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Henry shook his head. “Just the tyranny of a different kind of marketplace.”

O
n Thursday, Jackson Miller stayed close to his phone but tried to distract himself with work. He was writing a satirical article on “services” being offered to aspiring writers by those seeking to take financial advantage of them—themselves often writers more failed than aspiring. He debated whether to name Whelpdale specifically or merely describe him.

Writing such a piece, he felt like a “content provider” more than a writer. Yet the work was fun, and he hacked out a few pages with little effort. As the morning wore on, though, he found it difficult to concentrate. What he needed, he knew, was to master the art of unconscious composition—to write without thinking about it.

When Doreen emerged from her room at eleven, Jackson feigned irritation to mask his relief. He shoved back his chair with a great show and a loud sigh; in truth he was glad both for the company and for the excuse to take a break.

“Sorry,” said his roommate from the doorjamb. “Don’t mind me. Just grabbing a bite and a shower and heading to work.”

“It’s all right, sorry,” he said. “I was in deep concentration is all. You know how I am when I write.” He followed his roommate to the kitchen.

Doreen poured herself coffee.

“Dynamite date the other night with Mr. Dolomite?”

“I’m breaking it off. He’s a nice guy, but I’m not in love.”

“Not in love? You know I don’t put much stock in love. I hardly know anyone who married for love. Eddie Renfros maybe, but not necessarily his wife, and no telling where that will get him. I think marriage is mostly based on mild preference, convenience, and advantage—made more interesting by sexual attraction. Almost anyone who isn’t repulsive could fit the bill in the right circumstances.”

Doreen rolled her pupils with deliberate exaggeration. “I’ll agree with you that there isn’t one right person out there for anyone. I could probably fall in love with any of a hundred men in the world. But not with anyone, and a hundred’s not very many, really. How many people live in the world? And he’d have to fall in the right age range.”

Jackson wasn’t sure whether he believed his own argument, but he was having fun with it. He hoisted himself up next to the sink, knowing that it annoyed Doreen when he sat on the counter. “I think I object to the word ‘love’ generically, categorically. There probably is one woman out there who is perfectly fitted to me, and if there were any way to find out who she is and where she lives, I would probably make the effort and be blessed with decades of fantastic sex. But it’s clear that most of us don’t find that right person, and it’s when people pretend they’ve found the ideal substitute that they act like the biggest asses.”

“Are you saying you’ve never been in love?”

“Only with you, my dear, which makes my point.”

“Thanks a lot.” She swatted him with the dish towel, which she then folded in half and draped over the oven handle. “You’re sweet on Margot, though, or did things not go so well the other night?”

“The other night was delightful. I’m extremely fond of Margot, very serious about her. But I’m not going to be so false as to say she’s my destiny or the only woman out there for me. I do prefer her. I think we’re compatible, and she’s terrific, really terrific. Really cute and really sweet, and we got on well in bed.” He paused for Doreen to make a face. “But I’m not going to lose my head over her or make bad decisions.”

“You’re waiting to marry money,” she said triumphantly. “Please get off the counter.”

“Not for money, but it’s true that when I marry I want it to be a good match in every way—in circumstance as well as affection.”

“My, isn’t Margot a lucky girl to have found you!”

“No need for sarcasm. I’ve been very straightforward with Margot. She knows who I am.”

“Well, Jackson, I’m not a good audience for this particular theory of yours. I’ve met someone, someone I’m really quite taken with. You’ll laugh at this: he’s a writer.”

“Tell me he’s not writing a book about a bailiff.”

“Bailiff? I’m pretty sure not. At any rate, I wish I could see you fall madly in love and repent your cold analysis. Now, seriously, get off the counter. You know I hate that.”

After Doreen left for work, Jackson managed to type out another two paragraphs and work in a very good line about the bull in front of the stock exchange. But soon enough his gaze darted to the telephone. His thoughts vacillated between bright fantasies of author tours and screenplay contracts and dark ones of alcoholic descents into obscurity.

At two, he allowed his mind to be diverted by his recent memories of Margot. Despite his cynical words to Doreen, the night Margot had spent with him had made him feel all the more tenderly toward her. If the worst news came, he believed that Margot’s affections and goodness might save him from being too despairing. She really was a fine person.

