Passing Fancies (A Julia Kydd Novel)

by Marlowe Benn

  He dropped his chin. “Oh boy. Brace yourself.”

  A muscular, dark-haired woman of at least thirty kissed Austen with a loud smack and saluted Julia with her glass. “Wilhelmina Fischer, lamb. Call me Billie.” She threaded her arm through Austen’s. “Come to hail Pablo’s noble savage? Haven’t we all? I’d sell my grandmother for a novel that could pry real cash out of Arthur. Hell, I’d even prance around onstage for a weasel like Lenny Timson. Since that seems to be what it takes.”

  She fished the cherry out of her drink and popped it into her mouth. Her black-rimmed eyes swept over Julia’s frock. “Couture, or I’m off my nut.” She pinched Julia’s sleeve. “Say, bunny, if you’re looking for dough, scram now. On a publishing salary, this mutt couldn’t keep you in last year’s rags. Or out of them.” She hooted at her witticism, turning nearby heads, and spanked Austen’s cheek before strolling off toward a group of men on the terrace.

  “Sorry,” Austen said, before Julia could forbid another apology. “Billie drinks like a sailor. She’s a theater critic who’s discovered she makes a bigger splash panning a show.” He made a throat-slashing gesture. “Jugular, every time.”

  “Ghastly woman.” Julia glanced about. “I assume I haven’t yet met your friends.”

  Austen looked around too. “You’re right. It’s a miracle this place publishes anything at all. Horace’s a randy old dog, and he’s extravagant to a fault, but he has a great nose for books. I love the man, really. He’s been like a prince to me.”

  A prince with presumptuous paws. “Is the guest of honor here?” Julia wondered. “The author from Nebraska?”

  “I was hoping you’d forgotten.” Austen’s head pitched to the right. Through a half-open door, Julia saw the soles of a man’s shoes atop the backrest of a wide divan, as well as a jacket on the floor nearby. Someone in a pastel frock, likely a professional, celebrated the prone author. Julia examined her gin.

  “Hold on.” Austen sidled over to the room. Keeping his head and shoulders angled toward the party, he reached in, found the door’s handle, and pulled it shut.

  “Horace likes to treat authors like royalty when they visit, so he throws these parties and lines up, well, entertainment. It’s embarrassing, but most of them love it. This fellow’s found what Horace calls his casting couch. Sorry.”

  “Do you think I haven’t seen prostitutes? I don’t shock easily. And please stop apologizing. What does Mr. Liveright do for his lady authors? Squire them himself?”

  Austen blushed. “Horace prefers chorines and actresses to authors, at least to authors he intends to publish. He loves to show—”

  A great shout drowned the rest of his sentence. Pablo Duveen loomed in the doorway. “We won!” he bellowed. “We outfoxed you old coots, and we’ve come for our cackle!” He turned to sweep Eva Pruitt into the room. A stiff-spined, dark-complected man followed.

  A crescendo of good-natured curses engulfed the trio.

  “Is that Goldsmith?” Julia asked, eyeing the second man.

  “I knew it,” Austen said with a nod. “I bet a buddy Arthur couldn’t resist coming along tonight to gloat. Horace wanted Eva’s book too, you know, if only because Arthur had the leg up. Pablo egged him on with all his chirping about New Negroes.” He leaned closer. “And I bet Arthur forked over a big contract just to give Horace a good steam. They may be smiling right now, but oh boy, Horace is hating this as much as Arthur’s enjoying it. He’d kill to snatch Eva’s book for us and wipe that smirk off Arthur’s face.”

  Julia eyed the rival publishers, their hands locked in a pretense of bonhomie. Austen dropped his voice. “I don’t know Arthur well, but then I doubt anyone does. He keeps his distance from Horace, treating him like something unsavory. I do know Horace resents Arthur something fierce. Oh, Arthur’s a genius for publishing, no doubt about that, but he’s such a prig. Arrogant, shrewd, careful to a fault with money and power—don’t get Horace started on the subject. They say Arthur’s ruthless about getting what he wants, which is always the best of anything.”

