Blind Submission (30 page)

Nor did Sunny look forgiving when I climbed over her for what I hoped would be the last time.

“Do you want to switch seats?” she asked me. “I don't mind. And if you're going to have to get out again…?”

“I hope not,” I said. “But if you don't mind switching anyway, I'd really appreciate it.”

We changed seats, and in the process of moving all my things, I decided I needed a break. The remainder of
Blind Submission
would have to wait. As excited as I was about how well it was progressing, every time I looked at it I was reminded of Malcolm. And I just didn't want to dwell on him, on what went wrong, or what was never right between the two of us. There were still hours to go before the end of our flight, and if I didn't manage to get back to it before we landed, there were always the wee hours to squeeze in a little work time. And to think I'd always wasted those hours in slumber before I started working for Lucy.

I turned off my laptop, shoved it under the seat, and leaned back. I took out my CD player and tried to relax. Immediately the opening chords of “Angel” by Jimi Hendrix flooded through my headphones. It was Damiano's CD. I pulled off the headphones and hit the
STOP
button. Damiano was another person I didn't want to think about. It was wrong, in so many different ways, to indulge the fantasies that had been hounding me since the night of Lucy's dinner party. I was upset and confused about my unraveling relationship, I told myself, and so I'd made Damiano the romantic hero Malcolm wasn't. And Damiano was a client. The attention he'd given me was probably nothing more than a gracious expression of gratitude for the work I'd done on
Parco Lambro.
To think there was anything more was to invite disaster. I hadn't spoken to him again since our dance outside the office. He hadn't called me, either at home or at the office, and that was as definite a statement as any.

I opened my eyes, which seemed to have closed of their own accord, and forced myself to focus on something other than the images in my head. Sunny had shoved her copy of
Cold!
into the seat back and was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, twiddling her thumbs. She looked like I felt—distracted and in need of conversation. I felt bad about crawling over her so many times, and I was also more than a little curious about her book, namely why she hadn't tried to pitch it to me.

“So what's your book about?” I asked her.

Sunny gave me a very sunny smile and nodded as if she'd been waiting for me to ask. “It's about astrology,” she said. “And tarot.”

“Oh.” I was disappointed. Metaphysical textbooks weren't exactly hot sellers.

“But it's not a technical book or anything.”

“Oh?”

“No, it's about an astrologer who gets involved in solving a series of ritual murders through astrology and tarot. She connects several murders of famous and powerful people through several centuries using these signs and symbols and starts being able to predict when the next ones will occur.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said. “Like
The Da Vinci Code.
”

Sunny's brow furrowed slightly. “I keep hearing that,” she said.

“You haven't read it?”

“Mm, no. But my book isn't a novel. It's a memoir. That astrologer is me.”

“Really?” I said, beginning to lose interest. Another memoir. Did anyone write anything else anymore?

“I wasn't going to write about it at first,” Sunny was saying. “I didn't want to be like all those other people who take advantage of their media exposure to pop out a book. I wanted to make sure it was authentic. Also, it wasn't a good time for me astrologically. Jupiter is transitting my ninth house now, so—”

“You have media exposure?” I interrupted her, my interest level ratcheting up exponentially. She was an author with a ready-made platform, something literary agents and publishers alike prayed for.

“Oh, sure,” she said. “I guess you've missed me on TV, huh? I've been on
Larry King Live,
all the newsmagazines, I've even had a spot on
60 Minutes.
That was something, let me tell you.”

“I can't believe I've never seen you,” I said.

“Well, you've probably had better things to do than stay home and watch TV,” Sunny said charitably. I stifled a laugh. If she only knew.

“So you have a real-life
Da Vinci Code
? That's fascinating. You don't have any of the book with you, do you?”

Sunny's face brightened. “I do,” she said. “But I didn't want to bother you with it before. I'm sure that kind of thing happens to you all the time, doesn't it? People must throw manuscripts at you constantly. It seems as if everyone has at least one book in the drawer, don't they?”

“You don't know how true that is!” I said. I liked this woman.

“Right,” she said, “and as I said before, it's just perfect that you're here. I was planning to send it your way next week.”

“Well, I'm very interested,” I told her. “I'd love to read it. Do you have a card?” There was something about Sunny's story that set off a flare in my head, some sort of seventh sense, and as she fished in her purse for one of her cards, I knew I wanted her to myself.

Sunny's business cards were designed to look like the night sky, with white stars and astrological symbols floating against the black background. Her name, phone number, and e-mail address were in silver. I wrote my name and cell phone number on the back of one and handed it back to her. “My direct line,” I told her.

“Perfect,” she said, and handed me her manuscript.

“Balsamic Moon,”
I said, looking at the title page. “I like it already.”

“Thank you so much,” she said. “This is just wonderful.”

I glanced down toward first class. All quiet there. For how long I couldn't be sure, but for the moment I was on my own time. I turned back to Sunny. “So tell me some more about your book,” I said.

TWELVE

I DIDN'T NEED THE WAKE-UP CALL
I'd scheduled for seven o'clock. Lucy rang my room at six and she sounded as if she'd already been up for hours.

