First novel! Literary biography! Collected short stories! Spy thriller! Victorian anthology! Investigative reporting! Editing Saturday and Sundays! Reading from seven until midnight! Gertrude breaks 1OO,OOO-copy mark! Sex sells for $600,000 reprint! Editorial meetings! Marketing meetings! Sales conferences! ABA! Howard was on cloud nine (exhausted, thin, bleary-eyed, but up there all the same).
And then the winds suddenly shifted at Gardiner & Grayson, marked by the arrival of a man named Mack Sperry in the business department, and the subsequent hiring of several MBAs. The old sails of power started to rend, and it was soon clear that Harrison, at sixty, was losing control of the ship. Memorandums started appearing:
7 OUT OF 10 BOOKS LOSE MONEY AT GARDINER & GRAYSON. PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENTS ARE BEING RUN ON EACH BOOK AND EACH EDITOR.
Two editors were fired and two editors resigned. They were not replaced.
ALL EDITORS ARE TO SUPPLY THE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT WITH DATA FOR THE FORECAST.
The MBAs flew into editorial waving yellow legal pads. “Data for the forecast, data for the forecast!” The editors looked up the answers to their questions in their files and in a few weeks a bound report was circulated. THE FORECAST, it said, emblazoned in bold display type on the cover. Inside were pages and pages of graphs plotting the intricate lives of factors “Y” and “X” in “ooo’s.” The editors looked at it and then at each other, wondering who (or what) on earth “Y” and “X” were. And then a bulletin was hand-delivered—DISREGARD FORECAST—and all the MBAs were fired and twice as many were hired and back into editorial they flew, rousing the now familiar cry, “Data for the forecast!”
PUBLISHING PROPOSALS APPROVED BY HARRISON DREIDEN WILL BE FORWARDED TO THE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT. No editor can make an offer until he receives written approval from the Business Department.
Seven out of ten projects approved by Harrison were killed in the business department. (“Rejected,” the business department said about Howard’s proposal to publish a biography of William Carlos Williams. “William Carlos is not famous enough.”)
EDITORS ARE TO REPORT TO CONFERENCE ROOM 2 FOR GUIDELINES ON ACQUISITIONS. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.
The guidelines issued by the business department were based on a simple premise: Gardiner & Grayson would become cost conscious and commercially aware. (In plain English, they wanted editors to do thinly disguised rip-offs of everything on the bestseller lists—for cheap.)
Layton Sinclair adapted beautifully to the new guidelines. When the business department expressed the urgent desire that someone “put together” an Iacocca pronto, Layton raced out of the gate. Now, the book the business department was referring to was a brilliantly conceived and executed business autobiography published by Bantam Books in 1985. The idea for the book had been “born” within Bantam, and they teamed the hero of Chrysler with a marvelous writer named William Novak, and so carefully orchestrated the book’s debut and afterlife that, to date, it was threatening to break the two-million hard-cover sales mark. Iacocca was precisely the kind of original, breakthrough publishing Howard longed to do.
So one can imagine Howard’s disgust when Layton—sensing a powerful ally for his career in Mack Sperry of the business department—claimed that, if promoted right, the illiterate manuscript of a man who had inherited a chain of motels could be the next Iacocca. “Layton,” Harrison said at the editorial meeting, “you are an editor, not an android. This, this, this—”Lefty,” Layton said (referring to the title, taken from the author’s name of Lefty Lucerne). “Thing,” Harrison continued, “isn’t a book. Iacocca is a book, Layton. A good book. And a book is a body of work that reflects original human thought and experience. This,” he said, pushing the manuscript away from him, “is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen let in the doors of Gardiner & Grayson.”
At the next marketing meeting, members of the business department asked how Layton’s version of Iacocca was coming and, on the strength of Layton’s verbal description, approved it on the spot. “It’s for the readers of Iacocca and The Search for Excellence.” (The latter had been a business blockbluster of a different sort.) The business department was elated and told Layton to “make the jacket look like Iacocca, but use the colors of The Search for Excellence in the background.” Harrison slammed his fist down on the table and said, “Not only is it unreadable, but I hasten to remind you that Lefty Lucerne was once imprisoned on racketeering charges, a fact that he neglects to mention in this so-called memoir.” (A murmur from the MBAs that this sounded like a good promotion angle.) And then, when Layton added that the author’s company would guarantee to buy fifty thousand copies of the book and that Gardiner & Grayson didn’t have to pay an advance if they didn’t want to, talk turned to making Lefty the lead book on the fall list.
