Crossing the Line

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  I’d swallow toner hoping for the effects of cyanide, shove blue pencils through my eyeballs, slit my wrists with Hilda’s scimitar-shaped letter-opener and call it a bad day. Then, if I were still alive, I’d go look for a new job.

  But, for some reason, Louise wasn’t doing any of those things. She chose to stay in her newly untenable position and she chose to make my life a living hell while doing so.

  When I asked her something about the Parker manuscript, she e-mailed me a memo about the Drew. When I asked her to send Drew a letter, detailing suggested changes, she worded it in such a way that I wound up spending half the afternoon on the phone with a justifiably pissed-off author.

  I didn’t dare let her bring me coffee, although this she repeatedly offered to do, for fear she’d poison me or put laxatives in it.

  And yet…and yet…what choice did I have?

  Best-case scenario? I’d persuade Dodo and Dexter Schlager that there was no way Louise and I could ever successfully work as a team. And then what? Either: 1) they’d tell me I needed to find a new editorial home, since they couldn’t—wouldn’t—afford another assistant, or 2) Dodo would be compelled to share Constance with me, which would make usually kind Dodo permanently tetchy and make me…what? What would having Constance as my assistant make me?

  Bonkers, that’s what it would make me.

  There would be me, trying to be businesslike, however sociopathic some might think me; and there would be Constance, recommending a manuscript because it had made her mood ring turn the proper color.

  There would be me, looking for a property that would raise the respectability level of the company’s profile; and there would be Constance, pushing for a healing-crystals laden epic saga with “commercial appeal and great karma!”

  There would be me…

  The list wasn’t worth continuing. It just wouldn’t work. In a contest between the multicolor-eyed, overenthusiastic New New-Ager and the bitch who hated my guts but who was also at least intelligent, the bitch had it by a mile.

  Surprisingly enough, it was Sophie who called to give me a heads-up that Stephen Triplecorn was paying a visit to her and my mother.

  “I don’t know why I’m warning you like this,” she said, “since I’m not even sure how I feel about what you’re doing.”

  Thinking back on the Sophie of my childhood—one year older, always light-years ahead of me in our mother’s mind and in her own—I did also wonder why she was doing it. Old Sophie would be doing it to advance-rub my nose in what she was sure would be my own failure. Old Sophie liked the status quo of her always winding up on top just fine.

  Of course, during the days of my “pregnancy,” that had changed a bit: she’d grown moderately warmer, as though we might one day be breastfeeding comrades-in-arms or something, and she’d offered me advice, however heavy-handed. (“Don’t do anything stupid, Jane!”) But, then, she hadn’t known my pregnancy was fake at the time, had she? Since the enlightenment, she’d become decidedly chilly, with the exception of the sisterly mood swings she’d evinced on the day of the visit to the pediatrician—claiming breastfeeding-induced hormonal misalliance—and that brief sorority-sister exchange at the second shower over Mum’s purported affair, which she still hadn’t elucidated upon.

  Well, who could blame her for being mostly chilly? Not even me, although I’d certainly spent most of my thirty years blaming Sophie—justifiably, in my mind—for a lot.

  Okay, maybe I could have made some effort too. Still, so why was she warning me now? Was it a true warning, like “get out of the way, because that cliff is falling towards you!” or was it a warning-just-for-the-sake-of-gloating warning?

  I had no idea.

  I did know that there wasn’t much good it could do me, since I couldn’t very well be on my mother’s premises when Stephen Triplecorn’s interview with them took place.

  Apparently, though, while Sophie had said she wasn’t sure how she felt about what I was doing, she felt sufficiently moved to call me back that evening to tell me what had happened.

  “Mother did tell him that you were never the greatest with your dolls when you were little,” she said.

  “And?”

  “And I pointed out that while your dolls may never have been given the usual professions by you—after all, you did have that one who you said danced the cancan for sailors at the Moulin Rouge—that you’d never abandoned any of them.”

  “True.”

  “Then mother said that you were never an easy child, that you’d never really gotten on with her, or with me for that matter.”

  “And?”

  “And I said that had nothing to do with your ability to be a good mother now, that maybe you’d even be a better and more sensitive mother than you might have been otherwise, given the challenges you’d had to face in your own youth.”

  “I never thought about it that way.”

  “You’re welcome, Jane.”

  “Thank you, Soph.”

  “Then Mother started to say something about you ‘deceiving everyone’ you’d ever met—”

  “Oh no!”

  “Which was when I kicked her and said I heard Baby Jack calling for her, which he wasn’t of course, since he doesn’t say ‘Granny’ just yet and which I’d have thought she’d hate even if he did. But she bought it—or at least she fell in love with the idea of him calling her and she went running.”

  “Phew! But, then, what did Stephen Triplecorn say?”

  “Well, he asked what Mother had meant by that. Can you blame him?”

  “And?”

  “And I told him exactly what I thought. I said that you had indeed deceived everyone you’d ever met. You’d deceived them because, while no one would have ever pegged you as ‘good mother’ material, you were indeed all that.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Finally, “Did you really, Soph?”

  “Yeah, I really did.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it’s true, Jane.”

  “You mean that?”

