Blind Submission (38 page)

I leaned over him, peering into his face. The fumes coming off him were toxic and I had to stop myself from gagging. “Malcolm! Listen to me. How long have you been here?” Even as I asked the question, I knew that the answer didn't matter. He was here now and couldn't possibly have sent me that e-mail. My hands and feet had gone cold and a chill was spreading up my legs and arms to my spine.

“I dunno,” he said. “I had shome drinksh.”

“Some drinks?” I said. “You think?” I stood up, reached over to my laptop, and hit
REPLY
.
Who are you?
I typed.
What are you doing?
I pressed
SEND
and waited.

“Anngggellll,” Malcolm wailed at my feet.

“Malcolm, get up and tell me what's going on.”

Malcolm raised himself to a sitting position. “You ruined my life,” he repeated. “Why, Annggell? Why'dja have to do that?” He hiccuped and put his hand to his head. “I think I'm gonna be sick,” he said.

“No!” I yelled at him. “Don't you
dare
throw up in my house now! Malcolm, for God's sake, tell me what the hell you're talking about.”

Malcolm covered his mouth with his hand and hiccuped again. “You told her…she told me…never going to have a career…gonna be a waiter for the resht of my life…your fault, Angel. No angel. Thass you. No fuggen angel.”

As he was finishing his slurred diatribe, another message appeared on my computer.

 

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Blind Submission

Angel Robinson wrote:

Who are you? What are you doing?

Dear Ms. Robinson,

I am writing a book, which you've been editing (quite well, I might add) for literary representation by Ms. Fiamma. And while it's obvious that you've read
some
of what I've recently sent you, I don't think you've finished. I urge you to continue—I think you'll enjoy it. And while our little flurry of messages has been most entertaining, I think it would be remiss of me to take up any more of your time with pleasantries. We both have work to do, don't we? I'll sign off now, but I promise to be in touch soon. I'm almost certain that I'll be able to finish the book within the next day or two.

Until then,
G.

 

“Never should've got you that job,” Malcolm was saying. “Woulda had better luck on my own…My angel…left me for a guy with a book deal. Ruined my career…” He started to laugh and started coughing. “Really bad country song,” he said. “She warned me…I shoulda listened.”

“Who warned you?” I asked him. I kept my voice quiet and calm but firm enough to get through his drunken haze. “Who warned you about what?”

“Lucy,” he said. “Told me you didden really care about my career.”

“When did Lucy tell you this?
Why
would she tell you?”

Malcolm whimpered. “I screwed up, Angel. I never shoulda…I thought she believed in me.”

“Never should have
what,
Malcolm?”

“Don't you get it?” he asked me miserably. “I screwed her. She's the one who told me about you and that Italian guy. I knew it, but I didn't wanna believe it.”

“You
had sex
…with
Lucy
? Is that what you're saying?”

“She told me I had talent,” Malcolm wailed. “She told me you were cheating on me.”

I looked at him and knew he was telling the truth. I thought about how flustered and familiar he'd been with her at her dinner party and how she'd looked at him as if he were another piece of meat at her table. He'd known how to get to her house not because he'd followed me to work but because he'd been there before. Then there were the flowers, asking forgiveness for things he'd never felt the need to apologize for before. It all made sense. I was starting to feel sick. Bile rose in my throat.

“How long—” I started, and had to swallow the bitterness in my mouth. “You're not still…?”

“It was a mis-mistake,” he hiccuped. “I love you, Angel. Always loved you.”

“Sure, Malcolm. That's why you screwed my boss.”

“She wasn't anything like you, Angel.”

“That's disgusting, Malcolm.”

“I know,” he said. “I'm disgusting. Take me back.”

I looked at my computer and then back down at Malcolm. “Anna…” I said, more to myself than to him. “Malcolm,” I said, leaning over once again so that I could see into his eyes, “did you have sex with Anna, too?”

Malcolm stared up at me, my question working its way through a sea of alcohol to his brain. I saw it register and watched as a look of shame cut through the bleariness in his eyes. “Sort of,” he said.

“Sort of?”

“I was drunk,” he said. “She tried to…” He shook his head slightly and winced at the pain the motion caused him.

“She was nice to me,” he said finally.

“Lucy?”

“Anna. She understands…what it's like.”

“Are you working on this book together, Malcolm?”

“What book?”

“Blind Submission.”

“She told me—” He stopped and tried to lick the dryness off his lips. “You shouldn't be so mean to her, Angel. She just wants to
be you.
You gotta feel sorry for her.”

“I should feel
what
?”

“You don't know, Angel,” he said. “You think you do, but you don't know
anything
about what it takes to be a writer.” He fell over again and attempted to pound the floor with his fists. I could tell that it was supposed to be a dramatic gesture, but it was just a weak slap against the wood. “Angel,” he said, “I loooove you.” He wrapped his arms around my legs, throwing me off balance.

“Listen to me, Malcolm. Let go of me and get up. I'm going to get you some coffee now and you're going to drink it and sober up. We're going to talk. And then I'm taking you home. Do you understand?”

He lay still for a moment, his head resting on my feet. Then he sighed and released his grip on my legs. “Okay,” he said.

“GOOD LORD, ANGEL,
I thought I'd never see you again!”

Elise stood in the doorway of her small, shaded San Anselmo house and regarded me with a look of kind concern.

“Can I come in?” I asked her, smiling.

