The Mentor (3 page)

She stands in the bathroom doorway watching as he splashes cold water on his face over and over again.

“I take it your work didn’t go well this morning?”

“No need to ‘take it.’ Why don’t you just ask me?”

Uh-oh, impossible mood.

Anne crosses the bedroom, past the bank of windows that look out over the park, walks into her closet, and grabs two dresses, two short (but not too short), sexy dresses—what’s the point of chiseling down her thighs if she doesn’t show them off—one deep red, one this marvelous metallic shade of burnt gold.

“Charles, which one should I wear tonight? I want to look like a trophy wife.”

That gets a smile out of him. He looks from the dresses to her body.

“The gold.”

He’s right, of course—the dress’s tawny gleam sets off her red hair and pale, freckle-splashed skin to high advantage. Anne hooks the dress on the back of the door. She quietly slips into her slacks and blouse. Charles sits brooding on the edge of the mahogany sleigh bed.

Anne sits beside him and rubs his neck.

“You know how much I believe in you, darling. We’ll get through all this.”

He turns to her, looking so vulnerable, so vulnerable and so gorgeous, with that full mouth, those hazel eyes cradled in their comforting web of wrinkles, that tousled chestnut hair, that jaw covered with stubble, bristly stubble that brings an exciting hint of pain when it moves across her flesh.

“Oh, Anne, I didn’t marry an optimist for nothing.”

And he kisses her, lightly, on the lips. Anne knows that in many ways she’s stronger than Charles. He’s an artist—certain critics have even called him a genius—prey to unspeakable demons, crippling doubts. His work is so important. Sometimes, late at night when she can’t sleep, Anne will tiptoe into the library, pick up one of his books, and reread a favorite passage. What compelling characters he creates, how beautifully he puts words together, capturing all the pain and frailty and radiance of life. And this man loves
her
. She wants so much to help him right now, for his sake, of course, but also, she admits to herself, to assuage her guilt over her success—and her transgression.

“Thanks for putting up with me, tea biscuit,” he whispers in her ear.

“Hey, no problem.”

“You be the best.”

“I had a silly idea,” Anne says tentatively.

“We should take off for Bangkok?”

“I wish we could. If you hate the idea just say so, but do you think maybe it would help if you got your office organized? Just a little.”

He refuses to let the housekeeper enter the rooms where he works, the former maids’ quarters down that long hallway off the kitchen. Anne, organized to a fault, is secretly appalled by the unanswered mail, unreturned phone calls, unfiled papers. She’s sure a clean sweep would help Charles stay focused on the future, on his new work.

“I relent. Magdalena can haul in the Dirt Devil and work her magic.”

“But what about cleaning out some of the deadwood? I had this fantastic temp last week while Trent was on vacation. Completely unobtrusive. Why don’t I call the agency and have them send her over? If you don’t like having her around, we’ll send her right back.”

Charles walks into the bathroom and turns on the sauna. Anne follows.

“Will you at least consider it?” she asks.

“I will.”

“HG-TV is coming up to the office this afternoon to shoot a piece on
Home
, so I won’t see you till the party. What time is your
Book Talk
taping?”

“They’re sending a car at four-thirty,” Charles says, taking off his shirt and slipping out of his pants. There he is in those striped boxers, with that boxer build—a boxer gone slightly, sexily to seed.

“Nina’s expecting a mob scene,” Anne says, her gaze running down his body.

“Free food’ll do it every time.” Charles steps out of his shorts. Anne catches her breath. She looks at the two of them in the mirror. Their eyes meet. He looks wounded, wary. She wants him
so badly but is afraid of being rebuffed, of adding to the distance between them. She crosses to him and kisses him, putting a hand on his chest. He accepts her kiss passively.

“I’ll see you this evening,” she says. “And do think about the girl. I think she might be a help.”

“Welcome to
Book Talk
. I’m Derek Wollman, and my guests today are Charles Davis and Vera Knee.”

The camera pans to Charles and Vera. Charles looks at the lens—gravely, his eyes in a slight squint: his literary lion look. Vera—barely legal, Kabuki white skin, dark eyes, and storm clouds of black hair, wearing a halter top, a turquoise fucking halter top—giggles and waves disarmingly, jangling sixteen bracelets.