“Promote him!” Harriet Wyatt angrily exclaimed at the next marketing meeting. “The man is brain-dead!” It was then explained that the author was so pleased to be published that he was giving a hundred thousand dollars to Gardiner & Grayson to promote the book. “Wonderful,” Harriet said, “I’ll find the best cart and coffin money can buy and launch him at Forest Lawn. Mr. Sperry,” she then said, rising from her chair, “I will be fired before I make my people work on a vanity press project. You’ll have to buy an outside publicist.”
The matter of Lefty then raged all the way to the office of G & G’s chairman of the board. There it was decided that Harriet would not be fired but an outside agency would be hired; that the book in question would not bear the Gardiner & Grayson name but would be distributed by them under a new imprint called Sperry Books; and that Layton Sinclair would receive the title of executive editor of the imprint but would remain a part of the G & G editorial staff.
And so Layton Sinclair had been promoted and Melissa was furious with Howard and Howard was sick at what was happening at Gardiner & Grayson. Oh, they were still putting up a valiant fight—encouraging one another, conspiring like members of the underground—but it was exhausting. (“Look, gang, we’ve got to get that first novel of Patricia’s through,” Harrison recently said in a closed-door meeting in his office, “so I want each of you to write a report that swears the author is the next Jacqueline Susann.” Fortunately no one in the business department liked to read. “Patricia, call it Valley of Desire, but once you get the contract signed, keep changing the title on the pub list so they’ll forget what it was supposed to have been.”)
Sigh.
It was all coming apart now for Howard. In the old days, he really had wanted to work toward becoming publisher of Gardiner & Grayson, to be on the “cutting edge” of the publishing frontier, and he had wanted to do it with the colleagues he had grown up with. The ones who had called him Prince Charming and then had rewarded him with camaraderie when he started being an editor. The people who had listened to his ideas and to his problems, and who had shared their ideas and their problems with him. The people who—over the course of ten-hour days, five days a week for eleven years—had become his family. But now, now...
“Then leave, Howard,” Melissa screamed, “find another job and leave!”
But Melissa didn’t understand and Howard didn’t think he could explain it to her. What would he say? “Melissa, you don’t seem to understand. My colleagues at Gardiner & Grayson have been filling the void of our marriage for years. If I leave them, then I have no one.”
No. Howard could not tell Melissa that.
“Amanda,” Rosanne was saying to Howard, “you know, Tuesdays.”
“And she’s writing a book?”
“Is she! It’s in boxes all over the apartment.”
Howard chuckled to himself, picking up a book from the window sill in his study.
“But like she’s really smart, Howie,” Rosanne said. But then she paused, debating a minute, and then admitted, “Well, sometimes she does get kinda loony—sort of like Esmeralda on ‘Bewitched’ or somethin’.”
Howard handed Rosanne the book. “Here. I haven’t even re
ad it yet. A friend just sent it to me.”
Rosanne took it from him and looked at the cover. “Mickey Mantle! Oh, man, this is great, Howie. Frank’s gonna love this too.” She slid the jacket off and handed it back to him. “Better keep that to keep it lookin’ nice. Wow,” she sighed, smiling, putting the book in her bag.
Howard grinned, touching at his glasses. “So what’s Tuesdays’ book about, do you know?”
“Oh, it’s about that queen—you know, the one that everybody says screwed horses.”
“Catherine the Great?”
“Yeah—”
“She didn’t, Rosanne.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Rosanne declared, hefting her bag onto her shoulder, “’cause Amanda kinda thinks she is Catherine the Great. The way she talks—sometimes I don’t know what the heck she’s sayin’. I mean, like she’s never mad or nothin’—she’s always ‘vexed’ or some numbnuts thing.”
Howard laughed.
“You’d love the way she talks,” Rosanne added, pointing a finger at him. “So, anyway,” she continued, backing out of the room, “the way I figure it, you’re just the guy to help her.”
“Help her?” Howard said.
