The Agency

by Ally O'Brien

  I checked my watch. “It’s five in the morning in New York. Why on earth is Dorothy calling me now?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me, but she said it’s urgent.”

  Dorothy? Urgent?

  This can’t be good.

  15

  IN LONDON, when someone in publishing talks about “legal problems” for an author, that’s usually code for defamation. It’s ridiculously easy to get damages for libel over here. If I suggested in print that Elizabeth Hurley has an eating disorder or that she’s part of a sex coven in Chelsea or that she’s actually a man with the world’s most impressive breasts, well, that would probably cost me most of what I’m making by telling you my story.

  I said if, Liz. If. Liz is actually a friend of my father’s, so I hope she realizes this is just a joke.

  Anyway, I didn’t know what to think about Dorothy and her legal problems, which were beginning to seem like something more than a rumor. I’m not sure how you can defame someone in an animal fairy tale, but I wouldn’t have been shocked to discover that some zoo panda was suing over an unflattering characterization in one of Dorothy’s fables. Stranger things have happened in British courts.

  The only thing to do was pick up the phone. Dorothy told Emma she’d be waiting for my call, but I didn’t believe it. Dorothy never stays in one place for longer than thirty seconds, so there was no rush. Instead, I called Sally first to see if she had heard any more gossip about Dorothy on the street. I wanted to be prepared for whatever Dorothy might tell me, because part of being a good agent is knowing the answer before your client asks the question. You never, ever want to sound surprised. However, Sally wasn’t in her office and wasn’t answering her cell phone, so I was on my own.

  I called Dorothy. To my surprise, she really was waiting by the phone.

  “Dorothy, it’s Tess.”

  I heard Dorothy take a long breath, which is never a good sign. “Oh, Tess, Tess, thank God it’s you, I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. This is the worst thing, just the worst thing. I actually drove all the way to Ithaca yesterday after lunch, because I was so upset, and sometimes when you’re upset, all you can do is drive, and it helps to be back in your hometown again. So that’s what I did, I went home, but it didn’t help at all, and so I drove around the streets and then just turned around and came back to the city. I didn’t sleep at all, not at all, I’ve been up all night, pacing. The dogs are jittery and jumpy, because they know I’m upset, and the kinkajou is running around and pooping everywhere. I can’t believe this, I simply can’t believe that anyone could say this about me. It’s cruel. It’s horrible. I may have a heart attack. I was going to call you yesterday, but I was speechless. Speechless. I even thought about driving off a bridge. You have to tell me what to do, Tess. What do we do about this?”

  “I need you to slow down for me, Dorothy, because I don’t know what happened. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on? I could lose everything! Everything! And if this winds up in the papers, people will believe it’s true—you know how people are. Of course, it’s not true. It’s not true at all.”

  “I’m sure it’s not, but you still need to tell me what’s going on.”

  Dorothy sighed into the phone like a bubbling teakettle. “Oh, yes, of course, I keep thinking you were there, but of course, you weren’t—how could you be? I’m so sorry. This thing has me completely beside myself.”

  I waited. She didn’t continue.

  “Dorothy?” I asked.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, haven’t I told you yet? I thought I had. I am just so scattered today. It’s David Milton, that awful boy. Remember I told you I was having lunch with him yesterday? He’s Tom Milton’s son, and Tom was a gem, so I can’t even begin to believe that his flesh and blood could do something so horrible. To lie like that! He should be ashamed.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He’s threatening me! Blackmailing me!”

  “Over what?”

  “He claims that I stole the idea for The Bamboo Garden! Can you believe that? Stole it! He says that Tom was the one who came up with the idea for the book and that when Tom died, I took it for myself. He says I read Tom’s manuscript and then adapted it and put my name on it. It’s absurd! It’s ludicrous! I mean, yes, I knew Tom, and he was an aspiring writer, and I remember him showing me some of his work, but it was nothing like my stories. Nothing at all, no one would think that. Tom was a dear, but he was no writer, and I only tried to encourage him. But now his son says he’s going to sue me, and I need to pay him or he’s going to ruin my reputation. He says he has things I wrote to his father, but he couldn’t possibly have that, because it’s not true, none of it is.”

