should be with you shortly. Why don't you sit down?”

It felt more like an order than a suggestion, so I backed myself into the chair belonging to the desk piled with the stacks of manuscripts. Anna hoisted herself onto the desk in front of me, her ample backside irretrievably crumpling several sheets of paper beneath it. One wrong move, I thought, and the whole show would topple to the carpet.

“So how did you hear about us?” she asked me. Something subtly different crept into her voice as she spoke. It sounded nasal and squeezed at the same time, as if she were trying to speak while someone sat on her stomach. It was slightly disconcerting.

“I saw the ad in the paper,” I said. “But of course I've heard about Lucy Fiamma before. Who hasn't, right?”

“So you have experience in publishing?” Now there was a note of officiousness in her tone. I didn't like Anna already and I'd only known her for five minutes. Not a good sign, I told myself. I wasn't in the mood for what was turning into a pre-interview, so I answered her question with one of my own.

“Have you been working here long?”

“Yes, I've been here awhile already. About four or five months.”

An intercom buzzed loudly on the desk and Anna leaned her entire body over the stacks of files to answer it, promptly knocking several piles to the floor.

“Yup,” she said into the phone.

“Anna, am I going to get that subsidiary rights list today? These magazines are closing for the summer, you know.” The voice sounded extremely unhappy. Anna's cheeks flushed crimson.

“I've got calls in,” she said, “and I'm waiting for the copies to come back from Kinko's on the George manuscript and—”

“I don't want to hear excuses, Anna. Do I have to tell you how important subsidiary rights are? There's a reason we keep serial and audio rights, Anna. Not to mention
film.
Will the list be done today or not?”

“I don't think that's possible, Lucy.”

“Then bring me what you've got now.” The intercom disconnected with a loud click. Anna slid off the desk and stared down at the mess on the floor. She looked so miserable I jumped out of my seat and started gathering papers in an attempt to help her clean up.

“You don't have to do that,” she snapped. “That was Lucy. I'll go tell her you're here.”

I looked over at Nora as Anna stalked into Lucy's office, but she was steadfast in avoiding eye contact with me. Okay, I thought, so it's not exactly the welcome wagon around here. But I wasn't about to let it get me ruffled. They were obviously very busy and I was clearly an outsider. I heard the rise and dip of muffled voices coming from Lucy's office and then, unexpectedly, the sound of giggling. Anna reappeared, smiling but still ruddy. “You can go in now,” she said.

Lucy Fiamma's office was unlike any I'd seen before. The circular room looked as if it had been designed with a specific purpose in mind, but I couldn't tell exactly what that purpose was. It was pristine, especially compared to the disarray of the outer office, without so much as a paper clip out of place. Adding to the overall effect of cleanliness and light was the fact that the entire room was done up in white, glass, and chrome. There was no window, but a generous amount of light streamed down from a large dome-shaped skylight cut out of the ceiling. The almost blinding whiteness of the wall, couch, chairs, and carpeting reminded me of something, an image just out of reach that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

“Welcome, Angel Robinson.” Lucy Fiamma strode toward me and extended her hand. I noticed that her immaculately manicured fingernails were long, pointed, and ended with half moons of white polish. Her hand was small, soft, and very cold as I shook it. The rest of Lucy Fiamma was much more imposing. She was very tall, for one thing. I was five-four at last measure and Lucy towered over me by at least six inches. I had to look up to meet her smile. Her white-blond hair floated in a cloud around her face. It had the appearance of hair on which much time has been spent to create the impression of windblown effortlessness. She was wearing a peculiar combination of clothing: white capri pants, a lime green cable-knit sweater, and a red leather belt. The whole outfit was finished off with black leather flats. All the separate pieces were of very good quality, yet they were just wrong together. It was difficult for me to gauge Lucy's age; she had smooth, unlined skin, but her face had a vaguely unhealthy pallor as if she had just recovered from a nasty bout with the flu. Her mouth was big—or generous, if one wanted to be flattering about it—and filled with teeth that were on the large side, but, like everything else in her office, spotlessly white. Her eyes were laser green, with glittering gold flecks. I had no doubt she could speak volumes with the hypnotic stare she was fixing on me. All put together, Lucy was a striking woman, but there was something both unconventional and overwhelming about her looks. Perhaps it was the palpable sense of power that emanated from her, washing over me so completely that for a moment, I felt as if I were drowning in her presence.

“I'm so pleased to meet you,” I said. “I've heard so much about you.”

“Well, it can't have been too bad,” she said, laughing, “or you wouldn't be here, would you? This is Craig Johnson, my right-hand man and the voice of reason in this office.”

I hadn't even been aware of Craig's presence until Lucy introduced him. He was fairly easy to miss, so fair and slight he practically faded into the wall behind him. Craig looked as if he hadn't had a decent meal or a good night's sleep for some time. His eyes were sad and brown and his clothes hung lifelessly from his bony frame. So I was shocked when he said, “Nice to meet you, Angel,” in a rumbling baritone. Craig had a radio star voice trapped in a milquetoast body. Just one more in a growing list of peculiarities here, I thought.

