Grub (20 page)

A
manda Renfros enjoyed having Henry Baffler in their home for a few weeks, in part because she was touched by his blind devotion to her alter ego. It was also a relief—she could admit this to herself, though of course she would never say it aloud—to have a writer in the house who was an even greater failure than Eddie. She had worried, though, that they might be stuck with Henry forever, but as it turned out, his little news splash did indeed bring salvation. Not only had Jackson’s agent taken on and quickly sold his novel for a modest advance, but someone had anonymously donated a year’s rent on a decent apartment on Lennox near 110t?.

“Maybe your anonymous donor is some reclusive genius,” Amanda suggested, “moved by memories of his own lean early days.”

Henry rubbed his hands together and asked if they thought it could be Salinger.

Eddie, dishrag that he’d become, lectured Henry on why that was unlikely and why it was much more likely that his benefactor was a hack thriller or horror writer who describes his characters in terms of television and movie personalities.

But Amanda saw no harm in letting Henry believe that the reclusive author of “For Esme, with Love and Squalor” was taking a personal interest in saving him from squalor and furthering his literary career. “Sure,” she’d told him. “It very well could be Salinger. He’s using you to try out the New Harlem. I’d almost be surprised if it wasn’t the kind of thing he’d do.”

The day after Henry moved out, Eddie’s agent called. Even across the room, Amanda could hear her voice, nearly breathless, streaming from the receiver. She’d called to tell Eddie that the editor-in-chief of a large house loved his book and saw it as the perfect novel for her assistant, newly promoted to editor, to cut his teeth on. “They may ask you about the autobiographical angle.”

“But my narrator’s a woman and a musician. She has a deaf child. Her lover died in a plane crash.”

The agent’s voice rasped through their living room. “A client of mine wrote a novel about a battered wife. The publisher assumed it was autobiographical. When she refused to go on a talk show and talk about her nonexistent experiences as a battered wife, they killed her marketing.”

“So what am I supposed to say?”

“Something vague maybe, a hint of a great loss that you don’t like to talk about. A mention of your long-suffering wife.”

That call was followed, an hour later, by a long call with Dan, the up-and-comer. Eddie was in a fully manic state by the time he hung up, talking rapidly, going back and forth on whether this was a sure thing. He repeated the young editor’s phrases: ‘mainstream crossover’ and ‘commercial potential.’ “That means it’s a question of how much, not if? Right?”

Amanda nodded. “Sounds like it.”

“Why do you say that?” he demanded.

“It’s going to be hard, Eddie, but you’re just going to have to wait this one out.”

All evening he bounced and paced, sitting with a book or magazine only to abandon it minutes later, opening and closing the refrigerator a dozen times without taking out anything to eat, lying on the rug to do a few sit-ups then popping up to check his email. Amanda felt more sympathy for him than she had in months, and she was comforted by the probability of a happy ending. Unless publishers had devised new methods of tormenting writers, then surely a book deal was the certain outcome.

“They don’t call you if they don’t want the book. That would be beyond the pale even for them.” Amanda tried to knead his tense shoulders, but he kept looking over his shoulders asking “Really?”

Amanda waited for him to go out the next day before phoning her agent, Patrice, for a second opinion.

“Funny,” her agent said, “because Dan still answers her phones. Still, sounds like a sure thing, a question of how much and not if.”

When the bad news came seventeen torturous days later, Eddie, who by that point was never more than a few feet from the phone, fielded the call. “How can they do that to me?” he asked over and over. “Couldn’t they have just kicked my teeth out? Why’d they have to set me up? What did I ever do to them?”

Amanda watched her husband, wanting to help but knowing there was nothing she could say to change the horrible, hard fact. From behind, she wrapped her arms around his neck and chest, kissed the back of his head. She said that she was sorry and promised that someone else would buy his novel. What she did not tell him was that she had given notice at work—and in language that ruled out ever asking for her job back.

She wondered if Eddie was supposed to have slept with someone—the editor-in-chief, or maybe Dan—and had missed the hint. She didn’t think it worked like that, not in publishing, where transactions are done at a distance and anyone can be made to look good in an author photo, but there had to be some explanation. Something had to have gone wrong.