  I closed my eyes. This was much worse than defamation.

  “Did he show you anything?” I asked. “Did he have any of the documentation with him?”

  “He had a note!” Dorothy told me breathlessly. “A note I wrote Tom! But it wasn’t what I meant at all.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “I thanked Tom for letting me read his manuscript, and I told him he should keep trying and I was sure he would get it published. Which wasn’t true, but you have to be kind to a friend, don’t you?”

  “So the note was authentic?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, I think so, but it was a long time ago. Years! This was back in Ithaca, and it was before Tom died, so it must be twenty or more years ago now. We were both librarians. I don’t remember writing the note, but it was my handwriting, so I must have, and it’s the kind of thing I would do. To be nice, dear—you know what I’m saying?”

  “Did you actually read a manuscript that this Tom Milton gave you?” I asked.

  “Yes, I believe I did.”

  “What was it about? Was it a children’s novel?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was, yes, because Tom and I were both fans of children’s literature. Baum, Milne, Silverstein, and all the others who created such marvelous fantasies, we could read their books over and over.”

  “What do you remember about Tom’s book?”

  “Well, nothing at all, really—that’s why this is so crazy.”

  “I understand.”

  Actually, I was hoping that Dorothy remembered exactly what Tom’s book was about. If she didn’t remember it, there was an outside possibility that she really did take parts of her panda book from an old manuscript written by a friend without ever meaning to do so. I know Dorothy. She has a grasshopper’s mind and a memory like a sieve that lets everything but her actual spongy brain matter drain away. I hoped to hell she hadn’t accidentally stolen Tom Milton’s idea, because it would be the most expensive mistake either one of us had ever made.

  But there was no point getting her even more frantic than she was.

  “Don’t worry, Dorothy, we’ll get this sorted out,” I assured her.

  “This has me scared to death, Tessie, just scared to death.”

  “I understand, but let me take care of this. Okay? I’ll fly to New York tomorrow and see you, and we’ll talk over the whole thing.”

  “Oh, would you do that? I would feel much better if you were here.”

  “I’ll catch a flight tomorrow afternoon and be there for dinner.”

  “Thank God, that’s a huge relief.”

  “In the meantime, I don’t want you worrying, all right? Authors face this kind of nonsense all the time. As soon as they become successful, someone wants to get a piece of the pie.”

  “I just can’t believe it. Tom was a dear, dear friend, and he must be spinning in his grave to have his son doing something like this. I even mentioned Tom in the acknowledgments of my book, that’s how close we were!”

  That’s really not what I wanted to hear.

  “Go play with your kinkajou, Dorothy. Or take the girls for a walk. Then pour a glass of wine and get some sleep.”

  “You’re an an
gel, Tessie. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I hung up the phone.

  “Fuck!” I said in an extremely loud voice.

  Let me see if I have this right. Yes, Dorothy was a close friend of Tom Milton. Yes, she read a children’s book he wrote and sent him a note saying she was sure it would be published. No, she has no recollection of what the book was about. Yes, Dorothy wrote her own children’s book after Tom died that has since made her millions of dollars.

  I don’t see any problem, do you?

  Nothing that could implode the career of my principal client just as I’m getting ready to launch my own agency?

  I was not looking forward to meeting David Milton.

  Of course, every crisis has a silver lining. If I’m on a plane to New York tomorrow afternoon, I can’t very well have lunch with Cosima after Lowell’s funeral. Not that I plan to tell her why.

  On the other hand, if Sally somehow heard rumors on the street about Dorothy’s legal problems before I did, then something tells me that Cosima already knows.