By three, he was convinced that no news would be worse than bad news—and that no woman could console him in either event.

The phone rang at four, and he inflicted his full repertoire of obscenities on the hapless telemarketer on the other end of the line. When the phone rang again at four-thirty, he had just tossed back his second shot of vodka.

It was Chuck Fadge, editor of
The Monthly
. “Our readers love your stuff,” he said in his mealy voice. “We want you to write a regular column. Do you have some more ideas like the iPod story?”

“I’m never out of ideas. I ooze them. They drip from my fingers. How about a piece on how famous writers who are dating other famous writers met?”

“Perfect,” Fadge said across the crackling connection.

“It was a joke. I didn’t plan to write anything that stupid. Next you’ll be wanting a piece on the gym regimens of Pulitzer winners. If so, I have to tell you I may not be your man.”

“Joke, yes. Stupid, sure. Perfect, you bet. Shall we say eight-hundred words by Friday after next? And don’t rule out that workout story. I’m serious.”

The second Jackson returned the phone to its cradle, he felt it vibrate in his hand. “Hello, Jackson Miller here,” he said, practicing the confident tone of a regular columnist for one of the country’s most recognizable literary publications.

“Jackson.” It was his agent’s voice. “Don’t say anything, just listen to these words: six figures and page one in the catalogue.” She paused, not without drama. “The lead book, Jackson! I told them to put the marketing budget in the contract. That’s rare—they hate doing it—but they want to publish this book more than they want to breathe.”

M
argot Yarborough expected the year between the acceptance and the publication of her novel to be a long agony, but time moved quickly and was punctuated by small pleasures.

Several times during the winter, Margot rode the train into the city to spend a night with Jackson, whose pieces now regularly appeared in
The Times
and—she knew but hoped her father did not—
The Monthly
.

When Jackson was with her, she felt the brightness of his full attention. He was always concerned that she get enough to eat. He solicited her views on various events and books. And he seemed to find it difficult to keep his hands off her. She enjoyed this—who wouldn’t, she asked herself—but it was always a bit of a relief to leave the spotlight he shined on her, to no longer measure her words or worry that she had packed the wrong clothes when he wanted to take her out for a drink. And when she was at home, Jackson seemed much further away than an hour’s commute. She thought of him, but it often seemed that he was separated from her by time rather than space, as though he belonged to her past rather than her present. Or, as in a fantastic film, that he existed in some alternate or imagined future that would never arrive in this life, that he lived in a parallel world that was visible, yet fully curtained off.

Between visits to the city, she worked. Among other projects, she wrote book reviews for a small trade journal. Though she received only forty dollars per review, she felt ethically bound to read every word of every book she was assigned. Often she was disheartened by the television thinness of the plots and the poor quality of the prose itself. She kept her mood from plummeting by reminding herself that many good books also make it into print. In her reviews, even of those books she did not admire, she was kind—sensitive to the truth that a real human being sat behind even the frailest effort.

During this time, she also proofread the galleys of both her book and her father’s, going over each carefully and twice. Knowing she would be charged if she changed more than a certain percentage of lines, she chose her edits carefully, debating whether her use of the word ‘night’ in a description of the Creole girl’s eyes was a cliché in need of repair, whether a particular pronoun was absolutely clear in its reference.

One afternoon, a courier hand-delivered an envelope from her publisher, and from the cardboard rectangle she pulled the proposed cover for her book. A beautiful woman with long curly black hair sat under a tree dripping with Spanish moss. Over the tree, in a looping script suggestive of French Quarter ironwork, curved the word
Pontchartrain
.

She was delighted for nearly an hour, walking around the house with light footsteps, humming, telling herself that, yes, her book really was being published. But the twelfth time she stared at the cover, it struck her that the design was all wrong. The composition was beautiful, but therein lay the problem. It should be the leper, not the Creole beauty, on the cover. Maybe a close up of a man’s twisted face would work, or a blow up of the bacterium that causes leprosy. And if the book was to be called
Pontchartrain
—it still didn’t sound right to her—then the letters should be solid and austere.