“This is all I found out,” Patrice told her the next day. “The editor-in-chief says it was never a done deal. She claims that it’s great for a writer to come close, to at least talk to an editor interested in his work, that lots of writers would think that’s an honor. She actually said that the next best thing to having serious mainstream crossover appeal it to be
told
that you might have serious mainstream crossover appeal, though perhaps only in another life.”

As Patrice paused, Amanda could hear her own husky breathing. She leaned against the brick exterior of an apartment building down the street from her own, the cold spreading across the seat of her jeans and her upper back. She said, “Only someone who has never written would ever say such a thing.”

“Bingo,” her agent said. “And likely never worked a job she couldn’t afford to quit. Daddy’s loaded, big surprise, and so’s hubby.”

Though Amanda could no longer say she loved Eddie, he was her husband and he was a writer. You don’t get to treat us like that, she thought. She made her agent promise never to send her work to that house.

“Smart anyway,” Patrice said. “They don’t publish fiction well at all. They really botched that antebellum mystery. What a fiasco.”

“But really,” Amanda said. “I’d rather not publish anywhere than publish there.”

“Honey, that doesn’t sound like you at all. But no matter, it’s not even going to come close to that.”

The publishing near-miss sunk Eddie into a new psychological trough from which Amanda worried he would never emerge. He drank more and more, night after night, and rarely left the apartment unless they were out of liquor. He slept on the sofa significant portions of most days.

“Start a new book,” Amanda instructed him with no effect. “Remember that your book is out with other editors,” she pleaded softly.

She herself wrote a great deal while she awaited word on
The Progress of Love
, trying to keep up with the requests for Clarice Aames stories. On her first day of unemployment, she told Eddie that she had called in sick. Using the morning and half the afternoon, she wrote three Clarice pieces: a second-person story about a deformed girl living on a garbage barge, an omniscient narration describing a world-ending apocalypse that no one notices, and a love story told from the point of view of a female sadist. She received acceptances by email the next day, placing “Cauliflower Girl” in
Swanky
, “End Zone” in
The Bleeding Edge
, and “Assume the Position” in
Virus
, which was the publishing organ of ulcer.

When she walked into the living room brimming with the secret good news, Eddie roused from his half-sleep and sat up on the sofa. “How can you smile while our books are out there and your husband is in pain?”

“Today could be the day. Good news in publishing always comes on Thursday or Friday. You should be glad you made it through Wednesday. Do you want a sandwich?”

“No, I don’t want a sandwich. I want a publishing contract and a wife who loves me.”

Amanda made two cheese-and-tomato sandwiches, and Eddie ate the one she handed him.

“Don’t we have any chips?” he asked. “It’s not the same without chips.”

Often the small sums up the large, and it was that statement, as much as anything else, that started Amanda thinking through the logistics of divorce.

Later that day, Eddie perked up when he received a letter informing him that
Vapor
had been second runner-up in a manuscript competition. His prize was a coupon waiving the entry fee in the same competition next year.

“What have you come to that you consider this good news?” Amanda asked.

“Well, if I don’t place the new book, I can enter it next year for free.”

“Even if you win, what’s the prize? A print-run of eight hundred and a thousand dollars?”

“Five hundred,” Eddie said. “Print run and prize money.”

Amanda knew they were on the verge of the argument that might end their marriage when the first call came. It was Eddie’s agent phoning with the news that she had sold
Conduct
to a mid-size publisher with a good reputation. The advance was fifteen thousand dollars for world rights, but his agent believed they would “make more money” on sales.

Eddie lifted Amanda and spun her twice, so fast that her hair whipped around, releasing the citrus smell that she considered part of herself. He set her down and kissed her on the mouth. “Finally!”

“This is fabulous news!” she said. “You needed to get one across the finish line and now you have! Now you can take the time to write a really good book.”

“Thanks, honey,” Eddie said. “You know I love sports analogies.”

