Blind Submission (19 page)

“Hi,” I breathed into the phone, breathless enough to sound like a 900-number phone-sex operator.

“Angel?”

I was so shocked that the voice I heard belonged not to Malcolm but to Damiano that for a moment I just said nothing.

“I'm sorry,” he said into my silence, “I must have the wrong number.”

“No!” I said, much sharper than I'd intended. “This is Angel.”

“I'm very sorry, Angel. It's so late. I woke you?”

“No,” I said, pushing the hair off my forehead and trying to get my bearings. I was sliding between my office persona and that of weeping girlfriend and couldn't find any kind of conversational purchase. “I'm—I mean, it's okay. I'm not sleeping.”

“I shouldn't have called,” he said. “But I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I didn't really see you before. When I came in to the office.”

I had become very familiar with Damiano's broken English, and because I'd spent so much time with his words and thoughts through
Parco Lambro,
I was usually able to understand what he wanted to say before he finished speaking.

“It's okay,” I told him. “You didn't have to…You came to talk to Lucy, anyway, right?”

“
Sì,
but…Angel,” he said, “I don't know how to say it.” There was a long pause while he formulated the correct words. “I have to thank you in some way. I know how much you have done for me.”

“You don't. I mean, you have, Damia—Dami. You have thanked me.”

“I just thought to call you and tell you, but…” He sighed into the phone and muttered something in Italian under his breath I couldn't catch. “Now it is so late and I have disturbed you.
Mi dispiace.
I'm sorry, Angel.”

“Dami, it's really fine. It's okay. Thank you.”

“I should find a better way than to call so late at night. I've made you sad.”

“What?”

“You sound sad. That's the right word, no?”

For a heartbeat I considered what it would be like to tell him he was right, I was sad, but not at all for the reasons he thought. I had the sudden, strong feeling that he would understand, that he'd be able to read me as I'd been able to read him. It was tempting, but then, in an instant and for so many reasons, completely impossible.

“Yes, it's the right word. But I'm not sad, just…tired.”

“I know, I am so sorry to call. I will find a better way to thank you. Good night.”

“Good night, Dami.”

“Sleep well, Angel.”

I PREPARED FOR BED
and lay down in it, but sleep was far from coming. There was no comfortable spot in my bed, no fold or corner that didn't continuously remind me of Malcolm's absence. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I reached for the phone, preparing to call Malcolm and act like the helpless, dependent woman I'd always hoped I'd never become. I couldn't tell if it was a last vestige of female pride or the fact that I saw her phone number tucked under the phone, but at the last minute, I decided to dial not Malcolm but my mother.

The phone rang so many times I was almost hypnotized by its steady sound. There was no answering machine, of course, and so I just held on, waiting and hoping. I was about to give up when she finally picked up and I heard her voice.

“Hello?”

“Hillary?”

“Angel? What's wrong?” There were some things, despite the distance and the differences in our worldviews, that my mother just didn't have to be told. “Are you in trouble?”

I couldn't imagine what my mother's definition of trouble might be, so I didn't try. “No, Hillary, I just wanted to talk to you—see if you were okay.”

“I'm fine, love, never better. I'm glad you called. I was going to call you, honey. I was going to tell you that I'm moving and I don't know if I'll have access to a phone where I'm going.”

“Didn't you just get there, wherever you are?”

“Well, I've been here long enough, that's certain. I'll have to tell you about it another time. Anyway, I've met these two amazing Inuit women and I'm going with them to Alaska.”

“Alaska!” The first thing that came to my mind was the cover of
Cold!

“It's still the United States, Angel. Don't sound so alarmed. But we can talk about that later. I want to know what's wrong with you. You haven't told me. Is it Malcolm?”

I wasn't surprised that she knew, but I wasn't glad, either. I knew what was coming.

“You're losing your center, Angel, I can feel it. Men will do that, especially this one.”

“I don't know why you don't like him, Hillary.”

“Why don't you ask yourself why you think I don't like him, Angel? I guarantee you'll find the answer if you look for it. What's he done to you? And why have you let him?”