She checked her contract and pondered the meaning of the word ‘consult’: “The publisher shall consult with the author about the design of the book jacket.” She spent the next half-hour drafting and revising a reasoned email to her editor. She argued that tricking romance readers into buying her book might do more harm than good in the long run. And she voiced her concern that those readers who might actually want to read her book, who might understand it, could be put off by the proposed jacket. “And so,” she concluded, “while the last thing I want to be is a difficult author, I wonder if we might try out a different idea for the cover.”

The following day, a day on which her father had gone into the city to have lunch with his friend Quarmbey, Margot finally talked to her mother about Jackson. “I guess I love him,” she said.

Her mother hugged her and kissed her cheek. “That explains so much.”

“I know that he was awful to you down at Blue Ridge. He’s just, well, he’s ambitious. He was trying to impress Dad.”

“You know that I believe that grudges hurt only those who hold them. One of the very best things we can do for our own spiritual health is to forgive those who harm us. One day, everyone is going to practice this, and that will be the end of all war.”

“Not while Dad’s alive.”

“Your father is another sort of animal altogether. At least he’s unarmed. Tell you what, you know as well as I do that I haven’t much sway with your father these days. But I do have a card or two left up my sleeve. I’ll see what I can do to get your friend invited.”

Before Margot could embrace her and thank her, her mother added, “If your stars line up. So to speak.”

It took Margot more than an hour to complete the personality profiles for herself and for Jackson, and then she watched her mother spend forty minutes at the kitchen table, plotting her answers as locations on a nine-point star.

“Let’s see,” her mother said at last. “You are modest and quiet, while he is materialistic and brash. You are studious and introverted, while he is gregarious and power hungry. You are internally motivated, and he is externally motivated.”

Margot sat, hunched, as her mother enumerated the myriad ways that she and Jackson were fundamental opposites.

“Well, my dear, it seems as though your friend Jackson’s rather obnoxious personality may indeed be your true solace.”

It took Margot a few moments to understand that her mother was condoning the match. She straightened. “True solace?”

“If only I’d known the significance of this system before I’d married your father! I could have saved myself decades of his toxicity.”

“Then I wouldn’t have been born.”

“Well, yes, that’s true, dear. Good point. And you know how I dote on you.” Her mother crinkled her eyes and gave her a breast-squishing hug.

Later, at her computer, Margot read the response from her editor. “Of course you aren’t a difficult author,” Lane had typed, “and you know how we all adore you and your book. But we’re certain that we’ve landed on the right title and the right cover to maximize your readership. After all, a writer writes to be read. It may seem odd to you, but you have to trust that we know what we are doing.”

Margot tried to feel comforted; of course publishers hired professionals who knew what they were doing. But she was nagged by memories from her days at the bookstore, reminded particularly of a terrifically dark war novel whose cover—a cameo-like oval on a black background—had been ignored by browsers because it looked like a volume of contemplative poetry.

A
manda Renfros prepared for the holidays as though she and Eddie had no money problems, reasoning that their financial woes were near their end. She was hanging a plush wreath on the door to their apartment when her husband came home from the library one Wednesday evening.

“Only two people live above us,” Eddie objected. “Who are you trying to impress?”

Amanda followed him inside. “I don’t need to impress anyone but myself, and you should give me some credit for trying to pretend this is a home. I’m not going to just let things slide. You know aesthetics are important to me. Don’t underestimate what dreary surroundings do to a person. Take poor Henry; he lives in that squalid place, and it follows naturally that he lets himself go to hell. I can only imagine that his book will necessarily be grim and ugly. That will, in turn define—and by define I mean limit—his readership. And that, in turn, will further dampen his outlook on life. And so on and so on, and I worry he’ll wind up selling used books on the street.”

Eddie emptied an ice tray and fixed himself a drink. “He’s a better writer than I am. Want something?”

Amanda suspected that her husband was saying this so that she would protest, and there was a time when she would have jumped in to reassure him of his great talent. But she was tired of his pleas for ego stroking. Often his efforts to awaken her sympathy were followed by clumsy efforts to stir her desire, and she wondered if he knew her at all. There were women, she knew, prone to caretaking and attracted to weakness, but she wasn’t one of them, and Eddie should know that by now.

