Patty put her hand on his leg and stroked him soothingly. “No, David. Don’t be hard on yourself. What you do is really important.” She pointed to Dark Harvest. “This is trash.”
“Don’t worry. You don’t have to reassure me. I’m not depressed about my work. I just meant …” He stared off and didn’t continue.
Patty moved her hand up his leg, heading toward his groin. Her eyes were wide open and attentive, waiting for David to finish his sentence. But he said nothing. She reached his penis and rubbed.
His eyes focused on her.
“Yes?” she said with a smile, the knowing smile of a seductress.
He smiled. “You’re beautiful.”
She silently mouthed “thank you” and continued her massage of his erection.
“Mmmm,” David said, closing his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he looked into Patty’s eyes. She watched her effect on him proudly.
“You like this?” she asked.
“Un-huh,” he said, feeling helpless. Happily, warmly helpless.
“What were you going to say?”
David laughed. “I don’t remember.”
“Good,” Patty said with a triumphant look.
“Good!” David laughed.
“That means,” she said, opening her mouth wide and leaning in to kiss him, “that I’m doing a good job.”
After his meeting with Bart and his purchase of several new Brooks Brothers shirts, Fred went home and called Marion at her office. He breathlessly told her the story.
She burst out laughing when he mentioned spilling the coffee.
“I’ve seen that white rug. Bart must have shit a brick.”
“No, no. It didn’t bother him. Anyway, listen! Stop laughing.”
“Sorry.”
“He’s given the outline to Bob Holder, who he says is already interested.”
“Holder’s already interested?”
“Well,” Fred said defensively. “Bart said that Holder thought it was a good premise. And he insisted that he get it exclusively.”
“Un-huh,” Marion said.
“What?” Fred said. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Oh, sure. It’s just that …” She hesitated.
“What?” Fred demanded.
“Don’t get your hopes up, okay, Freddy? Holder likes to make a fuss. He wants everything exclusive. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna buy it.”
“I know that,” he snapped. “You don’t have to tell me that. I was just telling you what Bart said. Of course I know it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. Listen. I’d better get back to work.”
“Sure. Look. Let’s go out tonight. To a movie or something?”
“Uh, I don’t know. The nouvelle cuisine book is due to—”
“We’ll go to an early movie. Come on.”
“Okay, Fred. Call me later. I got to go.”
And she hung up. He looked at the receiver in his hand as if it had spat in his face. She had no faith in him, he decided. She thinks I’ll never be a novelist. He thought back to her reaction when he announced that he was going to turn down American Sport magazine articles for a year and try to get a contract for a novel.
“Fred, you won’t get a contract for a novel from outlines,” she had said with a tone of absolute knowledge about publishing. “First novels, unless they’re by people who are very famous for some other reason, are always written on spec.”
“That’s bullshit,” Fred had said. “What about Karl?”
“Fred, Karl had written six books on spec!”
Fred guffawed and jiggled his food. “If his publisher had read any of those manuscripts, he wouldn’t have given him lunch, much less a contract.” She had no answer for that. He told her: “Bart got Karl his contract, and if he takes me on, he’ll get me one.” She hadn’t argued, but he knew she didn’t believe it, despite the evidence of Karl and his stewardess novel. Fred knew why. Marion had once said about Karl, “I don’t know if Karl’s a good writer, but he looks, talks, and thinks like a novelist.” She didn’t believe that about Fred. He was merely a nice Jewish boy to her. Maybe she doesn’t want me to succeed, he said to himself. Maybe she’s scared if I become a rich famous novelist, I’ll leave her.
He clicked down the buttons of the phone, got a dial tone, and called Marion back.
When he got her, he burst out, “What do you mean Bob Holder always asks for an exclusive look?”
Marion laughed. “That’s what you called me back about? You’re gonna drive yourself crazy—”
“How do you know that? You don’t know Holder.”
“I’ve met him. I don’t really know him. But Betty works at Garlands. She makes fun of Holder doing stuff like that. He thinks he’s a hotshot, so—”
“He is a hotshot, honey.”
“Okay, so he is a hotshot. And he likes to act like one.”
“But Betty didn’t say, specifically, that Holder always asks for an exclusive look?”
“Fred,” Marion said in a gentle but thoroughly contemptuous tone, “everybody would ask for an exclusive look if they thought they could get it. What’s the harm? If you don’t like it, you can still say no. If you do, then you don’t have the pressure of competing interest. Maybe Bart made it sound like a great thing, but an editor getting an exclusive look just gives the editor leverage. It doesn’t help the writer.”
Fred stared out the window at the traffic and people below. He only noticed them when he felt like a failure or a fool. They went on with their lives, ignorant of him.
“Fred?” Marion said tentatively into his silence.
She had made him see that his excitement was over nothing. His conviction that Bart could somehow manipulate an important editor into buying his outline was a fantasy; he had sat in Bart’s office and listened to him pitch the elixir of success, and bought it, only to discover it was simply the plain water of uncertain promises. “Do you think Bart’s a bad agent?” he asked suspiciously, as if she had been keeping a secret.
