Blind Submission (14 page)

“Right, right. I think this one is really good.
Elvis Will Dance at Your Wedding,
” I said. Lucy wrinkled her nose. “I know, I thought the title was too long when I first saw it, but it really does conjure the perfect image of what she's trying to get across here.”

“Which is? Fiction or non?”

So she
still
hadn't read it, I thought.

“Fiction. Road-trip novel about a couple who drives to Las Vegas to marry. Good writing, very evocative. Voyage of discovery about themselves, their relationship. It's literary, but not too. Still has mass-market appeal. It comments on the state of modern love—no, actually, it's
post
modern love and marriage in the new millennium.
Wild at Heart
meets
Leaving Las Vegas.
But more upbeat.” I'd come back to myself, finding all the right words, throwing them out in a rush and creating the kind of hot energy I loved. I could see that Lucy was warming to it as well. We were on a roll.

“Credits?” she asked.

“A few little lit mags. She's got a master's from California University, though.”

“
Pretty Feet,
” Lucy mused, referring to the last bestseller written by a California University MFA graduate. A quirky little novel about a young woman with enormous misshapen feet and her quest for love,
Pretty Feet
had been a solid fixture on the
New York Times
bestseller list for almost a year.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Intriguing,” Lucy said. “Has she contacted other agents?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and lied through my teeth. “No, we're it. Would you like me to call her? To get the rest of it, I mean.”

Lucy gave an exasperated sigh. “You haven't done that yet? Come on, Angel, you have to take some initiative. You don't need my permission to call an author to request more material if you like something. That should just be a matter of course at this point, no?”

“No. I mean yes. Yes, of course.”

“And you really like it?” she asked.

“Very much.”

“As much as the Italian book?”

“Yes, but in a different way.”

“Good! What else do you have?”

“This,” I said, and thrust
Blind Submission
at her.

“Can you be more specific?” Lucy said, a cold edge of condescension creeping into her voice.

“Sorry. It's a novel set in a literary agency. Anonymous author.” I smiled for effect. “Kind of fun.”

“Really?” Lucy asked, taking it from me. “And how long have I been waiting for this one?”

I was sweating again. “Just came in,” I said.

“Hmm,” Lucy mused. “And you like it?”

“I think it needs some work, but it's got potential,” I said.

“And have you written notes to that effect?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“Fine, I'll read it right away,” she said. “Is that it? Are we finished?”

“Yes, that's it,” I said, standing up. I felt as if I'd been sitting on that couch for days. Time got completely distorted in Lucy's office. It really
was
similar to Narnia in its way.

“What's that?” Lucy asked, pointing at Malcolm's manuscript, still in my arms, which I'd just decided I shouldn't show her. But there was no escaping it now. Lucy's eyes missed nothing.

“It's…” I filled my lungs with air. What the hell. “My fiancé is a writer? And a big fan of yours?” Now I was forming my sentences as questions, the first sign of the conversationally weak and lame. Lucy was not going to help me at all with this one, I could see. She looked bemused. “Anyway,” I went on, “he's written this novel….”

“Have you read it?” Lucy asked me.

“No, I haven't.”

“Then why in God's name should I waste
my
time reading it, Angel?”

“I've read his other work and I think it's good. I thought it might be hard for me to be objective about the novel, though, if I read it before, you know, I gave it to you. But I totally understand if you're too busy. I mean, he could have sent it in—he did, actually, send this to you once a long time ago, and you encouraged him to rewrite, but if he sent it now, I'd be the one seeing it first anyway probably and then—”

“Just give it to me,” she snapped, and so I did. “This is a big favor I'm doing for you, I hope you realize,” she said. “I hope
he
realizes.” She glanced at the title page. “
Bridge of Lies,
is it? Interesting. Why are these pages torn like this? Looks like the dog ate it.” She looked up at me, irritation creasing her features. “You're still standing there, Angel.”

“Yes, okay, your calls. Thank you, Lucy.”

“Get me Nadia Fiori first, please. We still have to settle the schedule on the Italian book.” She was already at her desk, positioning her notepads and pens for their inevitable stacking and unstacking, as I left her office.

I DECIDED THAT THE
“usual” time for a staff meeting should be at nine

A.M
.—lunchtime in New York—and placed a copy of the memo on everyone's desk. It would have been much simpler, of course, to just tell Anna, Craig, and Nora that there was a meeting, but Lucy insisted we have memos for every activity.

“What's this about?” Anna asked me, holding up her copy of the memo. For a paranoid moment, I was sure she'd somehow heard my earlier discussion with Lucy. She looked uncharacteristically pale and worn out. She'd gained some weight in the last couple of weeks and it wasn't sitting well on her. There was a gauze bandage on her left hand and wrist.

“I'm not sure,” I told her. “What happened to your hand?”

“Cut myself making chicken,” she said. “Spent all night in the emergency room.”

“Why didn't you call in?” Nora said, materializing as if from nowhere. Nora's long hair was pulled back, accentuating the sharp line of her jawbone. She'd lost the weight Anna had gained recently, and its absence looked even worse on her. The half-circles under her large eyes looked as if they'd been drawn in charcoal. I wondered if I looked as unhealthy as my coworkers. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

“Can't call in,” Anna said. “It's just a few stitches. Only twenty. I missed the vein, anyway.”

“Well, at least it wasn't a paper cut from all the reading you've been doing,” Craig said as he made his way to Lucy's office. “I'd hate to think you got a work injury at home.” Anna, Nora, and I gave him matching perplexed stares.