“Nothing. Look, it's fine, okay? Never mind. I just wanted to talk to you, that's all. I'll call you—When are you leaving the Amazons?”

“I'll be here until the next new moon, so I have about three weeks yet.”

“All right, I'll call you before the next new moon, then, Hillary.”

“Angel, you know what will make you feel better?”

“What?”

“Read a good book, my love. From the time you were a tiny little thing, a good book worked better for you than antibiotics.”

I started laughing because there was nothing else to do at that point. Maybe she was right. Maybe it had been too long since I'd read a
good
book.

I picked up Shelly Franklin's manuscript again and got back to work.

It was well past two when I stopped and finally turned off the light. Some time after that, I heard Malcolm's key turning in the door. He came inside very quietly and sat down next to me on the bed. He smelled like shampoo and soap and he'd changed into soft, fleecy clothes. As he bent over me his hair brushed my cheek. It was still wet.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“So am I,” I said, reaching up and pulling him close to me.

Malcolm took off his clothes and slid into bed next to me. We turned to face each other and touched each other carefully, hesitantly, as if either one of us could shatter the other with the wrong move. We fell asleep like that, skin to skin, no space between our bodies. But the emotional distance between us was wide and full of everything we'd left unsaid.

EIGHT

MEMO

 

To: Angel

From: LF

Re: BLIND SUBMISSION

 

Let's discuss.

 

Jackson Stark, Lucy's new hire and replacement for Nora/Kelly, edged toward me and gingerly placed Lucy's glaring memo on my desk.

“Uh…” he began.

“Thanks, Jackson,” I said.

“Um, yes. Sure. You're welcome.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing that there was more. I looked up at him, waiting. The scent of his cologne (lush, expensive, but way too liberally applied) engulfed me. He was twenty years old, a fact Lucy had shared with all of us, and didn't have enough facial hair to justify the razor burn on his smooth cheeks. He was wearing a silk shirt festooned with paisley patterns and black, tight-fitting designer jeans. He'd been working with us for three weeks and had worn jeans every day. There had not been a single mention or memo from Lucy regarding his attire in all that time. I wondered if it was because he was male or, likelier, she was waiting for someone else (me? Anna?) to blow the whistle on him. It was Craig who had dug Jackson's résumé up from one of his mysterious files and called him in for an interview. Perhaps he'd been hired simply because he was male. On one of Lucy's memos to Craig during the interview process, she had written simply,
No more girls!!!!

“I think she wants to talk to you about this,” Jackson said, pointing at the manuscript.

“Okay, great. Thanks, Jackson.”

He sighed and glided back to his desk. He rearranged his already ordered stacks of paper for a moment and looked over at me once more, concern darkening his eyes.

“I think she wants to talk to you about it, like, now.”

“Got it. Thanks, Jackson.”

“You're welcome.”

Hearing this interchange, Anna looked up from the peanut butter sandwich she was eating and raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Whathat?” She pointed to the memo. I wished she wouldn't speak with her mouth full. It was really starting to annoy me.

“Memo from Lucy,” I said.

“Whabout?” Anna asked.

I shot a disgusted look in her direction. At least swallow, I thought. “I don't know,” I snapped, but of course I did. I hadn't given Lucy a progress report on
Blind Submission
for a few days and I knew she was expecting a revised, edited manuscript
yesterday.
It had been some time since anything even worth a second look had come in, and Lucy was starting to make plenty of noise about the “dry spell.” It didn't seem to matter to her that Karanuk had sent the first couple of chapters of what was sure to be a gigantic sale (not that I'd had a chance to read it—Lucy had snatched it off the pile the moment it arrived in the office) or that, after I finished the Damiano Vero–style edit I was doing on Shelly Franklin's novel, she'd be able to sell
Elvis
for plenty of money. In fact, an auction seemed likely for that one. But Lucy still seemed hungry—ravenous, even—for more. It wasn't about the money. She had an insatiable, constant need for the next big thing. And
I
was the one who was supposed to deliver that to her. I'd become the miller's daughter of my favorite fairy tale, spinning a roomful of straw into gold overnight. Unlike the miller's daughter, however, I didn't have Rumpelstiltskin showing up to help me.