  I packed a small bag in my apartment that night. Emma booked my flight on Virgin to JFK and arranged one night at the St. Regis. I had a few more days in which I could bill the Bardwright Agency for my expenses, so I figured I would make the most of it.

  My morbid curiosity made me take a copy of The Bamboo Garden off the bookshelf in my bedroom and turn to the acknowledgments page at the back. Dorothy writes nine-hundred-page novels and ten-page acknowledgments, so it took me a while to find the reference to Tom Milton sandwiched between mentions of every employee and volunteer at humane societies and animal shelters in the Northeast. I didn’t like what I read:

  I have to give special thanks to the late Tom Milton, who worked by my side in the Ithaca library for years and whose passion for children’s literature and writing matched my own. I believe that I am here in no small part because of Tom’s inspiration.

  I suppose it could have been worse. She could have thanked him for writing the first draft of her book.

  I dropped a paperback of Dorothy’s novel in my purse, along with a copy of Oliver Howard’s Singularity, which I wanted to reread on the plane as I considered my strategy in the wake of the latest rejection from Felicia Castro. It was still too early to go to bed, and I didn’t think I would sleep much tonight. So I poured myself a glass of sauvignon blanc and sat by the window in my living room, watching the nighttime traffic of pedestrians and black cabs on the street. I left the television, radio, and stereo off. I didn’t bother turning on any lights. I was in one of those moods where I could stare into nothingness for hours, and I could drink a lot.

  It wasn’t Dorothy’s problems that had me upset. Or even the agency. If I were honest with myself—and that’s a dangerous precedent to set—I would have admitted that the real dread in my heart was because of Darcy. When I got home, I had the idea that there would be a message on my machine. Or an e-mail. Or a text. Or some word from Emma that she had heard from him. Instead, there was nothing. Silence. It’s been three days. I told him I loved him and scared him out of my life, and the last thing I wanted was to see his face at the funeral tomorrow and watch him avert his eyes. To see him with his arm around Cosima’s shoulders.

  All along, I have told myself that my problem is that I listen too much to the hormones originating from that swollen pink bud between my legs, but that’s a lie. The problem is that I let myself fall in love. I show the world a tough face and wear a suit of armor, but I’m afraid that everyone will see through the mask and realize that I am a mess of insecurities. When you are neurotic, you believe that you are the only one in the world who feels that way and everyone else you meet is supremely confident and deft in handling life and love. Which is stupid, I know. We all wear our disguises, and behind them, none of us is a superhero.

  The phone rang, interrupting my peace and quiet and all my wallowing.

  When I picked it up, I thought I would hear Darcy’s voice at last, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what he would say to me. I was fairly sure it would be one of the many variations of good-bye. Best to make a clean break before he saw my face again.

  However, it was not Darcy, and my heart sank to a new low, like a bear market on the LSE.

  “I hope I’m not calling too late,” Oliver Howard said.

  I tried not to sound disappointed. “Not at all, darling. I was just sitting in the dark.”

  “That’s not like you, Tessie.”

  “I have a lot on my mind.”

  I felt stupid saying something like that to Oliver. I heard the rattle in his throat, like off-key music from his tar-soaked lungs. I thought about what he had endured in his life. Walking in on the bloody corpse of his mother. Servicing twitch-eyed freaks with his mouth. Falling down with broken-off needles still sticking out of his arm. He had treaded water in a well so deep and black that I prayed I would never know even a glimmer of his despair. It made my own problems seem shallow, and it made me feel guilty for letting my self-pity leak into my voice.

  “Never mind me,” I added quickly. “How are you, darling?”

  “Life goes on.”

  “How about Duopoly?”

  He gave me a sour laugh. “Sometimes I hate it so much that I can’t be in the same room with the manuscript.”

  “You felt that way about Singularity, and it’s brilliant. Every writer hates his book at some point.” I felt as if I were trivializing his struggle, but I have never known how to help Oliver wrestle his demons. They are beyond me.

