Blind Submission (28 page)

“Bad clams?” she asked. “Not likely, is it, Ricardo?”

 

ELEVEN

LUCY WAS AFRAID TO FLY.
This was something she hadn't shared with anyone in the office that I knew of. If he'd been aware of it, surely Craig would have informed me before Lucy and I set out on a cross-country flight together. As I adjusted my seat belt and ignored the flight crew's halfhearted flight-safety instructions, I realized that Lucy's trepidation was probably the reason she'd never before taken anyone with her on her many business trips. Lucy hated showing weakness of any kind and never once mentioned her fear to a soul.

She hadn't exactly said anything of it to me, either, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on. Before we even boarded, she started popping Xanax as if they were little candies. I'd picked up the prescription for her a few days earlier and read the Rx on the bottle, which instructed that she take one pill every six hours “for anxiety.” From what I could tell, she'd taken at least eighteen hours' worth by the time we got on the plane.

Although she could have boarded before me (Lucy had purchased a first-class seat for herself and one in coach for me), she waited for my group to be called before taking her seat. Her steps were hesitant and jerky as we walked down the Jetway together, as if she were pushing against an invisible force. She fell against me at one point, gripping my arm so hard her fingernails almost punctured my skin.

“I hope you're not planning to sleep on this flight, Angel,” she said through clenched teeth. “Because we've got a lot of work to do in New York and this is a perfect opportunity to get caught up.”

I glanced at her, mutely nodding assent. The Xanax hadn't taken effect yet; her face was the color of a blank page and tiny beads of perspiration glistened on her forehead. I couldn't help but marvel at her ability to maintain her usual commanding tone while in the grip of a full-blown phobia. I left her in first class, where she was already ordering a hapless flight attendant to bring extra blankets, pillows, and a glass of wine “immediately,” and took my seat near the back of the plane, grateful for the space between us.

But as we pulled back from the gate and began to taxi down the runway, I found myself getting nervous, and not because I was the least bit anxious about flying. It was Lucy I was concerned about. It was easy to see Lucy more as a force than a person. This was an image she cultivated. But now I'd seen that spark of naked terror in her eyes and felt compassion for her along with a weird need to protect her. It was as if her fear of flying had made her human, if only briefly, and despite the relief I felt to be sitting twenty-five rows away from her, I wanted to make sure she was all right. We lifted off the ground, all those tons of steel rising in an improbable ascent, and I could feel her fear in my own body. My stomach flipped and adrenaline made my heart race. I gripped the armrests hard enough to turn my knuckles white and attract the attention of the woman sitting to my left, who put down the paperback she was reading and smiled at me reassuringly.

“You'll be fine,” she said. “Takeoff is always the hardest part.”

“I'm okay,” I told her.

“You look a little scared,” she answered.

I relaxed my grip on the armrests. “I'm not, though,” I said. “I'm not afraid to fly.” I sounded like I was trying to convince myself.

“All right,” she said, disbelief plain in her voice, and picked up her book. Out of lifelong habit, I looked at the cover to see what she was reading. It was the most recent edition of
Cold!

“Good book,” I said, the words falling out before I had a chance to stop them.

“What? Oh, this?” She waved the book in front of her. “Yes, it's excellent. I've already read it three times, but it's one of my favorites.”

“Mine, too,” I said.

“He's such an amazing writer.” She sighed. “I wish he'd write another book.”

“He is,” I said, and bit my lip. “An amazing writer, I mean.”

“Makes you wonder, though, doesn't it?” she went on as we continued our climb into the sky. She seemed pleased to have the opportunity to chat. “I mean, why
hasn't
he written another book yet? Maybe he can't. Maybe he didn't even write this one. Maybe there isn't even a real Karanuk. It's not like things like that have never happened, right?”

Not only had they happened, but they'd happened in multiples. Fake stories, lying authors, even completely fabricated identities had popped up with increasing frequency, so my seatmate wasn't off-base at all. I knew I should just agree with her, smile, and be done with it, but something seized me, some need to set her straight combined with a misguided sense of hubris, and I couldn't stem the flow of words from my mouth. “I can assure you that there is a Karanuk,” I said. “And he is working on another book right now.”

The woman turned her head toward me, curiosity lighting her eyes. “Do you
know
him?” she asked.

“No…I mean yes, but not…” That was it, I realized. I was screwed. And it was going to be a long flight. “I represent him,” I said finally, and rather than correcting myself immediately, I let the words linger in the air for a moment, trying them on for size. She'd probably leave it at that, I thought. She was just a reader. Unfortunately, I was soon proved wrong.

“You're his literary agent?” she exclaimed.

“I work for his literary agency,” I said. So much for trying things on for size.

“You work for Lucy Fiamma?” Her voice had risen to a level that threatened to alert flight attendants. I was doubly screwed. I'd managed to wind up sitting next to someone who knew enough about the world of publishing to identify Lucy as Karanuk's agent. What were the chances?

“Yes,” I admitted. “Yes, I do.”

“This is just the most amazing coincidence,” she said, excited. “I'm a writer myself. I've recently completed my first book and I was
just
getting it ready to send to your agency.”

I was triply screwed. And trapped as well. I knew what was coming next: a detailed description of this woman's manuscript, along with all the reasons it was sure to be a bestseller and probably an encapsulated version of her life story as well. And I'd have to listen politely. I'd have to outline our submissions policy and assure her that I'd pay special attention to it when she sent it in. I hoped to God she wasn't carrying a copy with her, because then I'd be forced to actually read some of it. At least she wasn't aware that Lucy was also on the flight. That knowledge could lead to a truly unpleasant situation.

