The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Opal even heard from the Bloomington Library, a congratulatory letter from the snippy boy who hadn’t permitted her extended leave. He wrote, at the insistence of the board, to apologize and to offer her job back.

  In less than a year so much had changed. A year ago Opal had believed that her own life and her daughter’s life was wasted. Now, though the tragedy of Terry’s suicide didn’t abate, Opal felt vindicated and, more important, at peace. She had spent her own life reading and last year at this time she’d felt that perhaps hers was a pathetic and wasted life. She hadn’t “done” enough. But her adventure in New York had renewed her faith in reading. It wasn’t an alternative to experience, or an escape from it. Not if you did it right. Reading was the only way we could transcend our own experience and deeply engage in that of another’s.

  Opal had never written a book, but she knew now that the reader was as important as the writer. In the beautiful relationship of literature, she, Opal O’Neal, was a talented reader and she was proud. If only Terry…Opal stopped herself. Suicide cut off the possibility of what tomorrow would bring. Opal continued to be amazed by her own tomorrows.

  Now her adventure seemed finished. Despite the cold wetness of the day, Opal went out into the backyard. The weeping cherry tree was bare, and once again all the ground smelled of cat. But when Opal caught one of the stringlike tips of the cherry branch, she saw the beginning of tiny buds and knew that in the spring not only the tree but the whole garden would come into full white bloom. It seemed a pity to leave it—somehow the garden seemed to be Terry’s final resting place. But the bench was cold, and Opal shivered. She had her job, her house, and her friends waiting for her back in Bloomington, and to Bloomington she would have to go. Her daughter’s ashes remained to be buried, and she would put them in the Bloomington cemetery in the plot next to her own.

  She realized she was feeling morbid as well as sad. She let herself out of the garden by the gate and walked over to Broadway and the few blocks to The Bookstall. She hadn’t seen Roberta in almost two weeks and hadn’t worked at the store in twice as long. Now she could hardly believe her eyes as she saw the big signs in both windows. Opal stood in the wet, staring from one window to the other in stunned immobility. Then she marched through the door and into the warmth of the store.

  Margaret was at the counter, ineffectually fluttering over a credit card sale. In all this time, Opal noted with irritation, Margaret still couldn’t handle the simple task of drawing the magnetic strip through the reader and punching in the purchase amount. But Opal had no time for that nonsense now. “Where’s Roberta?” Opal snapped. Margaret, looking up, made a fluttering gesture toward the back.

  Opal didn’t bother to knock on the office door—she went in and found Roberta at the table she used as a desk, filling in inventory forms and using her calculator.

  “What in the world is going on?” Opal asked.

  Roberta spun around in her swivel chair. “Oh, hello, Opal. I thought you were back today. I was going to call, but I got so busy since the sale started. It’s been a madhouse here. There’s just so much to do.”

  “Going out of business?” Opal said. “So much work to do to go out of business?”

  Roberta shrugged her thin shoulders. “I should have told you. I know that. But there were so many wonderful things happening for you that I thought discretion was the better part of valor. Don’t be angry.”

  “Angry? I’m in a state of shock.”

  “Come on, Opal. You worked here. You know business hasn’t been good. Not for a long time. And the shop next door is empty. The landlord wants to raise my rent at the end of the lease this year, and when I can’t manage to do that, he’ll knock the stores together. I just can’t compete with the big chains,” Roberta said apologetically. “You know, they say competition makes better booksellers. I’m not so sure, but it certainly makes me an unhappier bookseller. I should have put my money into real estate instead of books.” She sighed. “If I owned my penthouse, I’d be rich right now, instead of broke.”

  Opal sat down heavily on the molded plastic chair across from Roberta. “So you’re just giving up?” she asked.

  Roberta took umbrage. “I don’t think that founding and running this bookstore for thirty-one years comes under the category of just giving up,” she said crossly. “But if you’re asking me whether I’m going to retire or not, the answer is I am.”

