Grub (3 page)

After the tank was filled, they found a diner, where Eddie treated his hangover with grease, eavesdropped on the local dialect for future use in a story, and watched his svelte wife eat two pieces of coconut cream pie instead of lunch.

“It’s the only thing edible in these sorts of places,” she said, explaining as she always did why she would eat only pie in a diner.

“You don’t really want me to write a novel about a supernatural animal?” asked Eddie, putting more pepper on his hash browns.

“Of course, not, Eddie. But I do want you to think more about what you write before you start writing it. I bet you could write a really interesting historical novel.”

Back in the car, now behind the wheel, Eddie suggested that they might cut down on expenses as an alternative to making more money. “We could move across the tunnel. There are some really good apartments in Jersey City. A lot of artists and bands are moving over there. It’s becoming a place to be.”

“I don’t care how much ‘there is there’. If you think I’d live in New Jersey for even a day, you don’t know me at all.”

Eddie smiled at the Gertrude Stein reference. He looked at his wife’s pretty cheekbone, the shape of her ribcage, the profile of her breasts, and began to rack his still sore brain for interesting situations and a plot that someone would turn pages for. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to consider a novel set in the past, to comment on the present by depicting another moment in time. Maybe he could discover something about human behavior in a time of war or famine while using a historical plot as a framework.

J
ackson Miller had spent his final ten dollars on two overpriced drinks at the Outlook Bar on faith that he had enough plastic credit for a tank of gas. Now he found himself hundreds of miles from New York, standing in the animal heat and insect hum of tiny Wattleborough, North Carolina, inserting every credit and debit card he possessed into a heartless gas pump. Each effort produced the same effect: dot-matrix orange letters proclaiming “authorization denied.”

He pondered his options, which were few. His family was out of the question. His mother had secretly wired him a little money when he was living in France, but his father had found out. Jackson had promised himself that he would never ask again, and he knew that was a promise he’d keep. He could phone Doreen, his ex-girlfriend and current roommate, and convince her to give the clerk a credit-card number over the phone. Given the large amount of money he already owed Doreen in rent, and given the fact that she worked hard as a waitress to cover her own expenses and save for culinary school tuition, she would be furious with him. Possibly so furious that she would laugh at the idea of him penniless in Wattleborough, North Carolina, and show no mercy. If he didn’t call Doreen, that left begging from strangers, like the red-eyed men back in New York who insisted they were neither homeless nor substance addicted and couldn’t believe what had happened but needed to borrow seven dollars to get some diapers and a bus ticket to Queens, where a niece or a daughter awaited them. Jackson vowed to cough up the seven bucks the next time he was creatively panhandled.

He inventoried the three other cars at the pumps. A fairly young man wearing belted shorts was filling up an SUV in which sat a woman and two fat children. No doubt the man would ask himself what Jesus would do and conclude that his savior did not want him handing over his hard-earned money to itinerant writers with empty gas tanks. Jackson really couldn’t blame him.

There was an older woman gassing up a new sedan and a young woman climbing out of an old, sunburned Honda. Figuring that the older woman might lock herself in her car if he approached, that people with crappy cars are more sympathetic to states of poverty, and that what Doreen called his wholesome good looks might be used to greater effect on the younger woman, he headed for the Honda.

Despite an anemic complexion and loose clothes, she was cute, with short, very curly dark hair, large brown eyes, and skinny hips. He couldn’t place where, but he was sure that he’d seen her before.

“You were at the conference, right?” he said, relieved to have some connection, an in.

“Yes,” she said. “But that’s not where you know me from. I didn’t even see you this week. I didn’t see anyone, hardly, and probably shouldn’t have come. I was holed up with my laptop.”

“Working on a book?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to admit to myself that it’s a book, but, yeah, I’m working on something. I don’t really like workshops, you know, having people read my stuff.” She shook the gas nozzle ferociously, but it was getting the better of her.

“Let me get that for you.” Jackson lifted the bottom of the nozzle, which then slid easily out of its locked position. “If you’ll pop your gas cap, I’d be happy to do the honors.”

“Thanks. I’m really useless with some things.” She rubbed her arms as if cold in the near hundred-degree weather.

The smell of gasoline bloomed around Jackson as he considered how to time his request. “If I didn’t see you at the conference, where have I seen you?”

“At ‘The Valley of the Shadow of the Books.’ I work there.”