  Julia studied the man as they moved forward to greet the newcomers. Shrewd and ambitious—Arthur Goldsmith certainly matched the description. A precisely tapered black mustache hovered like two sable paintbrushes above his mouth as he accepted the crowd’s attentions with small nods. He was dressed every bit as impeccably as Liveright, but with a surprisingly brazen touch: crisp pink shirt, white collar, magenta tie.

  Goldsmith’s dark eyes assessed Julia during Austen’s introduction. His glance swept from her waist to her head before he dismissed her with the conventional courtesies. He’d sized her up—as a female—and decided she merited no further attention. It was true then: Arthur Goldsmith did love books more than women. Julia was far from the most attractive woman in the room, but she doubted any could rival her command of bookmaking. In measuring the woman, he’d overlooked the printer. Typical man. As he turned away, she raised her voice and said, “Stanley Morison speaks well of your work in raising typographic standards.”

  His gaze returned instantly. It was shameless, of course, to drop the name of Britain’s foremost arbiter of typographic taste, and not altogether honest, as Julia had no idea what Morison thought of Goldsmith’s books. The important thing was that she’d invoked the fine bookmaking movement, a renaissance in which Julia included her work with Capriole. Anyone who paid serious attention to type, layout, papers, bindings, and so on—as Goldsmith did—would sit up in attention at Morison’s name.

  As Goldsmith did now. “You know Morison?”

  Austen answered with a rousing account of Morison’s early blessings on Julia’s Capriole Press. “Virginia Woolf with a Gill engraving,” he enthused of Wednesday, Capriole’s (more or less) inaugural title. “Fifty-five copies on Barcham Green, sold out after Morison’s good word.” Julia failed to tamp down her smile.

  “Gill can be an acquired taste,” Goldsmith said dryly. Julia nodded, equally circumspect. She admired Eric Gill’s sensuous line drawings and humanistic letterforms, as well as his mystical eroticism—on the page. He’d drawn the image for her Capriole pressmark, a young she-goat (Julia herself) in a glade of book-leaved trees, but afterward she’d needed every agile leap of her namesake kid to escape the lusty fellow. Gill the artist was inspired; Gill the man was merely that, in all the usual carnal senses.

  The turnabout in Goldsmith’s regard was comical. A gaze that had been indifferent now burned with interest. While gratifying, Julia suspected this was fueled more by vanity than collegial respect. He was roughly a decade her senior and clearly more accomplished in the field, but even so. If his attention had to be earned, so did hers. She’d achieved her aim: Goldsmith had noticed.

  Duveen lurched off toward the bar, and Julia moved to join Eva, whose smile grew wider at Julia’s congratulations. A pale-blue felt cloche nestled over her skull, its brim frosted with silver bugle beads.

  She looped her arm through Julia’s. “Stay with me. You’re my good luck charm.” She eyed the hubbub. “Some splash, isn’t it?”

  “You look awfully happy.”

  “I am.” Eva placed three fingertips on Julia’s forearm. “They’re taking me to dinner at the Plaza tonight. The Plaza, Julia.”

  Julia felt an unsettling twinge on hearing Eva pronounce her name. Then she realized what had sounded off key: never before had a colored person addressed her with such familiarity. Even Christophine, who knew her more intimately than anyone alive, would not forgo the Miss from her name. Julia had always thought of the syllable as merely an affectionate contraction: Julia to Miss as Christophine to Fee. How blind to absorb that social deference as naturally as one’s name! Julia’s stomach quivered. Did the title endure because Christophine, however loved, was technically her employee and dark as ditches? Would Julia have expected Eva to address her as Miss Julia? Of course not. The very idea was preposterous. But the moment’s flash of surprise left a disturbing afterimage of doubt on Julia’s mind. Were there more distasteful trut
hs about herself she did not see?

  “Since Jerome can’t come, you know,” Eva added.

  Julia nodded vaguely, still disconcerted. Did she mean because he was obviously colored and so not allowed, or because of some other trouble? She remembered the couple’s quarrel in Duveen’s back bedroom. Was that the problem?

  Eva’s glow dimmed. “He wouldn’t enjoy this anyway. He’s glad for me and all, but he’s sore about the fuss.” As if reciting an assertion she’d heard a hundred times, she added, “He says true writers care only about writing well, not the fiddle-faddle over their books.” She sipped to obscure a new smile. “But I do love this.”