  “Well, what does it matter?” he asked. “If I ever get it done, I suppose I’ll have to find a vanity press to publish it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Malcolm said no, didn’t he? He gave up his option?”

  I winced. Oliver was always a step ahead of me. “Yes, I’m afraid so. But don’t worry, darling, he’s a fool. You’re better off without him, because he doesn’t know what to do with your books. I already have queries out to several other houses. Someone will pick it up.”

  I hope that I sounded more optimistic than I felt.

  “Emma tells me you talked to Felicia Castro again,” Oliver said.

  “Felicia isn’t my biggest fan.” Not that there’s a lot of competition for that slot these days.

  “Well, I appreciate your going into the lion’s den on my behalf.”

  “Tom’s not the only actor in the world,” I reminded him.

  “For this project? I think he is.”

  “No, we need to forget about Felicia. I’m taking Tom, Katie, and Suri off my Christmas card list. I’ll work with a coagent in Hollywood and get the rights sold somewhere else.”

  “Singularity was written for Cruise.”

  “I know that, but I never thought Matt Damon could pull off Jason Bourne, and look how that turned out.”

  “Maybe I’d have better luck if I were dead, like Ludlum.”

  I get nervous when Oliver talks like that.

  “Are you staying healthy, darling?” I asked him.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence, as if I had walked into a room marked Private and felt everyone staring at me.

  “You mean am I looking for an alley where I can get a hit? Is that what you want to know, Tessie?”

  If Oliver wanted cocaine or heroin, it would take him thirty seconds to arrange a buy. The scary thing is that I know the next binge will kill him. It will be suicide. There is no middle ground, just the word “self-control” standing between him and the morgue.

  “I know you wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I just want to make sure you’re eating something. Keeping the alcohol to a minimum. Swearing off the death sticks.”

  “I love it that you think I have any willpower at all.”

  “Don’t take it personally. I’m just protecting my nest egg.”

  Oliver laughed until he coughed. “Pretend to be hard all you want, Tessie, but I know you’re a sof
t touch. You don’t have to worry, though, it will be our secret.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you want to tell me why you’re sitting in the dark?” he asked.

  “I won’t bother you with my problems.”

  “Darcy?”

  “Yes, he’s the tip of the iceberg, but there’s plenty more ice under the water, darling. And I’m the Titanic sailing cheerily on with the band playing—you know the drill.”

  “ ‘The Unsinkable Tess Drake.’ ”

  “That’s me.”

  “What about Guy and Dorothy and the rest of your messy life?”

  “Still messy.”

  “Are you going to Lowell’s funeral tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like some company? We could sit together and vent our sorrow.”

  “You’re going, too?” I asked.

  “I thought I’d pay my respects.”

  “That’s kind of you, but you really don’t have to do that.”

  “Lowell was decent to me, at least to my face,” Oliver said. “Besides, I find funerals strangely cathartic.”

  “Shall we meet at the church?”

  “Sure.”

  A funeral date with a gay guy, I said aloud when Oliver hung up.

  Believe it or not, this is an improvement in my social life.

  16

  LEAVE IT TO LOWELL to book his funeral in advance at St. Bart’s the Great, an historic church in the City that dates all the way back to the days of William the Conqueror. Lowell arranged for the church to be used as a set in several films, which makes for a nice boost to the priory’s annual budget, so the rector owed him a place for his last good-bye. I like old churches, with all their stone-work and Middle Ages austerity. I wouldn’t have wanted to be around back then, but you have to admire the balls of those turn-of-the-first-century priests, who could extort alms from starving peasants in order to build temples of excess in the midst of absolute squalor.

  Oliver, with his fists in his baggy black pants, shook his head as he contemplated the statuary. “Artists spent their whole lives carving these stones,” he mused. “I wonder if it’s worth complete and wretched misery while you’re alive to know that your work will survive this long.”