by Jessica Jiji
Maury Blaustein said that if I ever wanted a Lounge-Around, he could get me a deal. “I doubt it,” I said, “but promise I can still visit Kingpin.” I kissed the friendly schnoodle affectionately.
It was no easier saying goodbye to Lulu, and by the time I got to the Danilovas, I was crying openly. “Oh, Slobodan, I’m sorry for all the times I yelled at you for trying to eat dead pigeons.”
Mr. Danilova stroked his dog’s ear. “Oh, don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’s going to have the time of her life on our camping trip this summer in the Adirondacks.”
“I never realized you were an outdoorsman,” I said. With his pale complexion and wire-rimmed glasses, Mr. Danilova looked as though he wouldn’t last even a night in the wild.
“Well, it’s not really my kind of thing,” he confessed. “But my wife loves it, and I love her.”
It must have been my emotional state, because in that moment, I thought Mrs. Danilova was the luckiest woman in the world.
Editorial meetings with Nona began later that week. Her office was completely different from Preston’s—one-tenth the size but with ten times the amount of books and papers. From behind a desk piled high with folders, she addressed me sternly.
“The Gallants are quite keen on this one, but I keep telling them we have work to do,” she said. “I hope you’re with me on that.”
After eight years of writing Napoleon’s Hairdresser, I knew better than anyone that there was a sentence or two here and there that could use some polishing, and I was eager to see what this woman’s discerning eye had picked up.
“Your manuscript is replete with anachronisms. I’ve marked them all in red,” she said, handing it to me. She must have spilled cranberry juice on it, I thought, unwilling to acknowledge that each and every page had been colored by her admonishing pen. “Before we can even begin to talk about plot and character, we’ve got to make this at least quasi-plausible.”
I was shocked. Nona seemed to think I was an idiot. “Quasi-plausible?” I asked. “This is practically a documentary.”
“Laurel, Anderson respects your work a great deal, and Preston has high expectations for his son. They’re positioning you as the next great writer of historical fiction, and passages like this just won’t cut it.” She pulled a sheet from the stack and began reading.
The night before the battle of Austerlitz, Marguerite prepared herself to face the Emperor. She had lost many hours of sleep, and even the anti-wrinkle cream she had so vigorously applied had been of little use. Her legs! she thought. They should be silky and not coarse to the touch. Using a generous dollop of meringue she’d spirited away from the barrack kitchen, she covered her legs from her knees to her ankles and, with a steady hand, used the fine new feminine-sized razor she’d purchased at Madame Schick’s. When her calves were smoother than eggshells, her attention turned to the battle ahead. She must at all costs find a solution to the Emperor’s ever-growing bald spot. Searching for inspiration, Marguerite turned to the little self-help book she always carried in her trunk, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Monarchs. But its well-worn passages on the importance of making lists and freeing serfs were of little use. Not since Caesar’s time had anyone faced a problem of this magnitude.
Caesar . . . Caesar, she thought. He had also had a terrible bald spot and had worn his hair brushed forward to compensate for the thinness on top. A flush of inspiration coursed through her blood. What if I took the hair and actually covered the bald spot? That’s it! Le Comb-over!
Nona removed her glasses and stared at me deadpan. “Le Comb-over?” she asked, dripping with contempt.
“I thought that was original,” I said defensively. “This is a work of imagination.”
Nona seemed to check her anger. “You are the talent, so I’m going to take your word for it, but I have twenty-eight years’ experience in this business, and believe me, I’ve seen them come and go.”
I softened. “Okay, so what would you suggest?”
“It’s hard to know where to begin,” Nona said with a deep sigh, “but let’s start with the leg-shaving. In my understanding, there was no feminine obsession with hairless legs until the mid-twentieth century, and then primarily in the United States. French women certainly didn’t shave in Napoleon’s day.”
“But Marguerite’s a trendsetter,” I said.
“As a case in point, I happened to check, and the Schick razor was invented in Dayton, Ohio in 1898. You’re off by eighty-four years.”
