by Daniel Klein
“Maybe I should run this by Mrs. Hastings,” Digby says. “What’s the product? I mean, what are they advertising?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Thank you, Madeleine.” Digby is feeling so grateful and expansive that he adds, “How’s Rosti doing?”
Madeleine pauses, rather dramatically it seems, and replies, “He’s definitely on his way.”
“Here?”
“Just on his way.”
Wending his way back to his office, Digby decides to take the shortcut through the Goldenfield/MacLane bunker—a little high-step strutting seems in order. He does not knock.
“Good morning, Mr. Maxwell.”
What is this? A personal greeting from June MacLane—one bordering on cheery?
June is slouched in her computer chair, both hands behind her head. She does not look in Digby’s direction, but he can see that there is something resembling a smile on her thin lips. Speaking of which, her upper lip, once the site of several well-tended wiry hairs, is squeaky clean. She has evidently been daydreaming. Now she abruptly snaps to attention and hits the delete button on her computer, but not before Digby can see the headline on her screen: “Baby Boy Names A–Z.”
Good God, the woman really is pregnant!
By golly, her condition already seems to be bringing out something unexpectedly womanly—well, at least womanish—in her. Could this have an impact on her feminist Weltanschauung? During Digby’s stoned crash course on the history of philosophy, he remembers being struck by William James’s bizarrely commonsense notion that all metaphysics begins in the gut. Perhaps that includes the womb also.
“Have a good one,” Digby calls, exiting through the rear door of her office into his own.
Sitting back in his chair, Digby gazes fondly at the view through his floor-to-ceiling windows.
My domain. Mine, mine, mine.
Among the tulip and daffodil blossoms are some jaunty, bright red gewgaws peeping out here and there. Digby squints. They are vermillion plastic flags flapping atop wooden stakes—boundary markers planted by the sozzled surveyors.
Digby does a little daydreaming himself. He sees Binx Berger holding forth at a Tribeca, hipper-than-hip cocktail party where he lets it be known that he is doing a hilarious piece for this crazy new magazine, Cogito. Something between a philosophy journal and Rolling Stone. In fact, word has it that it’s the new Rolling Stone which, as everyone knows, is currently growing moss. It’s for today’s smarties, the iPad and coke set. But get this—it’s burrowing in from the outside, based in some backwoods, white bread college in Vermont. Of course, there’s a savvy New Yorker at the helm. Digby Maxwell. Remember him? The middle-aged formerly very-next-thing guy?
Either Saatchi or Saatchi listens raptly to Binx’s spiel, taking notes.
Yup, that’s undoubtedly how it happened, Digby muses. Old Digby can’t help being on the cusp of the very next thing, because the very next thing follows him everywhere he goes. He is about to dial up Felicia Hastings to tell her about his coup of all coups, when he realizes that he doesn’t have a clue what product the Saatchi boys plan to push in their full-page ads. Digby needs his ducks all lined up. So he does a few breathing exercises and dials Clive Bosnoglian in New York. Bosnoglian’s secretary puts him right through.
“Maxwell. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”
“My pleasure, Clive. How are things in the Big Apple?”
“Oh, you know, the same old, same old. Always trying to catch the wave.”
“Right.”
“Looks like you’re riding the wave this time, Maxwell.”
Digby is attacked by sudden-onset hyperventilation. He closes his eyes and attempts to decrease his oxygen intake.
“I try,” Digby finally says. “So listen, Clive, we’re happy to reserve those pages for you, but I need a few details to bring to my board. Just a pro forma thing. Like who’s your client.”
“Duke University Press,” Clive says.
Jesus Christ, the whole fucking thing is a prank! Scott or Phil put him up to it. Maybe even Fanny. I have been suckered. I am the fool. Thank God I didn’t call Felicia.
“Only kidding,” Clive Bosnoglian chuckles. “Just wanted you to know I did my homework. We’re thinking back page for Jaguar. First turn, iPad. Inside exit, either Gap or Dewar’s. All three targeted copy with a philosophy tie-in. Like somebody on the Jaguar account tossed out, ‘Don’t put Descartes before the horsepower.’ Just a thought, but it is kinda cute, ya think?”
