The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Emma almost laughed. She’d have to answer this bitter, disappointed woman who had written to Pam. But what was the point? Emma sighed. The woman was a nut case, as well as a truly terrible writer. She believed that “personal taste” shouldn’t affect an editor’s choice of what to publish? What, then, should? It still amazed Emma that so many people attempted to write books with so little encouragement and so little talent. She used to agonize over these, but now she’d just send out another terse letter.

  Emma had piles of other letters, papers, cover art, reader’s copies, and actual books all over the edges of the carpet and on the shelves of three walls. Why had she ever thought that editorial work would be elegant and romantic? She had to smile.

  Actually, Emma remembered why. When she was nine years old an important speaker had come to Larchmont Grammar. All of Emma’s third-grade class had assembled in the library and been addressed by An Author. She was a large woman with a huge head of gray hair, and she talked about Her Life As a Writer; what it was like to put together the mystery novels she was famous for. But for some reason, the nine-year-old Emma had not been taken by the idea of writing books, even though she loved to read. She merely listened politely, interested but not inspired. It was only when one of her classmates raised her hand and asked what happened to a manuscript after the writer was finished with it that Emma perked up. “Well,” the lady explained, “I send it in to my editor, a woman who sits in a big office in a tall skyscraper in New York City. She is paid a great deal of money to read my book, and then she tells me whatever way I have to fix it. I do fix it, and then the book gets printed and bound and sent out to bookstores.”

  Emma was suddenly transfixed with the image, not of the writer before her, but of the mysterious editor sitting “in a big office in a tall skyscraper in New York City.” Emma had been to New York many times with her parents and her older brother, Frederick, and it seemed the center of all things. Imagine having a big office of your very own there and spending all day reading books. She was good at that. To Emma it sounded like the most divine thing in the world. To be paid to read books! To have an office in a skyscraper!. From that moment, Emma knew exactly what she wanted to be.

  And now that she was an editor there were three great ironies to swallow. The first was that she was paid very little, the second was that her office—virtually all offices in publishing—was laughably small, and the last was that she rarely had any time at work to read. Her days were taken up with list meetings, editorial meetings, rare lunches with authors, cover-art meetings, marketing meetings, and more phone calls than she liked to remember. The workload was crushing.

  During her first year at Davis & Dash she had come in to the office to work on both Saturday and Sunday. In fact, that was when she got most of her editorial work done. During the week the noise, the phone calls, the meetings and distractions couldn’t let you sink into the reading. Back then—-just five years ago as an editorial assistant—she had only a desk in a cubicle along a row of other cubicles in a long hallway. But after a year or so, coming into the office every day of the week and working at the same windowless, exposed place had become too depressing. Now Emma differentiated her days not by taking the weekends off, but by spending them working at home.

  At first that, too, had been hard. When she’d come to New York she’d shared a one-bedroom apartment with two other girls from college, and her space was only a corner of the living room. One of her roommates was fussy. The living room had to be kept straight. Laying out a manuscript and having to clean it up at the end of each work session was time-consuming, unproductive, and frustrating. As soon as she got a raise, Emma had moved out.

  It was all for the best. She hadn’t felt comfortable living with the two roommates anyway. It caused embarrassment. She buried herself in work and never had dates, and they seemed to want to know why. Living alone was easier. There were no questions, and she had all the space for her work that she needed. But sometimes she was lonely.

  I should be grateful that I have my own place now, been promoted to editor, and have my own office here, Emma told herself. And usually she was. Her studio in the Village was large and sunny—even if it was still mostly unfurnished. But she had decided not to accept help from her mother, and she was making it on her own, with the little extra help from the trust fund her father had left her. She was managing, she reminded herself. A kid from the slacker generation making a pittance but making good.

  At that moment the phone rang, and Emma couldn’t help but wince. She paused and hoped that Heather, the assistant she shared with two other editors, would be at her desk and take the call. But it was unlikely. Emma listened to the second ring. She could simply not pick up, but then there would be another call for her to return when she laboriously copied down her voice mail. So, at the third ring, she picked up the phone.