“Are you going to pick apart every single instance of poetic license in this book?” I asked.
“If I don’t, the reviewers will,” she said. “I’m just here to make sure we don’t get ripped to shreds by the critics. They can be awfully vicious, you know.”
Just then, Anderson walked in, looking merry in his Yosemite Sam T-shirt, and took in the scene. “Don’t scare her, Nona,” he said. “This girl’s my meal ticket.”
“No, sir,” she replied. “I realize that. I’m only trying to help.”
“Well, from the looks of it, she’s had enough for one day.” He turned to me. “Laurel, take the afternoon off.”
“But take this with you,” Nona said, handing me back the manuscript. “We’ve got some serious work ahead of us,” she repeated.
By that point, I’d begun packing up my apartment and was spending every night at Lucien’s. When he arrived home looking stressed out, I poured him a glass of his favorite Peruvian brandy, but nothing seemed to mollify him.
“Tough day at the office?” I asked. Too spent to bother cooking, I uncovered the leftovers from last night’s Ethiopian takeout and popped them into the microwave.
“Worse. Dreadful experience at the theater. I just came from a preview performance of this hyped-up new playwright who is supposed to be the next Tony Kushner.”
I began setting the table. “Was it that awful?”
“Try to imagine a set of characters with absolutely no arc, a clichéd plot ripped off from the very worst television sitcom, scenery that makes your high school production of ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ look like Broadway, and about as much tension as an afternoon nap.”
“My poor sweetie,” I said, taking the food from the microwave. “I had a hard day, too.”
“But you can’t imagine what it’s like to have to suffer through this mediocrity! I am going to write the most scathing review imaginable. When it’s published, not only will that horrible play close but anyone even remotely connected to it will never work in this town again. I’m going to crucify them all.”
Dinner was ready, but I’d lost my appetite.
I left Lucien at home the following weekend when I went to Trish’s Fourth of July party. Although she was dying to meet the guy she referred to as my fiancé, this was just the kind of jingoistic American occasion that would set him off, so I made excuses when I arrived on my own.
There were about forty people laughing and milling around the redwood deck and pool area in the backyard. As usual, Trish’s husband Tom had taken control of the barbecue. I recognized plenty of other faces; in the past, I would have been mentally tearing them apart for being so mainstream, but given my newfound status as a soon-to-be-published author, I was feeling generous. The girls with their fake nails probably got some satisfaction from their weekly manicures, and as for the guys, if they wanted to drink Bud, more power to ‘em. Peruvian brandy isn’t for everyone.
But by my fifth conversation about traffic on the LIE, horrible train service on the LIRR, and LILCO’s exorbitant prices, I was getting bored. When even three beers didn’t make the evening any more interesting, I started planning my exit.
I was looking for Trish to say goodbye when the familiar strains of an old song came on the stereo.
Billy Joel’s “Italian Restaurant,” one of my parents’ favorite songs. Hokey as it might sound, he was a native son from Long Island who perfectly captured the place and its people. I couldn’t help but feel swept back in time to the carefr
ee days of school dances when his music would get us all on the floor during oldies sets. Grabbing Trish by the hand, I started to rock as the tune got going.
Suddenly the music stopped. A beefy guy with long hair had yanked the CD off the player, and a round of applause went up. “That is the worst shit ever made,” he said drunkenly. “No Billy Joel.”
“No Billy Joel! No Billy Joel!” came the echo from all across the backyard. House music soon throbbed from the speakers, and everyone resumed their socializing.
Feeling bad for the guy who had put on the unpopular choice, I went over to him. “I love that song!” I said to the muscular jock wearing a baseball cap.
“I guess you’re the only one,” he laughed.
“And this music’s not really doing it for me,” I said.
“Me neither,” he replied.
“I was about to leave anyway,” I said.
“Well, don’t let their bad taste drive you away,” he said. “I’ll put this on in my car, and we can hang out in the front yard.”