She was about to ask him whether he was engaging the sarcasm center of his brain when he lifted and spun her again.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, cupping her cheekbone, “and I’m taking you out for dinner.”

The second call came while she was dressing. This time is was Amanda’s agent, and the size of the advance for the Fragonard book surprised even Amanda.

“Oh,” Eddie said when she told him. “Then let’s get drunk, too.”

Ignoring the deflation in his tone, Amanda said, “For once I agree with you, but we’re getting drunk on the best champagne. If I can get a reservation, we’re eating dinner at Grub. What’s Jackson’s roommate’s name again? Maybe she can get us a good table. I’ll phone while you shower.”

Amanda was glad to have this reason to call Jackson. Though she was annoyed that Eddie seemed less than happy that she’d also sold a book, she couldn’t rub her advance in his face—not on the day he’d finally sold another book. But Jackson could share in her exultation. She was disappointed to hear Jackson’s recorded voice when she called.

“Me too,” she said to the answering machine. “Six figures, that is.”

T
he train braked for and jerked away from one absurd stop after another, depositing doughy men to stomp across filthy snow to drive their generic cars home to overweight, practically-shod wives in soul-deadening subdivisions and characterless towns. Jackson Miller promised himself that he would never live anywhere but New York, except, perhaps, Paris.

As he stepped off the train at the Annandale-on-Hudson station, he spotted Margot on the platform. It had been only a couple of weeks since he had last seen her, but she looked smaller than he remembered—shorter and, in pale jeans and a black turtleneck, thinner than ever. She smiled when she saw him, but glanced away when he made eye contact.

“Everything all right?” Jackson put an arm around her narrow shoulders.

“Of course. I’m just happy to see you. And I’m a little nervous.”

She hooked a curl with her index finger and tucked it away from her eye, a small gesture which endeared her to Jackson all over again.

“Especially now that you’re on the verge of fame,” she said. “And my father’s not the nicest host in the world.”

“Let’s face it, even the most famous novelist is hardly mobbed on the street. People may know his name but not his face. Anyway, I’m here to see you and not your father, so never mind about that. We’ll get through the best we can, and we know that you can always come to me.”

The Yarborough house sat on a pretty hill overlooking the wide river, but the Cape Cod itself was smaller and plainer than Jackson had anticipated. Jackson knew little about architecture and construction, but the roof bowed and it was obvious that the clapboard needed a fresh coat of white paint. It probably looked better in the spring; against the snow and bare trees, the house looked dingy.

“It’s a great place, isn’t it?” Margot said. “I’m afraid the day is coming when Dad will have to sell it, though no doubt he’ll hold out as long as possible. My mother would actually like the change.”

“I suppose real estate up here is worth a lot, regardless of the condition of the house itself. Being a train ride from the city and overlooking the Hudson and all.”

“Yes. My parents bought it a long time ago. Only rich people can move here now.”

Jackson laughed. “What’s that joke about middle-aged men? They talk about sex but think about real estate?”

“We’re not middle-aged.”

“Exactly, so perhaps we’re doing the opposite.” Jackson slithered an arm around her small waist and pulled her momentarily closer to him.

Margot, whose cheeks were already pink from the cold, blushed hard, and Jackson felt refreshed. There weren’t many girls who’d lived in the city and still blushed at so mild a comment.

Margot led him into the house and introduced him to her mother as though they had never met. He was relieved he hadn’t made a pass at her at the Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference, which of course was the only thing that would have been worse than what he
had
done. She was attractive, though, in that way that aging women with leisure and some financial resources can be when they make appearance a priority.

She was gracious as well, taking his hand between both of hers. “Call me Janelle. I’m glad you’re here.”

“It’s my pleasure to finally be here. I think the world of Margot, and I’ve been working very hard at learning to be well behaved.” Jackson made sure his voice was loud and even, that his hint of apology was in no way servile or obsequious.

After they were seated in the living room with drinks, Andrew Yarborough stomped in. For a moment he looked as though he would retreat, but, caught, he came in and took a seat. Jackson stood and nodded, and the old fellow offered a grunt.