  “Emma Ashton? Is that you?” the querulous voice of Anna Morrison greeted Emma. Emma sighed but made sure that Anna wouldn’t hear it. Not that Anna heard much: She was quite deaf, and Emma had to shout her end of their conversations.

  “Emma Ashton? Is that you?” Mrs. Morrison asked again at the top of her voice. Emma assured Anna that indeed it was she. “So glad I got you. I’m quite excited, really. I was thinking about a new edition of Green Days, Black Nights.”

  The woman was really quite dotty, but Emma knew that she wasn’t so crazy as to think her old book would ever sell again. She just wanted to talk to someone.

  Anna Morrison had once been a bestselling author. That wasn’t in Emma’s time, or in Pam Mantiss’s time, or even in Gerald Ochs Davis’s time. Anna Morrison was a kind of editorial mastodon, a throwback to the days of Frank Yerby and Foxes of Harrow. All of her books were out of print, available only in musty library stacks. And the last was probably borrowed back in 1954, no doubt. The trouble was that, unlike other relics, Anna Morrison didn’t know she was dead. For years after she’d gone out of print she had hounded Mr. Davis, who eventually handed her off to Pam Mantiss, who, pitilessly, handed her off to Emma. Every house had these ghosts. Poor Emma wasn’t heartless enough to ignore hers. She knew the old woman’s problem: loneliness. And Emma wasn’t mean enough to simply hang up on the old woman the way Pam used to. Instead, Emma settled more comfortably in her chair and gathered her energy so that she could shout responses to the poor old woman’s questions.

  They went on interminably, it seemed. At last she was done—at least finished talking about business. But Mrs. Morrison wanted contact—personal contact. “And you, Emma? How are you? Are you all work and no play? Is there a nice young man in your social life?”

  Emma almost snorted at the question. She had no social life. Although last night, she had actually gone to The Gray Rabbit, and despite her habitual shyness and withdrawal she had actually met someone: Alex. She wouldn’t want to shock old Anna Morrison by telling her that she had given Alex her phone number in a bar the night before. Well, she probably would never hear from Alex again.

  “Nothing to report, Mrs. Morrison,” she said as cheerfully as she could. She couldn’t restrain a sigh. Why did people bother to take your number and then never call you? Emma shared a little spicy gossip about Chad Weston’s new book and then managed to get rid of Anna Morrison at last. She looked at the work in front of her. Carefully, methodically, she began her sorting, watching as her “to do” list grew to three pages.

  Without a knock, the door flew open and Pam Mantiss stuck her head in. “The motherfucker died on me,” Pam said. “Now what the fuck am I going to do?”

  “What?” Emma asked.

  “Peet Trawley. The prick died. You know what his lawyer just told me? He said Peet has arranged his own tombstone. And you know what it’s going to say?” Emma shook her head.

  “‘I told you I was sick.’” Pam laughed maniacally, took a swig from her Snapple bottle, and threw a stack of papers onto Emma’s desk. “I’d like to chisel a fucking omega on it. The End. I don’t know what the fuck I’m do
ing,” Pam admitted, throwing herself into Emma’s spare chair. “I just can’t believe this has happened to me. Go through this shit and put together the sales report. I can’t do it. Goddamn it! I can’t believe the motherfucker died on me.” Pam finished the Snapple, threw the bottle at Emma’s wastebasket, got up, and walked out of the room.

  Emma looked at the shelf of Peet Trawley’s oeuvre. All of them had the omega symbol, which she and the other editors cattily referred to as “the ancient Greek symbol for dreck.” Peet was dead. Pam was shaken. Emma was merely thirsty. She wished she had some Snapple, but Pam never shared.

  Now she’d have to review the sales report. It was hours of work. She picked up the rumpled sheaf of papers dumped in front of her and wondered how she’d find the time to add one more thing to her “to do” list.

  19

  Often while reading a book one feels that the author would have preferred to paint rather than write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.