Marion grunted. It sounded like a startled laugh. “No, I didn’t say that. He’s flattering Holder by giving it to him exclusively. And he’s letting him know that Bart really thinks it’s a hot idea. That’s great. I was just trying to get you to calm down. Not to expect too much. Holder hasn’t read it. Until he has, it doesn’t mean a thing.”
“I don’t need that, you know. I realize I may get turned down. I know I may be a failure. I don’t need you to remind me.”
“Fred.” Said very sternly: a warning not to continue. “I don’t want to talk about this. You’re paranoid. I’ll call you later.” And she hung up.
He let the hand with the receiver drop to his side, as if the dismal emotions of the conversation had made it too heavy to hold up. He leaned his head against the wall and looked again at the people below. A delivery truck with the New York Post had stopped at a corner news kiosk to unload an edition. Two boys of about fifteen, coming home from school, passed the stacks of newspapers. They were short and probably Jewish. One of them was fat. His wrinkled white shirttails were hanging outside his pants. The other was skinny and wore thick black glasses. They stopped and peered at the back of the Post. It would be a sports story that caught their interest. Fred at their age looked like them and also would have peered at the headline with total absorption. In those days, it never occurred to him that writing served any purpose other than graduating from school or proving that Mickey Mantle was a better hitter than Willie Mays. That dumpy kid with his shirttails hanging out was innocent. He had yet to learn, as Fred had, that his appearance would cut him off from most of the fantasies that men have: he would never be thought of as glamorous, as sexy, as profound. No one would look at him and say, “There are a poet’s eyes, a sculptor’s hands, an actor’s voice, or the tall inspiring body of a leader.” That kid, gawking with happy concentration at the Post’s sports headline, hadn’t been faced with the certain knowledge that no tall, beautiful blond would go
to bed with him—unless he paid her. “Money,” Fred said aloud, as if he were hurling a curse down at the boy below. “Money and fame are the only things that will help.”
He turned, despairing, and returned the receiver to its cradle. It rang instantly.
“Fred?” said a deep but tentative voice. “It’s Karl.”
“Hi.”
“How did the meeting go?”
“You knew about it?”
“Yeah, Bart told me he read an outline of yours. He said he liked it. Thought he could sell it.”
The poison of Marion’s pessimism left Fred’s system, as if wiped out by a miracle drug. “He did?”
“Yeah,” Karl said. ‘Didn’t he say that to you?”
“Yeah. He did. I’m crazy. You know, it happened three hours ago. I was high as a kite. But just now I was really feeling down—”
“Why? Isn’t he sending it out?”
“Yeah. He’s sending it to your editor.”
“Oh.” Karl sounded taken aback. “You mean Holder?” he asked idiotically, as if hoping against hope that Fred had made a mistake.
“Yeah. Does that bother you?”
“No, no,” Karl said so quickly that it was obvious he was disturbed.
“It shouldn’t,” Fred said almost pleadingly. It flashed in his mind that Karl might speak to Holder during the next few days (Karl’s novel was due out in five months and contact between them was probably frequent) and say something denigrating about him. Point out that Fred has never written a novel, that his experience as a writer was limited to twenty pieces on sports—and most of those were interviews, which hardly put great demands on Fred as a writer.
“No, of course not. I was thinking whether I should speak to him, tell him I know you—”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Fred said anxiously, but as he spoke, he looked at the situation the other way. Holder obviously admired Karl; if Karl spoke well of Fred to Holder, perhaps it would add to the favorable impresssion of Bart’s recommendation. “Unless—do you think it would bother Holder?”
“Bother?” Karl said in a bewildered tone.
“I think you shouldn’t. He’d think I put you up to it.”
“Okay. I won’t say anything.”
“So,” Fred said, clearing his throat. He wanted to keep Karl on the line. Talking to Karl—Karl the novelist—made him feel his ambitions were real, answered the worry inside him that he was a victim of a delusion. But there was nothing in his mind other than talk of the outline, talk of the meeting with Bart, worry over what Holder would think.
“I was calling to invite you to a poker game. Do you play?” Karl asked.
Fred was delighted. He had heard Karl, on the social occasions they had spent together, refer to his weekly poker game, whose members were all established writers. Several times Fred had mentioned to Karl, rather awkwardly, how much he liked to gamble (Marion would always exclaim, “You do?” incredulously, humiliating him), hoping to provoke an invitation, but his comments were returned with blank looks from Karl, and, more ominously, after a while Karl stopped even mentioning his poker game.
“I’ve told you I play poker,” Fred said, to let Karl know that he knew this invitation was a symbol of a change in their relationship.
“Well, you know,” Karl said, “usually we’re full up. We have seven regulars. But one of them’s dropped out. It’s tonight. Can you make it?”
“What time?”
“Seven. And you have to play until at least midnight. It’s a house rule.”
“Even if I’m down a hundred dollars, I gotta stay?” Fred asked, laughing, as if that was an absurd idea.