3
TEA AT AMANDA MILLER’S
Darling heart,” Mrs. Goldblum said, “all women go a bit mad in their thirties. That’s why it’s so terribly important to marry well.”
The younger woman blinked.
“You see, dear,” Mrs. Goldblum continued, “in her twenties, every girl believes she knows what she wants out of life, and she settles into the life she is convinced will bring it to her. And no one can tell her differently.” She smiled into her teacup and took a discreet sip. “And then the thirties arrive and she suddenly realizes the world can say no to her, and she becomes convinced she has made all the wrong choices... and,” Mrs. Goldblum sighed, “she realizes that, instead of knowing everything, she knows very little.” Mrs. Goldblum smiled. “It is not an easy time.”
The younger woman nodded, thinking.
Mrs. Goldblum took a delicate bite from the small pepper jelly and cream cheese sandwich on her plate. The women were sitting across from each other at a round table in front of the largest of the living-room windows. The four corners of a white linen tablecloth hung nearly to the floor; the silver tea service sparkled in the afternoon sunlight; across the room a fire was burning in the fireplace, the brass fender set gleaming in the contrast of lights.
Both women wore black, but it was not in melancholy. Instead, it was fitting. The room in which they sat had furniture from an earlier century—dark, massive, gleaming products of English workmanship, settees and chairs covered in deep burgundy velvet. There was an enormous oriental rug, and the fringed edges highlighted the dark wood floors that were exposed around it. Old paintings of every size adorned the walls; the high ceiling was an intricate work of white panels and carved plaster. And there was clutter in the room. On every surface—table tops, shelves, even along the enormous mahogany mantel—there were bits and pieces of brass and hand-colored glass, and there were antique frames with pressed flowers and porcelain vases with dried flowers, and little leather Shakespeares and ivory elephants and all kinds of other small distractions.
The older woman sat perfectly erect. The black dress whose era was anyone’s guess—though faded slightly, still draped from her shoulders in flattering folds. A small gold brooch rested on the left of her chest; a gold charm bracelet on one wrist occasionally made small tinkling sounds. Her breath was gentle and slow; her hands moved gracefully, unobtrusively, often finding rest in each other’s company on her lap. Her hair was pure white, the complexion beneath pale and sweet, and her face conveyed enduring strength of some seventy-seven years.
Her glasses were the only thing out of place. The lenses being thick, they distorted the woman’s languid brown eyes into something almost comical. But they weren’t comical. They were searching the face of her companion, looking for clues as to the younger woman’s thoughts.
“I never liked him, you know,” Mrs. Goldblum said.
The younger woman laughed. “You certainly deceived me there.”
“Of course I had to be polite. You seemed so keen on the young man, I vowed I would come to like him in time. I never did, however.” The younger woman shook her head, looking down to her lap. Mrs. Goldblum reached across the table to cover her hand with her own. “Drink your tea, dear. You’ll feel better.”
The young lady raised her head. Her eyes, usually bright, were rather tired. A smile was pressed into use and her face changed considerably. It was a fascinating, striking face. But it was not beautiful. Every feature, though brilliantly conceived on an independent basis, was in contrast to the next. The large, hazel eyes competed with the strong, perfectly chiseled nose (that decidedly linked her to the portraits on the walls). The high cheekbones did not know the wide, full mouth, and the olive of her complexion was at odds with the light brown of her hair. And her hair, long and straight, parted in the middle and spilling down over her shoulders, certainly did not know what to make of the black dress and pearls. And the contrasts did not end there. Her ample breasts made no sense of her thinness; her hands, whose fingers were long but large, hinted at a line of heritage that once knew the fie1ds in service of the people from whom her nose had come.
Mrs. Goldblum watched Amanda Miller take her suggestion regarding the tea. She smiled, nodding slightly. “Better now?” “Yes, thank you,” Amanda said. She cleared her throat. “I must apologize—I’m not quite myself today.”
