The Slipper (13 page)

In late March Gabrielle Bernais's second novel was published in America and
Look
did a long feature on her, with pictures. There was Gaby, the darling of Paris, sitting behind the wheel of her snazzy sports car, carousing in a smoky nightclub with a pack of youthful friends, sunning on the Riviera in a pair of shorts and a striped sailor's jersey, a tattered straw hat at her side. Gaby the gamine with her flat, boyish body and short, shaggy gold hair and the thin tan face of a young pirate. Nora read the article and studied the photographs with ill-disguised envy. Gaby was only nineteen now and they were calling her the natural successor to Colette. Gaby loved fast cars and jazz and American whiskey. She loved playing for high stakes at the gambling casinos and loved being in love although it was invariably sad and disillusioning. French critics adored her, and the American press hailed her as the most exciting literary celebrity since Kathleen Winsor.
A Woman Knows
was reviewed in all the major publications and shot to the top of the best-seller lists.

Nora bought it immediately, of course, and read it in one sitting. It was only 180 pages long, deceptively simple, very much like
Kisses for Breakfast
, in fact. All about love and love-making and the heartbreak it brings. Nora
knew
she could write as good a book, using an American setting, and, fired up, full of determination, she bought a new ream of paper and rolled the first sheet into her typewriter and worked like a demon for the next three weeks, oblivious to everything but the life she was creating there on paper. Oh, she attended classes, sat through them, but she was thinking about the novel all the while. She typed late, late into the night every night and bought Carol a pair of earplugs and an eye mask when she complained. She often forgot to eat, lived in another world, wildly exhilarated as the words tumbled onto paper, seemingly of their own volition.

Because You Care
was about a sleek, sophisticated girl of eighteen named Sonia who wore bronze taffeta cocktail dresses and lived on Long Island with her handsome, worldly father and spent a lot of time at the country club being disillusioned with life. Sonia was having an affair with an athletic lad named Burt who bore a striking resemblance to Dick Sanders, and they made love under the pier and in the sand and in the backseat of Daddy's Rolls but both were bored and seeking new sensations. Daddy fell in love with a lovely lady named Sally who wore red satin to the country club and used to be a model before she grew older. Sally was warm and giving and Sonia was insanely jealous, and she and Burt tricked Daddy into believing Sally was sleeping with a handsome South American who had a coffee plantation in Brazil. Heartbroken, Daddy blew his brains out in the trophy room and Burt and Sonia felt remorseful, decided to break up, and Sonia spent the rest of the summer drinking martinis and gazing out the window with sad eyes.

Finally finished, still exhilarated, Nora shyly handed the 210-page manuscript to Stephen Bradley after class and asked if he would mind giving her an honest opinion. Bradley looked at the manuscript, looked trapped and finally nodded curtly and said he'd get back to her. Nora waited anxiously, her head full of delicious fantasies. Bradley would read it and be bowled over and he would call his publishers and say, “Look, guys, I've just read a fabulous novel, blockbuster material, written by one of my students, you've gotta read it as soon as possible.” They'd be bowled over, too, and snap it up immediately and she'd be hailed as the American Bernais and hit the best-seller lists, be rich and famous in the blink of an eye.

A full week passed, and Bradley made no mention of her book, gave no indication he had read even so much as the first chapter, and Nora began to have doubts for the first time. The delicious fantasies began to fade. She was a published writer, sure, she'd sold almost two dozen confession stories, but a novel was different. A novel required more than a facility with words and the ability to tap a market. A novel required
real
skill, depth, perception, insight. Nora read her carbon copy twice, and the prose seemed all right, free of grammatical errors. There was a good flow and a definite narrative thrust, and some of the dialogue was good, really good, but … was it perhaps just a little flat? Were these characters who had been so alive, so vivid in her mind alive and vivid there on the paper? Nora couldn't tell. Bradley still hadn't given any sign he'd read it, and the suspense was almost impossible to endure. Finally, on a Thursday, nine days after she had handed him the manuscript, he asked her to see him in his office at four that afternoon.

