Blind Submission (7 page)

“I don't know.”

She sighed. “These are the things you really need to be paying attention to, Angel. Well, it doesn't matter. I can sell it on a partial with the right pitch. I can sell it as…an Italian
Trainspotting.
Yes, that's it. Unless you think the heroin thing is played out at this point. What's your take on that, Angel? You're young, you should know.”

“I don't think so,” I said tentatively. “It never really seems to be, you know,
finished
really.”

“Has he contacted any other agents?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Haven't you spoken to him?” She seemed appalled.

“No, I—”

“I left a note on your desk about this. I mentioned, specifically, that you needed to call him as soon as possible.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't see it.”

She stared at me hard, as if weighing my answer for the truth in it. “Angel, attention to detail is
paramount
in this office.” I was a very small mouse to her great big cat, and there was nowhere to run. But as soon as I began to formulate some sort of verbal escape, Lucy shifted her tone once more. “This is very
filmic,
” she said. “Yes, I definitely think so. Get him on the phone, let's sign him up before he goes somewhere else.” I started to rise, but she held up her hand, palm out. “No, wait,” she said. “Let's just see something first.” She walked around to her desk and punched her intercom button. “Anna!”

“Yup?”

“Get Natalie Weinstein on the phone.”

“Okay, Lucy. Is there anything else you need right now? I could get you a—”

“Natalie. Weinstein. Anna. Now.”

Lucy positioned herself at her desk and motioned for me to come closer. “I want you to hear this,” she said. I noticed that her voice had dropped an octave or two and had what I could only call a seductive tone washing through it. As soon as she was connected with Natalie Weinstein, Lucy began rearranging the items on her desk with her free hand. This was a pattern I would soon become very familiar with. Whenever she was on the phone, and that was a good portion of every day, Lucy compulsively stacked the notepads, paper clips, pens, and anything else that was on her desk. She moved the largest items into the center first, progressively piling on items as they decreased in size, until there was a small tower in the middle of her desk. Then she took them down, item by item, and placed them in the corners of the desk. If she was still on the phone at that point, she'd begin the process again. She repeated these motions over and over as she talked to Natalie Weinstein, and I became hypnotized, watching her hands move back and forth as her voice filled the room.

“It's really hot,” she was saying, “and I thought of
you
first. I've got a virgin author here, came in over the transom. Yes, we
do
read our unsolicited manuscripts over here. Anyway, he's a divine Italian man with a blockbuster novel idea. Yes, I have the novel right here.”

I watched the notepads stack up and come down.

“Well, it turns out he's written the Italian
Trainspotting.
Actually, it's more like
Trainspotting
meets
Under the Tuscan Sun.
Exquisite writing.”

Up, down, up, down.

“He's a heroin addict and he's written the most vivid account of—Yes, I agree, there certainly is a market. Listen, Nat, this is
very
hot. He's still addicted. What? No, did I say addicted?
Recovery.
He's still in recovery. But it's—well, you know what a slippery slope recovery can be.”

I watched her hand pick up a pen and begin writing a note.

“Yes, he's Italian. From Milano. Drop-dead gorgeous. You know how Italian men are.”

She held up the note for me to see.
Do we have author photo?
it asked. I shook my head in the negative. She continued to write.
He'd better be good looking!
she added to her note.

“He's already working on a sequel. Actually, he has two more books in the works. We could have an antihero series character here. He's calling it the…let me find it here…yes,
The Horse Triptych.
What? Well, that doesn't matter, he can always change the title.”

She offered me a dramatic eye roll.

“Yes, I will, Nat. I can't guarantee—Well, I can offer you an exclusive if—Fine, I'll have it on your desk tomorrow. You understand, I have to move on this right away. But, of course, I thought of you first.”

Lucy hung the phone up abruptly and, snapped out of my trance, my eyes shot to her face. I was impressed and also a little frightened. Lucy was assuming an awful lot without having spoken one word to Damiano Vero. I had no doubt, however, that she would get everything she was asking for.

“And
that
is how it is done, Angel,” Lucy said. She was smiling broadly, her teeth glowing in preternatural whiteness. “All right, Angel, get the author—what's his name again? Anyway, get him on the phone and then put me on with him. He's not going to know what hit him. I'm going to make him a star. And make sure to take the manuscript home with you tonight. It needs some work. Go over it carefully, fix it up, and have him make the changes. We've got to get this out in as perfect shape as possible. These editors are busy. They don't have time for books that need a whole lot of work from the outset, believe me.” She drew a breath. “Right, I want to have it out by the end of the week, the latest. We'll need at least five more editors. I'll generate the list.”

“But aren't you just sending it to Natalie Weinstein?”

Lucy looked at me with an expression of disbelief. “That would be a very big mistake,” she said. “Now, go, go, we've got work to do.” As I walked out of her office, Lucy added, “And find out about the other two books he's working on.”

I paused at the door for only a millisecond. That was how long it took me to decide not to tell Lucy that the two books were figments of her imagination and not the author's. What did it matter? If she wanted two more books, he'd have to write them.

Damiano Vero had listed three phone numbers on his cover letter. The first gave me a busy signal and the second rang with no answer. I finally tracked him down on the third.

“Ècco, sì!”
he exclaimed when I announced myself. “But I just sent it. So fast you are.”

I smiled into the phone, thinking that this was the first happy phone conversation I'd had all day. “Lucy would like to talk to you,” I said. “Can you hold a moment while I put you through?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Lucy, I've got Damiano Vero on Line 1 for you.”