“Of course.” Jackson placed her in context now, saw her in her 1950s thrift-store dresses and keds, squatting over a stack of books, reading one that she was supposed to shelve. “My roommate works across the street, at Grub.”

He wanted to ask her name but was worried that she’d already told him and would be hurt that he didn’t remember. Perhaps he could get it from the bookstore, or maybe she wore a nametag at work.

“I’m going to have to find a new job soon. I guess you’ve heard the store is closing down. Can’t compete with the chains is part of it, but also the owners are just tired.”

“I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, because it’s a great bookstore and all. But it’s not exactly shocking that a place called ‘The Valley of the Shadow of Books’ wouldn’t make it. Quite a mouthful, and not what you’d call cheerful.”

“I think it’s a great name, but, you’re right, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

The pump clicked, and Jackson returned the nozzle to its holster, twisted on the gas cap, and slammed shut the little door. A drop of sweat ran down his neck, and his shirt was beginning to stick to his back. “This is embarrassing,” he said. “But I have to admit that I’m really glad to have run into you. I mean, I’m glad to have run into you just to see you, but also because my bank seems to be down. My debit card won’t authorize and I stupidly left my credit cards in New York. I really hate to ask this, especially since you’re about to be out of a job, but could you buy me a tank of gas and a sandwich? I’ll pay you back as soon as I get home. I could bring the money to you at work.” He paused to smile at her. “It would give me a good excuse to see you again.”

She returned his smile, and Jackson realized that he did indeed like the look of her. Her pale skin looked cool and fresh, fine pored and slightly watery, like the inside of a radish. And there was a slight goofiness to her facial expressions and the way she tipped her head from side to side when she talked that he found endearing. She looked smart and sweet at the same time, which was an increasingly rare combination among the women Jackson encountered. Simpatico, that’s what that jackass Whelpdale would say about her.

She insisted that Jackson get some chips and a drink with his sandwich and that he take a twenty-dollar bill in case he needed more gas later. “It’s fine,” she said. “Just pay me back.” She swiped her card in the pump and waited while he filled his tank.

“Tell me something,” he said. “If you don’t want anyone to read your work, what do you write it for?”

She shrugged and tilted her head sideways. “It’s just what I do. I started writing stories when I was five.”

He found it so peculiarly charming when she shook his hand that he didn’t register the significance of her name until she was gone.

“Margot Yarborough,” she had said.

She must be Andrew Yarborough’s daughter. Jackson cursed his idiocy and vowed to develop a more diplomatic character. Once, when Amanda had asked him about his family and why he never set foot in Charleston, he’d told her, “I haven’t burned many bridges in my life, but when I do burn one I use kerosene and fan the flames.” He hadn’t merely taken a risk with Andrew Yarborough; he’d been downright foolish. It might well hurt his career when he would least expect it, and it had probably cost him a chance with a really great girl.

Still, two hundred miles later, eating a slightly stale pimiento-cheese sandwich while stopped at a railroad crossing, he cheered considerably. It was a freight train that whooshed by, disappearing around a bend in the tracks well before its sound faded, but it nonetheless reminded him of the train he’d first taken to New York. He hadn’t napped or read on the trip but sat straight, full of conviction that he was one of the men who succeed in life.

He drained the bottle of sweetened tea and crossed the tracks, accelerating hard, eager to get home and get to work.

A
ndrew Yarborough had built an old-fashioned literary career and was one of the few people at the conference who had found some success as both writer and editor, though considerably more as an editor. He’d spent most of his career at a single publishing house. He knew he was no Max Perkins—he couldn’t claim a Fitzgerald of his own—but he had been a real friend to his writers and a truly fine editor. He had discovered and published many young writers, ushering them through the thrill of literary debut, nursing them through a disappointing second novel, nurturing their ascendance into a sturdy career as a mid-list writer or, on occasion, celebrity.

After decades of good work, he’d been squeezed out following a merger. He’d tried a few stints at other houses, but was always asked to leave or left on his own accord after a few months or perhaps two years. It wasn’t so much that he’d lost his taste for his work but that the work itself had spoiled. In his last position at a major house he had been called a list-builder, and his work had been defined not as editing but as acquisition. There was little good will there toward talent that didn’t sell well, small tolerance for the sophomore slump, no willingness to risk a quiet novel that might prove a sleeper.