“Yes,” Karl said. “Even if you’re down a hundred dollars. Nobody ever limits their winnings, so we don’t let people limit their losses. I don’t care if you just end up anteing every hand and folding, but you gotta stay until midnight.”
“Sounds pretty serious,” Fred said.
“It is. It’s really serious poker. No kibitzing or stuff like that. So if you don’t like that, you shouldn’t come.”
“No, no. That’s fine. Tell me, how much money should I bring?” Fred asked, hoping in this way to find out what the stakes were without implying that he was frightened of losing too much.
Karl’s voice was matter-of-fact: “Biggest loser we’ve ever had was three hundred dollars. The average losing night is about one hundred and fifty to two hundred. And, also, you should know, we play a lot of high-low games—”
“I’ve never played them.”
“Oh,” Karl said, as if that were a big blow.
“Don’t worry. I’ll learn fast.”
“Well …” Karl sighed and paused.
Schmuck, Fred said to himself, why did you say you’d never played them? You could have announced that at the game. “Don’t worry,” Fred said again.
“I think you’d better come at six. I’ll teach you some high-low games … the guys aren’t real patient about explaining while the game is going.”
“Great. Okay. I’ll be there at six.”
“All right, see you—oh, you’d better eat before you come. There are no snacks. That’s another rule.”
Fred rang off ecstatic and nervous. He had wanted into that game for almost a year. Tonight would be like an audition. If they liked him he would become a regular. He dialed Marion once again.
“Fred?” she said with despairing impatience when her secretary let him through.
“Listen. Karl just called and invited me to play poker tonight. So you can edit your nouvelle cuisine book.”
“His weekly game?” she said. “But that’s a very expensive game. Karl’s always talking about how much money people lose—”
“Honey,” he said with great confidence, “don’t worry. I’ve played plenty of poker on the road with the ball teams. I’m sure a bunch of writers aren’t that tough, okay?”
“All right. As long as you know what you’re doing. So do we have to eat early?”
“I can’t eat with you. I’ve got to go over early so Karl can teach me how to—” He caught himself. He stopped talking and closed his eyes in frustration at his slip.
“Teach you what? I though you knew how to play.”
“No, no. You wouldn’t understand. They play some silly games—kid stuff, like wild-card games—and they don’t like to slow things down to explain, so Karl wanted me to come early. I don’t think that’s the real reason. He heard from Bart about my outline. He probably wants to chat about that.”
“Why? Wouldn’t he just say he wants to talk about your outline?”
“Forget it. It’s not important. Go back to work.”
“So you’ll be gone by the time I get home?” She sounded petulant; suddenly a neglected child.
“Yeah, I have to be at Karl’s by six.”
“When will you be home?”
“Honey, I don’t know. It’s a poker game. It’ll probably go on till late.”
“Oh,” she said. A disappointed moan.
“What? What is it?”
“I’ll miss you. I wanted to see you tonight.”
“What? Earlier, when I asked if you wanted to go to the movies, you acted totally uninterested.”
“I did not! I said I would go.”
“After I insisted.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. Good-bye. I’ll see you later—or I won’t. Good- bye—”
“Come on!”
But she had hung up. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled at the walls. “She’s gonna drive me out of my fucking mind!”
But his anger was quickly dissipated once he got down to the business of dressing for the poker game. Jeans, a black turtleneck, and sneakers were his choices: they made him look slim and tough, he thought, like a street-smart kid. And he felt like a kid, a happy kid, going over to the Upper West Side where Karl lived. Heading for a night out with the boys—the writing boys.
The Scotch tastes like metal. Cheap metal, Tony thought. He looked around the tacky d
ark-wood-paneled living room. Lois, judging from the decoration of her house, fancied herself a Spanish duchess. There were big ungainly chairs with elaborate carved wood designs and a big dark wood couch with thin cushions that failed to rescue its occupant from discomfort.
“Too megalomaniacal?” she asked, indicating the room with her eyes.
So she did think it was grand, he thought to himself, feeling despair. Not simply over the prospect of being alone with her, but being alone in this city, where ugly furniture could house pathetic delusions.
He smiled at her knowingly, as if to say, “I understand, I approve, but I’m too bright to take anything too seriously.” He looked out the big window behind her. There was a sweeping view of Hollywood and the valley. Lights lay below like a twinkling bed, bejeweled for a princess. “How long have you lived here?” he asked.
“A year. When I was made producer on your mother’s series, I started making so much money my manager told me to buy something. I couldn’t believe it. Felt weird. Being single and owning a house.”
“Your manager?”
“My money manager. Not a personal manager.”
“Do you have a talent manager also?”
“Well, I have an agent.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“No. They’re different.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Your mother’s got all those things. An agent, a personal manager, a money manager, a lawyer—hasn’t she told you the facts of life?” Lois asked, laughing.
“Only the sexual ones. That’s why I’m happy but poor.”
“Yeah.” She nodded and looked off as if she had taken his comment to heart.
“So why don’t you tell me?” Tony said.
“Well. A manager gets you work.”
“Don’t agents do that?”
“Top agents have lots of clients and you have to fight for their attention. A personal manager will do it for you.”
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