“It was a
joke,
ladies,” he said, his rich voice covering us like honey. “You know, ha-ha? Never mind, then. Join me for the staff meeting, won't you?”

There was a fair bit of shuffling around before the four of us found comfortable places to sit in Lucy's inner sanctum. Her office wasn't particularly well designed for meetings since the couch provided most of the seating and actual chairs were in short supply. Craig took his position on the one large chair in the office, while Anna, Nora, and I settled into the couch, all of us trying to keep our arms and elbows as close to our bodies as possible so as to avoid touching our neighbor. Lucy was seated at her desk, surveying the scene, and when we'd finally assembled and were sitting still, she said, “This is lovely and you all look very cozy, but there's one problem here.” Nobody ventured to ask her what that might be. “Who is going to answer the phones?” she said.

Anna sprung up like a jack-in-the-box. “I will, Lucy!” she gulped.

“Anna, what
is
that on your arm?”

“I had a little accident last night. It's nothing, really, just a few stitches.”

“Did you bandage that yourself or did you see a doctor about it?” Lucy asked.

Anna gave Lucy a puppyish smile and said, “No, I went to the emergency room. Thanks, I'm fine, really.”

“Do you realize how much bacteria there is at a hospital?” Lucy said. “I hope you aren't carrying in some kind of staph infection. These are close quarters, you know. You might have thought of that before coming in to work today.”

Anna sank back into the couch, her color rising to a bright red hue. Embarrassment was written all over her face, but I could see the hard, angry edge underneath it. I read her thoughts as one word:
bitch.

“Nora, it will have to be you, then. No, don't leave. Come and take my place over here. You can answer the phone at my desk.” Nora looked stricken. “And Craig, I'll take your place and you can sit next to the patient over there on the couch. I can't afford to take the chance.” Craig moved without a word, his face expressionless, and Nora, moving with all the speed of someone approaching the guillotine, seated herself at Lucy's desk. The phone rang immediately, as if sensing her presence there.

“Lucy Fiamma Literary Agency, may I help you? Yes? Hi. Can you hold, please?” Nora pushed the hold button on Lucy's phone and looked up. “Lucy? It's Susie Parker for you?”

“Nora, we're in the middle of a staff meeting here.”

“So shall I—”

“Yes, Nora, and do it now.” Lucy sighed heavily and muttered, “No sense, that girl.” She adjusted a notepad on her lap while Nora dispatched Susie Parker. “I don't know why these staff meetings take so long to get going,” she said. “Really, it ought to be a simple thing. We're going to have to learn to be more efficient here, people, if we're going to keep the coffers full. I realize that we've made some impressive sales in the last few weeks, but we cannot stop, slow down, or look back. I shouldn't have to spend time getting a meeting like this started. You all should be ready to go the minute you arrive. Angel, I'd like you to draft a plan for how we can improve the efficiency of these meetings. Please have it to me for review before the end of the day so that I can go over it.”

Staff meetings more efficient,
I wrote.

“Now,” Lucy said, “our first order of business is the reading.” She took in a deep breath. “As you are all aware, the reading is key to the success of this business….” Despite myself, I began to glaze over. I'd heard Lucy say the same thing so many times, I'd reached a saturation point. My brain could hold no more. I was heading into a full-scale drift until the sound of my own name reeled me back in.

“…and Angel informs me that you are not keeping up your end of the reading, Anna. Apparently, you've rejected several projects that were worth keeping or at least worth passing along to me. Now, I don't know if this is because you feel you're overloaded with work and don't have time to do your reading carefully or if your judgment is impaired. Which is it, Anna?”

I felt as if I'd been slapped. Although I was sure she knew what she was doing, I couldn't imagine what good Lucy thought would come of pitting me against Anna in front of the entire staff. It was becoming more and more difficult to figure out what constituted a good work performance in this office.

“I wasn't aware that my reading was so bad,” Anna said, shrinking into herself as she cradled her bandaged arm. “Angel never mentioned it to me or I would have done something about it.” Anna gave me a look of undisguised hatred. There was nothing I could say and no denials I could offer that would mitigate the damage, so I opted to remain silent.

“Is that true?” Lucy asked me. “You haven't kept Anna in the loop on this?”

“No. I mean yes. I've just taken…I didn't think—”

“So the answer is no,” Lucy said. “In all fairness to Anna, then, perhaps we should start over here.” Lucy graced Anna with a smile.

“Perhaps the problem here is that Angel is unaware that she should be sharing information,” Craig said. “We're a team here, after all.” With that, Craig managed to make
me
the problem, and as I glanced around the room, I could see that everyone was giving me similarly poisonous looks. So Craig was no friend of mine. That much was clear.

“We are indeed a team,” Lucy said, “and we need to start working as one. To that end, I'd like you to work with Anna on the reading, Angel. Perhaps you can share some of that insight you've got with her. I'll let the two of you decide how best you can accomplish this, but I'd suggest you get together at some point after work and create a plan. Maybe you can have dinner together? I understand that Anna's quite an accomplished cook.”

Sure, I thought, right after hell froze over.

“Good, that's decided,” Lucy said, without waiting for a response. “Now we can move on to my second order of business, which is
money.
If I am going to continue to pay all of your salaries, we need more of it. Angel has just been discussing a manuscript that looks as if it might be promising. Another
Pretty Feet,
or so you said, correct, Angel?”

“The Elv—Yes, right,” I said.