“I can't go,” she told Carol.

“You have to, Nora.”

“He's going to crucify me.”

“Nonsense. It's a good book.”

“You've read it?”

“I read the carbon while you were gone yesterday.”

“You sneaky little bitch! What'd-ja think?”

“I—I thought it was very good.”

“What the hell do
you
know?”

“It's almost four, Nora. Go see Bradley.”

His office was in the administration building, on the third floor—the original attics had been converted into offices for various teachers. Nora's knees felt trembly as she climbed the stairs and she thought she might be ill at any moment. She wished she'd never given him the bloody manuscript in the first place, wished she'd never even mentioned it. Just who the hell was she to think she could write a novel? Bradley was probably laughing his head off. How would she ever be able to look him in the eye again after giving him that piece of shit, asking him to read it? Nora reached the third floor and moved down the long hall, a bank of windows on the right flooding it with sunlight, the roof slanting sharply. She stopped in front of his office door and swallowed and knew she couldn't face him. She'd rather face a firing squad and to hell with the blindfold. She raised her fist to knock, hesitated, closed her eyes tightly and finally tapped on the door.

“Come in,” he called.

Nora opened the door. A cloud of smoke swept into the hall. The office was small, and it was literally filled with books, on shelves along the walls, stacked up on the floor, piled on the desk. Bradley sat behind the desk, pouring coffee from a thermos, a cigarette burning in the ashtray. He grunted at her and took a drag on the cigarette and a sip of coffee and then sighed wearily. There was her manuscript on the desk in front of him, the top page sprinkled with ashes. Nora closed the door and swallowed again and stood before him on wobbly knees. Bradley stubbed out his cigarette, lighted another and finally looked up at her. She smiled nervously.

“Ah,” he said, “our budding novelist.”

“It's shit, isn't it?”

“Please sit down, Nora.”

“I'd rather stand.”

“Suit yourself. Want some coffee? There's another cup around here somewhere.”

“No coffee, thanks. Just pass the sentence. It
is
shit, isn't it?”

“Pretty much so,” he admitted, “although there's some rather good writing here and there and some terrific dialogue. I'm impressed. The very fact that you actually sat down and wrote an entire novel at your age is impressive as hell. Most people just
talk
about writing a book. Few ever do.”

“But it stinks.”

“It stinks,” he said frankly. “It's gauche and embarrassingly naive, a pathetic imitation of Gabrielle Bernais. Oh yes, I've read her new book, too. She knows whereof she writes.”

“And I don't.”

“Ever been to a country club?”

“My Uncle Myron took the whole tribe once. We had shrimp cocktail out on the patio and then went inside and watched the old ladies play Bingo.”

“Ever wear bronze taffeta?”

“Hardly my style. You've gotta be tall and slim and striking.”

“Like Sonia. Mind if I ask a personal question?”

“Fire away.”

“Have you ever had sexual intercourse?”

“What do you think?”

“I think not, judging from the scenes in your novel.”

“It shows?”

“It shows.”

“Shit,” she said.

Bradley couldn't resist a smile. She was such a clever child, so bright, far and away the best student he had, and she had the makings of a damned fine writer, too, once she grew up, once she learned a little of life. He lighted a fresh cigarette and inhaled deeply, studying her. The tough, brassy facade she often presented didn't fool him for an instant. She was basically shy and quite insecure, but then most real writers were. She sat there with her hands in her lap, utterly crestfallen and trying not to show it, her brown eyes full of brave defiance. Bradley remembered when he was eighteen years old, a farm boy from Ohio enamored of James Branch Cabell.
His
first novel, penned at the age of twenty, had been an outright imitation of Cabell—he shuddered at the memory—and it hadn't been nearly as promising, as stylistically polished as this child's book. James Branch Cabell had long since been forgotten by most of the country. Bradley suddenly felt very old.

“You're not a worldly young Frenchwoman, Nora,” he said kindly.

“Tell me something I don't know.”

“You shouldn't try to write like one. You should write about the things you know.”

