Dry Your Smile (26 page)

“Building changing. Going down in quality. Those people on fifteen don't know from women. Men in pants with discontent they are, not women.”

This would be followed by a low chorus of assent in what Julian took to be a Yiddish version of ‘God preserve us from such Jezebels.' None of the riders looked at one another, but all studied the fake wood-paneled elevator doors before them with the intensity of insurgents awaiting the opening of the Jericho gates. When the doors released Julian onto the fifteenth floor, it felt like coming home. Good old Athena, she thought, relief being like respect relative. “Those people” on fifteen had managed to upset their neighbors on other floors by daring to chat with other firms' secretaries on occasion, and had given some free copies of books to a few mildly interested women. For this, a formal complaint had been registered with the building owners that Athena was infiltrating floor by floor and organizing workers to rise up against their employers in a Masada-like besiegement. Good old Athena, Julian thought, everything in context.

She passed through the reception area with a wave; Manuela was at the switchboard and knew her. The clamor unique to Athena in the publishing world greeted Julian as she moved through the corridors toward the editorial section. She passed the front office of Georgina Fraser, Georgi for short, a founder and the editor in chief of Athena. Through her open door Julian could see a characteristic Athena encounter taking place. Jeremy, the three-year-old son of the art director, had wheeled himself into Georgi's office on the resident battered plastic tricycle as he made his rounds.

“Whachya doin'?” he demanded.

Georgi had stopped in the middle of dialing, phone receiver in hand, ever-present cheroot still clenched between her teeth, stack of papers sliding off her lap where she sat at her book-piled coffeetable, comfortably ignoring the desk behind her.

“I'm working, Jer. How are you today?”

“Why?”

“Why am I working?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“'Cause I have to. 'Cause I like it, too.”

“Why?”

“I have to 'cause this stuff has to be done today. But I like to because, well, this is the way I have fun.”

“Why?”

“Because it is. We make good books here.”

“Why?”

“Because we want to. Because people like our books. You've seen our books, Jeremy. Remember, the big picture book about the princess who fought the dragons?”

“Why?”

“Because she had to rescue the prince, remember? Your mother herself drew the pictures for that one.”

“Why?”

Georgi glanced up and saw Julian in the doorway. She smiled with relief. Not only was this neither a stockholder nor a Hassid, this was a grownup.

“Hi, Georgi. Just on my way in to Charlotte to deliver a manuscript. Couldn't resist listening in on your Grand Inquisitor scene, though. Impressive. Now I know where you get the patience to deal with distributors.”

“You discovered my secret. I practice on Jeremy.” Spoiled by the momentary adult exchange, she turned back to the small cyclist. “Okay, Zen master, time to scram. Go visit Bess. You know she always has lollypops.” His curiosity instantly surfeited at the mention of lollypops, Jeremy spun around and pedaled furiously toward the door. Julian got out of his way just in time, barely avoiding the ignominy of being run over by a plastic tricycle.

“Check with your mother first! About the lollypop!” Georgi yelled after him before resuming her dialing. Julian called goodbye to her and followed the small cyclist down the hall. Past the foreign and serial rights departments, their walls bedecked with feminist posters in German, Spanish, French, Italian. Past the art department, where the wall taste ran more to Judy Chicago. Past publicity and promotion, with huge blowups of Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Lily Tomlin. Past sales and marketing, where there were carpets on the floor and where charts and calenders replaced politics on the walls (stockholders visited here). Into editorial, and its cacophony of women's voices. Here, the posters cubicle after cubicle proclaimed individuality within the parameters of solidarity: Billie Jean King and Althea Gibson vied for prominence in the health and fitness editor's cubicle; Tina Turner, Beverly Sills, and Cicely Tyson exulted above the desk of Leonora, the arts and entertainment editor; Gloria Steinem shared a wall with Bella Abzug and Angela Davis in the nest of Laura, the political editor; Bess, the juvenile editor, had a corkboard glittering with a button collection that proclaimed Mothers Are People Too, Children's Rights, Boys Can Cry, Girls Are Strong, and Free Abortion On Demand (here was the expectable lollypop connection).