  “But why don’t you at least sell the business to some other bookstore owner?”

  Roberta shook her head. “It would be difficult with the superstore down the block, and without a lease it’s impossible. I’ve been putting it off as long as I could, Opal. Now I have to face reality. The store has got to close.” Only then did Opal see Roberta’s lower lip tremble, but even then it was only for a moment. “Heaven knows what I’ll do with myself,” Roberta admitted.

  Opal sat there stunned. Of all the ridiculous things she’d ever heard, this was the most ridiculous. Selecting and selling books was a talent, and Roberta was meant to do both. Opal loved the store, just as Terry had.

  “There is another alternative,” Opal said briskly. “Expand. Put in a café. Add to your titles. Discount some books. Stay open late. Hire more staff. Compete with the big boys, and do better than they do because you can have some major events here. Once we break through the wall to the next space.”

  “We?” Roberta asked and laughed. “I’m afraid it’s just me, and I don’t have the money. Banks don’t appreciate the book business. I can’t get a loan against my inventory the way hardware stores can. I just don’t have the money.”

  “No, but we do.” Opal sat up straight in the uncomfortable chair. “I have close to two hundred thousand dollars, and that’s not counting the sale of the house in Bloomington. Take me in as a partner. Margaret can handle the baking and the coffee machine. You and I can do the rest, if we can get a good stockboy,” she smiled. “Maybe Aiello will help out.”

  “But I thought you were going back to Indiana?” Roberta said.

  “What for? My life is here now.” Opal asked, realizing it was true. “I like New York. It’s the very best place for an older woman—it’s filled with theaters, museums, movies, bookstores, public transportation, and the best doctors in the world. I’d be a fool to leave,” Opal said, all at once quite sure that it was true. “What would it cost to buy in?”

  “I…I don’t know. I’m not sure I know.” Roberta paused. “Oh, Opal, do you really want to? Please don’t get my hopes up. I’ve only just managed to adjust to losing the store.”

  “Readjust, Roberta, and give me the good chair,” Opal said. “The first thing we do is buy two of these comfortable ones.”

  “No,” Roberta said. “The first thing I do is kiss you right on the cheek. Then I call Paul Mahon and we start having him draw up some papers.”

  109

  I get a fine warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell.

  —William Styron

  Judith was having trouble walking, but that’s what happened, she knew, in the eighth month. Her ankles were swollen and her arches ached. She stumbled a lot. It wasn’t only that her feet hurt, it was also that her balance had shifted in some funny way so that her hips were no longer her center of gravity. This walk along the cracked New York City sidewalks felt like an adventure. She tripped at the curb, and Alex Simmons grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?” Alex asked.

  “Sure,” Judith told her, “I do this all the time. It’s just that I’m nervous about meeting the publisher.”

  Alex smiled. “Nothing to be nervous about,” she said. “I promise you, Craig and the editor in chief really loved your book. Are you okay?”

  Judith sighed. The busy street scene kept changing all around her. The homeless woman was gone, but now a young man walking a dozen dogs—all dalmatians—walked by. It was surreal. Maybe this was all a dream, but if it was, she did
n’t want to wake up. She had been having very strange dreams in the last couple of weeks. Finishing the book and being so close to her baby’s due date must be the reason. Whatever the reason, she’d woken up more than once in a total sweat, thinking that she had had the baby and it had been stolen from her. And three times now she’d dreamed that the finished manuscript had disappeared.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated to Alex, and the funny thing was that she was fine. Alone she had seen this pregnancy to term, and alone she had finished her novel. It had poured out of her, just the way she wanted to write it. And if it was dark and harsh, that was all right, too. Life was sometimes both. Judith wasn’t happy, exactly, but she was content. She’d had time to do a lot of thinking, and she didn’t believe anymore that happy was a goal. Good work was a goal. And happy, with luck, might be a by-product. If it wasn’t, that was all right, too.

  “Should we take a cab?” Alex asked with concern. “It’s another five or six blocks to Citron Press.”

