A Perfect Day (7 page)

I went from the library to a copy shop, where I made twenty-five copies of my manuscript. Then I drove to the post office and mailed them all out. I felt a remarkable sense of optimism. I had set the bait and cast my line. Now all there was to do was wait. That and find a job.

I drove around Salt Lake City requesting employment applications from radio stations. Of course every application required work references. This didn’t bode well. I had held the same job at the same station for seven years and Stuart had been my only boss. I regretted calling him stupid.

 

It was two weeks after I sent my book out that I received my first response from an agent. I had been grocery shopping with Allyson, and as I brought the groceries in from the car, Allyson went through the day’s mail, fanning the bills back like a deck of cards. Suddenly she stopped and lifted one from the pile. “Robert. You got a letter from an agent.”

I laid the sacks I carried down on the counter and took the letter. It had come from a Minnesota literary agency. I looked up at Allyson then I extracted the letter and unfolded it.

My heart fell. “It’s a rejection letter,” I said. I dropped it on the counter.

Allyson looked at me, frowning. “Now what?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “No one gets accepted the first time.
The Great Gatsby
was turned down a dozen times before it was published.”

I’m sure Allyson saw my response for what it was—a coping mechanism—but what I said was also true.

“Don’t worry,” I said, more for myself than Allyson. “There are twenty-four more agents to go.”

T
he next weeks passed like torture. The rejections from the agencies continued to arrive. The letters all pretty much said the same thing, kindly worded form letters written by people with vast experience in rejecting. A few of the letters were identical in content.

With each letter my dream seemed farther from my grasp. I stopped picking up the mail. My job hunt was equally fruitless. I had contacted every radio station in the Salt Lake and Provo market, including a few I felt were beneath me. I was turned down by every one of them. Between the literary agencies and the radio stations I faced rejection at every turn, and what my father had planted in me was now being reinforced on a daily basis: that I was, in fact, a failure.

Depression set in, accompanied by its myriad symptoms. I put on weight and didn’t shave for days at a time. I spent hours in my den either on the Internet or playing mindless computer games. I began sleeping in. Even though it required more effort from Allyson, she never said a word. I believe that she was waiting for it to pass like a bout of the flu or something. But it didn’t. One night, after she had put Carson to bed, Allyson came down to my den. I was playing solitaire on my computer.

“Can we talk?”

“Sure,” I said, moving a card across the screen.

She sat down next to me. “I’m worried, Rob.”

“About what?” My eyes were still locked on the screen.

“Would you please look at me?”

I released the mouse and turned around. “About what?”

“I’m worried about you.” She ran her hand across my cheek. “Don’t you shave anymore?”

“Since when do you have a problem with facial hair?”

“Rob, look at you. You haven’t even showered yet. What have you done today?”

I saw where this was going and turned back to my computer. “I made a few calls.”

“Have you paid the bills?”

“No. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

She took a deep breath. I knew that I wasn’t making this easy for her. “Rob. You’re taking this so personally.”

“Taking what personally?”

“The rejection letters.”

“How else should I take them?”

“You’ve written a great book. It’s enough.”

I turned back around. “It’s not enough. If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?”

She looked at me as if I were crazy. “What?”

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?”

“I think you’re losing your mind.”

“I am. But my point is, it’s not a book until it’s published.”

“A book is a book. Apparently it takes more than a great book to get published. But you can’t stop living because the breaks aren’t there.”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t. Who cares what they think about your book?”

“I do. That book was my last hope that I could do something with my life. That I could be somebody.”

This was the first time that I had openly acknowledged my fears. Only now, with the words still ringing in our ears, had either of us realized the extent of my desperation. For a moment Allyson seemed unable to respond. When she did her voice was heartfelt. “But you
are
somebody. You’re my husband. You’re Carson’s father. Why can’t that be enough?”

“Because that’s not how men are judged in this world. I was raised thinking that all that matters is what you accomplish in life. I had one hope. And now it’s gone.”

Her brown eyes darkened with concern. “Rob, if you don’t start doing something besides sitting around playing computer solitaire or whatever it is you do, you’re just going to get more depressed. Besides, I’m not making enough to keep up with expenses. We’re burning through our savings.”

I reacted defensively. “What do you want me to do? I’ve been to every radio and television station in Salt Lake City. No one wants to hire me. Stuart is seeing to that. One call to him and they won’t even return my calls.”

“But you’ve never liked radio sales anyway. Why don’t you go into a different profession? Like teaching?”

“Teaching? Where?”

“Maybe there’s an opening at the university. Your father would know.”

Her suggestion came as a slap. I replied angrily, “Like I’m going to ask Chuck for help. I haven’t spoken to him for two years.”

“He helped us with the house.”

“Don’t you get it? That was Chuck’s way of proving to me that I’m nothing without him. That’s not a roof above us, it’s a thumb.”

Allyson exhaled. “Robert, I don’t care what you do—as long as you do something. You can’t just sit around the house feeling sorry for yourself.”

Her words stung. “So that’s what I’m doing? Just feeling sorry for myself?” I turned around and shut down the computer. Then I walked out of the room. Allyson followed me, first with her eyes then physically up the stairs to the back door.

“Rob, where are you going?”

“To get a job.”

I slammed the door behind me. As I pulled my car out of the driveway, she stood at the window watching. It had been a dramatic exit, but at this hour I really had no idea where I was going.

I
returned home past one in the morning. I stepped into our dark bedroom and undressed, letting my clothes fall in a clump at my feet. Then I climbed into bed. Allyson immediately rolled over. Her voice came soft from the darkness. “I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings.”