“Adorable,” Digby says. He is so relieved that the Saatchi deal is not a prank that he actually does find the horsepower gag kinda cute.
“So when can I have some numbers, Maxwell? Throw in a discount for a year’s worth so we can toss that around too. And don’t get greedy on us, okay? We know what Duke paid.”
“That was before—”
“I know, I know. But you’re not Rolling Stone. Not yet. We’re taking a flyer on you.”
“I’ll be kind,” Digby says. “I’ll be back to you ASAP.”
After hanging up, Digby sits very quietly and, he believes, maturely, at his desk. He removes a fresh sheet of Cogito stationery from the middle drawer and sets it in front of him where he taps on it allegro non troppo with his pencil. Then he writes down: “Bk. Cover—$6,000. Insides: $4,500” He taps a few measures more and ups his numbers to $7,500 and $5,500. He looks down upon it and, lo, it is good. Actually, for a magazine with a circulation of 2,000, it is outrageously good.
But hold on, those Saatchi fellows are no fools. If they hear buzz, buzz it is. And if they then call up the editor-in-chief in Vermont, that buzz must be a drum roll. They see the circulation skyrocketing very soon. Say up to twenty-five thousand, maybe twice that, every subscriber in the Jaguar disposable income bracket. Okay then, how about $10,000 and $6,000? It’s my last offer.
Hold on, indeed. This news needs to be delivered to Felicia in person. Time for a little stroll to the Hastings manse.
He rises, pockets his ad page estimates, and takes a few steps toward the door when the phone rings.
“Maxwell here,” he answers. It is his old New York Magazine greeting and he likes the masterly sound of it.
“Hi, Digby. It’s Muffy.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Muffy. Kim’s Muffy.”
Digby remains clueless, not to mention impatient. “This is Cogito magazine,” he says. “How can I help you?”
“Muffy,” the woman’s voice repeats, more than a hint of haughtiness in her voice. “We met at the Rite of Spring shindig. The one where you executed your famous beer bottle grand jette.”
“I’m so sorry, Muffy. Lot on my mind at the moment.”
“Pas de problem,” Ms. Muffy says. Digby imagines Miles “Kim” Herker beaming with pride as his wife drops her Francophile belle phrases around their too-small president’s house. “I’ve signed you up for next Thursday’s Thursday Morning Club. Faculty club dining room. Ten-ish.”
“Great. Is there a dress code?”
“Clothing is optional,” Muffy titters. “But we do need to settle on a topic. How does ‘Marriage and Morality’ sound?”
“Like an oxymoron.”
“Oh dear, you are as naughty as they say you are,” Muffy laughs.
“Listen, Mrs. Herker, I think you should know that I’m not really a philosopher, just a newspaperman without portfolio.”
“Charmant,” Muffy says. “I’ll see you on Thursday. We are going to have fun, aren’t we?”
“Loads.”
Going out the front door, Digby nearly collides with Madeleine. “He’s getting faint,” she mumbles, gesturing to the black plastic oval in her hand, the mother end of Rosti’s monitor. He wishes her Godspeed and lopes on toward the Hastings manse on Hawthorne Street.
Minutes later, he is rapping on the Hastings’ front door. No response. He presses the doorbell and hears the chimes tinkle something vaguely ecclesiastical. Still no answer. He c
ranes his head toward Felicia’s driveway—her Lexus is there, but that doesn’t tell him much as she often walks to town. He invokes one last chime whilst pressing his nose to the front door window and peering in through the Brussels lace curtain.
Lo and behold, inside he beholds a flurry of kinematics. The body in motion belongs to the mistress of the house, Mrs. Felicia Hastings, and it is clad in only brassiere and panties. He instantly withdraws his face and starts backing toward the steps, but not before he spies another body prancing by in the Victorian vestibule. This one belongs to her silver-topped lawyer and it is stark naked.
Digby gets his ass out of there.