“Like Sadie and Irving and growing up bright in Brooklyn. That'd really wow the reading public. I want to write a bestseller.”

“I imagine you will one day,” he told her. “You have a remarkable talent already. Your work has energy and verve and a unique style—when you're not imitating Bernais, that is. Your dialogue is superb. All you lack is a little experience in life.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I've been trying to get some.”

“Give yourself some time, Nora. Keep studying, keep learning, keep writing. You'll have that best-seller eventually.”

So we're back to square one, Nora thought bitterly as she returned to the dorm. I can't write a best-seller until I get some experience and I can't get any experience because no male in his right mind will give me the time of day. I'm doomed to be a virgin for the rest of my life. Maybe in forty years or so I'll pen a trenchant novel about being an old maid and wow the critics with my sensitivity and sell four copies to relatives. Nora put
Because You Care
away and wondered what had ever possessed her to write it in the first place. Must have taken leave of my senses. She was depressed for days afterwards, resisting all Carol's efforts to cheer her up. Me get the slipper? Huh, fat chance of that. Screw writing. Screw Gaby Bernais, too. Someone obviously
has
, or she couldn't have written
A Woman Knows. I
sure as hell don't know. Haven't an inkling. Maybe I'll go into a nunnery. Do they
take
Jewish girls?

Despondent, defeated, uncharacteristically glum, Nora gave up any idea of winning Dick Sanders as well. I have about as big a chance of getting his attention as I do of receiving an invitation to Grace Kelly's wedding. He's delectable, sure, but I haven't a hope. He's only interested in bimbos with big bazooms and long blonde hair. Nora no longer lingered near the doorway before her history class, accidentally dropping a book just as he entered, no longer dawdled, timing her exit to correspond with his. She paid no attention to him at all, although she was always conscious of his presence back there in class. Might as well try to hump Clark Gable, she told herself. The new wardrobe she had, purchased remained in the closet, and the bottle of Chanel Number 5 wasn't going to be needed. T. S. Eliot was right, April
was
the cruelest month. She studied hard, had coffee at the SUB with Carol and Julie and still the depression hung on.

And then one day she stepped outside after her physics class and there he was, grinning at her, looking dreamy in old tennis shoes and faded, skin-tight jeans and a loose gray sweatshirt damp with perspiration. Gorgeous, sure, if you happened to like the type. Helen Morrison was nowhere in sight. His arm was curled around a basketball. Nora didn't bother smiling at him. Why waste her time? Seeing that she was going to walk right by him without speaking, he stepped in front of her, blocking her way.

“I've been waiting for you,” he said huskily.

“Oh? What'd-ja have in mind, big fellow?”

It was a vicious imitation of Alice Hart, but there was no sense curbing the mouth. Nothing she said to him was going to matter anyway.

His grin widened. “You're a gas.”

“Yeah. You oughta catch me when I'm in top form.”

“I've been at the gym, practicing a few shots. Forgive the sweat.”

“Sweat? I thought it was Aqua Velva.”

“You ever see me in action, catch any of the games?”

“I'm too busy inventing games of my own.”

“You
are
a gas.”

“Look, Sanders, I'd love to stand here and chat with you, but I'm already late for my next class, so unless you want to screw I'd better hustle.”

He chuckled heartily and shifted the basketball from one arm to the other and looked at her with brown-flecked green eyes aglow with amusement. She was a gas, all right, sure. The mere thought of the two of them screwing sent him into paroxysms of glee. Nora scowled.

“I've got a favor to ask,” he said.

“Your place or mine?”

He chuckled again, clearly delighted. “I—uh—I've been having a little problem with history,” he explained, “and Beasley said if I wanted to pass, I better get some outside help, hire myself a tutor. I asked her if she had any suggestions on who I might get, and she told me you were her brightest student, said I might see if you were interested.”

I knew it wasn't my boobs. “You want me to tutor you in history?”

“Yeah. I'd—uh—I'd be willing to pay five bucks a session.”

I'd be willing to pay
you
, big fellow, but I don't want to seem too eager. Never hurt a girl to play hard to get.