The Wonder Spot (20 page)

“I was just wondering about that,” she said.

I hesitated before saying, “Honey used to go out with my brother.”

Francine nodded. “That's perverse.”

. . . . .

Francine rewrote the form letter that Steinhardt sent out with rejected slush manuscripts and asked me to proofread it for her.

“Is there anything you would change?”

I told her that signing “The Editors” above the typed “The Editors” looked a little strange to me.

“Strange?” she said, hating me for my word choice.

I tried to explain. “I mean ‘the editors' is so anonymous I'm not sure you want to sign it.”

She nodded, but her lips were still pursed from my
strange.

I said, “Why don't you just sign your name?”

I could see she'd agonized over this question; it worried me how much thought she devoted to slush. “Then I'd have to use my title,” she said.

“I think that's okay.”

She said, “If I'd spent a decade writing a novel, I don't think I'd want to have it rejected by a floating assistant.”

“Well,” I said, “then the author could say, ‘Yeah, well, what the fuck does she know? She's just a fucking floating assistant.' ”

I was afraid I'd offended her with my
fuck
and
fucking,
but when I
turned around she was smiling to herself. Maybe she liked the idea that her low status could serve a noble purpose.

. . . . .

I noticed that she was deep into a manuscript, and I asked her if it was good.

She said, “It is frightfully bad.”

She appeared to be about four hundred pages in, so I said, “Why do you keep reading it?”

She said, “Every author deserves a chance.”

. . . . .

I helped Francine push another carton of slush from the copier to her desk. As she pulled out the first manuscript, I saw her face: It was full of hope.

It hadn't occurred to me until that moment that Francine wanted anything more than what I wanted—not to get fired. But I'd been wrong: Francine was ambitious. She was looking for her promotion in those cartons.

She was no Honey and she knew it; she wasn't going to get a great manuscript messengered to her after a fancy lunch with a big-deal agent. No, Francine would have to read page after page, manuscript after manuscript, carton after carton to find the novel that would make her promotion indisputable.

It seemed impossible to me. I didn't think there was a publishable novel in any of those cartons, much less a great one. Even if there was, how could Francine ever find it, reading, as she did, all the pages of all those manuscripts?

I kept thinking that as her friend I should tell her so. In my head, I practiced speeches I would give her; they were gentle, full of praise but also reality.

. . . . .

Francine and I never talked in front of the other Cave-dwellers. The few times I tried, she just shook her head. I thought she was trying to protect me—maybe from Bettina—but it wasn't that. I think she wanted to distinguish herself from the rest of the assistants; I think
she was trying to see herself as an editor whose paperwork had just been held up.

So I was surprised one Friday afternoon when I looked up from my typewriter, and she was standing above me.

“Would you read something for me?” she said. “For the editorial meeting on Monday?”

“Sure,” I said, and I realized that she thought she'd found the slush novel that would transform her career. I told her that she should probably give the manuscript to some editors to read, too.

Francine hesitated.

I said, “Their support is going to mean a lot more than mine.”

She didn't answer.

“That's what I'd do,” I said.

Then I figured out what her hesitation was, and I said, “I can ask Honey if you want.”

She said, “I'll make another copy.”

. . . . .

I caught Honey right before she left for the weekend. She was going to the country and had dressed for it. She wore a beautiful suede jacket and a full skirt and dark brown boots.

“I need a favor,” I said.

She tilted her chin up at me.

I noticed that the novel was entitled
We
and its author named I. Tittlebaum, neither of which sounded too promising. I noticed, too, how heavy the manuscript was—i.e., long—and I realized what a big favor it was to ask Honey to read it over her weekend in the country.

When I repeated what I'd told Francine about Honey's opinion meaning more than mine, her expression said,
Obviously,
so I said, “Obviously.”

“Sure,” she said, “that's just how I want to spend my weekend.” But she took it.

. . . . .

We
was about the principal of a high school in New Jersey the year his French-teacher wife leaves him and their children, and it was so great
I forgot that I was reading the novel as a favor. I read
We
all weekend and I was still reading it at 3
A
.
M
.
Sunday night.

Sometimes the editorial meeting started late or was postponed until the afternoon, and this was what I prayed for when I woke up at 9:45. I left the apartment without even brushing my teeth.

Not everyone looked up at me when I walked into the conference room; Honey didn't. Francine was sitting beside her at the table. I sat with the other assistants along the wall.

There was a huge stack of copies of
We
in front of Honey, and her Post-it note was still on top of the original. Without reading the note I knew it asked me to make however many copies were now beneath it.

The editors went clockwise around the table, talking about the novels and nonfiction they'd read and wanted to buy or pass on. Everyone tried to be fast, except one editor who liked to talk about all of her impressions.