“Um…Angel?” Jackson and his cologne were at my desk again.

“Jackson?”

He pointed at Lucy's note. “I think, um, I mean, she, um, like, asked that you see her about that.”

“I got it the first time, Jackson,” I snapped. From the corner of my eye, I could see Anna's brow furrow with surprise and I felt Craig's disapproving glance from his corner of the office. I couldn't find it in myself to care. For his part, Jackson didn't seem to mind my tone at all. He nodded affably and made his way back to his desk.

“Angel!” Lucy shrieked into my intercom.

“On my way,” I answered. I detected a whiff of satisfaction coming from Anna's desk as I jumped up from my chair.

Lucy was sitting on her couch, tapping her Waterman pen impatiently against her corduroy-clad knees, when I entered her office. “Finally!” she said. She didn't wait for me for me to sit down before she started. “What's going on with that novel about the literary agency?”

“I—”

“Have you spoken to the author? Do we have the complete manuscript? Do we have revisions?”

“No,” I said. “And no.”

“Why not, Angel?”

“The author wants to remain anonymous. I don't have a phone number. And I've been working on the
Elvis
—”

“Still?”

“Yes. But I don't have much to work with on the other one. And are you sure you want me to put so much time into it before we get an agency contract?”

“We don't
have
an agency contract yet?”

“No, but—”

“You'd better get one, Angel.”

“Okay, I'm on it.”

I got as far as her door before Lucy stopped me again with a question. “How are you and the boyfriend doing?” she asked. “Everything all right there?”

Why she'd ask, I couldn't tell and didn't want to know. The truth was things were not really all right with Malcolm, even if they weren't exactly all wrong. We were spending fewer nights together for one thing. We were getting along fine, but since our argument over his novel, there was a kind of emptiness between the two of us that neither he nor I seemed to be able to fill. This was most evident when we were physically close. It was then, when we were actually touching each other, that I noticed the space between us, as if there was a charged layer of air, a force field, keeping our bodies from joining the way they had before. I wanted to get back whatever we were missing, but I didn't know how. My growing fear, too, was that it had never been there in the first place. None of this was anything I wanted to share with Lucy. Despite the fact that she suddenly sounded all warm and girlfriend-y, the last thing I wanted was to get into a discussion about my love life with her. “Everything's fine,” I said.

“Is it? Well, I'm happy to hear it.”

“Thanks, Lucy.” I thought she was finished then, and I was half out the door before she called me back yet again.

“Angel?”

“Yes, Lucy?”

“I'd like you and the boyfriend to join me for dinner.” Although her words indicated an invitation, I knew Lucy well enough to realize that she was issuing a command. I didn't relish the thought of spending more personal time with her than I already did, but turning down dinner was no more an option than refusing to answer the phones. Why she'd want “the boyfriend” there was a mystery, but I was sure I'd find out soon enough. In the meantime, I'd have to make a show of being excited at the prospect.

“That would be great, Lucy.”

“Good. Saturday at seven.”

“Okay. Great. Um, which restaurant?”

Lucy looked at me with an expression of supreme exasperation. “At my
home,
of course, Angel.” She tapped her pen again. I'd come to hate that sound. “You're still in my office, Angel. Is there something else? If not, I believe you've got a writer to chase.”

“Okay,” I said, and finally, I managed to escape.

 

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: BLIND SUBMISSION

Dear G,

Thanks so much for sending the new material. You haven't mentioned whether or not you have a completed manuscript. In any event, Ms. Fiamma would like to discuss representing you! Could you please give us a call at 510-555-7666 as soon as possible?

Many thanks,

Angel

 

I hit the
SEND
icon on my computer and let out a sigh. The anonymous bit had gone on long enough and was starting to wear very thin. We were
interested;
wasn't that what the author wanted? What was the point of carrying on this way? I hoped the next e-mail from our mystery author would have more information and I'd be able to stop playing this guessing game. If not, I'd have to start pressing the author harder, and I wasn't sure I knew how to do that. That hard-bitten agent approach was really much more Lucy's style than mine.