They fumbled their way through the relatively safe subject of sports, and Jackson refrained from making his usual comment that Ivy League football is not actually a sport. After touching on movies and politics, they dipped into an uncomfortable silence.

“I’ve been hearing the highest praise for your new work, sir.” Jackson knew that flattery, even if transparent, was his safest course. “And I think it’s high time for just the sort of measured synthesis you’ve attempted.”

“Attempted? It’s finished, and it’s not an attempt at anything. And, mind you, it’s no mere synthesis either. I take some real stands.”

“Of course, sir, I merely used the word ‘synthesis’ to allude to the comprehensive nature of your project.”

“Buttering me up,” Andrew grumbled even as his body language softened. “Fix me a drink, Janelle. Scotch and soda, I think.”

Margot was seated on a large chair, and her toes barely grazed the floor. “Dad’s career certainly doesn’t need a crown. This will be a jewel in it.”

“That’s an absurd metaphor, my darling, and another reason I think your real future lies in editing rather than writing.”

Jackson wanted to weigh the advantages of defending his girlfriend or siding with her father, but he knew that a quick reaction was likely the best. “Of course I adore Margot’s lyrical prose—and her dedication—but she does strike me as someone with a fine editorial eye. There’s no reason, is there, that she can’t practice both literary activities?”

“Dad wants me to start a journal. He’ll be the editorial board, and I’ll be the editor.”

“Well, that’s a capital idea. Except, of course, there’s a lot of competition, and much of that competition can claim institutional financing.”

“Yes,” honked Andrew, “and institutional kowtowing and tastes. Even the newest, supposedly independent reviews are clamoring to publish Adam Richards so he’ll review the editors’ books on his radio show. Even those without books always assume they‘ll write one soon, so they’ll pass up four great short stories to publish some egomaniacal ninety-page monstrosity by Richards. Or else they’ll publish Don Darlington or some other usual suspect just because.”

“I don’t disagree with you, sir. In fact that’s why I was so relieved the other day to read something really interesting in
Putrid City
. It was by a new writer named Clarice Aames.”

“I haven’t read it, but
Putrid City
only publishes New York stories. You know, you can be so avant-garde as to be old-fashioned. Besides, that name. It’s ridiculous.”

They skirmished over the relative merits of a few other journals, Jackson cautious not to mention any publication related to Chuck Fadge.

“Oh,” Margot said as though she’d been stuck with a pin, “I saw that Hinks finally placed that story he was having trouble placing. It’s in the new issue of the
MidMichigan Review
.”

“It’s harder and harder for him to publish, though,” Andrew said.

As the alcohol and the conversation relaxed Jackson, he felt his guard lowering and relished the edge of excitement, the hint of social danger, that accompanied it. “Speaking of old fashioned,” he commented. “Hinks has trouble placing his stories because they’re bland. Well-crafted pieces of nothing. Nothing at stake. Nothing new to say.”

Margot sank down in her chair as Andrew sat up straighter to more fully inhabit his.

“Then name me a journal publishing stories with something at stake, stories with something to say.”

Jackson knew that he should back down, but he also saw no reason why he should have to suffer an old fool, a man of yesteryear, when the codger couldn’t even trouble himself to be civil. And so he spoke: “
Putrid City
for one, though, yes, its focus is the city—and not without cause.
Swanky
’s great, and, unlike the
MidMichigan Review
, people actually read it.” Jackson ignored the eye contact that Margot sought. “By people, I mean of course young people. And then there’s
The Monthly
. I’ve got a regular gig with them, not because I need it, but because I respect what they do.”

“
The Monthly
?
The Monthly
!” Andrew stood up, his face florid, his cheeks inflating. He looked as though he might, quite literally, explode. “You write for Chuck Fadge? That goddamn fucking, conniving, gay, piss ant?”

Jackson knew he should restrain himself, but he was tired of biting his tongue in deference to the old blow-hard. Something about Yarborough pissed him off so thoroughly that he couldn’t stop himself from pushing back, consequences be damned. “Now, let me get this straight: Which adjective there gives you the most trouble? That he gets laid, that he’s as clever as you wish you were? Or is it that he’s a damned homosexual?”