“I need you to come to my room now, Angel,” she said. Her voice didn't reveal a trace of the grogginess or jet lag I was feeling. I wondered if she had some secret chemical rejuvenator, or if she just produced some kind of enzyme that enabled her to be so functional after a cross-country flight and all the Xanax she'd taken.

“Okay,” I said, clearing the gravel from my throat, “I just need to take a quick shower—”

“You're not
awake
yet?” Lucy made impatient clicks with her tongue. “You'd better hurry, then. We've got
no time,
Angel. We'll be late.
I'll
be late. We've got very important meetings today.”

“I'll be right there.”

“And Angel?”

“Yes, Lucy?”

“I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but you need to look presentable. I hope you've brought appropriate clothing. This is New York, dear, not
Petaluma.
” Her emphasis on
Petaluma
made it sound like a small Third World country.

“On my way,” I told her, and hung up.

Lucy's room was several floors above mine. When I entered, I could see that it was bigger and better appointed than mine. Hers had a couch and a coffee table sporting the remains of a room-service breakfast. The smell of the coffee immediately triggered hunger pangs in my stomach.

“I have an extra cup for you,” Lucy said, as if she could sense what I was feeling. “But you'll have to wait to eat. I had an extra croissant, too, but I ate it while I was waiting. Early bird gets the worm.”

“Right, okay, sure. Thanks.” I reached for the coffee, grateful that there was anything here for me to consume at all. I remembered that Lucy's first appointment was a breakfast with Natalie Weinstein and wo~dered why Lucy had already eaten.

“Natalie Weinstein doesn't eat,” Lucy said, reading my thoughts agein. “I've never seen the woman put a molecule of food past her lips. Breakfast is just a term she uses fov an early meeting.” She gave me a blinding-white smile. “There's so much you don't know, Angel.” She paused, hands on hips, and assessed my attire. “You look all right,” she said. “Unimaginative, but all right.”

“Mm,” I said, sipping the lukewarm coffee and instinctively smoothing a crease on my pants. Lucy herself was dressed like a stylish undertaker. She was wearing fitted black pants and a black blouse with a mandarin collar. A matching black duster was thrown across the back of a chair. Her hair was pulled back in a tight chignon and a turquoise dream-catcher pendant hung from her neck. Despite the sepulchral quality of her ensemble, she actually looked very good.

“Now,” she continued, “I need you to call the office and get Craig on the phone.”

I was already punching the numbers on my cell phone when I remembered the time difference. “Do you want me to leave a message?” I asked her. “There won't be anyone in right now. It's four o'clock in the morning in California.”

Annoyed impatience danced across Lucy's features. “Wery inconvenient,” she said. “Well, then, send a fax or an e-mail or something. I oeed numbers.” Lucy's requests were always missing!viual pieces of information. What numbers did she need, for example? Where was Craig supposed to send them? I'd stopped asking Lucy for details about these kinds of things long ago, choosing instead to make educated guesses and hope for the best. The longer I worked with her, the easier it got to figure out what she wanted. Still, she was prone to throw a spanner in the wheel just when I thought I'd reinvented it for the last time. I sent a text message to Craig's e-mail address telling him that Lucy needed numbers and that he should call me on my cell phone as soon as he had them. I hoped that would cover all the bases.

“He'd better have that handy. He's been so distracted lately,” Lucy was saying. “Must be having problems at home again. That wife of his…You should see—” She cut herself off and stared at me hard. “Marriage is a curse, Angel. You should really think about that before you make any big moves with that
fiancé
of yours.”

I debated telling her about Malcolm. Although I didn't know why exactly, I was sure it would please her to know that we were no longer together. Fortunately, she didn't give me a chance.

“Get the new one on the phone as well,” she said. “Make sure he knows what he's doing with the submissions.”

“I've shown him—” I started, knowing that sje was referring to Jackson, who apparentl{ hadn't jeen part of the staff long enough to warrant a nime in Lucy's eyes. I supposed it was better than being called “Nora.” I wondered, fleetingly, what had become of Kelly.

“Just make sure he knows,〝 Lucy interrupted me.

I looked up at Lucy, who was hovering over me like a dark cloud, and uhe edge of an image pressing against my brain. I had a feeling of déjà vu, as kf something she'd sail had triggered a memory, but I couldn't quite grasp it.

“Now,” she said, “tell me what I'm doing today. I can't finf that annotated list of editors and projects, which was very annoying, by the way, Angel, because I could have gotten a jump-start this morning if I'd been able to
look
at my schedule.”

I knew that Lucy had several versions of her schedule with notes and lists attached, but I didn't bother to tell her this. Instead, I reached for one of the many extra copies I had handy and handed her one.

“Now, what about
Elvis
?” she asked me.

“I've got two copies.”

“
Two?
What the hell can I do with two copies, Angel?”