“Charles Davis hardly needs an introduction. His first book,
Life and Liberty
, made him an overnight literary sensation at the age of twenty-four. Universally considered the definitive novel about the Vietnam War, it has been translated into twenty-two languages and is taught in virtually every college in America. Mr. Davis has just published his sixth novel,
Capitol Offense
.”

Derek holds up a copy of the 437-page book.

“Set in Washington’s corridors of power, it focuses on a married senator who has an affair with an idealistic young congress-woman. Welcome to
Book Talk
, Charles.”

“It’s nice to be back, Derek.”

“Also joining us is one of America’s hottest young writers, Vera Knee. Vera’s first novel,
Honey on the Moon
, a daring and hilarious look at life among Manhattan trendsetters, is delighting critics and readers alike.”

Derek holds up
Honey on the Moon
, all 161 (small format) pages.

“Welcome to
Book Talk
, Vera.”

“Hi.”

She waves those damn jangling bracelets again.

“First of all, Charles, I want to tell you how much I enjoyed
Capitol Offense
. It’s really about the abuse of power, isn’t it? The senator’s manipulation of the congresswoman is almost painful to read.”

“Well, you know, Derek, power is the great aphrodisiac,” Charles says. He rather likes these TV things. He tapes them secretly and watches them in the afternoon, a guilty pleasure.

“
Life and Liberty
has become a modern classic. Some critics have complained that your work since has grown increasingly commercial.”

Charles smiles. “You’d never know it from my royalty statements.”

“Have you felt a certain pressure in your subsequent works to live up to that early promise?”

Asshole. “Obviously that kind of early success is a mixed blessing. But I think each of my books stands on its own.”

“Yes, but haven’t they all been compared to
Life and Liberty
?”

“I thought I was here to talk about
Capitol Offense
.”

“I just thought you might like to enlighten Ms. Knee on the pitfalls of overnight fame.”

Charles looks at Vera Knee. She
is
pretty adorable.

“Sock away the dough,” he says.

“I read
Life and Liberty
at Bennington. It’s very powerful.” She pouts her lips at him.

“And how are you handling the success of
Honey on the Moon?
” Derek, charmed, asks.

“Giddily. But it’s hardly the kind of serious work Charles Davis is known for.”

Derek leans forward, chuckling, all over this fifteen-minute flash like dirt on a dog. “Well, I must say, the literary world seems to be taking the book very seriously indeed.”

Vera smiles. They’re ignoring Charles.

“What does the literary world know, Derek? They’ve got their heads buried in books half the time.”

Derek laughs. Vera giggles. Charles manages a lip twitch that he hopes will pass for a smile.

As the elevator glides silently to the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Anne feels her anxiety level soar with a synchronous velocity. It’s been a hellish day. She’s taking
Home
on-line, and the madly creative Silicon Alley company she contracted to design the website is also madly undisciplined and four weeks behind schedule. Her Winter Warmth bedding is selling out and the mill can’t manufacture any more; it’s already turning out her Summer Breeze line. The result: hundreds of disappointed customers. Then she butted heads with her art director over the cover of the spring catalog. The capper—HG-TV postponed the taping after the office had spent the whole day on high alert and best behavior. Anne wonders if she’s in over her head, running a $30-million-and-growing business without a day of training. Well, as long as nobody else wonders, she’ll be okay. She rests her head against the elevator wall and closes her eyes for a moment. She puts a hand gently on her belly. How long can she keep it a secret? Now she has to face this party and make nice-nice with scores of friends, acquaintances,
and ill-wishers. She flips open her compact and checks her lipstick. God, she looks pale. She gives her cheeks a quick pinch.

From atop the wide, fanned-out steps Anne surveys the crowd, the electric din, in the Rainbow Room. There is simply no place that distills the sheer heady excitement of Manhattan the way this glorious aerie atop Rockefeller Center does. The throng is just the right mix of publishing, society, celebrity, sprinkled with a touch of the art world, a dash of downtown, and the de rigueur drag queen or two. Glamour is like pornography, Anne thinks: I may not be able to define it but I sure know it when I see it. An enormous blowup of the jacket of
Capitol Offense
hangs from the ceiling, and a pyramid constructed of copies of the book sits on a round table in the center of the room. It’s all flawless—perhaps she can salvage the day.