“It’s okay. You were right.”

“Where have you been?”

“Looking for work.”

“At one in the morning?”

“I’ve been talking with Stan. I start working with him tomorrow.”

“Installing sprinklers?” Her voice was tainted with incredulity.

“You have a problem with that?”

“No . . .”

“No, but . . . ?”

“No, but I’m afraid that you will.” She put her hand on my chest. “Robert, you have a master ’s degree. You graduated summa cum laude.”

“Then I’ll be the most educated sprinkler installer in Salt Lake.”

Allyson was quiet for a long time. I imagine she was garnering courage for what she wanted to say. “Can’t you at least talk to your dad? Maybe it will make things better between you.”

I bit back my anger. “What makes you think I want to make things better?”

“But, Rob—”

I cut her off. “End of discussion, Al. I’m going to sleep.” I rolled to my side away from her. Allyson turned the opposite direction. Nothing more was said.

I
’ve always been close to my brothers. The
sons of Chuck
are like war veterans, I suppose, bonded as survivors of the same calamity. I have three brothers, all of them older than me: Stan, Marshall and Phil. Stan is the oldest. He’s thirty-six and runs a successful sprinkler and irrigation company. Marshall is one year younger than Stan. He’s a software designer for a Provo-based software firm. He is my only married brother. Phil is in the Air Force and stationed in Dunkirk. We rarely see each other, but we e-mail each other weekly. Of all of us, Phil is the most like Chuck. I don’t say that to be disparaging; he just fits into the military regimen more naturally than the rest of us. To him Chuck is just a former officer.

I am closest to Stan. More than anyone else, Stan understands my feelings about Chuck. Stan hasn’t spoken to him for even more time than I, five years and counting, the likelihood of a reunion growing fainter with each passing year.

Stan had started the Harlan Sprinkler Company as a summer enterprise to earn money for college. The company grew faster than he had expected and he never went back to school. Even though Stan’s abandoning his quest for a degree made Chuck mad, Stan didn’t care. In fact he seemed to relish disappointing him. And in proving him wrong. Stan’s success was indisputable. He had a nice home on the east side, a sports car, a boat, season tickets for the Utah Jazz basketball team and he spent most of his winter skiing when work was scarce. He had a secretary and ran a crew of twelve men. I was the thirteenth.

By this time I had pretty much given up on my book. Of the manuscripts I had sent out, nearly twenty rejections had come back. The remaining five agents didn’t even bother to respond. Still my book was being read. Nancy had read it and raved about it. She called Allyson the night she finished it, full of tears and praise. She had shared it with a few other friends at work and they shared it until it had been passed around the entire credit department at R. C. Willey. I wondered how they could love the book so much while the agents rejected it. I figured that the agents knew better than I. And that I better just get used to a life doing something else besides writing.

 

I spent the first weeks at my new job digging troughs for sprinkling systems and laying sod. I still had the soft hands of a radio salesman and I came home each evening with fresh cuts and blisters. Manual labor gives one time to think. In my case, too much time. When I signed on with Stan, it was under the guise of temporary employment, but I wondered if I, like Stan, would spend my life there.

One night during my second week of work I arrived home with my clothes and body caked with mud as black as tar. I suppose that I looked pretty pathetic, and I could tell that Allyson wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. Her nose wrinkled as I entered the house. “What have you been doing?”

“You don’t want to know.”

I had already kicked my shoes off outside, and I pulled off my shirt and dropped it to the ground by my feet. “Just burn it.”

“You look like you fell into a swamp.”

“Worse. We had to dig out a septic tank. I’m going downstairs to shower then to hang myself.”

Allyson walked over and put her arms around me.

“Careful,” I said. “This stink is contagious.”

“I don’t care. Thank you for working so hard for us.” We kissed then she stepped back. “Dinner ’s almost ready so don’t be too long.”

 

As Allyson was setting the table, the phone rang. The caller ID showed an out-of-area call. The woman on the phone asked for Mr. Robert Harlan, and Allyson cloaked her voice with the formality she reserved for phone solicitors. “He’s busy right now. May I take a message?”

“Yes, my name is Camille Bailey. I’m a literary agent for Argent Literistic. Mr. Harlan sent us a manuscript to review and I’d like to speak with him about it. May I leave my phone number?”

“I’ll get him.”

She called for me. “Robert, telephone.”

I was still dressing and I shouted back, “Take a message.”

Her voice lowered. “Rob, It’s a
book agent
.”

I came to the bottom of the stairway with a towel wrapped around my waist. “On the phone?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

I answered the phone in my den. Allyson hung up the phone upstairs then came down next to me.

“Mr. Harlan, my name is Camille Bailey, I’m a literary agent with Argent Literistic in New York. You sent our firm a copy of your manuscript
A Perfect Day
. May I call you Robert?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. Is
A Perfect Day
your first work, Robert?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Does it seem like it?”

She laughed. “Your book is lovely. I read it last night and I was crying so hard near the end that my roommate thought I had had a death in the family. Your story was so connecting that I felt like I had.”

“Thank you.”

“No—thank you. I think you have a real winner here and I think I can sell this. I would like to represent your book, assuming of course that you haven’t signed with someone else.”

My heart raced. “No, I haven’t.”

“Have you sent it to anyone else?”

“I sent it to a few other agents.” I hesitated with the truth. “Well, actually twenty-five, but they’ve all sent me rejection letters.”