“Go ahead and send the whole thing in, then.”

I swiveled my head in the direction of Jackson's voice. I wasn't the only one—Anna was also staring at him, her mouth open in amazement.

“Yeah, it sounds really good,” Jackson went on. “Okay, thanks. Bye now.”

“Who was that?” I asked Jackson as he hung up the phone.

“Um, just a writer who wants to send something to us.” He sounded defensive, but also slightly indignant.

“And you decided to tell him to send the
whole manuscript
?” I thought about checking my tone, which had suddenly become very sharp, but decided against it. It wasn't as if Jackson hadn't been trained—I'd seen to that myself after witnessing Anna's methods firsthand. Why he'd suddenly decided to tell an author to send in hundreds of pages was beyond me.

“But it sounded really good,” Jackson said.

“If it's good, we'll ask to see more,” I told him. “You never tell them to send the whole thing in first. Haven't we been over this?”

“But—” Jackson began, and found himself cut off by Craig.

“Angel, can I see you for a moment, please?”

I thought about how much I'd like to tell Craig that he could see me quite plainly from where he sat, but instead I got up and walked the short distance to his desk. Craig pulled out several drawers of the tall filing cabinet next to his desk so that we'd be partially obscured from view. This was what constituted privacy in this office. Of course, anyone within earshot (Anna, Jackson) could
hear
everything that was being said. Which, I suppose, was Craig's point.

“Don't you think you're being a little harsh with him?” Craig said, lowering his voice to a movie-star whisper.

“It seems pretty basic,” I answered in a whisper of my own. “Telling callers to send in the first fifty is sort of the rule of thumb here, isn't it? I know
I've
told him.”

“You're getting a little ahead of yourself, don't you think, Angel?”

Craig's eyes, normally washed out and vague, were alive with brown sparks I'd never seen there before. He was actually angry, and I sensed it didn't have as much to do with me as it seemed.

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“There's only one boss here,” he hissed. “And you're not her.”

That set me back—literally. I moved away from Craig as if I'd been pushed. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I thought when you asked me to train—”

“Exactly,” Craig snapped. “I asked you to
train
him, not pass judgments on his character.”

“I never—”

“Do you really think you are so far above the
little people
already, Angel Robinson? Have you forgotten where you came from only a few months ago?” Something caught Craig's eye then and he lowered his gaze to the vicinity of my chest. “Or where you've been?” he added ominously.

I raised my hand to my chest instinctively while looking down to see what Craig was staring at, and discovered that I'd managed to pop one of the buttons on my shirt, exposing a generous bit of bra and breast. And that damn tattoo. I clutched my lapels together, blushing furiously and trying desperately to regain some sense of dignity.

“Excuse me, Craig?” was the best I could come up with.

“Jackson's a good kid,” Craig rasped. “You can go back to your desk.” He slammed his filing cabinet drawers shut and bent over his desk, leaving me to plod the awkward steps back to my own. I avoided looking at Jackson at all but couldn't help seeing Anna's face. She was wearing a twin version of my embarrassed blush, and for a moment I was completely confused. Was it possible that she felt bad for me?

As if to answer that question, Anna sent me an instant message as soon as I sat down.

It's not your fault. I've told him the same thing. C doesn't like having his territory invaded.

I felt like a kid passing notes in high school.
I'm not invading anyone's territory,
I wrote back, deleting as I went.

He's pretty protective of Lucy.

I deleted the message and looked over at Anna, eyebrows raised. The red color in her face was fading, leaving pinkish splotches on her cheeks. She nodded meaningfully.

“Do you have a safety pin?” I asked her.

“Sure!” She began rummaging through her desk drawer. “What do you need it for?”

Why did she have to know everything? “Just got a problem with my shirt,” I stage-whispered.

“Hmm,” Anna mumbled. “Thought I had one in here…”