Читать книгу The Editor - Steven Rowley, Steven Rowley - Страница 17

It’s two minutes before five o’clock when Lila guides me back down the long hallway that leads to the conference room, her coworkers packing up to go home. I try to make eye contact with everyone, smile to diffuse their annoyance. I can read the stress on their faces. Who is this arriving just as we are leaving? Do I have to stay? Will I miss my train? Lila keeps her usual pace; had we not met before, I would feel she, too, was itching to leave. She probably is, but Lila has only one setting: rushed. This time when we hit the conference room we bear a sharp right, down another hall, toward, I assume, Jackie’s office.

“Do you want coffee?”

I can picture the coffee mugs washed and put away for the day and the kerfuffle it would cause if I said yes. “No, thank you.” And then, because I can’t help myself from babbling around Lila, “Caffeine makes me jittery this late in the day.” I don’t want to say what we both already know: I’m jittery enough already.

A young, fair-haired man, handsome, maybe twenty-five, approaches us while pulling on a blazer in a windmill-like fashion I imagine members of a varsity rowing team do. He locks eyes with me like we’re cruising for random sex in an out-of-the-way park, and while unnerved, I can’t look away. I’ve spent years wanting to belong in these halls; glancing down would send the wrong message.

“Oh, hey.” Lila stops us. “This is Mark. He’s Mrs. Onassis’s new assistant. Mark, this is James Smale.” Lila punctuates my name with an air of disinterest.

“James Smale,” Mark says, shaking my hand while trying to place my name.

Lila rolls her eyes, I hope at Mark and not at me. “Jackie’s new acquisition.”

“Right.” Mark clasps his other hand on mine, they are soft and warm.

“Acquisition?” Like I’m some antiquity she’s acquired on an exotic foreign trip? “I guess we’ll be working together.”

“I look forward to it.” Mark lets go of my hand, but not before he winks. Thankfully, Lila doesn’t see that, her eyes might roll fully back in disgust. He walks past me and we both turn back for one last look. I’m one who feels invisible more often than attractive, so I’m almost giddy when I see him smile at me. Not to say Daniel doesn’t do his best to prop up my self-esteem, but he’s obliged to; the return date on me has long since passed and he doesn’t have a receipt. But was this flirtation? Or just aggressive friendliness. I stumble forward to catch Lila. Whatever that was, I don’t have time to process it.

We stop in front of a door that’s only slightly ajar.

“Here we are.” Lila raps on the door three times. Loudly. I would have knocked gently, with decorum; I’m instantly horrified. I turn to protest, but she’s already gone.

“Found it!” The unmistakable voice rings out from inside the office.

I knock again, quietly this time, and open the door a few more inches. “Mrs. Onassis?” I peer around the open door into the office and see no one. I bite my lip just in time to keep from saying “Jackie.” I peek farther into the room and find her standing by a bookshelf in the space behind the door. “Oh, hello again,” I utter awkwardly. I realize I have no idea what’s going on and hope for my own sake that what she’s found isn’t a manuscript more intriguing than mine. “What did you find?”

“A book I brought from home. Come in, come in.” She ushers me inside her office and I push the door closed most of the way behind me. I have the good sense to leave the door cracked, enough, at least, so that I can’t be accused of doing something untoward; it feels inappropriate to be entirely behind closed doors with her.

The office is not what I would call small, although it’s decidedly not palatial. It’s quite nice—comfortable, even. There’s nothing that would have prevented us from meeting here when we were first introduced. I’m wondering now if she didn’t select the conference room as neutral territory to put me more at ease, and I feel empty-handed suddenly, a gentleman caller without flowers or wine or chocolates.

“So nice to see you again, James.”

I can feel myself blush. “You as well.”