  —Pablo Picasso

  Camilla and Frederick arrived in Assisi at twilight, and the driver expertly maneuvered the narrow street that led first up the hill to the apex and then down through a gate, passed the church of Saint Francis, and wound around to the venerable Hotel Subiaso. It was the only hotel perched beside the huge basilica. The suite had a terrace large enough to host a small drinks party on, and Camilla couldn’t help but be drawn through the French doors. There was a spectacular view of the Umbrian plain seven hundred feet below. Despite her horrid nervousness, her concern about the sleeping arrangements and the lot, she couldn’t help but be seduced by the scene, if not by Frederick himself.

  “It’s wonderful,” she said reverently. He joined her and nodded. “It’s like the landscape behind a Leonardo painting.”

  “You have a good eye.”

  “I would have been a painter if I had the talent,” Camilla told him.

  “And I’d have been a painter if I had the talent.” She looked at him, surprised. Then she was lured back to the view. “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “I like everything. Especially you.” Then she was embarrassed by her warmth. “With the exception of your sadly misguided preference for Guardi over Canaletto.”

  “Hah!” He put his hand up and examined her hair. “You’re showing your bourgeois roots, my girl.”

  She jumped involuntarily, then stared back out at the view, not knowing what to feel. She felt exposed somehow. Her roots were not bourgeois at all—they were far lower than that. What did his little joke mean? Below them lights were beginning to twinkle. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ve never stayed in Assisi overnight, and I’m sure you don’t get this view from anywhere except the hotel.”

  “That’s nothing,” Frederick said. “Take a look at this.” Gently he took her arm and turned her to the right. There, abutting the side of the hill, the church of Saint Francis extended itself to the very end of the peak, illuminated and as nobly beautiful as the prow of a ship. Camilla actually gasped. Although she had seen the basilica by night, lit at the entrance, the massive stone portals viewed from the piazza didn’t reveal even a tenth of the structure.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Frederick said. “And they built it in three years.”

  The building was astonishing. It was, essentially, a full church built upon a full church. Although there was no dome, the double height of the two floors combined, built into and rising out of the hill of Assisi itself, made the whole deeply impressive. The rows of riblike flying buttresses were like the exposed bones of a fossil along the escarpment of the Assisi cliff. It was a breathtaking sight, and it brought Camilla great joy—the kind of joy that cannot be planned for or sought but that comes serendipitously. Suddenly she was flooded with it, nearly drunk with it, and it must have showed.

  Camilla wished she could talk about it, could thank him and tell him how much the sight meant to her. But she wasn’t good with words—not unless she wrote them down. She hadn’t even been able to broach the subject of his intentions—whether Frederick expected her to sleep with him. She hated being so tongue-tied.

  Maybe Frederick understood. “I’ll leave you here,” he said. “My room is next door.” Before she could say anything, he withdrew. She felt a momentary stab of guilt: It had so far been so easy. No embarrassing fumblings, no need for gentle explanations or—far worse—awkward struggles and recriminations. She was, apparently, free. No strings attached. Free to take in this beauty without having to bonk him. She had misjudged Frederick.

  Tonight she felt herself among the privileged. On other day visits she had looked up and seen people on the many terraces and balconies of the Subiaso. She had known that it was not, as her mother surely would have put it, “for the likes of us.” But now it was for her. She smiled in the dark. Looking out at the view was like owning a wonderful painting. She tried to memorize the sight, so that she could recall it at will.

  Just then a shutter door opened and, on a much smaller balcony, Frederick appeared. He waved. “Do you think you might consider relinquishing the view if I tempted you with dinner on the terrace below?” He gestured, and though she couldn’t see his hand in the increasing darkness, his white shirt cuff gleamed. She looked down. Two or three stories below was a vast piazza. She hadn’t noticed it because it was completely roofed with green leaves. Just below the verdant canopy she could glimpse the diners who were beginning to take their tables. “I have a reservation. I wanted to be sure we had a seat by the railing,” he told her. His head was cocked in that funny way of his—birdlike and pushed almost down to one shoulder. “Do you think you could stop drinking all this in and start eating instead?” His white teeth flashed in the darkness. She nodded, then realized he wouldn’t be able to see her gesture.