“How about that?” I said, and hoped I didn't sound too disingenuous. “That really is a coincidence, isn't it?”

“Indeed,” she said, and smiled broadly. She extended her hand. “Solange Martin,” she said. “But everyone calls me Sunny.”

“Angel Robinson,” I said, wiping my damp palm on my pant leg before shaking her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Angel,” she said. I waited for her to launch into a pitch of her book, but to my surprise she stopped right there, picked up her copy of
Cold!,
and got back into her reading. I checked her out from the corner of my eye, seeing her for the first time. She was trim and tan, and everything about her was colored brown and gold, from her hair to her eyes to her loose silk pantsuit. It was difficult to determine her age because her skin was smooth and unlined, but her face had an aura of maturity about it. Mid-thirties, I guessed. I studied her more carefully and decided that she was a very attractive woman. She'd look great on a book jacket.

The pilot announced that we'd reached our cruising altitude and that FAA-approved electronic devices could now be used safely. I reached down for my laptop and Palm Pilot. I needed to give Lucy's schedule a once-over while she was far enough away from me that she couldn't change it—again—and then I needed to get back to my ongoing edit of
Blind Submission.
Lucy had been pressing me to get “fifty hot pages” of the novel ready to send to editors. She was planning to pitch it hard in New York, even though I'd told her I didn't think it was ready to go out. Since my blowup/breakup with Malcolm, there had been a few times I'd come very close to telling her that he was the likely author. But Malcolm's vehement denial, difficult to dismiss out of hand, stopped me every time.

What if he was telling me the truth and he wasn't the author of
Blind Submission
?

As difficult as it was to admit that the man I'd loved and trusted for so long could have used me in such a craven display of selfishness, it was a still more frightening prospect to consider that he hadn't. Because if it wasn't Malcolm (and, as G, he wasn't giving an inch), I couldn't think of who would know the intimate details of my life as laid out in the novel—or how that person would have obtained the information.

For her part, Lucy seemed unbothered by the fact that the author was remaining anonymous. All she cared about was that I was working on the chapters as quickly as they came in and that G wasn't going to take the project anywhere else, which I assured her wouldn't happen. I suppose, with keeping Karanuk under wraps for years, she was used to dealing with cloaks, daggers, and quirks.

“Excuse me, are you Angel Robinson?”

I looked up to see a flight attendant staring down at me. I noticed that she was wearing a St. Christopher medal and a silver airplane charm around her neck.

“Yes?” I said, adrenaline surging.

“This is for you,” she said, and handed me an instantly recognizable pink memo. Clearly Lucy was wasting no time.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You're welcome.” The flight attendant knit her eyebrows and gave me a look that fell somewhere between annoyance and pity. I gave her a weak smile in return.

A—Need to discuss.—L.

I refolded the memo and stuck it in the seat pocket in front of me. On the face of it, the intent of that memo was undecipherable, but I knew her so well it spoke volumes to me:
Get over to first class now and bring a notepad, my schedule, and pitch letters for every project I'm selling. We need to discuss all of it. Now. And in minute detail.

I gathered all the necessary papers and unbuckled my seat belt. They weren't going to like a visitor from coach in the first-class cabin, but I was going to have to go, anyway. I could only pray that I'd get booted out quickly or that the Xanax would kick in and she'd pass out. I was sitting in the center seat, so I was forced to climb over Sunny to get out. She gave me a warm smile as I clambered over her with all my documents and electronic devices.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No problem,” she said. I got the sudden sense that she understood, that she knew what I was up against. I found it oddly comforting.

Lucy was holding the glass of wine she'd asked for and leaning against the window, a manuscript in front of her, when I made my way into the first-class cabin. She was still very pale, but the pills had made her face relax so much since we'd boarded that she was looking slightly melted.

“Angel, sit,” she said, gesturing to the empty seat next to her.

“You know, Lucy, I don't think I'm really supposed to be up here,” I said, sotto voce.

“Just sit, Angel…for God's sake. There's nobody sitting here…you're not going to stay long.” She spoke much more slowly than usual, with big spaces between her words. I wondered if she'd taken more pills since I'd last seen her. “I paid enough for these seats, anyway,” she added.

“Lucy, are you okay?” I asked her as I juggled papers on my lap.

“Why…wouldn't…I…be…okay?”

“You look a little pale.”

Lucy looked down at her wineglass. “Not really much of a drinker,” she said, with slightly more briskness. She handed me her glass. “Here, drink this.”

I assumed she just wanted me to dispose of it, so I put it on the floor and hoped there wouldn't be any turbulence. “Sweet of you to be concerned,” Lucy said, twisting her mouth into a loopy Xanax smile. I offered her one in return, unsure how to respond to this drugged version of Lucy.

“We should go over my schedule,” she said.

“Right, I've got it right here,” I told her, pulling out the printed version. Lucy was a Luddite when it suited her. My feeling was that she simply preferred live assistants to digital ones. The unpredictability of human emotion was what she thrived on, what she needed.

Lucy looked at her schedule and asked for a pen. But when I gave her one, she dropped it in her lap and fixed me with a look of great sincerity.

“I don't want to talk about this again,” she said.

“We don't have to,” I told her. “It's all worked out.”

“I mean, what I really want to talk about is…” She leaned in very close to me. As always, I could smell her Chanel N
^o
5. “Why are you so far away, Angel?”