Jackie steps over several boxes (books, I’m guessing), which, in her skirt, is no small feat of gymnastics. They seem out of place, these boxes, uncharacteristically messy, but upon closer inspection her shelves are at capacity with manuscripts and galleys. There’s a painting of a dancer on the wall that looks like it could be worth a good deal of money, but I don’t know enough about art to be sure. I half expect her desk to look like her husband’s from the Oval Office, but instead it’s a Formica-topped eyesore that looks more like it might belong to a junior-high science teacher. The desk itself is covered in more manuscripts, weighed down with decorative glass paperweights.

Jackie holds the book up with both hands before circling behind her desk to take a seat. “I thought this would be just what we need for our working together tonight. Have you read the poet Constantine Cavafy?”

I glance at the book—his collected works. “No, I haven’t.” I wait for her to sit behind her desk before taking a seat in one of her guest chairs. I want to appear well read (and if there was homework for this meeting, I want to have done it), but this particular poet might be a little too obscure to fake a passing knowledge of.

“He’s not widely read in the States. My second husband introduced me to his works and he fast became a favorite. He has a poem, ‘Ithaka.’”

“The location of my book,” I say, although these must be very different Ithacas. I’m doubting that any poet named Constantine wrote about central New York.

“I’m wondering if it might be a good title for your novel.”

“Ithaca?” I’m momentarily disheartened. Not that I’m overly invested in my own title, but that the time has arrived to get down to work. I already miss the part where we fawn over me and the book. Can’t we have several more meetings like that?

“Though we generally try to avoid publishing titles with negative onomatopoeic sounds …”

I chew on that for a second. Ithaca. “Ick?”

“It makes the marketing department frown.”

Is she pulling my leg? There’s an uncomfortable pause and then I laugh politely, but not too much, in case I’ve misread her. I look around the office for clues that will put me at ease. Something that I recognize could belong to anyone, to normalize our interaction. The truth of the matter—it’s all rather conventional. It’s an office, like any other.

“So why Ithaca?” Jackie resumes. “Why set the book there?”

“Oh,” I say, the question snapping me back. “I grew up there. Well, a microscopic town just outside. So when people ask me where I’m from, that’s what I say.” Daniel’s voice fills my head. “You don’t want to change it to Cape Cod, do you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

I shake my head slightly. “Someone told me that you would … never mind. Nothing. It’s small, Ithaca. Exotic-sounding, perhaps. I like the Greek name. I think it evokes the book’s underlying tragedy. But otherwise, there’s nothing special about it. Like the characters themselves, at first glance. They’re unremarkable. On the surface they could be any mother and son. But I find simple can be … quite complicated.”

“Oh, so do I. You only passingly refer to the name of the town in the manuscript. It got me thinking that you might mean it as more of a state of mind. Or a state of being. Does that make sense?” Of course she must know that it makes perfect sense, but phrasing it as a question sets me up to agree. Perhaps a skill she’s used in the past, asserting her own ideas by involving others.

“It certainly does.”

Jackie looks like she’s about to say something and then stops. She thinks again before picking up the book. “I’ve marked the page. I don’t have my glasses. Would you do the honors?” She opens the book and hands it to me. It takes a moment for it to sink in that she’s asking me to read.

“Happy to.”

“Just the last few lines.”

I fumble with the book, almost losing her place, until I manage to get a good grip. I scan down the text of the poem, looking for just the right place to jump in. “Ithaka has given you the beautiful journey.” Already I feel a lump forming in my throat so I read quietly until I get to the very end. “And if you find her threadbare, Ithaka has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must have always understood what Ithakas mean.” I glance up at Jackie and she’s looking just past me, as if considering the meaning again for the very first time. “That’s … wow,” I say. I left my apartment early to walk here, gathering courage along the way in the invigorating March air, desperately dreaming up intelligent phrases and casual topics of conversation to use as filler, should our dialogue sputter. And yet, all I can come up with is “wow.”

But it is remarkable, especially if Ithaca is not a town or a place or a state of being, but a person, a mother, a soul. Indeed, she has not deceived me; somehow, I must have always understood that.

Once again Jackie opens her mouth to speak, then stops. But this time she plows forward without any further hesitation. “I have a thought.”