  “Yes,” she called to him. “I’m starving. But aren’t you knackered?”

  “What? Knackered? Sounds like something done to a horse.” She heard him laugh, and she blushed.

  She always said the wrong thing. She probably sounded like a yob. “Tired,” she said, flustered. “I meant tired. Anyway, knock on my door when you’re ready. I’ll go down on you.” She realized then what she’d said and blushed furiously. “Go down with you,” she corrected.

  “Well, I think I prefer the former, but I’ll do the latter,” Frederick laughed.

  Perfect. He was genteel, and I throw in the smut! What a balls-up. Camilla wondered about Frederick again. He was certainly attentive, but so were so many homosexual men. And why else would he be traveling with his mother? But perhaps he was not gay. Nervously Camilla went back inside and only then realized the room was actually a small suite. The parlor was furnished in old but tasteless Italian furniture of the if-its-gilded-or-painted-it-must-be-bellisimo school. A small door led to the minuscule bedroom. There was only enough space there for a large bed painted with garlands of peonies and a huge matching wardrobe. But there were shutters that opened to a small balcony, similar to the one Frederick had stood on. Camilla looked from the balcony to the bed and realized that she could sleep tonight with the shutters open and wake up to a view unsurpassed in all of Umbria. She smiled, then forced herself to get down to business, washing up and dressing. She was just finishing up when she heard Frederick’s tap at the door. Grabbing a jumper to throw over her shoulders, she joined him in the hallway.

  Camilla was charmed by the dining room—if a veranda covered with vines could be classified as a room. Once again, as in San Gimignano, she and Frederick were led to the best table, in the corner where the two railings met. The leafy roof rustled, and Camilla put the jumper around her shoulders.

  “Cold?” Frederick asked. “Shall I give you my jacket?”

  “No,” she told him, “it’s perfect.”

  And it was. The meal was perfect, the view was perfect, and the wine was perfect. Despite her awkwardness, they talke
d about Saint Francis and Saint Claire and planned how they would spend the day tomorrow. The dining room buzzed pleasantly with the talk of couples and families enjoying themselves.

  At last, when Frederick ordered an espresso, Camilla shook her head. It was too late in the evening for her to drink coffee, and she had never really grown to like it despite her years in America and Italy. She was a PG Tips girl, though in New York she’d gotten used to instant coffee. She’d never admit that was all she drank.

  “I tell you what,” he suggested. “Why don’t we have dessert and my espresso on your veranda?” He turned to the waiter, who immediately nodded.

  Oh no, Camilla thought. Now all of the messiness would begin. She should have known. She had no one to blame but herself. She got up, reluctantly, as Frederick held her chair. He took her arm just above the elbow, and they walked across the dining room. “They have a miraculous fruit sorbet that they serve in a hollowed-out frozen peach,” Frederick murmured. “I’ve ordered you one.”

  Camilla nodded stiffly. Frederick walked very slowly, almost holding her back, his head cocked to the side in his habitual way. They entered the lift, and when they reached their floor, she led Frederick to her room. She fiddled with the big, ancient key but couldn’t get the door to open. Her hands were shaking. Gently, Frederick took the key from her and deftly placed it in the keyhole, opening the door. This was it, then, she thought, her heart sinking. They walked through the salon and out onto the balcony. A waiter followed them, threw a white cloth over the table, and wiped down the two painted chairs. They both took seats while he served the espresso to Frederick and placed the peach before Camilla with a flourish. It looked like nothing so much as a Chinese baby’s face, the top cut off and replaced as a little cap. Despite her anxiety, Camilla had to smile. And it was delicious. Somehow the frozen crystals tasted even more peachlike than the best peaches she had ever had. She took the long spoon and silently offered some to Frederick, but he didn’t see her gesture or else ignored it. Perhaps he didn’t care for sweets. Or he was waiting for dessert of another kind. He had finished his espresso and now leaned forward. “Camilla, I would like to ask you to do something with me. I know it’s a lot to ask. It involves a lot of trust, but I think you can trust me.”