“Um, you didn't want to bring more? You said we could—”

“Fine! We'll just make copies as we go, but really, Angel…”

It went like this for the better part of an hour—Lucy chastising me for following directives that she'd given me specifically, and me pretmnding that she hadn't and allowing her to come up with “solutions” to nonexistent problems. I had to wonder, though, how she had managed txese trips without an assistant in the past. "I was reannotiting her schedule for what must have been the twenuieth time when she waid, “Angel?”

“Yes, Lucy?”

“What are you waiting for? We have to go.”

She loaded me up with canvas bags full of manuscripts and lists until I looked like a pack mule. “You should have a briefcase,” she said as I struggled under the weight.

I patted my laptop carrying case, which was buried under a
Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone
tote bag, and said, “This is it.”

“Well,” Lucy said, and adjusted the strap of her large black purse on her shoulder, “you should get something more like this.” She picked up a small black alligator briefcase and held it out for me to see. “I'm paying you enough now, Angel. Really. You can't cry poverty.”

“Right.”

“Unless you've spent all that money I've given you already? Have you?”

The question so took me by surprise I was rendered speechless. How could she have known that I had indeed spent a large portion of my “raise” paying off my student loans and accumulated credit-card debt? I'd left enough to cover the taxes I was going to have to pay on her generosity and a little that I planned to send to my mother, who was perpetually without funds and a reliable phone.

But Lucy wasn't waiting for an answer to her question. “We ought to take you for a haircut and maybe a makeover while we're here—spruce you up a bit. I'd be willing to help you with that, Angel. You do represent me, after all.”

“Oh. Well, I—”

“Come on, Angel, let's go.”

I gazed longingly at the crumbs of food on her coffee table and followed her out the door.

“You should know I don't like taking taxis unless it's absolutely necessary,” Lucy said, marching ahead of me in the echoing marble lobby of the hotel. She pushed herself through the revolving glass door at the entrance, leaving me and my bags caught hopelessly between the rotations. I struggled to free myself and I could hear her saying, “Nobody walks in California. Here you can walk!”

I finally freed myself from the revolving doors and broke out onto the street, into Midtown Manhattan. My senses were all immediately overloaded with every kind of sensory information—honking, exhaust, yelling, smoke, perfume, garbage, music, garlic, laughter, daylight, and the vast shadows of tall buildings. It was impossible to take it all in at once.

“Angel!” Lucy's voice reached me through waves of sound and air. “Let's get moving.”

THE TRIAD PUBLISHING GROUP
was located ten city blocks from our hotel. I knew this because I counted every single one as I struggled to keep up with Lucy's pace. She was right, this was the ideal city to walk in—every square foot jammed with activity and something to look at—but I couldn't stop to see any of it. I followed as close behind Lucy as possible with all the weight I was carrying. If I lost her, I'd lose myself in a matter of seconds.

I was short of breath and sweating like a horse by the time we arrived. There was a giant concrete obelisk outside the building engraved with the Triad name and colophon, which was the symbol for infinity within a circle, within a triangle, within a square. I stared up at it and felt a chill run through my entire body—the same chill I'd felt the first time I walked into Lucy's office and knew, unequivocally, that I was in the right place, the place in which I was meant to be. This was the center, the beating heart of publishing, the place where everything was about letters, words, books. I loved this world so much it took my breath away. Lucy must have sensed my sudden sense of book-geek awe because she turned to me, eyebrows raised, one corner of her carmine-stained mouth turned up in a sardonic half-smile.

“What?” she said.

“It's…um…exciting,” I answered.

“Yes, this is your maiden voyage, isn't it?” she said. “Well, don't get too carried away, Angel, we've got a lot of work to do.” She was all business as usual, but there was a glimmer of recognition in her eyes and her smile broadened. Wasn't my love of this business and everything it entailed the reason she had hired me in the first place? It was a love she had to have felt—had to still feel—herself.

Like the other large publishing houses, Triad had swallowed several smaller publishers over the years, most of which now had their offices in the same building. I was surprised by how sparse and unbooklike the lobby appeared when Lucy and I walked in. Gabriel Press, where Natalie Weinstein ran Weinstein Books, was located on the eighth floor. Over the course of the next couple of days, though, Lucy would have many more meetings here on different floors. C&P Publishers was on the sixth floor, First Wave on the eleventh, and so on. These smaller publishers all had specific types of books they put out (C&P published literary works, for example, whereas First Wave only published mass-market paperbacks—the kind one found in supermarkets and drugstores), but they were all ultimately answerable to and dependent on Triad.

“One has the illusion that there are many options when it comes to selling books,” Lucy had once said, “but that's all it is—an illusion.” She often bemoaned the current state of publishing, claiming the book business had been so much “spiritually richer” in the old days before massive corporations took it over, but then this kind of complaint was almost de rigueur for anyone who had been in the business for longer than five minutes, from booksellers to literary agents to editors. None of it was stopping Lucy from selling books, however, and none of it was stopping publishers from buying them.

“Don't speak to her unless she asks you a question,” Lucy said as we rode the elevator to the eighth floor. “She's very particular about that kind of thing. She's also quite prickly, so just steer clear of her and don't attempt conversation.”