“Well, why don't we sit down and get started?” Lucy said, gesturing for me to sit on the couch. Craig positioned himself on a chair next to me, holding a legal pad on his lap. Lucy sat down next to me, so close our knees were almost touching, holding a small pad of her own.

“Now, where's your résumé?” she said to nobody in particular. “Nora!” she yelled toward the door. “Can I have this woman's résumé please?”

Nora appeared at the door and said, “It's on your desk, Lucy.”

“It most certainly is not.”

Nora shuffled over to Lucy's oversize glass desk, removed a sheet of paper, which I immediately recognized as my résumé, and handed it to Lucy.

“Nora, it would help me a great deal if you didn't
hide
these things, don't you think?” Lucy said. Nora simply sighed and left the room.

“Okay,” Lucy began, “Angel Robinson. What a name! Surely that's not your real name. You must have changed it, yes?”

“No, no, that's my real name. From birth.”

“Then maybe you
ought
to change it. I mean,
Angel
of all things. Quite a title to live up to, I'd think.”

“Well, my mother…She saw me as her little angel, she said, when I was born, and so she thought, I mean…” I trailed off into an awkward silence. The truth was, I'd always been embarrassed by my name. It didn't help that the mega-bestselling book
Freakonomics
listed Angel as the number one “white girl” name that best indicated parents who were uneducated. I hoped Lucy hadn't read
Freakonomics
and resisted the urge to wipe my hands on my dress. My palms were slick with sweat and I could feel the prickle of perspiration on my lower back.

“Names are very important,” Craig said suddenly. Again, I was startled to hear such a deep, sensual voice coming out of such a mouse of a man. I didn't know if I'd be able to get used to it. “My wife decided to hyphenate our names so that she could keep her own identity,” he added.

“Hyphens are even worse,” Lucy said dismissively, and then stopped short as if something important had just occurred to her. “Do you have a
husband
?” she asked me, her tone making
husband
sound a lot like
herpes.

“No, no. I mean, I have a boyfriend—fiancé, actually—and he…” He what? I cursed myself. Is writing a book? Would love to be represented by you? How was it possible that I had spoken no more than a handful of words and was already in such a deep hole? And why had I referred to Malcolm as my fiancé? The two of us hadn't even come close to making any official plans to wed.

“Are you planning to get married sometime soon, then?” Lucy asked. “I mean, I'd hate to offer you a position and then have you disappear on a honeymoon or something. Or get pregnant. You're not planning
babies,
are you? Little Angels, as it were? Because we can stop right here if you are and not waste any more time. Time is money here and I don't have nearly enough of it to squander.”

“Actually, we haven't really set a date.” I could hear my own voice getting smaller in my throat. “And I haven't even begun to think about children.”

“Good,” Lucy said, “because this is an extremely busy office, and while I don't expect my employees to work twenty-four hours a day, there will be plenty of reading to do outside of the office and occasions when you may have to come in early or stay late. And as my assistant—” Lucy stopped herself short, her eyes narrowing, a new question working its way to her lips. “You understand that this position is that of
my assistant
?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, but I was confused by her emphasis.

“Because if you are thinking of being hired as an
agent,
we should probably terminate this interview immediately.”

“Oh no,” I rushed to assure her, “I understand the position. And I'm not interested in agenting.” I gave Lucy a broad smile to underscore my words, but I questioned, if only for a fraction of a second, just how truthful they were.
Would
I be interested in being an agent myself? Who knew? I hadn't even seen it as a possibility until that moment. I was surprised, and maybe even a little intrigued, that Lucy had. But no, I thought again, I could never—

“Good,” Lucy said, drilling me with her laser eyes.

Nora entered the room once more. “Lucy,” she said, “Natalie Weinstein's on line two for you.”

“I have to take this,” Lucy said, leaping from the couch. “This is a
very
important editor. I've been waiting for this offer.”

Craig rose from his seat in tandem. “I'm going to make a couple of calls while you get this,” he said. “I'll be back in a few.”

“Fine, go, go,” Lucy said. “You can make yourself comfortable, Angel. Have a look at all of our books.” She made a sweeping gesture at the room around us and then sat down at her desk to take the call.

“Natalie, my dear,” she began, “are we in business on this delicious book? I'd love to tell the author that you have won the prize….”

My head had started to buzz and I found myself unable to focus on Lucy's conversation. I felt my interview had started badly, but I couldn't explain why. I distracted myself by looking around the room. There was a display on my left, a virtual shrine to Karanuk that I hadn't noticed earlier. Nestled between various animal pelts and a costume I assumed was native Alaskan garb was every edition of
Cold!
in print. Beside all the English editions in hardcover and paperback there were two shelves of foreign editions. I studied the spines for title changes.
Fa Freddo!
screamed the Italian title in red. The French copy was much quieter.
Le Froid,
it said in beige lettering. There was no exclamation point.