On that note, Rosanne came in, wafting her arms in the air as though she were a loon in descent toward water. She came to a rest at Mrs. Goldblum’s side—with Mrs. Goldblum none the wiser as to how she had traveled there—and pulled down on the crisp black uniform dress she was wearing. Every Tuesday, Rosanne cleaned Amanda Miller’s apartment until early afternoon and then changed for the ritual of serving high tea at three. (“You gotta be kiddin’,” Rosanne had said when Amanda first suggested it. “Well, maybe,” she had reconsidered, once a generous offer of financial compensation for such an ordeal was discreetly tendered. “Ah, geez!” she had cried during her first “tea etiquette” lesson. “You make me do that [a curtsy] and I’m gonna go down like a house of cards.”) All in all, the arrangement had worked out fairly well. As for Rosanne’s etiquette, once she had latched onto Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz as a model for her demeanor, she had gained a rather peculiar but nonetheless pleasant form of grace.
“Would you care for some more sandwiches, Lady Goldblum?” Rosanne said.
“Lady,” Mrs. Goldblum chuckled, looking over at Amanda. “Oh, my, my.” She turned back to Rosanne, softly touching her wrist. “No, thank you, dear.”
“Very good,” Rosanne said, curtsying. She raised herself onto her tiptoes and teetered over to Amanda, waving her imaginary wand once in her face. “And you, Empress?” she asked.
“No, thank you, Rosanne,” Amanda said, laughing, covering her mouth with her napkin.
“Very good, ladies,” Rosanne said, curtsying. Once she was safely behind Mrs. Goldblum, she raised her wings and glided back into the kitchen.
Mrs. Goldblum turned to make sure that Rosanne had left the room, looked back to Amanda and said, softly, “There is a lesson to be learned, Amanda dear. She married the man she thought she wanted—and she will waste her life waiting for him to be the man she wants him to be.”
Something crashed in the kitchen.
“I realize it is difficult to understand, Mrs. Goldblum,” Amanda said, “but I never wanted him—” Her eyes settled on a silver napkin ring. “I was not, am not, in love with him.”
Mrs. Goldblum apparently did not hear the crash or Amanda. “To love and be loved in return is the greatest gift life has to offer. To love those who don’t love themselves is—” Mrs. Goldblum refolded her napkin in her lap and then smoothed it with the palm of her hand, over and over. “I was very fortunate,” she fina
lly said. “Mr. Goldblum and I had a wonderful marriage.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Goldblum looked surprised. “Why, compromise. Every good marriage is one of compromise. Of acceptance. The pleasure and satisfaction of knowing that you both are willing to give up certain things in exchange for receiving much more than you could have alone.”
Amanda touched at her pearls. “What kind of compromises did you make?”
“Oh, gracious,” Mrs. Goldblum said, looking past Amanda to the window. Her voice grew faint. “It’s been so many years, I can hardly remember what I cared about before Mr. Goldblum. Dances, friends, pretty ribbons, I suppose. Isn’t it odd,” she said, bringing her eyes back to Amanda, “I can’t seem to remember anything of importance before I was married.”
Or afterward, Amanda thought.
“And once the children arrived”—she chuckled to herself, shaking her head—”there was no time to miss anything.”
Mrs. Goldblum’s attention seemed to have drifted to her charm bracelet. Amanda patiently waited for her to continue.
And, of course, there was Mr. Goldblum to look after. He worked so very hard.” She looked up, smiling. “I used to bathe the children at five. With the children’s nanny, Muerta—a Swiss girl. We had help in those days. And when Mr. Goldblum came home, the children and I would be lined up at the door, as neat as tacks, waiting to welcome him home.”
“And after the children grew up?”
“Oh, gracious,” Mrs. Goldblum laughed, “I missed them terribly. So did Mr. Goldblum. We always believed Sarah would be with us for a few years longer, but then, Ben was such a catch!” A long pause. “Can it be twelve years?” she wondered aloud. “It must be. She died in 1974.”
After a moment, Amanda said, “When the children left home...”
Mrs. Goldblum smiled again. She drew out a white hankie that was discreetly tucked in the underside of one sleeve, patted her nose with it and replaced it. “Mr. Goldblum and I didn’t know quite what to do with each other.” She laughed quietly. “Sometimes,” she said. leaning forward, “I would look at him across the dinner table and think, Who is this man? It was as if I had never seen him before. The man I married had black hair. The man sitting across from me had gray hair.” She eased back in her chair. “But then,” she sighed, “there were still those moments when I felt as though he and I shared the same body, the same life, the very same thoughts. And in those moments I was the happiest woman on earth.”
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