CHAPTER 14
Have any of the great philosophers ever shed much light on the topic of sex? Sure, Freud built his entire motivational shtick on the making of whoopee, but that hardly qualifies as a philosophy—it just arbitrarily prioritizes the sex drive over, say, hunger or the ofttimes compelling urge to take a good bowel movement. And true, St. Augustine went on at length about his battle to maintain his celibacy. Who can forget his Comedy Cellar-worthy quip to God, “Give me chastity, but not yet.” As Sylvie might say, his presumed outcome was a foregone conclusion.
But who among the Great Thinkers has ever put his or her finger on how sex alters the course of history? Even Nietzsche’s übermensch forges history with his pants on. Quoth the imperious German, “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
Right, Friedrich, try telling that one to your marriage counselor.
Speaking of St. Augustine and Sylvie, Digby has noted of late a certain chasteness creeping into The Unmade Bed; there seems to be a whole lot more moral wrangling and a whole lot less sex going on between the sheets and, not surprisingly, a consequent drop in her online hits. Could she be warming up for a Cogito article of her own?
As Digby bounces into his office, visions of Dewar’s ads dancing in his head, not to mention visions of Felicia Hastings and her attorney in flagrante delicto, he is greeted by Madeleine. She looks flushed. Beside her stands the Russian logician.
“Good morning, Digby,” Madeleine says. “Rosti has something he wants to show you.”
“I can’t imagine what it is,” Digby says. Actually, he would prefer not to imagine what it is.
“He’s written an amazing piece for the heaven issue,” she says.
Digby studies Madeleine’s face, trying to determine what exactly it is that has changed there. Her pert, upturned nose and toothy mouth remain the same, pleasantly plain in a wholesome, outdoorsy way. But her eyes—yes, that’s what it is; they have turned from smoky quartz to phosphorescent obsidian. Add in her glowing cheeks and Digby concludes that Ms. Follet is recently of the unmade bed. Obviously with the Russian. Because he now sees that Rosti’s eyes, atypically, are focused. Something dramatic has caused him to finally take a gander at the real world, a place that is usually only studied by those flim-flam philosophers known as empiricists.
“It came,” Rosti announces, knocking the side of his head.
“Wonderful,” Digby replies.
Rosti hands a single sheet of paper to Madeleine who, in turn, rises and hands it to Digby. In toto, the Russian’s essay covers one-third of the page:
That One
by
Rostislav Demidov, Ph. D.
There are other possible universes.
The probability that they exist is not calculable.
But if they do exist, the probability of any one of them being more heavenly than our universe is 1 in 2.
So if a greater-than-1 to less-than-infinite number of other universes exists, one is the most heavenly.
That one is Heaven.
“Brilliant!” Digby says, although he has not comprehended a word of it. It does, however, strike him as a perfect balance to Binx Berger’s upcoming piece. A cardinal rule in New York magazine publishing is to always make the reader feel very smart and deep before hitting him with a juicy bit of gossip or some puerile humor, which is what the reader wanted in the first place but felt too guilty to indulge in.
“His first draft was in logical symbols, but I made him write it out,” Madeleine says.
“I bet he wrote it on the back of a napkin, am I right?”
Madeleine and Rostislav exchange giddy glances and Digby is left to imagine on exactly what he penned his post-coital insight into possible heavenly universes. In any event, this confirms it for Digby: the next issue of Cogito will be devoted to the philosophy of sex. He envisions Saatchi & Saatchi doubling their ad buys.
The phone rings and Digby picks up.
“Felicia Hastings,” the voice says. It is ice.
“Hello, Felicia. How are you?” Digby decides on the spot not to mention that he recently saw her in her underwear.
“We need to talk,” she says. “Now. Here.”
“I’ll be right over.”
So back Digby goes to the Hastings manse. He does not feel lighthearted anymore. Felicia’s tone of voice has canceled that. Did she spot him sighting her through the window? Is she blaming the witness for what he witnessed?
Digby does not even need to knock for the door to open this time. Mrs. Hastings is not only fully dressed, but has donned a regal lavender dress with gold accessories. She shows him into the parlor with nary a word. He sits.
“We can’t have these obscene advertisements, Mr. Maxwell,” she says.
Obscene?
How the hell does she know about this already? From Madeleine, no doubt. Yes, Madeleine must have been extremely busy in the last couple of hours.
