Blind Submission (10 page)

“Certainly a
novel
approach,” I said, trying for levity.

Nora held the page away from her, between her thumb and forefinger, as if it smelled bad. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked. “There's no return address or anything.”

“Then don't do anything!” Anna said cheerfully.

“Whatever,” Nora said, and tossed the page into her reject pile.

Anna shrugged and I headed back to my desk, where there were several more demanding tasks screaming for my attention.

WHEN I GOT HOME,
there were two notes and the still-unopened pinot noir from the night before sitting next to my telephone. The first one, slid under the bottle, said,
Drink me, I deserve it.
The second was scrawled with my mother's name, Hillary, and a phone number. I didn't recognize the area code, but I picked up my phone and dialed it, anyway. It rang five times before my mother picked it up and breathed, “Greetings,” into the receiver. I could barely hear her. It sounded as if a hurricane were blowing across the line.

“Hillary!” I shouted. “Where are you?” One of the very first things my mother had taught me was to call her by her name and not by any modification of the word
mother.
I'd never even thought of her as
Mom.

“Is that my Angel?” she sang into the phone. “Hello, darling.”

“Where are you?” I repeated.

“I'm in the most beautiful place, Angel. You really have to come here. You must come. It's gorgeous. Trees and fresh air and—”

“But
where
?” I persisted.

“Near…it's near Seattle, Angel. Is that so important?”

“Well, it certainly would be if you wanted me to come visit,” I said. “Everything okay? I haven't heard from you for a while, Hillary, I was starting to worry.” This wasn't nearly the first time I had taken the mother role on the phone with mine. Nor, I suspected, would it be the last.

“Darling, don't you know by now that I will always be fine? Have a little faith, daughter. How are you?”

“I'm fine. Actually, I'm good. I just got a great job, Hillary. I'm working with Lucy Fiamma—she's a literary agent. I'm sure I must have mentioned…. Do you remember
Cold!
?”

“What? No, it's not at all cold here, Angel. Look, honey, I have to tell you something. I've found the most wonderful group of women. They are descended from actual
Amazons,
can you believe it? Anyway, we're planning a ritual cleansing, sort of a female sweat-lodge type of thing, and I would really like you to join us, Angel. You need to get in touch with your inner Amazon.”

The only Amazon I was likely to get in touch with was the dot-com version, but there was no way of telling my mother this without sounding sarcastic and faithless. Sooner or later she always found the Wiccans, eco-feminists, or sculptors disappointing and moved on, but while she was in the throes of community ecstasy, there was nothing I or anyone else could say to dim her enthusiasm.

“Hillary, did you hear what I said about my new job?”

“What new job, sweetie?”

“I'm working for a literary agent,” I almost yelled into the phone.

“Terrific!” A rush of static filled the phone and her next words were partially drowned out. All I heard was, “…to take care of yourself.”

“What? I can't hear you, Hillary.”

“Listen, honey, I have to go to a goddess meeting now. I'm running out as we speak. But I really want you to come up here, Angel. It's important. I'll call you later, okay? We can talk more then.”

“Hillary—” I began, but she was already gone. I tried to imagine what a goddess meeting might entail, but stopped myself when I started envisioning a grotesque ceremony involving menstrual blood. Well, she was okay. That was good at least.

I looked at the bottle of wine, fighting an urge to open it and drink it down. I wished Malcolm were beside me and took immediate comfort in the knowledge that he'd be showing up soon. The last two days had worn me down and talking to my mother had just polished me off. Malcolm, I thought, would make a perfect balm. I'd be ready for him when he arrived, I thought. But first there was
Parco Lambro.
I picked up the phone and dialed Damiano's number, which, by now, I knew by heart.

WITH MY HELP,
Damiano managed to finish his revisions by the end of the following day, and by the end of that week, all the editors on Lucy's list had received a copy of the manuscript. Despite the fact that Damiano had not managed to come up with a single photograph of himself, a point Lucy bemoaned constantly (“We're screwed if this author isn't mediagenic, Angel!”), every one of them wanted to buy his book.

Natalie Weinstein, who I could actually hear yelling through Lucy's telephone receiver, came in first, with an offer of one hundred thousand dollars, hoping vainly to preempt the others. Lucy then used Natalie Weinstein's offer as the “floor” with which to start an auction. Natalie was representing Weinstein Books, her own small imprint at Gabriel Press, which was, in turn, part of the behemoth Triad Publishing Group.
Parco Lambro,
like all of the books she acquired, would be a direct reflection of her taste and style; her name would be embossed on the spine of the book along with the author's. And she wanted this one badly.

I was amazed by how quickly the level of excitement escalated. Although the editors had enough time to do a surface read, how could each and every one of them have had the time to really feel the writing—enough to be so captured by it that they just
had to have it
? The answer, I believed, was Lucy herself. There was something about the way she spun that book, some mojo she managed to send through the phone that snared them completely.

“It's all about
buzz,
Angel,” she told me. “You have to create it. You have to make it happen.”

