A Pagan's Nightmare (7 page)

My wife tried to burn Larry’s manuscript.

On Friday morning I came downstairs to make toast and orange juice—and found Angie kneeling in front of our fireplace. Keep
in mind that this was August, in Atlanta, and the woman had lit gas logs.

Our relationship had endured moments like this in the past. She had burned a copy of Larry’s
Aliens Invade Billy Graham Crusade
manuscript the previous fall. Well, truth be told, I had offered her the matches for that one.

The previous fall, however, our finances were good. I had just sold several projects and put six months of living expenses
in the bank. Now here we were, ten months later, depleting our savings to pay our mortgage and the college tuition for our
son, Zach, a sophomore at Auburn.

Not today, Angie dear

I crept up behind her and plucked the first three chapters from her hand just as she was about to insert them into the flames.
Oddly, I found the whole thing comical—my wife kneeling on Berber carpet in her gym shorts and Braves T-shirt, about to torch
Larry’s work because it offended her.

“You know there are several copies of that, honey,” I said, folding the papers and stuffing them in my bathrobe pocket. “Two
have already been sent out to L.A.”

Angie remained kneeling, facing the flames and nodding her head. “I know,” she said softly. “But I’m worried about you, Ned.”

I stood behind her with outstretched palms. “Don’t you understand, honey? I can’t sit around and hope that some famous screenwriter
will just knock on the door and want me to go sell his stuff and earn a big advance from which I’ll get fifteen percent. I
have to pound the pavement and sell something.”

She reached out and turned off the gas logs. “I could support us.”

I knelt beside her and tried to explain my motivation. “Angie, your editing work brought in nine-thousand dollars last year.
Six the year before that. If I don’t sell something soon we’ll have to live under an 1-85 bridge with what’s his name.”

“Victor?”

“The guy we gave our chicken wings to after the Braves game.”

“His name is Victor. Me and two other ladies from my women’s group take him meals.”

“Well, we’d be Victor’s neighbor, complete with his ‘n her cardboard bedrooms.”

“Are you saying you want me to get a full-time job?”

My fragile male ego took her offer as an insult. “No, of course not. You want to balance part-time work and volunteering at
the church, and you should stay with it.” I tried to change the subject. “Ya know, I was just thinking that you and I haven’t
slow-danced in the kitchen in a long while.”

Great timing, Ned.

Angie sat back and folded her arms around her knees. “What I’d really like is to talk to Larry in person about his story.”

I stood and forced myself not to overreact. “But you were about to set flame to it.”

“Oh, Ned, I knew you had other copies. You always have other copies. I just didn’t want this in my house. Can you imagine
what our friends at church will think if you agent this? If you attach our good name to ‘believers kidnap pagans’? Not to
mention my coworkers at the journal.”

I glanced at my watch and tucked the papers under my arm. “Honey, um, I have to meet a client in a bit, and you know how traffic
is…. I’d better scoot.”

I leaned down and kissed her cheek—which was all she offered.

My meeting was actually a day’s worth of phone calls. I just said what I did on instinct, to bow out gracefully and avoid
argument. Truth was, not only had I sent two copies to L.A., I’d received an inquiry from a studio exec. Perhaps this would
amount to nothing; he certainly was nowhere near the point of discussing numbers. In
my business, “numbers” were all that mattered. When someone said they were going to send numbers, it meant that an offer was
forthcoming, that their initial interest in a project was about to be, well,
monetized.

In our bedroom I exchanged my bathrobe for a white button-down, an orange Tennessee tie, and pleated khakis—my usual summer
garb.

I left the house in a hurry and backed my Saab into the street. At the first stoplight I caught myself thinking like an amateur
agent. My mind would not stop sifting through possible deal amounts. Five figures? Did I dare dream of
six?
Then I began calculating fifteen percent of various sums and comparing them to our debt.

Debt be gone?

Possibilities swarmed in my head, and I hardly remembered pulling into the second deck of the parking garage. It was there,
while my car idled and the AC blew, that I called Larry.

He didn’t even answer with a greeting. “The shoes fit now, Ned. Turns out I had swollen feet, due to all my pacing in the
park, wondering about my future and hoping you were going to sell this thing.”