Knowing that I had a lifetime of obscure opera and esoteric jazz ahead of me, the thought of one last guilty pleasure was irresistible. “Why not?” I said. “Just that one tune.”
We grabbed a six-pack and headed toward his Audi convertible. When the song came back on, we laughed our way through all the verses, which were about a couple called Brenda and Eddie.
As the rest of the album played, we started calling each other by those names. While watching “Eddie’s” taut muscles catch the light as we danced in the front yard, I remembered Lucien’s arthritis and for a second considered an even more sinful guilty pleasure. It must have been the beer that made me so flirtatious.
“At my high school, if you didn’t have this CD memorized, you couldn’t graduate,” he said.
“At mine, you got expelled,” I countered. Neither of us had to ask where the other had grown up; it was obvious we were both hopelessly South Shore.
“I bet you used to go to Field 4 at Jones,” he said.
“PAR-TY!” I said, reciting the motto of that famous teen hangout.
Both tipsy, we giddily compared notes about hot times at the far end of the yard when a nasal voice suddenly called out from the front door: “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere! You have to see Carmella’s engagement ring.”
My new friend shrugged apologetically. “I’ll be right there, honey,” he said before turning to me. “Well, bye, ‘Brenda.’ Maybe next time I’ll learn your real name.”
Maybe, but I already knew his. As I watched Marisa lead him off, I realized I’d just been dancing with none other than Dr. Irwin Turnov.
After a few more grueling sessions with Nona and her red pen, I finally got a break at Gallant. They had arranged for me to meet with the top publicists on their roster. I was right under the spotlight as I sat facing three intense professionals, each vying to elicit charming anecdotes from me to use in the press kit. I was loving it.
“What’s your favorite color?” asked a dark-skinned beauty with silver bracelets.
“Favorite color?” repeated the husky-voiced girl with a red jacket. “We can’t waste our time on that.” She turned to me, “I want you to think: any funny stories about writing this book? Where did you find your inspiration?”
“Did you always want to be a writer? Who were your influences?” asked the third, an older man in a business suit.
Unlike my meetings with Nona, I was fully confident at this session. After all, I’d been rehearsing my answers for years.
“Let me think,” I began, as though it were all just occurring to me. “Nothing in my ordinary background would explain my desire to write a sweeping historical epic. True, my family watched every episode of ‘Dynasty,’ but for higher culture I had to follow my calling beyond the Huntington line on the Long Island Railroad.”
Silver bracelets interrupted. “I’m getting small-town girl with big-city dreams. Very Newsweek’s ‘People’ column.”
“Massapequa is hardly a small town,” business suit corrected her. “It’s a crowded suburb.”
“He’s right,” said the husky voice. “But not exactly an inspiring environment for writing a nineteenth-century romance.”
“So you moved to Paris?” her colleague coaxed, scribbling in her notebook.
“No, I moved into the New York Public Library,” I said, looking into the distance as though it were a strain to recall those days. “There, for eight years, I labored meticulously to research my great enterprise.”
“I’m seeing ‘suburban girl escapes from cultural underclass,’” the bracelet-wearer said. “They’ll love it on public broadcasting.”
I was hoping at least for commercial TV, so I fed them a little more. “As I delved into the period, I found striking parallels to today’s strife-torn world,” I said.
“So it’s allegorical?” asked the man.
“No, not really,” I confessed.
“Yes, yes, a haunting allegory about ordinary citizens caught up in a political struggle for world hegemony!” pronounced silver bracelets.
Hegemony—that was a word Lucien loved to use. I made a mental note to ask him what it meant.
“A gripping tale that could be ripped from this morning’s headlines,” suggested the other woman.
“A fast-paced account about the lust for power that continues to destabilize our world even today,” said the man.
They were talking as though I weren’t even in the room, and about somebody else’s book—not mine.
“Have any of you read Napoleon’s Hairdresser?” I asked.
“Not yet,” said the husky voice.