This, I was learning, was Lucy's particular genius, if it could be called that. There was something hypnotic or bewitching about the way she worked. I felt a little like the sorceress's apprentice as I traipsed back and forth from her office, watching her cast the spell.

Lucy gave the ten editors less than a week to prepare for the auction (“Have to keep it fresh,” she said, “so that they stay ravenous”), during which time she debated endlessly whether or not to throw a few more into the mix. “I'm just wondering if Susie Parker might not just love this book,” she'd say. And, “You know, we haven't yet tried Nadia Fiori. She
is
Italian.” Ultimately, she hooked three additional editors, with more frantic overnight deliveries, to make a baker's dozen. I was sure that had she wanted to, Lucy could have involved half the editors in New York, along with many heads of houses. Gordon Hart was among those heads, and he called a few times during the course of that next week, never once actually speaking to Lucy on the phone, but managing to communicate with her through me.

“Are you still working there?” he asked every time I answered his call. “This has got to be a new record for her.” That was another thing about Gordon Hart: He never referred to her as
Lucy
; it was always
she
or
her.
His tone was always extremely dry and crisp. It was difficult to tell on the phone, of course, but although he was clearly authoritative, Gordon Hart sounded like a relatively young man. Because he never seemed to be available when I called HartHouse for Lucy, I ended up logging quite a bit of phone time with his various assistants, most often Jessie Hill, who had recently been promoted to associate editor. It was Jessie who told me that Gordon Hart sounded young because he was only in his forties; he was the grandson of HartHouse's founder. It was also Jessie who told me that Gordon and Lucy went “way back,” but she didn't explain in what way.

The day before the auction, Lucy circulated a memo through the office:

 

As you are all aware, we will be auctioning the Italian book tomorrow morning. Therefore, I would like to ask that you arrive to work a little earlier than usual—

Angel and Anna—6 am

Nora—7 am

Craig—8 am

It is very important that you remain sharp, so get plenty of sleep tonight! If all goes well, we will have cause to celebrate!!! and you may go home early, at about 4 or 5.—L.

 

It occurred to me that Lucy might be one of those people who didn't need to sleep. I'd read about this syndrome somewhere. It went beyond garden-variety insomnia. There was a certain chemical in the brains of these individuals that kept them up and functioning on a fraction of the sleep that the average person needed, and when they did fall asleep, it was into the deepest sleep state. They had far fewer dreams than normal and never remembered the ones they did have. I made a mental note to research this further.

Anna, who had said not a word about the early-morning summons, beat me to the office the following morning. When I arrived, at six exactly, shivering, miserable, and clutching the strongest coffee I could find, she was already at her desk, computer fired up, a cherry-and-cheese Danish combination laid out on her desk. I stood still and stared at it for a moment, paralyzed with cold and exhaustion. Anna's face flushed carmine.

“It's for Lucy,” she said, pointing at the pastry. “In case she needs something to keep her going.”

“I don't suppose there's an extra one?” I asked, hoping I sounded sly and conspiratorial instead of tired and desperate.

Anna furrowed her sandy eyebrows into a misshapen
V
. “No,” she said, “but you can have this.” She thrust a fax at me and turned her attention back to her artful arrangement of Danish.

“What's this?” I asked her, but I was already reading it.

 

Your next bestseller is on the way. I hope you are ready. I am your next star author.

 

“Isn't this the same one who sent Nora that weird letter? When did this come in?” I asked, searching the fax for information and finding none.

“It was here when I got here,” Anna said.

“Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, if the manuscript is that good, why don't we have it already?”

But before Anna could answer me, Lucy's voice, shouting “My office, please!” came flooding through our intercoms.

I came in behind Anna, who had shoved her way in ahead of me, which was a good thing because the sight that greeted me temporarily stole my breath.

Lucy was standing in the middle of her office, arms and hands raised in a steeple above her head, exhaling expansively. She was dressed, head to toe, in blinding white. Her ensemble started with a white cashmere turtleneck, included a long string of pearls, an ankle-length white wool skirt, and white suede spike-heeled boots, and finished with a white Pashmina, which she'd draped insouciantly over one shoulder. Her hair, already a whiter shade of pale, floated loose around her face and seemed, like the rest of her, to be electrified. The brilliant green of her eyes and the scarlet cut of her mouth provided the only color in the entire office. For a brief, overtired moment, I thought I'd entered Narnia and was face-to-face with the White Witch.

“Yoga!” she barked, releasing her arms. “You should try it.”

“I'm not as flexible as you are, Lucy,” Anna gargled, sounding as if a small animal had lodged itself in her throat.

“Flexibility is a state of mind,” Lucy said, and gave me a long, sweeping gaze. “What about you, Angel? Surely you could maneuver those long legs of yours into a few yoga postures?”

“Uh…yoga…” I managed, still entranced by the scene before me.

“All right, enough small talk!” Lucy snapped, moving toward her desk. “Are we ready?”

“All set for round one,” Anna answered. I could hear her trademark smugness edging into her tone. “Would you like me to be first on the calls?”