As Anne accepts and offers greetings, an arm shoots up from across the room. An elegant black arm encircled by three antique gold bracelets.

“Nina!” Anne says, crossing the room to give Charles’s agent a strong hug. “Thank you for putting this together. It’s perfect.”

“Anything for our boy,” Nina says. “You look fabulous, Anne. Of course.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Nina Bradley wears her hair short, a cap of tight gray curls that sets off her sweeping jaw and long nose. Her dark eyes flash like obsidian; she’s tall and moves like water. Tonight she’s wearing a sleeveless black velvet top and black silk pants—one unbroken line of cool sophistication.

No one in New York gives Anne quite the same jolt of excitement that Nina does. The fact is that Anne with her Newport Beach pedigree—the Thatcher School, Stanford, swim team captain, country club superstar—Anne with the perfect legs, the perfect teeth, the perfect all-American ambition, idolizes black, savvy, self-made Nina Bradley.

Nina—somewhere in her sixties, in her very ripe prime, child of the Bronx, daughter of a subway motorman and a city clerk,
both voracious readers who fed their daughter books—founded the country’s second black-owned literary agency in 1955. For the first two years she lived on peanut butter, her only client a cartoonist syndicated in twelve black newspapers. But Nina was determined, she was smart, she was funny, and, yes, she was intensely beautiful.

Book by book, lunch by lunch, she built the Nina Bradley Agency into one of the country’s top literary agencies, with a client roster that includes Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners. The writer who started the stampede, who really put her on the map, was a brilliant twenty-four-year-old, fresh out of Dartmouth, who’d written an electrifying novel based on his experiences as an army journalist during the Vietnam War. Charles sent Nina the book, having read a story about her in
Ebony
. They met for the first time, at his insistence, at a Ninth Avenue diner on a dark February evening twenty-five years ago. And ever since that day, she had presided over his career like a lioness.

“I hope Charles’s taping went well,” Anne says.

Nina reads Anne’s anxiety and gives her hand a squeeze. “Charles is a pro.”

Anne waves to an acquaintance and accepts a glass of Pellegrino from a passing waiter. “When do you think it’ll show up on the best-seller list?”

“Within the month.” Nina lowers her voice. “I hope.”

“What do you mean, you
hope
?” Anne asks.

“Sales have been disappointing.”

“How disappointing?”

Just as Nina is about to answer, a hush falls over the party. Anne and Nina turn. Charles is standing at the top of the entrance steps, leaning on the railing. They both know immediately: he’s tight. The hairs on Anne’s neck rise, and she shifts into damage-control. She sees a wave of sadness sweep over Nina’s face.

The crowd breaks into applause. Charles smiles boyishly. “Aw, shucks,” he says, all tousled hair and lopsided grin.

Anne is there quickly, ready. She gives him a kiss and leads him
down the stairs, steering him through the throng with practiced grace. Her father once told her to learn from ducks on a pond: they glide across the surface seemingly without effort, but beneath the water line they’re paddling like mad. Nina goes to meet them. She gives Charles a kiss on the cheek, and he smiles at her sheepishly.

“How did the interview go?” she asks.

“Derek Wollman was his usual boorish self, and my co-guest was the delightful Ms. Vera Knee, flavor-of-the-week. I barely got a word in between wisecracks.” Charles reaches for a glass of champagne from a passing tray and downs it in one swallow. “Christ, I hate champagne,” he says before grabbing another.

Nina puts a hand on Charles’s forearm and applies pressure, keeping him from raising the glass to his lips.

“Charles, she’s a flash in the pan. Your work will endure,” Nina says, maintaining the pressure and looking him square in the eye.

“It will, darling,” Anne adds.

“Well, I don’t know if I can endure this party.”

A well-dressed man who dwells somewhere on the periphery of the literary world—neither Anne nor Nina can remember his name—pushes into their circle.

“Charles, I can’t wait to read this one,” he says.

“Let me give you a piece of advice: don’t bother.”

“Excuse me?” the man says.