“Oh?”

A grin spreads across her face, hinting at the woman one always suspected lay just beneath the decorum. She opens her desk drawer, pulls out an expensive-looking bottle of rum, and plunks it on her desk. The alcohol sloshes, creating a rippling meniscus.

“This was a recent gift from one of my authors after a trip he took to Barbados.”

I’m not sure I’m following. “Rum was your thought?”

“Close,” Jackie says. She stands, lifting the rum to inspect it. She pulls her shoulders back as if not to let the heavy bottle topple her forward. Allen was right—she is indeed tall. “Daiquiris.”

David Letterman recently aired a Top Ten List of Least Popular New York City Street Vendors and the number-one entry served “Stunned Mouse in a Dixie Cup.” I don’t know why that comes to mind now, except that it became a punchline between Daniel and me (What would you like for dinner tonight? How about stunned mouse in a Dixie cup!) and—talk about stunned—even I wish I could see the look on my face right now. “Daiquiris.” I scramble out of my chair; when a woman like Jacqueline Onassis stands, a gentleman does too.

She reaches back in her drawer and pulls out what miraculously appears to be simple syrup. I’m beginning to think this particular drawer is a magician’s hat. “Don’t tell me you’re a teetotaler,” she says.

I struggle to remember if teetotaler means someone who is on, or off, the wagon. “No. Far from it. I just don’t usually drink daiquiris.”

“That’s because you don’t usually drink with me.” She notices me standing. “Sit, sit. I’m going to collect some ice.”

Jackie places her hand on my shoulder as she squeezes past me and out the door. Alone in her office, I lean forward and grab the rum. It’s hard not to think she’s putting me on. I hold it up to my nose, and not only does it contain alcohol, it may be one hundred and fifty proof. Do I know her to drink? Are there photos of her drinking? Magazine profiles that mention the habit? If I were her, there’s no way I could not drink. Should I put a stop to this? Is this a bad idea? I have just enough time to place the bottle back on her desk before she returns carrying a little silver platter with several limes, a knife, club soda, and two glasses with ice.

“What else do you have in that desk? A coconut tree?”

“Don’t ever underestimate me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, and that’s the God’s-honest truth.

“I think you will like this. It’s distilled from molasses instead of sugarcane.” She adds a healthy pour of rum to each glass and a more conservative amount of simple syrup. Whatever it is that she’s doing, she’s quite adept at doing it. Then she slices several limes and squeezes as much juice as she can into each glass; I can see the tendons in her sinewy arms. “I had to borrow these earlier from the cafeteria ladies.”

Good God, she’s been planning this all day. “I hope they didn’t mind.” Should I point out they won’t be getting them back?

“Oh, they like me.” She repeats the process with another lime, then tops each glass with a splash of soda. “On my first day here—this goes back a while now …”

“Fourteen years?” I try to recall her résumé from our first meeting. Jackie pulls a silver letter opener from a pencil cup and gives each cocktail a good stir.

“That’s right,” she says. “Back then, no one—and I mean no one—knew how they were supposed to behave in my presence. If I got into the elevator, people would get out. If I walked down the hallway, people would turn around and scramble in the opposite direction. If I went to the breakroom to pour a cup of coffee, people would panic and hand me theirs.”

“That sounds …” I grasp for the right word. “Lonely.”

Satisfied that each cocktail is well mixed, Jackie gently taps the letter opener on the rim of one glass and it makes the most perfect chime. She picks up the tray and holds it out for me as if she’s the most overqualified spokesmodel ever to be hired on a game show.

“Thank you,” I say, accepting a drink. I hold it firmly in both hands by my lap, even though the ice makes it uncomfortably cold to the touch.