“Look,” she said. “If the wreath on the door cheers up the upstairs neighbors, it’s been worth the effort.”

“You’re talking about the Levines, Amanda. I bet their December would be just fine without our Christmas wreath.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “we may decide to have some friends over for a bit of holiday cheer.”

“Which friends?” The edge to his voice was unmistakable. “I really can’t stomach Big Time Jack until I hear word on my book. Last chance on that drink.”

“Don’t be morbid, and don’t be ridiculous.” Amanda dragged a chair across the room so that she could reach the high closet that held their holiday ornaments. “Yes, pour me a glass of wine. I’m thinking all natural materials on the tree this year. You know, straw animals and raffia bows and the like. Maybe we have some trimmings from Christmas past that we can carry over, to save money.”

She waited for Eddie to lend her a hand before climbing off the chair with the box in hand, gracefully, really, given the awkwardness of the maneuver. She started to make a comment about chivalry. But the sight of him slid halfway between sitting and laying on the sofa he had pretended to love when she bought it, combined with her certainty that at least one new book contract was in their very near future, swelled her generosity. There he was: the man she’d married, the author of the critically hailed
Sea Miss
, which couldn’t have been completed without her.

She sat on the chair nearest him and thanked him as he handed her the wine. The tannins stung her tongue slightly, and the familiar pepper-and-cherry taste spread across her palate. “Eddie, as soon as Christmas has passed—the day after, even—let’s go away somewhere warm, somewhere where we can gaze at water and dig our feet in the sand and you can start a book you can really be proud of.”

“Amanda, if only I thought I could write such a book, I’d brave the creditors and fly south with you.”

“But you could, Eddie, with a change of scenery. This just can’t be your fate, after such a bright start. I won’t believe it. You’ve got to make one more real effort. If you fail in literature—I mean give up on it—then what?”

“Amanda, do you love me? Say that you love me.”

“Of course I do. That’s why I’m proposing that we go away somewhere warm, somewhere you can work. I hate being poor, Eddie. I detest it. I promised myself that when I was an adult I would never be poor again. A person shouldn’t have to be poor as a child and an adult.”

“Grown-up poverty for rich kids?”

“Absolutely, let them take a turn. But it’s not just that. It’s the idea of you becoming an ordinary man.”

“Even if I never write another line, that won’t undo what I’ve done. I know I haven’t been prolific, but you can’t condemn my entire self.”

“When I suggested the trip, I was being generous. I wanted to give you another chance to write a truly great book. I wanted to give us another chance.”

“You say that as though the one is dependent on the other.” Eddie roused himself from his slouch, knelt before her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’ve been so cool to me lately.”

“I’ve been distracted, and busy. I have writing of my own now.”

“Or course you do, and that makes me happy.”

“Does it?” She urged a smile, stroked her husband’s hair. “I believe that we’re both going to be famous, at least a kind of famous. People will know our names if not our faces.”

Eddie kissed her hair, her eyes, her mouth. As she imagined him as a three-and then four-book author, getting reviewed, giving readings, being photographed, she found that, for the first time in awhile, she desired her husband.

The mood was not dispelled by early morning, if only because she rose before he did. When she slid from bed, he slept on his side, his profile turned against the pillow. His breath was smooth, and he seemed composed in a way he rarely did when awake.

As was the case nearly every morning of late, Amanda found an email sent from the West Coast late the night before. It was from the editor of
Swanky
, begging Clarice Aames for anything. “Spit in a bag and we’ll use it,” he wrote.

When she searched the web for Clarice Aames, she found not only the link to the
Swanky
table of contents, but two websites with pages devoted to the mysterious author of “Bad Dog Séance.” She typed out a reply to the editor, “I’ll give you something better than spit. Un beso, Clarice.” For the next three hours, while Eddie slept away the morning, Amanda wrote Clarice Aames’ second story: “Sex Kitten Leaps from the Bleeding Edge.”

When she was done, she checked her own messages—she was now using her maiden name, Amanda Yule, for correspondence—and saw that two of the agents she had queried wanted to read the entire manuscript of
The Progress of Love
. What she felt as her smile spread was not so much happiness as well being, the sense that things were right in the world, that she was at last living the life marked out for her.