  Eva’s enthusiasm restored Julia’s. What good fortune they’d met when they had, each poised on the brink of a new venture. If they joined forces, their aspirations and talents might converge with eye-popping results. She lowered her voice, drawing Eva close, and described her modest but hopeful work as a publisher of handcrafted limited editions. “I’m thinking about my first production,” Julia said, “to debut my Capriole Press in New York. I need something special. I know you’re busy and excited about your novel, but I wonder if you might have some poems or a story you’d let me read and maybe publish.”

  When Eva didn’t answer, she added, “I’d do my best to make it beautiful, with an illustration or two and handmade papers and brand-new types. A marbled wrapper, maybe?”

  Eva shook her head to show that she didn’t follow any of the design details. “You’d consider publishing something I wrote?”

  “I’d be honored,” Julia said. “It would announce us both to the literary world. Look out, Misters Goldsmith and Liveright and Harper and Scribner and all the other misters. Here come Eva Pruitt and Julia Kydd!”

  Eva lifted her lovely face. “Eva Pruitt and Julia Kydd,” she repeated with a curious wonder in her voice. “I like that. But I don’t have any stories, only my book for Mr. Goldsmith.”

  Not a problem, Julia reassured her. “You could write something new. There’s no rush. The shorter the better, actually, because I set my type by hand and have limited fonts. If we do decide to do this, you could help me plan the design, if you like.”

  “I never thought of books as having design,” Eva admitted. “They’re just words.”

  Julia explained that design was everything to fine printers, whose books aimed to exalt their texts by rendering them in beautiful physical form. Unlike more affordable and durable editions, whose purpose was to be read, fine editions were meant to be admired. They were like extravagant gowns for special occasions, made solely to dazzle and flatter.

  Eva smiled. “Chambray and double seams for rehearsals, acres of chiffon for the show.” She fluttered her skirt of seafoam chiffon with its intricate floral design of sapphire beads.

  “Exactly,” Julia said. “Now you understand my work better than I understand yours. I have to admit I’d never heard of New Negro literature before last night. What does—”

  She stopped. It was an important question. She prayed her ignorance wouldn’t offend. “I’m sorry, but what does Pablo mean when he says yours is a New Negro book?”

  Eva exhaled a bemused snort. “He does carry on about that, doesn’t he? He means it’s good and culluhed. All jookin’ and jelly dippin’.” Her expression sobered. “Mostly he means a book written by a colored person that he thinks is worth reading. He means it includes the rough bits. Pablo thinks white people should know about”—she searched for a word—“the difficulties. Not that there’s anything new about those.”

  “Why does he call it new, then?”

  “Jerome can answer that better than I can. It means different things to different people. Have you heard of the Talented Tenth?”

  Julia confessed her ignorance.

  “It’s what they call Negroes like Jerome and Logan who are as educated and accomplished as any white person. Upper-crust types: doctors, lawyers, professors, and such. Strivers. That’s one kind of new, but Pablo calls new what he thinks Negroes have and white folks don’t, some special snap.” She slid her feet in a soft dance move. “What’s new is white people paying attention, like they just now noticed we have something to say.”

  Something to say? Negroes had as much to say as anyone else. Julia listened every day to Christophine, though rarely at length or in great depth. Christophine had plenty to say about the price of ivory buttons, the hats pictured in the society pages, or her long walk to the bus stop, but race never came into any of it.

  At least that Julia could see. What did she really know of Christophine’s life beyond what they experienced together and the stories she chose to share? Julia felt a twist of chagrin. Had she failed to notice what else lay beneath and beyond those stories? Or had she not even bothered to ask? It was a galling thought.

  Was this new “something” why publishers were so keen to publish Eva’s book? Julia remembered Logan Lanier’s bitter mention of coy theatrics with the manuscript, implying Eva was withholding it until money changed hands.

  Eva watched Julia’s face. “What?”

  “I was just wondering if you’ve given Pablo the manuscript. Logan Lanier thought there might be some trickiness to that.”

  Eva turned to find Duveen. He stood near the windows, singing falsetto harmony with a woman captured under his arm. They were piecing together off-key phrases of “When My Sugar Walks down the Street,” Duveen chiming in on the birdies’ chorus with a robust Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

  Eva lowered her voice. “Not yet. I had to hide it.”