I reclined my seat and said, “Things look… interesting.”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘interesting’?” He sounded like he was eating.

“What are ya munching on, Larry?”

“Bagels… from Atwanta Bwead Company.”

“Plain, right?” Larry was even more anti-butter than he was anti-prude.

“Wight. Now what about ‘interesting’?”

“I mean there’s a possibility of interested parties.”

A short pause. “You’re serious?”

“Well, it’s still very early.”

“Ned, I really hope this works out. For both of us. And I hope I spelled all the words correctly. You know what a perfectionist
I am.”

What I said next was only to temper his enthusiasm. “Angie tried to burn your manuscript this morning. She doesn’t think our
Baptist roots jive with the content of your story.”

Larry sighed into the phone. “I wish people would cut me some slack. This story may not be what she thinks.”

“I’ll give you slack. It’s Angie I’m worried about.” I glanced down at my tie and smoothed out a wrinkle. “Your story has
got my wife in a tizzy, plus… I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

This time the pause was longer, as if he was now leery of me. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Are you still seated?”

“Yeah, why? You coming over to join me for breakfast? I eat alone way too often, ya know.”

“No, I’m just getting to my office. But I need you to be honest and answer something.”

“Um… I guess that would be okay.”

“I need to ask you if you have recently been inside an evangelical church, and do you have any close friendships with people
who are members of one?”

He sighed again. “Nope, haven’t been. No real friends there, either. Just you, the gregarious Ned Neutral.”

“And yet you’re trying to write the next big thing for them?”

“For whom?”

“People of faith, Larry. Isn’t that who you’re writing for?”

“Well. . . other folks, as well. It’s for everybody, Ned. Everybody who can appreciate good storytelling.”

“But it’s twilight zone, Larry. Your first six chapters are all twilight zone. And now… now our hero is on his way to a marina
to search for Miranda?”

Larry paused again, and this time he seemed uncomfortable. “The shrink I’ve been seeing says the next chapters are some of
my best, that I reached deep for these, all the way back to the Sunday school brainwashing, which I’m not going to discuss
with you today.”

“C’mon, Larry. I’m your friend. Just one anecdote… please?”

A long pause. “She made me stand in front of the class and hold an eraser in my teeth… for three consecutive Sundays. I was
six years old and coughing up chalk dust.”

I knew that Larry was receiving some sort of therapy for some sort of past misfortunes. But that was the extent of my knowledge.
Our relationship was agent/client, and we both did a fine job of avoiding personal issues. Except, of course, for his dating
shenanigans.

Not sure how to respond, I remained in my Saab and turned the AC on high. “So, what about the real Miranda? Have you seen
her again?”

“Our second date begins in less than an hour.”

“And I suppose you’re going to take her to a golf course to walk barefoot on lush fairways at sunset?”

“Nope. We’re touring the city on MARTA.”

“Your second date is on public bus routes?”

“I have to see how she’ll fit in with Atlanta’s diversity. That stuffs important to me, ya know.”

I shook my head and wondered if other agents had clients like this. “And Miranda actually agreed to go on this so-called date
with you?”

“She’s crazy ‘bout me, Nedster. I can tell.” He spoke quickly, like he wanted to end our call.

I got out of my car, locked the door, and walked across the second level of the parking deck, phone to my ear. “One last thing.
Does Miranda know yet that she’s the love interest in your story?”

Larry allowed this pause to linger before he whispered into the receiver. “Not a clue.”

At the elevator I ended the call. Two minutes later I stepped out onto the 22nd floor and was met by gold chains, gold watch,
and turbo cologne—all accessories to his pinstriped suit. Rocco-the-commercial-real-estate-salesman worked, and perhaps
lived,
across the hall from my office. We shared an administrative assistant, though he and I rarely visited.

But today he was right there, grinning with his hand extended. “How are ya, Nedster?”

“Good, Rocco. And you?”

Rocco was born to sell high-priced cars to stupid people. But
somehow he had worked his way up to selling high-priced shopping centers to smart people. Or so he claimed.

His handshake was even stronger than his cologne, his teeth whiter than bleached rice. “Ned, I hear ya got something hotter
than beach property. Something a good Catholic like myself might find entertaining?”