  “’Course I do. All anyone has to do is see Emma with you to realize you’re the best thing for her. True, I’m not sure it’s the best of all worlds—whites raising blacks, or vice versa come to that—but all worlds has nothing to do with specific worlds. In Emma’s specific world, you’re the center. And you’ve earned the right to be.”

  Now I really didn’t know what to say. But I didn’t have to, because it was then that Sophie reverted to type:

  “Just don’t louse it up, Jane,” she warned.

  I actually swallowed, and took her warning to heart. After all, Emma’s future happiness and life were what was at stake.

  “I’ll try not to, Soph.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Good. By the way, what did Stephen Triplecorn say after you said that?”

  “He didn’t say anything, because I didn’t give him the chance. I was too worried Mother might come back and start to tar you again, so I told him it was time for Baby Jack’s breastfeeding and that we’d all have to do it together, if he wanted to stay, since Mother never breastfed either of us and she always likes to watch.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did. And you’d be surprised how quickly he left, once I started undoing my blouse. For a man who’s spent his career in Social Services, and who presumably has had much prior experience of mothers and infants, he was damned scared of my breasts. Made that big thing in his pants jump, it did.”

  “You noticed it too?”

  “How could I miss it? The thing is a cricket bat!”

  David was taking what he called a chef’s holiday.

  We were seated at his favorite Chinese restaurant, waiting on his Mu Shu and my Lo Mein—okay, we’re boring eaters; Christopher was off, presumably doing one of those Frisbee golf-type things he did these days, only it was nighttime, so it probably wasn’t that; and Dodo had Emma in care. Dodo was playing some Trinidadian music when I left them and cookin
g some Trinidadian dish on the back burner of the stove.

  “I know she can’t eat it yet,” she’d said, stirring, “but she can smell it in the air. Getting culture through her nose must be good too, no?”

  I’d shrugged. How do you answer that?

  David rearranged his chopsticks. Even the prospect of Mu Shu wasn’t pleasing him tonight.

  As the waiter brought our food I asked, “Why so glum, chum?” which was what he usually asked me whenever I was down.

  He was silent as he folded his crepe into a triangle, then tossed it back on the plate. “Bleagh. I could do better than this.”

  “I’m sure you could. You always do.”

  “It’s Christopher,” he finally sighed.

  I put down my fork, which I was using because I never use chopsticks.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is he sick?”

  God, please don’t let anything be wrong with Christopher that might take him from David or that David might catch and that might take him from me.

  “No, it’s nothing like that. There is nothing physically wrong with anybody.”

  “Phew!” I settled back in my chair.

  “Well, of course, there are things physically wrong with people all over the place, it’s just that Christopher and I aren’t part of those physically-wronged people.”

  I grabbed on to his gesticulating hand, stroked the hairy back of that palm I knew so well.

  “What is it, David?” I asked softly. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t think he’s happy with me, Jane,” David said.

  “What are you—mad? Of course he’s happy with you! How could anybody not be?”

  And I really meant it. In the years I’d known David, there were countless times I’d wished that we were oriented somehow differently—that either he wasn’t homosexual or I was homosexual but I was a guy or whatever it would have taken for us to be in the romantic sweepstakes for each other’s hearts. But it wasn’t the way the world was, at least not our world. We loved each other almost more than we loved anyone else on the planet, the only person ever managing to outpace him with me being Emma. And Tolkien. Regardless of the fact that I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever be in love with David myself—not in that way—I still couldn’t accept the notion that anyone he chose to pay attention to wouldn’t be madly in love with him.

  “No, really, Jane, I don’t think that he is any longer.”

  “Oh, you’re just going through a bad patch. Everyone has them. Why, Trevor and I used to have bad patches all the time.”

  “Exactly,” he said pointedly. “And look what happened with you two.”

  True.

  “Tell me, what makes you think his feelings have changed?”

  “At first, I thought he agreed to us working different shifts in the restaurant because he wanted to help you out with Emma.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “It turns out, he never liked working shifts with me in the first place.”

  “How come?”

  “Said it was too much my place, me being the chef and all.”

  “He kind of has something there.”

  “Yes, but he was originally the architect. He built that place.”

  “Good point.”

  “What?” He looked at me. “Now you’re agreeing with both of us?”

  “No. Yes. Well, sort of. People get all territorial about things and they get really weird when shifting power is involved. Take where I work, for instance.”

  “Is this going to somehow circle back to me and my problem?” he asked.

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I’ve been studying up on the way you do self-involvement over the years and I think I’ve got it down now pitty-pat. It’s okay if we talk about you so long as it’s really about me—have I got that right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Good. Go on.”

  “It’s like this,” I said. “The hierarchy and power dynamics at C&S have all gotten screwed up. How can we take Constance seriously as an assistant editor? How can Louise take Constance seriously as her equal? How can Louise take me seriously as her boss? How can Dodo take me seriously as a senior editor? Or Louise’s other boss—how can she take me seriously?”

  All of a sudden, despite the frenzied spate of chatter I’d just engaged in, I felt deflated.

  “Christ, I’ve got it hard,” I said. I took a sip of Chinese wine. “I’ve got it worse than Constance, having to put up with the resentments of Louise.”