What bothered him most was the shift to decision-by-committee. No doubt it prevented some truly horrible books from being published, but it was clear that it overemphasized market concerns and selected for lowest common denominators. He’d had to write rejection letters for several brilliant but peculiar novels he’d badly wanted to publish. Those letters had eroded him, but he always wrote them himself, always took the time to provide a good reading of the work and suggest someone else who might find a way to publish it.

He couldn’t say whether he’d quit or been fired, but he remembered the shaking anger with which he’d argued with one publisher over a nine-hundred-page labor novel that was as dazzling and important as it was desperate for substantive editing. “It’s the writer’s job to have the book ready for the copyeditor,” was the line that had infuriated him and started the fight that ended in unemployment.

After that, Andrew had managed to survive as a critic and the nearest thing to a pundit that literature would take notice of. Though he had punctuated his editing career by writing novels that were kindly, albeit sometimes lukewarmly, reviewed, he couldn’t find another novel in himself, and he no longer had the patience he once had. He planned to return to fiction eventually, but meanwhile he reviewed books widely—for a while as editor of
The Monthly
—and made himself felt among the overlapping circles frequented by writers. Even though he was no longer populating the literary landscape with his own discoveries, he at least felt like he was, as he put it, fighting the good fight. He championed worthy books, called attention to new talent, and spoke out against trends that diminished literature. And so his professional life continued to offer an anodyne for—or at least an alternative to—his miserable home life.

While it was true that his wife had written some good poems early in her career and also that he defended her to strangers, it was decidedly not the case that he liked her. He was embarrassed by her ridiculous pursuits, and what he felt for her crossed into disdain. After a health scare that proved to be hypochondria and after discovering and putting an end to her husband’s only prolonged extramarital affair, Janelle Yarborough had embarked on a long, shallow spiritual journey whose stops included Tarot cards, sweat lodge ceremonies, and the local Buddhist temple. If it was indigenous anything or if the hawker of the religion du jour used the word
healing
, she was a firm believer.

This would have been horrible enough in itself, but she doubled the punishment inflicted on her husband by allowing her sage-scented mumbo jumbo into her poetry. First there had been the book of poems exploring Jungian archetypes. Next came the creation-myth poem cycle, and things just got worse. Now she led personality-based writing workshops in their home and accepted poetry prizes given not by literary foundations but by women’s centers and environmental groups. The phone rang for her all day, making it hard for Andrew to get his own work done now that he had to work out of the house.

What he didn’t know was whether all this nonsense was the product of an irritating but blameless stupidity or rather a calculated form of vengeance made more cruel by its subtlety and longevity. His uncertainty on this point, together with her family money, his own Catholic guilt, and their shared experience as Margot’s parents, accounted for the duration of a marriage that most men would have run from, alimony costs be damned. Instead of seeking a separation, Andrew resigned himself to his fate—penance for marrying and then cheating on a younger, not particularly intelligent woman who happened to have perfectly blue eyes.

After cutting out of the reading at the Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference—the book-club woman had been abominable and then the fat kid had droned on and on in prose that could only be described as, well, prosaic—Andrew allowed his wife to take the wheel. Janelle insisted that she was the superior highway driver and, furthermore, that he needed to take a nap because he was grumpy. He let her drive to quiet her, regretting it when she put on some horrible cassette of chanting and water sounds. At his insistence, they had agreed long ago that the driver always picked the music, so he had no recourse. She aggravated her crime by jerking the car faster then slower then faster in ways seemingly designed to flare his chronic neck pain.

Still, he was happy. Today was the day that Chuck Fadge’s new book would receive the most negative review in the recent history of
The Times
. Since taking over the editorship of
The Monthly
from Andrew, Fadge had spent two years praising the runniest dreck and writing nasty reviews of the finest novels being published. If it was pretentious, Fadge called it
innovative
; if it was solid and well crafted, he called it
too quiet
. Now Fadge had had the nerve to publish the cynically motivated
Exhaustive Compendium of Literary Knowledge
. Fadge had rushed his book to press, knowing that Andrew was working on a similar but more serious and considered work on the same general topic.

Now he was going to pay. Andrew had been contacted about writing the review himself, but he knew, as did the editor who’d contacted him, that it could only hurt his reputation to get into an ugly public fight with Chuck Fadge. The story the reading public would digest was that Yarborough was angry over losing his editorship of
The Monthly
to Fadge. People wouldn’t understand that Andrew could have kept the job if he’d thought it was still worth having. And so they might think him merely vindictive and fail to understand the validity of his criticisms of all things Fadge. Andrew knew that he was ill-tempered and hard to get along with, but his commitment to good books and to writers was life-long and genuine. He hated Fadge for the simple reason that Fadge was an enemy of literature.