  “Hide it from whom?”

  Eva ran her tongue along the underside of her lip.

  “And why?”

  Eva raised her glass to her mouth but left it there, untouched, as she watched Duveen abandon the song and shamble closer. “After Pablo gives me the money, I’ll give him the manuscript. Soon.”

  Julia puzzled at this news. The furtive transaction sounded like something Willard Wright might concoct for one of his detective stories.

  Eva’s eyes never left Duveen as he headed their way. Her hand trembled as she emptied her glass, one small swallow after another. “First Pablo has to make a special account with me at his bank,” she said. “Leonard, I mean my boss, Mr. Timson, takes care of the money he pays me—it’s mine, but he watches over it. So we need somewhere else to put the book money so Leonard won’t know about it right away. Because when he finds out, oh Lordy, he’ll be mad as a wet hen.”

  Mention of bank accounts and complicated finances reminded Julia of her own years when Philip had held total control over her funds, simply because women were deemed incompetent at managing money. Many women endured much harsher oversight of husbands or fathers or brothers. Women might now have the vote, but many still had to rely on a man for bus fare to the polls. It was unjust and infuriating: the great victory rendered hollow by mundane realities.

  “Why would your boss be angry about the money?” Julia asked, but Eva didn’t answer, intent on tracking Duveen’s return.

  He rejoined them and waved Eva’s empty glass at the bar, perhaps hoping someone would notice and bring over a bottle. “I’ve been telling everyone they must come with me up to Harlem. Your new show will curl their cummerbunds.” His belly quivered in a dreadful shimmy.

  Eva smiled.

  “You should see what this Sheba can do,” Duveen crowed to Austen and Goldsmith. “I mean it. Come with me sometime, Hurd. I’m a crusader. I lead tours to Harlem for repressed rich white folk. I proselytize for the powers of Negro sass and pep—just the tonic our stodgy old civilization needs. Come tonight.”

  Austen shook his head, blaming early plans in the morning. Julia might have added that no one here seemed particularly repressed or stodgy. But Duveen insisted, and a date was set for a week from Saturday. Austen and Julia would join Duveen and an out-of-town couple who, he said, had engaged him to escort them into Harlem. Escort? Julia had an absurd image of Duveen leading his timid charges down the street with a well-thumbed Baedeker, as if h
e alone spoke the language and knew the coinage of the realm. They did know it was New York, didn’t they?

  “You too, Arthur,” Duveen badgered his friend. “She’s your new author. Come too.”

  Goldsmith deliberated. He considered Eva, who returned his gaze with friendly encouragement, and then, at length, Julia. “Coral’s arranged something for that evening, but perhaps I could get away for a short while.”

  “Lemony larkspurs!” Duveen exclaimed. “It’s a party then. Come to my place first. You’ll meet the mighty Max Clark from San Fran. He’s a big player in timber out in Oregon, or is it Ida-hoo? Somewhere wretched and rainy. He wants to dazzle a new wife while he’s nailing down deals. He’ll burn dough faster than matches while she’s watching, so we can scamper along on his dime. We’ll start off with the late supper show at Carlotta’s; then I’ll spin your heads right through breakfast at the Sugar Bowl. Grits and gravy, washed down with their own Seventh Avenue thunder. Regular monkey rum, that stuff.”

  Julia fought hard not to laugh at his slang-soaked enthusiasm. From the shadow under her hat’s brim, she caught Eva’s eye. “Pishposh,” Eva mouthed, her lips barely moving.

  With a throaty hey and two sharp elbows, Billie Fischer wedged into the conversation. “This?” she said, eyeing Eva. “This is what all the stink’s about?”

  She pumped Eva’s hand. “Hello, sunshine. Billie Fischer. Glad you could grace our pack of drudges, Miss Pruitt. No one here’s written a really grand novel—not even you, Pablo, admit it. We just supply the drivel.” Billie twirled her index finger. Julia stepped back to avoid the slosh from her forgotten drink.

  “But they say you’ve got the goods,” Billie went on. “Pablo says it’s colored fiction we need these days. Hot little souls, prancin’ to paradise. Is that so? Will colored fiction set us free, Miss Pruitt?”