The partitions were as articulate in their varied messages as Chinese wall posters. They certainly defied any viewer to cling to a belief that Athena, Ltd.—or the women's movement—was monolithic, dull, lacking in a sense of the absurd, or finished. It was perilous to get too interested in the walls, however, because not to watch one's step meant tripping over a large stuffed tiger or a roller skate, bumping into a Pisan tower of transfile boxes labeled
Take to Storage Please Soon!
It could also mean bashing into and being scalded by one of the many coffee/tea/instant soup and other noshes islands throughout the corridors, where electric pots bubbled as continuously as crumbs accumulated. Julian stopped for a moment to disengage a discarded lollypop remnant stuck to the sole of her shoe, and was greeted with hello's and waves from women looking up from telephone conversations and women hunched over the new word processors, determined not to let tech anxiety get the better of them.

No question, this was a “humanized workplace.” Its victory was that despite the cynical smiles in Publishers' Row interior-designer offices, Athena met its deadlines, mollified its stockholders, pacified its authors, and got books out. Julian's Athena ambivalence lurched toward the warmth-admiration end of the spectrum. Feeling shamefaced at her own capacity for judgmentalism, she finally made it through to Charlotte Kirsch's office.

As a co-founder and director of the press, Charlotte had an actual office, not a cubicle. Yet unlike the suites of her peers in other publishing houses, her sole window looked out onto a brick wall, the worn carpet retained sheddings from her two small defiantly unclipped apricot poodles who now lay sleeping nose to nose in the middle of it, there were no flashy buttons on her one-line telephone, and a portable radio on her desk tinkled a harpsichordist playing a selection from “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” Charlotte's walls sported a touchingly eclectic mix: a poster of Virginia Woolf, five of the latest Athena book jackets, a petition (suggestively tacked near the door) for saving the whales, the production schedule for this season's list, a graph of sales broken down by region, a painting she had done of her husband Zachary, a cluster of three-by-five cards with sayings she liked scrawled on them (by Alice Walker, Teilhard de Chardin, Mae West), various framed scrolls and plaques (Athena's awards), and a hand-lettered sign reading
Do Not Panic DoNotPanic
DONOTPANIC.

She too was on the phone. Charlotte sometimes complained that in a few years she would be forced to have an operation surgically amputating the phone receiver from her ear. But she looked up, saw Julian on her threshold (those few women at Athena whose offices were in possession of doors kept them open as an egalitarian statement), and beckoned her inside. Charlotte's voice to her caller was vibrating somewhere between a patronizing patience-it's-Jeremy tone and thinly disguised rage. It soon became obvious she was speaking with Maxine Duncan Brewer. Julian sank into a corner of the faded corduroy-covered sofa and waited.

She was genuinely fond of Charlotte, who understood when Julian had to turn down a job because of lecture or writing commitments, yet gave her first call on free-lance work because she knew Julian needed the money. Besides, Charlotte loved music and animals; how could you not like her? She and Julian were about the same age, and she too was married, for just under twelve years—with all the bonding such similarity could inspire between two women.

At the beginning, their colleague relationship had fed their growing friendship, not threatened it. However, as Athena suffered its sea-changes over the years, their business communications became cautious, then formal, then strained, and their private confidences showed signs of spillover pollution. Perspectives of survival figured into it—Athena's survival in the marketplace with as much honor intact as possible, and Julian's survival in the context of Athena, on the same terms. Meanwhile, both women mourned the loss of spontaneity between them as friends, but each suspected the other of mourning the loss less. Julian presumed Charlotte understood that however her loyalty to Athena wobbled in private, in public it was solid. But Charlotte, who rose to public attacks with the glee of a seasoned veteran, absorbed Julian's private criticisms as if they were personal accusations. Each became increasingly defensive in her conviction that the other must think her a hypocrite.

Now Julian, wearing a faint smile meant to communicate supportiveness, sat on Charlotte's office sofa and watched her boss send voicetone and facial expression off in two separate directions. Charlotte was nervously twisting the single braid in which she wore her pale blond hair. Strands began coming loose, like fine wisps of temper. She pushed her bangs to one side and began massaging her forehead.