What he had said to the editor who phoned had been carefully couched: “I’m afraid I could not be as impartial as a
Times
reviewer is expected to be. Besides, you couldn’t pay me enough to read that book.” He omitted the fact that he had already read the galley and made a few alterations to his own book after doing so. “Quarmbey’s your man,” he had said. “He’ll do the book justice, write just the kind of review I suspect you’re looking for.”

Though he had been tempted to inquire about content and progress, Andrew had studiously avoided his querulous friend since passing along his name. He didn’t want one of his characteristic anti-Fadge phrases to make its way into the review; he wanted no appearance of involvement. Now, after weeks of waiting, the day had arrived.

“Stop in the next city of any size,” he boomed at his wife.

“That’s still a dictatorial tone,” she said, “but at least you’re not as ill-humored as you were.”

“I hope that means you’ll stop trying to put hot stones on my stomach while I’m sleeping.”

“Like your stomach’s flat enough!” She turned on her shrill laugh.

Andrew was in such a fine mood that he let it go. “There,” he pointed. “Take the next exit.”

The absurd town had a single main street, and it wasn’t hard to locate the combination coffee shop and newsstand. The place smelled like sausage and eggs and yesterday’s ashtrays. Small groups of old men and a few middle-aged couples talked. Andrew assumed their conversations centered on the latest in hog-farming technology, local sports, and who was fooling around with whom. He asked the teenaged girl presiding over the counter display of cigarettes and gum whether she carried
The Times
.

“Sure do,” she said. “We get three copies every single week.”

When he saw the empty rack, Andrew almost lost his temper.

“We get three copies, because we can sell three copies,” the girl said. “But unless you’re one of those what needs an untouched paper, you can probably find one lying around.”

Andrew moved from table to table, grabbing papers and looking over shoulders at mastheads.

“Mister, you need to relax and just ask for what you want,” said an old man scrunched under a baseball cap. “I’m betting by that shirt you’ve got on that you’re looking for a copy of
The Times
.” With that and a grin, he stacked the paper’s sections and handed the mess to Andrew.

“Thank you,” was all that Andrew could muster.

“Now remember what I said, and relax. I’m sure your stocks are on the rise or will be plenty soon.”

Back in the car with the pieces of
The Times
and a cup of coffee, Andrew found the book section.

“I don’t suppose you brought me anything.” Janelle started the car, which reignited the godawful crap that she called music.

“Trust me on this one: they don’t sell herbal tea in this town.”

Back on the highway, Andrew read morsels of the review to his wife, laughing out loud. He wished he had a better audience, but not even Janelle’s disapproving twist of her nose could dampen his glee.

“He actually calls Fadge a nincompoop! I haven’t ever seen that word in
The Times
before. Never. He calls him a moron, a fool, a dullard, and—this is the best—an ingénue. Says the book has no redeeming qualities. Ha! Takes him to task for having such an East Coast bias that he includes Tama Jamowitz but not Willa Cather and that absurd Saffron boy trying to write about nine-eleven after reading Günther Grass for the first time, but not William Faulkner. Rick Moody but not Sherwood Anderson. As if Faulkner hadn’t passed the test of time. And this is in an ‘exhaustive compendium of literary knowledge’. Ha!”

“It seems a bit cruel in tone.” His wife returned to humming along with the noise coming from the dashboard speakers.

“Fadge got off light. He should thank his lucky stars.”

Andrew smiled. Janelle was right; the review was vicious.

“Darling, I know that Fadge was awful to you. I know he stole your job, but, really, other people’s failures aren’t our successes.”

“Don’t even breathe another word of that self-help crap to me. My feelings toward Fadge aren’t personal. It’s nothing less than this: he represents everything I am against, everything that is wrong with publishing. I’ve got no problem with low-brow trash, you know that. But we’re in real trouble when we start confusing middle-brow pretenders with literature just because other fools are willing to pay money for their books. Fadge is loathsome, moronic, and evil. He’s out to kill literature and culture and everything that’s good. All Quarmbey did was tell the rest of the world, and the world should thank him.”

“Oh darling, you always exaggerate so.”

After Andrew spent his laughter, he hit the eject button and popped in Warren Zevon. “Pull over. I’m driving the rest of the way home.”