“I don’t think they’re obscene. Not in today’s world, Felicia. And that’s who we’re aiming at. Smart young people. I assume you’re talking about the scotch ad.”
“All of them. The car, that electronic thing, those vulgar dresses.”
“Gap?”
“Exactly.”
For the life of him, Digby cannot fathom what is going on here. “Do you have any idea what they’d be willing to pay? We’re talking five figures per issue.”
“Cogito is simply not that kind of enterprise.”
Digby is about to remind her that the very reason he was brought in was to change Cogito’s enterprise, but a little voice inside him warns him not to go there. It is the voice of job panic.
“Are you sure this is what Bonner would want?” he asks. He is being provocative, he knows, but he is grasping at straws here.
“Yes.”
“You consulted with him?”
“This morning, in fact.”
In your bra and panties? With your naked counselor at your side?
“Well, maybe you can tell me what kind of products would be acceptable,” Digby says. “What you and Bonner would approve of. Encyclopedias? Yogurt? Lighting fixtures? These are reasonable people, Felicia. I can talk to them.”
Felicia appears somewhat flummoxed by Digby’s question. Whatever her agenda may be, she apparently has not thought through all the steps thoroughly, and Digby, it seems, has just executed a canny move in this game, the name and aim of which completely elude him.
“We, uh . . . I will have to get back to you on that,” she says. And with that, Digby is dismissed.
An odor follows Digby up Hawthorne Street. It is the smell of the proverbial rat. From whence comes all this uppitiness about Cogito’s image? Is Felicia’s WASPY sense of propriety suddenly asserting itself in spite of Bonner’s fondest hopes for the magazine? When Digby showed her proofs of the articles that had already come in, she had no objection to the radical slant of Chuck’s piece, and she found Tommy’s pictorial utterly charming. And when Digby informed her that their new contributor, Binx Berger, was the head writer at Saturday Night Live, she chortled with approval. But now Gap and iPod are too vulgar for consideration? Nope, Digby is sure something else is at play here. And that without a doubt her nudist companion has something to do with it.
Instinctively, Digby’s feet have wended him to Louden Clear’s
door; they have sensed his thirst. He sits at the bar and orders a Dewar’s straight up, drinks it down and orders another. He feels he is now ready to think this thing through with an appropriate lack of clarity. He lines up ducks in the form of swizzle sticks:
Duck #1: Felicia Hastings has a lover.
Duck #2: Her lover is her lawyer.
Duck #3: There’s a distinct chance that said lover was in the picture before her husband died.
Duck #4: They were not pleased by Saatchi & Saatchi’s offer to buy ads, saying that the products were inappropriate.
Duck #5: That reason sounds like baloney.
Digby downs his second scotch in one gulp. He considers the ducks from his new, two-Dewar’s perspective. Obviously, Felicia and Silver Fox want something. He calls that ‘X’ because he doesn’t know what it is.
Winny walks in the door with a bag full of groceries.
Now where was I? ‘X’?
“Love problems?” Winny says, setting her groceries on top of Digby’s carefully lined-up ducks.
“Not mine.”
Winny sits on the stool next to Digby’s. “You’re getting soused over somebody else’s love life? Mine, for example?”
Digby laughs. It is actually good to see Winny. He had been feeling lonely, as one will when drinking alone in the afternoon.
“Felicia Hastings’ love life,” Digby says recklessly.
“With Ronald, you mean?”
“Is that her lawyer?”
“Nobody’s ever seen his diploma, but that’s what he says he is.”
“How long have they been an item?”
“You mean before or after Bonner’s demise?” Winny asks. She signals the barman for a beer and a refill of Digby’s glass.
“Yup.”
“The common wisdom is before.”
“Was he Bonner’s lawyer too?”
“Good question.” Their drinks arrive; they execute a mug and scotch glass clink. “Apparently Ronald applied for the job, but Bonner stuck with his old lawyer to the end. Bob Baskerton, a townie.” Winny gives Digby a little neck rub that is too comforting to resist. “Why the interest? You don’t have designs on her too, do you?”