“Oh hell, I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean it to come out that way. I'm so pleased to see you.” She wrapped me in a tight hug. “Come on in. Let's get you something to eat. Have you had lunch?”

“You know, I haven't,” I said, following her into the house. “It's been quite the morning.”

“Honey, you're gonna have to tell me about it.” Elise looked better than I'd ever seen her. She'd cut her long hair into a short, loose style that made her look ten years younger, and she'd traded her bookstore pallor for a light golden tan. She'd obviously been exercising, something she'd never had time to do before, because her body was toned and tight. All around, she looked the picture of health. Not working—or at least not working at the bookstore—seemed to be agreeing with Elise.

“You look good, Elise.”

“Thanks, honey, but I have to say you've looked better. Well, maybe
healthier
is a better word. You're a little pale.”

“Yes, well, I don't get out much these days,” I said.

“I imagine you wouldn't,” she said, “working for
her.
Come into the kitchen. We'll get you something to eat and then you'll tell me all about it. Best room in the house, the kitchen. It's the heart and soul of a home, don't you think?” She led me by the hand as she prattled on. “Nourishment, the nurturing that comes with cooking. Women used to have their babies on the kitchen table in the old days.”

“Elise,” I said, smiling, “women did
not
have babies on the kitchen table in the old days.”

“How do you know?” she said, sitting me down in a comfortable cushioned chair at her own kitchen table. “It's a little-known fact. Good things happen in the kitchen.”

I pushed the hair out of my face and sighed. I could believe good things happened in Elise's cheerful kitchen. I felt comforted and safe and I could see myself sitting there forever.

“Elise,” I said as she took a tin of loose tea from her pantry and filled the kettle with water, “it's so good to see you. I've missed you.”

“Me, too, honey,” she said. “I'm very glad you called.”

“I should have called you long ago. You know, before you left me that message. I'm sorry about that. It's unforgivable.”

“Angel, please don't apologize. There's nothing to be sorry for at all. I can imagine how busy you've been….” She stopped and stole a glance at me. “Anyway, you're here now, that's the important thing.” She opened the fridge and cupboards, clattering plates, cups, and silverware.

“Thanks for letting me come over today,” I said. “I know it was short notice.”

“Don't be silly, Angel. You can come over any time you like. Hang on a minute now, I'm going to get you set up here.”

As Elise busied herself putting food on plates and preparing tea, I felt my body begin to relax. It wasn't the sleepy kind of unwinding that comes at the end of a hectic day, but a kind of yogalike awareness. It was as if I were slowly coming back to myself.

“There,” she said, placing a steaming mug in front of me, “drink that. It has great restorative powers.”

“What's in it?” I asked.

“Plain old ordinary English Breakfast,” Elise said. “Nothing like it.” She pointed at the mug. “Remember those?”

I turned the thick white ceramic mug around and saw the words
Blue Moon Books
written underneath a cobalt gibbous moon. Years ago, in one of her efforts to increase sales, Elise had ordered several cases of those mugs for the store. We'd sold very few of them, as I remembered, but almost all of them had disappeared.

“You managed to save one,” I said. “I haven't seen these in forever.”

“I thought you'd get a kick out of it,” Elise said, and put a full plate and fork next to the mug. “And here's some
homemade
carrot cake for you. That's right, I made it. Been doing a lot of cooking lately, actually. All that time selling cookbooks and I hardly ever checked them out. Anyway, eat, Angel.” Elise sat down next to me with her own cup of tea and watched as I picked up my fork and started eating. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until the first delicious bite, and then I couldn't stop, wolfing it down as if it would vanish if I didn't get it into my mouth as fast as possible.

“Good?” she asked.

“Amazing,” I answered, my mouth full of cake and raisins.

“Well, there's plenty more,” she said, “so keep eating.”

In the middle of my second slice, I took a breath and leaned back. I traced my fingers over the moon on my mug. “So you're really going to try this again?” I asked her.

Elise shrugged. “The bookstore? I have to. You always knew that, didn't you, Angel? It's in my blood. What can I do?”

“But you seem so relaxed. I mean, it must be nice not having to worry about the store all the time. The books…”

“Yes, that's true, it's been great. I wasn't intending to get back into all of that mess again, Angel, that's the truth. But…Well, here's what tipped me over the edge. I was in a certain bookstore, which shall remain nameless,” she said with mock seriousness, and then laughed, “and I was just snooping around. You know, old habits die hard. Anyway, here's this kid who obviously needs a book for school and he asks the clerk, who, by the way, can't be much older than the customer and looks as if he'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, than wandering around a bookstore, if it could even be called a bookstore—I mean, they've got everything but plumbing supplies, I could practically do my grocery shopping there…. Anyway, the kid's got a piece of paper with the name of the book written down and he says to the clerk, ‘I'm looking for a book by Victor Hugo called
Less Miserable.
Can you tell me where to find it?' And the clerk, in his infinite wisdom, says, ‘Uh, I've never heard of it. But why don't you try the self-help section?'”

I chuckled and Elise joined in. “We laugh, Angel,” she said, “but really, it's so sad. I mean, there's dumbing down and then there's
dumbing down,
you know?”

My laughter turned into a long sigh. “Ah, Blue Moon,” I said. “Those were the days.”

Elise smiled at me. “I'd love to try it again with you, Angel. I don't know if you've given that any thought. You know, after I left you that message I realized how presumptuous it was to ask you to even think about giving up your job to take a chance on something as foolhardy as a bookstore. I just thought, well…I guess I've really missed you, Angel.”