“It was. Devastatingly lonely. It was like I had the plague. After several weeks of this nonsense, I decided to head down to the cafeteria for lunch. Of course, everyone put their trays down and got out of line in front of me and disappeared from sight. It was horribly embarrassing, because the last thing I wanted was anyone thinking that I felt entitled to go to the front of the line. But it’s not like I could tell them to hop back in line—they had evaporated! Anyhow, this one lunch lady, a rather robust woman, urged me to the counter with an exaggerated wave and bellowed, ‘WHAT’LL IT BE, JACKIE?’”

My easy laughter catches me off guard. “So, what was it?”

“Tuna fish salad, if I recall.” We both laugh. “I don’t suppose everyone was fond of my being here. But after that, things were different. Better.” Jackie leans in to the memory, taking a full beat before coming back. “In case that story didn’t do it for you, consider this your lunch lady.”

I hold up my drink and we clink glasses with good cheer, this long story a toast of sorts to our new relationship and the work we hope to accomplish together. “To Ithaca.”

“To Ithaca,” she echoes.

I take a sip, and the drink is … tart, citrusy. Only a little pulpy. A few of these would be downright dangerous.

“How does it taste?”

“It’s … sly.”

“You’re lucky you’re here this week. Last week I was keen on acquiring a book of cold blended soups. Lila and I tried a few of the recipes. As it turns out, after gazpacho there aren’t many cold soups worth a damn. Have you ever had cream-of-cashew soup? Cold?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Believe me, there’s no pleasure to be had. Unless you like wallpaper glue.”

I grimace, then gesture toward the Cavafy book, and she gives me permission to take it. I open to the marked page. “Ithaka referred to in the feminine, like she is mother herself. You must have always known what Ithakas mean.”

Jackie makes a rich sound like an exquisite piece of chocolate is melting on her tongue. “And those are just the last few lines. Beautiful, isn’t it? Take that book home with you and read the rest.”

“It’s remarkably … apropos.” But have I always known? Is my book some sort of misadventure to understand something that, deep down, I already know?

“Inspired by Homer, if I’m not mistaken.” Of course she’s not mistaken.

“The return of Odysseus home,” I say, grateful this time for something more intelligent to say. “Homer, I’ve read.”

“The maturity of the soul as we all travel home is, I think, all the traveler can hope for. I want you to think of that, especially in the context of your manuscript’s ending. I think that’s where the bulk of your work lies.”

“The ending.”

“The last third of the book. I have a clear picture of who your characters are at the start of the quarantine, but I don’t know exactly who they are at the end. To each other, to themselves.”

“I keep thinking of our first conversation. How you said books are journeys.”

“That’s right.”

“But …”

Jackie rests her chin on the back of her hand. “What is it?”

I hesitate, not sure how I can say this. “I’m sorry. I haven’t worked with an editor before. I don’t want to overstep.”

“I tell my writers our conversations are privileged. Like doctor and patient.”

“Lawyer and client?”

“Priest and parishioner. Confession only if you want.” Jackie raises her glass.

“I was just thinking if my book is in part about motherhood, that’s a journey you have taken.”

“One that has given me some of my most sublime moments. But your book. Yes, it’s about motherhood, but through the eyes of a son. And I haven’t been one of those.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I concede.

Jackie takes a long, slow sip from her glass. “I want to see real growth on the page, how the events have changed them, particularly the son. You have a remarkably fresh voice, so I know you have it in you.”

My drink is going down too easily, and I can feel the rum rushing to my face, coloring my cheeks, creating a blessed hollowness between my ears, allowing me not to pass out. “I can taste the molasses.”

Jackie narrows her eyes, scrutinizing me. “It’s hard for you to hear a compliment.”

“I don’t suppose I’ve received enough compliments to know.”

“That was wonderful deflection. The molasses.”

“Another compliment?”

“Another deflection?” She takes one more sip, then sets her glass down on a coaster. “You can taste it, though, I’ll give you that. Especially when you know that it’s there.”

I place the Cavafy book on the corner of her desk and inspect what’s left of my drink.

Jackie refocuses. “Before we get to the ending, tell me more about your mother.”

I burst out laughing and am immediately embarrassed, covering my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Oh, heavens. I sounded like your analyst.”