  “No. I’m fine, really.”

  “How are things with your divorce?” Alex asked. “I know you’re in good hands with Diana. She’s a great lawyer.”

  Judith nodded. “She’s been great. She even read the manuscript for me, she and her friend Brenda. So has Emma Ashton. What would I have done if she hadn’t sent me to you?” Judith sighed. “My future former husband seems to have gotten a lot crazier since In Full Knowledge failed. He even asked if we could get back together. But I think that’s because he has no one to do his laundry and he wanted to save lawyer’s fees.”

  Alex laughed, then nodded sagely. “Two reasons to stay together,” she said. “Or maybe he’s heard you’re the one who’s going to have the bestseller. Craig is very high about your book. He thinks it’s going to hit a responsive nerve. He’s got a new distribution deal with Macmillan, so the book could really get out there. I could take it to a bigger house and you might get a larger advance, but I honestly think that Craig—”

  “No big publishers,” Judith said, holding up her hand and almost losing her balance again. “I think I’m finished with big publishers.” She laughed. “Not that they ever had the time for me in the first place. What’s happened to Pam Mantiss? I know she got fired.”

  “I heard she went into a rehab somewhere out in the Midwest,” Alex said. “But she kept smuggling in drugs and made such a fuss that they threw her out. Now she’s resurfaced as a children’s book editor.” Alex shrugged. “Hey; it’s a bunny-eat-bunny world. She’ll fit right in. Listen, how are you fixed for money? With the baby coming and everything. Can your family help out?”

  Judith laughed. “Not after they read this book,” she said. “But Diana managed to scare Daniel enough to get a quick settlement. I got fifty thousand dollars, tax-free. And my expenses aren’t very high. Flaubert doesn’t eat much. And my rent is only four hundred a month.” They turned a corner and walked past the Hotel Chelsea. Three really strange-looking people, all painfully thin and of no clear gender, stood at the hotel entrance. New York City was so wild.

  “Well, I think I could probably get fifty out of Craig if I push it. Or I could try to auction it. But then you’re stuck with whatever house puts up the most money.” Judith remembered the party not far from here in Chelsea and how all the people from Davis & Dash surrounded her husband. She shuddered.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think money is the answer.”

  “Depends on what the question is,” Alex said dryly. “If the question is what do you pay for your groceries with, you bet the answer is money.” Alex took Judith’s arm and led her to the entrance of a building. It was Art Deco, with lofty windows and an interesting tile floor in the lobby, but it was a bit rundown. The elevator operator was sleeping on a folding chair. Alex shrugged. “Sixth Avenue it ain’t,” she said apologetically. The elevator operator awoke with a start and took them up to the fifth floor.

  Judith was surprised by Citron Press—it was clean and bright and busy. A young girl with a shock of raspberry-colored hair greeted them pleasantly with a “Yo, Alex. Craig’s waiting for you.” Alex led Judith down to the end of the hall. They walked into a large room with a table instead of a desk, three or four comfortable chairs, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A very good-looking man raised his head and turned to them.

  “Alex!” he said, rising. “And this must be Judith Hunt.” Judith smiled at him and nodded. She wasn’t using Daniel’s name, not ever again.

  The woman sitting across from Craig with her back to the door turned around. Judith stared. The woman stared back.

  “Judith Hunt?” Emma Ashton said. She stood up. “Oh my God, Judith. Judith Gross. It’s you!” Judith just stood there. Why was Emma Ashton here? She put out her hand to say hello. Emma had been kind to her, the only good person at Davis & Dash.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Emma was blinking. “Judith, you’re Judith Hunt?” Judith nodded. “I love your book,” Emma said. Judith smiled proudly, but she wondered how Emma had gotten a chance to read it.

  “I’m so glad,” Judith told her, and meant it. “I followed your advice.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Emma said.

  “I’m confused,” Craig told them, “but then, what else is new?”