Margot stood and said, her voice a tremolo, “Please.” The word trailed off, and she lifted her hand in a stop gesture.

“Get out of my house!” boomed the old man.

Pleasantly flushed with liquor and feeling more triumphant than sorry, Jackson apologized to Margot and said farewell to Janelle.

“Let me drive you to the train station,” Margot said.

“Not in my car!” commanded her father.

“Fine,” Margot whispered. “We’ll walk.” Her voice restored to its normal volume, she said, “And I’m not funding your journal, Dad, and I plan to leave home as soon as possible.”

She followed Jackson outside, apologizing.

“Please, don’t,” Jackson said, smoothing her hair, patting her shoulder. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It was all him and me. You know men and their pissing contests.”

“But now, well, it’s all so impossible.”

“Walk with me, okay? Let’s talk.” They headed down the hill, stepping around patches of ice, toward the road that paralleled the river. Jackson continued, “I don’t want to damage your relationship with your father. I’d hate to make you choose between your father and me, but do I flatter myself to think you might choose me? You see, I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that a woman worthy of a man’s love is better than he is, that she condescends in giving herself to him—and thus that you might love me in a way that’s better than the way I love you.”

“Your love for me is a bad thing? A low thing?”

“Well, a man’s love is both peculiar and astonishingly common. You’re everything I should want. You’re sweet and cute and smart and kind. It’s that I know that I’m vulgar in comparison, and of course there’s no new way to express love. That’s part of why I didn’t speak of love sooner.”

He felt Margot stiffen each time he said the word ‘love.’

“Jackson,” she asked, loosening herself from his arm and pulling back, “what do you want from life?”

“I’ll be honest with you. I want what money can buy. I want a place in society and culture. I want to live among beautiful things and never be troubled by material want. I want to travel and interact as an equal with interesting people. I want season tickets to the Knicks and invitations to black-tie fundraisers at the Guggenheim. I want people to look at me when I enter a room and wish they were me.” He looked at her steadily.

“And nothing more?”

“That’s a lot, Margot. It will mean that I made it on my own merits, so, yes, I admit it: I want what money can buy.”

“And yet you used the word ‘love’ to me.”

“Suppose I said that my only goal in life was to win your love? Would you believe me?” He paused to give his words gravity. “I hope not. But I can honestly say to you that everything I desire will be even more satisfying if I can share it with a woman who loves me. With you, Margot.”

“I’m not wearing a coat. I should turn around.” Her voice was tight.

“Don’t you care for me? I know that I’ve offended you, but don’t you love me?” Jackson blocked her path, wrapped his arms around her small frame, kissed the middle of her forehead.

“Do you really love me?” she whispered.

“I think so, and too much to croon exaggerations in your ear. But, well, you’re perfect.” Jackson pulled his fingers through her curls.

She pressed the side of her face into his chest. “I’ve been thinking of growing out my hair.”

“It’s perfect like it is, Margot. Every other hairstyle looks ridiculous next to yours.”

He felt her small weight against him, felt her face against his chest.

“Please don’t fret about the row today.” He lifted her chin. “You’ll just have to visit me instead of the other way around. Maybe you can make an honest man of me, now that I can afford it. Trust me on this one: your father will want to be around to criticize any grandchildren he might have.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’d better get hoofing. Call me later, if you can, or send me an email. And don’t worry. We’ll figure something out. We’ll see each other soon.”

Lulled by the slight back-and-forth stutter of the train as it returned him to the city he never wanted to leave again, Jackson replayed the afternoon’s brief dispute. It might be fun, he decided, to write a piece about literary journals and writers’ efforts to publish stories in them. He remembered poor Henry Baffler’s tale of a journal that sat on one of his stories for nearly a year. After considering a few angles, he had the perfect idea: he’d slap a fake name on an impeccable story by a master fiction writer—Chekhov or Babel or Welty or someone—and submit it to a dozen journals to see what would happen.

Arriving home to find Doreen out, he checked his answering machine, hearing Amanda’s big news before falling into a stuporous sleep.