I’m fascinated to know if she’s familiar with the language of therapy. It wouldn’t surprise me, and yet it’s hard to imagine her vulnerable enough to seek help. But as much as our conversations may be privileged, I’m sure the privilege of probing conversation flows only one way. “What would you like to know?”

“Was she always sad?”

“No” is my first answer. But then I have to think—Is she sad? “I don’t think so. Perhaps. Are we talking about Ruth? I’m afraid I’m a little confused.”

“There’s confusion in the character.” She leans forward to retrieve the glass from my hand, and I barely loosen my grip enough for her to take it. If it weren’t for the condensation from the ice, it might not have wiggled out of my hand at all. “There are several moments where you get close to expressing something real, and I think you pad your observations with what I guess are fictional details and it keeps you from hitting some of the harder truths.”

She pours more rum into my glass. “Not too much,” I say. But as she refills my drink I think, To hell with it. You know? If we’re going to do this, let’s do this. Let this be the grand marshal in a parade of lunch ladies to come.

“Tell me something true,” she says.

“About my mother?”

“Even if it has nothing to do with the book.”

I think about this and how not to further betray her. She’d already be horrified if she were a fly on the wall right now. Do I tell Jackie my mother resents me for her being alone? That she took my side once, and it cost her her marriage? That even though it was the right thing to do, in the moment she probably didn’t envision how long life would be in the wake of it? That we’re barely on speaking terms right now? “I don’t think my mother got much of what she wanted out of life.”

“She has her children.”

“That’s true, but hardly anything else.”

“Does anyone? Get what they truly want.”

The question strikes me as odd, borderline offensive, even, from someone who has lived such a fascinating life. I need more alcohol for this. “Well, no. I would imagine that’s rare. But I also don’t think she was given the tools to ask.”

“That’s true for a lot of women our age.” Jackie steps in front of her desk to hand me my drink. She stands and leans elegantly with her legs crossed and one hand on the desk, looking like the perfect line sketch a fashion designer might make while dreaming up patterns for clothes. “I feel for her.”

“That’s good. As a reader, I hope that you would.”

“I’ll try over the course of our working together not to sound like your analyst. Writing it, I’m sure, was therapy enough.”

“If I hadn’t written it, I think I might have gone insane. Or become a Republican. Something horrible.”

Jackie laughs in such a way, not heartily but genuinely, that I want it to be my validation forever. “You remind me of my son.”

I can feel my face turn beet red, so I look down at my feet. They look cloddish in large, heavy shoes, the opposite of her narrow, elegant heels. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Acknowledge that I have difficulty accepting compliments, then lay the biggest one of all on me and expect me to be okay.”

Jackie waves her hand over her drink, wafting in some of the aroma. “Perhaps this round is too sweet.”

“Deflection!” This is the rum talking. “Are you not comfortable with compliments either? Could this be something we have in common?” I take a victory sip.

She shakes her head. “You didn’t compliment me.”

“The heck I didn’t.”

“A compliment for my son is a compliment for me?”

I nod enthusiastically, and I can tell this pleases her. She moves behind the desk to retake her seat. “He failed the bar exam multiple times, which I’m sure you know if you read the Daily News.” I can feel her utter sense of pride in him, as if this were self-depreciation.

I sink back into my chair and chuckle. I do remember the headlines: “The Hunk Flunks.” That must have stung. But, still. I can’t believe how much fun I’m having. I can’t believe how much my outlook has changed in a matter of weeks. I can’t believe that this is my life now. It feels resurgent, sparkling with possibility, like I’ve made some sort of comeback from an exile I hadn’t deserved.

“I think my lunch lady is working,” I confide.

Jackie sips from her cocktail and her eyes sparkle with thousands of secrets. “I think mine is too.” When she finishes, she sets her glass down and holds out the silver tray to collect mine. Another magical moment ended too soon, and we’re on to something new. “Now,” she says. “Let’s get down to work.”