I moved past him, smiling. I pulled my office key from my pocket and unlocked my door.

“Yeah, Rock, you’d like the irreverent parts.”

He was third into my office, right behind his cologne. “So, Nedster, mind if I take a look-see? I don’t cut my next deal till
1:00. Got a little theatre sale up your way, in Buckhead. But I got some reading time now if you don’t mind….”

Each time we visited, Rocco would tell me what he was about to sell. Who knew if the deals ever got done? Who knew if Rocco
could even
read?

I decided to test that premise. Behind my desk, I pulled a copy of Larry’s first six chapters and handed the stack to white-toothed,
deal-cutting Rocco. “These pages don’t leave the building, Rock. Got it? I want these back by the time you leave today.”

He clutched them to his chest like a kid with a doll. “Guard it with my life, Nedster. Say, you want some coffee? I’m buyin’
today.”

“The coffee on our floor is free, Rocco.”

“Still, I’ll deliver. Black, right?”

“With one sugar. Thanks.”

An hour later Rocco returned with a black coffee, four sugars, and three creams. He set them on my desk and stood there grinning.
“Please, Ned, this had me giggling in the break room. I got twenty more minutes before I have to drive to Buckhead. Can I
please read a little more?”

I dumped a pair of sugars in my coffee, nodded okay, and watched happy, grinning Rocco ease out of my office with chapter
seven.

O
YSTER SHELLS CRACKED
and popped under the tires of DJ Ned’s Mercedes. On the drive toward the coast Ned and Lanny had bonded like two survivors,
determined to battle a common enemy. Lanny had shared his work debacles, the Atlanta traffic report, and how he feared for
Miranda’s life; Ned had recounted the strange new music, his lack of callers, and the renaming of Devil’s food cake. Now Lanny
gazed through the windshield at the moored vessels of Bluewater Marina, hoping that Miranda was near. He sniffed salt air,
heard gulls caw overhead.

“See her car?” Ned asked. He cut the engine and unlatched his seatbelt.

Lanny said nothing.

Ned waited all of four seconds. “Well,” Ned asked, “do ya see it?”

Lanny climbed out of the convertible, stood near the hood, and scanned the parking lot. He turned slowly, searching every
spot. Finally, he stopped squinting and shook his head.

“She flew down, so she’d have driven her parents’ Explorer. But I don’t see an Explorer anywhere.” Lanny strode toward the
marina and motioned for Ned to follow. “C’mon, let’s search the docks.”

Ned tended to pamper his possessions, especially his car, so he secured the convertible top before hurrying across the oyster
shells in his sneakers. He came up behind Lanny. “My neighbor kept a boat here once,” he offered, not sure what to say but
glad to be in the company of a fellow non-zealot.

They walked out onto the docks and turned left toward a row of impressive charter boats and pleasure craft. Lanny’s equilibrium
tottered when he approached the first four vessels and noted their
names: the
I’m So Worthy,
the
I’m So Worthy 2,
followed by the
Formal on Sundays,
and the
Formal on Sundays 2.

From the available evidence, a complete maritime conversion had taken place.

“Seein’ a pattern here?” asked DJ Ned, trailing behind and making no effort to hide his sarcasm. “Ain’t no more
Nina, Pinta,
or
Santa Maria.”

“That’s enough, Ned,” Lanny said over his shoulder.

Ned would not shut up. A psychologist had once told him that he was one of those people who relied on empty chatter and humor
to cope with stressful situations. “Looks to me like the zealots beat us to the marina. In fact, it looks like the zealots
now
own
the marina. By now, they probably own the entire planet.”

Ned struggled to keep up with Lanny, who surprised him by stopping and staring at the empty fifth slip. Below him were just
docile waters and barnacled posts.

“What’s the matter?” Ned inquired. “You were expecting an agnostic boat?”

Lanny stared out to sea and saw nothing but gentle whitecaps under a blue sky. “Slip number five was where Miranda’s parents
kept their charter.”

“What was its name?” Ned inquired.

“They named it for their first child,” Lanny said, on his toes and peering out to sea. “The boat is called
The Miranda.”