  Alex cleared her throat. “I thought a blind submission was best. I wasn’t sure how you two felt about each other. But you seem to like each other,” she added. She took a seat and crossed her long legs. “That’s a relief. I always prefer my authors to like their editors.”

  “My editor?” Judith asked.

  Emma nodded her head. “I’m editor in chief here at Citron Press,” she explained. “I got fired from D&D. Then Craig adopted me. I loved your book, Judith. So did Craig. But I just didn’t realize you were Judith Gross.”

  Judiths face broke into an enormous smile. “You’re the editor in chief here?” she asked. “You’d be my editor? But what happened at Davis & Dash?”

  “Too much to tell you now.” Emma laughed. “Anyway, I’m here, and I’d love to work with you.” Judith felt a strong kick in her belly and put her hand over it. The baby liked this woman. Maybe she’d name the baby Emma, if it was a girl.

  “You believed me,” she said. “You were the only one who believed me.” She turned to Alex. “She was the only one who did. Of course I like her.”

  Alex grinned and put her hand on Emma’s shoulder. “I’m not surprised. The woman has great instincts.”

  “So, you’d like to work with us at Citron Press?” Craig asked.

  “Oh, God, I’d love to,” Judith said. “I’d just really love to.” She blinked. Somehow that didn’t seem enough to say. “My heart is full.”

  “And your work is great,” Craig continued. He was really a very nice-looking man. “You’re really good. We can market you as a softer Mary Gaitskill. I think we can get you a big audience.”

  “Honestly?” she asked.

  “I think so.” He looked down at her stomach, but, unlike other men, he didn’t quickly pull his eyes away in a kind of rictus of embarrassment. “Let’s go out to lunch,” he suggested. “We have to feed that baby, don’t we?”

  “Sure,” Alex agreed, and took Emma’s hand. Craig crossed the room and took Judith’s, helping her up from her seat. Her hand felt very good in his. “There are a lot of angles we can use to promote this book,” Alex was saying to Emma as they walked down the hallway. Craig kept Judith’s hand in his.

  “Don’t start yelling at me about advertising already,” Emma warned.

  “Don’t start taking it personally,” Alex told her.

  “When is the baby due?” Craig asked quietly.

  “Next month,” Judith answered. He gave her hand a squeeze.

  “Your first?” he asked. Judith nodded. Maybe she was crazy, but she felt as if the man actually was attracted to her. Probably that was just his way of being nice to authors.

  “Your husband must be over the moon,” Craig said.

&nb
sp; “I’m not married—not anymore,” she said blushing. “Didn’t Alex tell you the whole story?”

  Craig looked at her, obviously confused. “I don’t think Alex Simmons is in the habit of talking about her authors’ personal lives. She keeps it to business mostly.” Judith laughed as they stepped into the elevator. “This was about the business,” she told him.

  “My God, Craig, you’re not going to believe this,” Emma said as the elevator doors closed.

  110

  All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

  —Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

  Camilla tore open the envelope and took out the note paper-clipped to another piece of paper. “I thought you might be pleased with this,” Alex had written. “I certainly am.” Camilla looked down at the check. It was notated “Davis & Dash: A Week in Firenze hardcover royalties.” The check was made out to her in the amount of $811,653.97. Camilla stared at the long slice of gray paper. She didn’t know exactly how much it was in pounds, but it was quite enough. She rubbed her finger across her name, Camilla Clapfish, and the huge amount. She was worth that much and more. It was quite amazing, really. Ridiculous. Rather like the fairy tale where the farmer’s daughter spins straw into gold.

  Alex Simmons had been a very busy girl, and—aside from the thirty-seven weeks Camilla’s book had been number one on the bestseller list—the movie rights had been optioned by Laura Ziskin and Kevin McCormick at Fox—they actually liked literary projects there. Foreign rights had been sold to eighteen different countries—Camilla would see her words in Thai, in Tagalog and Serbian, along with all the Romance languages. She wondered, for a moment, whether Gianfranco would read it in Italian when it came out there.