“Who?”

“Damiano Ve—The Italian book?”

“Oh, him. Well, put him
through,
Angel. You're wasting time.”

I sighed to myself as I punched the necessary buttons. At least, I thought, she didn't seem to have very good short-term memory when it came to my first-day screwups. My stomach growled and twisted, having had nothing to digest since the banana I put in it six hours before. After she'd polished off her entire box of protein powder, Nora left the office briefly to go collect the mail. Nobody else had made any kind of movement to take lunch outside the office, although Anna had pulled out a messy, smelly meat-laden sandwich and was eating it noisily at her desk. She felt my eyes on her and looked up at me.

“We don't take a lunch break here,” she said. “I hope you brought something with you.”

“I didn't know that,” I said. “So, no, I didn't.”

Anna shrugged and took a large bite out of her sandwich. Something that looked like mayonnaise oozed from the bread. She was still chewing when her intercom buzzed.

“Yeth, Luthy?”

“Anna, is your mouth full or do you have a cold? If you are ill, make sure you wipe down the phone after you use it. I shouldn't have to tell you. I need an agency contract for Damiano Vero now, please. And tell Angel to pick up Line 1 and talk to him.”

“Angel,” Anna said, nearly choking as she swallowed, “you need to—”

“Thanks, I've got it.” I picked up my phone. “Hi, Mr. Vero. This is Angel.”

“Please call me Dami,” he said. “It's more easy.”

“Okay. It's great to meet you. I really like
Parco Lambro.
I don't know if Lucy told you. It's very exciting.”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Very exciting. I had a good feeling about Luciana. I knew she would be the best person for this book. And she tells me that we will be working together, you and I. You are going to make some changes for me?”

“Yes, we talked about that. Of course, I'll just make suggestions and then whatever seems right to you…”

“
Bène.
Luciana gave me your phone number at home, but I think maybe we could meet at some point?”

Luciana? My home phone number? “Sure, that would be great. I can call you….”

“
Bène.
I look forward to it.
Mille grazie,
Angel. Good-bye for now.”

Before I could replace the phone in its cradle, my computer chirped with the sound of an instant message. I looked over at the rectangle of blue text and saw that the initials of the sender were AA. Anna.

Did she tell you about St. Lucy?
the message read.

Did who tell me?
I wrote back. I looked over at Anna. She was bent over her desk, looking very busy, clacking away at her keyboard. My computer sounded off again with another message:

LF. She likes to tell the new staff how St. Lucy is one of the patron saints of writers. They tried to burn St. Lucy but she was flame-proof. They had to stab her in the throat to kill her. She was Italian.

No, she didn't tell me,
I wrote back.

I just thought it might help you with that Italian author,
Anna responded.

I briefly entertained the notion that Anna might be insane and was debating a possible response to her last message (“thank you” just didn't seem appropriate) when Nora approached me with a large plastic tub full to the top with manuscripts and query letters.

“Lucy wants you to sort this,” she said. “It's usually my job, but she wants you to get familiar with the submissions.”

“These are just today's submissions?”

“It's not bad, really,” Nora sniffed. “There are only about fifty today. Sometimes we get close to a hundred.” She smiled. It was an expression that looked both awkward and foreign on her face. “Have fun,” she said.

ANNA DROPPED A MANUSCRIPT
on my desk, where it landed with a plop and a rush of air. “This is my reading for last night. It's a reject, but you should look it over. Lucy likes to get second opinions. I'm outta here, so I guess your training's done for the day. You can probably go now, too.” I looked down at the manuscript and then up at the clock, subtracting three hours. It was six o'clock and my eyes were stinging. A hunger headache throbbed at the back of my head. Nora was gone. I could hear Craig's voice sounding from behind Lucy's door.

“Yes,” I said, and gathered my purse,
Parco Lambro
notes, and several manuscripts to review, including the one that Anna had just dropped on me. “I have to eat something. I think I'm going to pass out.” But I was talking to an empty room. Anna was out the door before I could finish my sentence. She had also left me without explaining what, if anything, I was supposed to do to close up or finish out the day. With a sudden rush of resentment, I realized that everything I had learned over the course of my extraordinarily long first day, I'd figured out for myself—in spite of, not because of, Anna's so-called “training.” I tried to formulate a plan for how I would approach Anna, Nora, and even Craig in the coming days to elicit a little more help, but my brain was too hungry and tired to give shape to a single thought.

I stood up to leave, but a low-blood-sugar head rush kept me from moving until I could steady myself. The phone rang, loud in the now-silent office, cutting through my dizziness.
Answer it. Don't answer it.
If only I'd left a half minute earlier.

“Hello, Lucy Fiamma Agency.”

There was static coming through the receiver and then a small voice speaking, it sounded like, from far away. “Ah, ook.”

“Hello? Can I help you? Hello?”

“Ka.” Crackle, hiss. “Oo.”

“I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Hello?” There was more crackling and an extended hiss on the line. I was about to hang up when I heard it, faint but clear.

“Karanuk.”

“
Karanuk?
Yes, please, yes, one moment please, just one moment.”

I didn't bother trying to buzz Lucy with the intercom, opting, instead, to run to her office, knock rapidly on the closed door, and open it without waiting for a response. Lucy was seated at her desk, looking as fresh as if she'd just started her day. Craig was kneeling next to her (yes,
kneeling
), holding out papers for her to look at.