“Not exactly,” said the woman with the jingling bracelets.
“Why bother?” asked the man cheerfully. “We hear it’s going to change completely in the rewrites.”
I had three weeks left to get out of my apartment. After eight years of living in the same dump, it seemed impossible to pack up all that I’d accumulated. Fortunately, Lucien said he would help, and we were sorting through my collection of posters.
It was old fashioned to own them, but he understood the nostalgia value—just not the taste.
“Honestly, Laurel, I don’t know why you have to move all these to my place,” he said, eyeing them with disdain. “This is pure commercialism with no artistic merit.”
“You’re right,” I said, knowing he’d never tolerate my playlists. “I’ll just keep some of the old ones.” I snuck Billy Joel into the pile of those to be saved.
Lucien began bundling my back issues of Celebrity Style to take out to the recycle bin, all the while muttering about how he couldn’t believe I read the stuff. To distract him, I started talking about my photo shoot. “They’re bringing in a professional hair stylist, a makeup artist, and a team of three wardrobe people,” I said. “Can you believe all of that just for a jacket photo?”
“Well, maybe Celebrity Style will do a spread on you,” he said, heading out to the garbage bin. “You would love that, I suppose,” he added, letting the door slam behind him.
His anger felt like a slap in the face, but I reassured myself with the knowledge that when two people deepen their commitment, there’s bound to be friction. Still, some irrational impulse made me rescue the discarded posters and hide them in a nearby box.
“To facilitate your research,” Nona said when I arrived the following Wednesday morning, “I’ve begun compiling details that need reworking in the interest of verisimilitude.” She handed me a list that looked longer than my book.
– Putting ‘le’ in front of a word doesn’t make it French: le flakes du corn crunchie (note: adjective at end doesn’t work either)
– Town criers did NOT give reports on buggy pile-ups
– Cross-Your-Heart bras were not invented until 1956
– Miami Beach was not a resort yet (see Marguerite’s fantasy, page 68)
– It’s unlikely that M’s mother would know about trans-fatty acids
&nbs
p; – Napoleonic-era women used ribbons to tie back their hair, not scrunchies.
– Cousin Louise’s aquarobics classes in the Seine, simply ridiculous, even if possible . . . where would she find students among the starving masses of Paris?
– Low-carb croissants still don’t exist!
“How am I supposed to tackle all of this?” I asked.
“According to your press kit, you used to live at the library,” she said. “Why don’t you move back in?”
I had no choice but to trudge up the majestic marble steps of the Forty-Second Street Research Library. Once inside the echoing hallways, I found the entrance to the main reading room blocked by a security guard who searched my bag for banned items. They’re very strict about not allowing any books in because someone might steal one from the collection, pretending it was their own. When the guard saw all I had was Celebrity Style, he waved me along.
Inside the massive hall, hundreds of people worked quietly at long, wooden tables. I pulled up a creaky old chair next to an elderly man poring over a manuscript in some Slavic language or another. Across from me, a prim, pallid-skinned woman around my age was lost in a pile of dusty old tomes. I envied their studiousness. How did they manage to concentrate on all this ancient stuff?
Plotting my own strategy, I realized I would have to wait in line to use the digital catalog. Assuming I found anything relevant, I would have to fill out a request slip, wait for my number to be displayed on the big board, pick up the books, hunt for any pages that might be of use, and then, if I wanted to copy them, begin a whole new process of filling out forms and waiting in lines.
I hadn’t lied to the publicists; I really had spent a lot of time here, but I wondered how I made it through. Digging into my bag for a strictly forbidden stick of gum, I remembered: junky magazine breaks.
As I paged through Celebrity Style, I felt more restless than ever. This Salli Simmer columnist had the life, I thought, stopping to read her latest article. Last week, she profiled the latest ingénue director of the Cannes Film Festival; this week, she was back in Malibu picnicking with an aging rock star at the Hollywood Unites Against the Paparazzi Charity Beach Party.