  David used one finger to tap the top of my glass.

  “Hmm?” I asked.

  “And how does this relate back to me and my problem?”

  “Oh, right,” I said, “sorry. Well, as I say, it’s all in the power dynamics. First, the restaurant was your dream. Then you hired Christopher, who was the architect. Now, your hiring him should have made him subordinate to you, because, after all, you were the one with the money, or the bank’s money. But, anyway, you were the boss. Except that you can’t boss an architect, can you? I mean, they’re all so self-confident, all that he-man—” and here I went baritone “—‘I know how to build a building’ Howard Roark stuff, so it’s always like they’re working for themselves rather than you. Like, do you remember I. M. Pei and that whole Louvre thing?”

  “Vaguely. The French wanted somewhere to stow the Mona Lisa and he gave them Egypt instead.”

  “Exactly! I mean, who could have stopped him?”

  “I’m used to it by now,” he said.

  “What? Your problems with Christopher?”

  “No, the Louvre. I mean, it kind of looks like all those World’s Fair domes, but at least it’s a triangle.”

  “Favorite geometric figure of yours, is it?”

  “How did you ever guess?”

  “Because—”

  “Jane?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You were saying?”

  “Right. So, anyway, there’s you and Christopher, pre-opening of the restaurant, maintaining parallel power since back then you were both kind of the boss. But then the restaurant opens—”

  “And he says he wants to help me—”

  “But helping you puts him in a subordinate position—”

  “Even though he was initially doing it for love—”

  “Which starts to rankle after a few months—”

  “Which is why he’s now playing Frisbee golf at night,” David finished, throwing his napkin on the table. “So, basically, what you’re saying is that I’ve professionally emasculated my partner.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Except I’d never put it like that.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You know what Christopher needs?”

  “What?”

  “Christopher needs to find a glass pyramid to build.”

  I was sitting in my office—which still had no oversized prints of book jackets on the walls, because of course I hadn’t edited any yet—wondering how to drum up business.

  Dodo had been a senior editor for donkey’s ages, so all the agents were used to approaching her first. But I’d only been in the role of editor for a short time, so it was as though the publishing world barely knew I was there.

  Since my return to work, Dodo had been generous enough to steer a couple of decent manuscripts my way. There was the Drew and that other one I could never remember the name of, but they were minor things. Neither of them was likely to make my name in the business. True, I’d been the one to originally discover Mona Shakespeare, but the real editing on that had been done by Dodo while I was out on my maternity-leave-that-wasn’t. What I needed was something that I alone could acquire, something I alone could edit, so that later on, when people thought of the book, they’d say, “Ah! Jane Taylor did that one! Let’s try to get Jane Taylor for this one…”

  But where to look, where to look…

  Since I’d always done some of my best thinking while surfing around the Web, I went
online to see what I could find. If nothing else, I could clear out my e-mail inbox.

  Along with the usual nonsense—offers to make my penis grow larger (as if I needed that!); interoffice e-mail from Constance with some panicked request (as if I wanted to read that!)—there was nothing of any substance, so I clicked on the daily e-mail from Market Smackerel, which posted up-to-the-minute news on the publishing business: what notable deals had been made, what film rights had been optioned, what editors had switched houses or been promoted. Huh. There hadn’t been anything in Market Smackerel when I’d been promoted.

  I scrolled down through all the news that the green-eyed monster part of me wished I’d been a part of. Oh, why couldn’t I be the editor of a nominee on the short list for the Man Booker Prize?

  I finally scrolled upon something that really interested me:

  In an unusual move, Simon Smock, of The Simon Smock Literary Agency, has sold the rights to a novel by an unnamed British author to publishers in France, Germany, Holland and Sweden. The book, submitted without either title or author, is what Smock terms a “sexual folie a quatre,” and is purported to be a “Rashomon-like tale involving four girlfriends and a sex crime.” When asked to compare it to previously published books, Smock said, “It’s not really like any other book I’ve ever read. But, if you absolutely need a slug-line for it, I’d say it’s a cross between Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and The Story of O.” This, quite naturally, leaves the Smackerel to wonder: If the book has already been sold in four foreign markets, but it is by a British author, when, pray tell, will rights be sold here?

  The item ended, as always, with an e-mail contact address for the person reporting the news; in this case, The Simon Smock Literary Agency.

  As quick as you can say, “I want that rucking book about fucking!,” I was all over that e-mail address, typing in my request to Mr. Smock that he send a copy of the book here to me at C&S for my consideration. I mentioned how I’d been the one to originally discover Mona Shakespeare, a discovery that had been made much of in the press, even though the book wasn’t due out until sometime around November or December. I suppose Mona’s book, The Rubber Slipper, about a pregnant woman who finds herself with ten suitors fighting for paternity of her baby, had captured people’s imaginations. In a world fraught with endless hardships and heartache, I suppose people just like to latch on to something whimsical and diverting whenever they can. I told Mr. Smock that I felt confident that C&S could do the same kind of big-splash launch in the U.K. for his client’s book as we were planning on doing for the Shakespeare. Then I punched Send and prayed.