“I know, Maxine. Yes, I—I
know
, dear. But you must understand that we lack the resources for first-class air tickets on the entire book tour, we … I know, dear. Of
course
you deserve—If we could, I assure you that we—But that won't do any good, dear. Maxine, really, it … Maxine.
Maxine
, I've already spoken with Pam Bently in Publicity and Promo, and I
know
the problem, it's …” Charlotte rolled her eyes at Julian, put one hand over the mouthpiece, and growled, “This woman is worse than
Friedan.
”

Julian picked up a copy of
Ms
. Magazine from the floor, where it had been either dropped by mistake or flung by intention. There was a paper clip on one particular page and when she saw it was a review of an Athena book she realized it had been flung. The reviewer was not only questioning the book but wondering in print whether the author—and in fact Athena—any longer had the right to the description “feminist.”

Charlotte slammed down the phone after one last “Bye-bye, darling” delivered through clenched teeth. She saw Julian scanning the review, and made a gesture as if tearing out her hair.

“It's been that kind of day
all
day, Julian. As you may have guessed, that was Supergal herself on the phone, aiming for yet another Temperamental Diva Asshole Prize in publishing. And who in hell,” pointing accusingly at the magazine in Julian's hands, “do they think
they
are?
Sisters?
”

“Well,” Julian began, “it's hard for me to say, Charlotte.” Just as Julian never considered that Charlotte might lose sleep worrying about an erosion of Athena's integrity, so Charlotte had no notion of Julian's distaste at her own behavior in having swiftly learned the revised script: what was still permissible to say and what was now to remain unspoken. “I happen to be underfond of both this reviewer and the author she's reviewing. Not as people, but in terms of their politics.
And
their writing.”

“That's not the point. The point is that one feminist institution should goddam well have the decency to support another. What are they, suffering from acute terminal purity?”

“Hardly. They're just trying to survive in the so-called mainstream while swimming against the current
and
treading water. Like Athena. And
they've
got the financial shoals of advertisers to navigate.”

“May they shoot the rapids,” Charlotte sputtered.

“Oh come on. Besides, they have a right to
their
integrity, too. You don't think that just because they're a feminist institution they should fling orchids at every book appearing under a feminist label? How does that develop a healthy criticism?”

“No, not at
every
book.” She snickered. “Only
ours
. Nor do I think we should confuse healthy criticism with a hatchet job. As for their financial shoals, I'll match our odious stockholders against their obnoxious advertisers any day.”

Julian cleared her throat.

“Well, I brought back the finished Preston manuscript. All of my queries are flagged, as usual.” She fished the manuscript from her book-bag, walked over, and wedged it onto the crammed desk.

“Fine. That was record time, Julian. Thanks.” Charlotte riffled the pages and, seeing relatively few flags on the margins, seemed to relax. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be unfair. Un
sisterly
, O heinous crime. Some of my best friends work at
Ms
. No, seriously. I know they're up against much the same thing we are. Everything from right-wing groups wanting to ban our books, to tons of unsolicited manuscripts from otherwise perfectly sane women suddenly seized with the inspiration to ‘write,' to what are probably the most perfidiously difficult group of authors
and
readers in the literate world.”

“My my, Charlotte, we
are
tetchy today.”

“I'm just fed up with the double standard that seems reserved especially for us. I mean, other houses—and all right, maybe other magazines, too—get off easy. All they have to do is be minimally interesting to a general readership and show a little profit to their investors. Piece of cake. But we're supposed to be wunderkinds financially; let
us
show a drop in sales figures and the New York
Times
announces that women's businesses are in trouble, that women can't cut the mustard in the corporate world, and that this means the women's movement is now yet again dead. On the other hand, we're supposed to be some sort of movement press—whatever that means. What it means in
fact
is that whatever we publish—
or
reject—provokes sackloads of protest mail from one disgruntled group of activists or another. They'd never think of doing this to Random House, you know, or Macmillan, or any of the big boys. Where, I'd like to know, is there such a thing as support? Remember ‘support'?”