Finally, it was Honey's turn. She began by just looking around the table until everyone was looking back at her. Then she said, “Francine Lawlor found this novel in the slush pile.” I was relieved that she didn't call Francine “Clarisse.”

Francine opened her mouth, and I thought she was going to take over but Honey went on.

Honey was a good saleswoman; she'd prepared an eloquent speech but made it sound like she was just talking to us. I noticed that while she compared I. Tittlebaum to the classic writers everyone admired, she compared
We
to books that had sold millions of copies.

She'd taken the liberty of calling I. Tittlebaum over the weekend to make sure that he hadn't sold the book to another publisher—he hadn't—and she went on to say what a wonderful man he was, and also that he was happy to change the book's title.

I was so captivated by her speech—everyone was—that at first I didn't notice the change in Francine's smile. It had been twitchy with excitement, but now it was frozen solid, and I understood why: Honey had made
We
her acquisition.

Honey apologized for the length of the novel; she said that she'd edit it down by a third.

This was the only shift I saw in Francine's expression; her eyes came to life for a second.

When Honey finished, she turned to Francine and said, “Is there anything you want to add?”

I admired the way Francine recovered. She tried to make her smile warm and said, “I hope you will all read this extraordinary novel.”

I'd never spoken in an editorial meeting before, and it felt hard to now, especially without having brushed my teeth. But I wanted to do something to make
We
Francine's again.

I heard myself say, “Um,” and saw heads at the table turn toward me.

Honey's look almost stopped me; it didn't show anything more than surprise, but it made me realize that she hadn't sanctioned my speaking in the meeting, which made whatever I said subversive.

Everyone was looking at me, waiting.

I thought of saying that Francine had read a thousand manuscripts to find this one, and that she'd read them with care and respect and all the way through. But I wasn't sure this was the speech I should give, and it was more than my mouth was capable of, anyway. “Francine asked me to read
We
over the weekend,” I said. “And I loved it.”

I could tell how slowly I'd said these words by how fast Honey cut me off: “Good,” she said.

Then Francine passed out the manuscripts.

Back in the Cave, Bettina dropped hers on her desk and said, “Shit,” at its heft.

Sue said, “Congratulations,” to Francine, who said, “Thank you very much.”

I went over to Francine and said, “I am so sorry.”

Francine closed her eyes, and she kept them closed, and I knew suddenly that “I'm sorry” was the worst thing I could've said; she was trying to pretend that nothing bad had happened.

As fast as I could, I said, “I'm sorry you had to copy all those manuscripts instead of me.”

She waited another minute to open her eyes and another to speak. “That's okay,” she said. “I got the mail room to do it.”

I wanted to ask if she'd seen Honey drop the manuscript off before the meeting, and if Honey had seemed mad that I hadn't been there. But it seemed wrong to worry about myself after what had happened to Francine, and I thought I'd find out soon, anyway.

I didn't, though. I didn't find out until Wednesday morning when I came in, and there was a message from Honey taped to the base of my tensor lamp.

The note said to call her, and I did.

She said, “Can you meet me in Wolfe's office?”

I said, “Sure.”

. . . . .

Wolfe was sitting at his desk, and Honey stood at the window, too agitated to sit.

“Come on in,” Wolfe said to me. “Have a seat.”

I took the chair I'd sat in during my lunch with Wolfe.

He called Irene and asked her to hold his calls.

When Honey sat down next to me, I wanted to stand up and go to the sofa. But I stayed where I was.

She faced me, her hands clasped like Act One of the hand play
This Is the Church
.

As it turned out, Honey had gone to the Cave for the last three mornings and found my tensor lamp on, though I hadn't yet arrived. “It's the deception I mind,” she said, and her voice was so angry that it trembled a little; for the first time it occurred to me that some of what she felt for me might belong to Jack.

I said, “I never asked anyone to turn my lamp on.”

I worried that Francine would get in trouble because of me, but Honey moved on. Apparently it was not only the deception she minded. She went on about my lateness and the warning she'd given me and my promise to come in earlier.

She was building her case.

I looked at Wolfe:
Save me.

But he was looking at Honey. In his face I saw that this meeting was distasteful to him.

He got up and went to the stereo. He spent a minute looking through his records, and I saw Honey roll her eyes. I realized that she didn't like Wolfe.

I wondered if he liked her. I hoped he didn't, but I knew it didn't matter. He was fair, like my father; even if Wolfe liked me more than he liked Honey, he would be on the side of the argument that was right, no matter whose it was. This was the way you were supposed to be at work, and it probably deepened my respect for him, though I couldn't feel that yet. What I felt was that he was not going to protect or defend me.

He put on
Kind of Blue
. I took this as a message from him to me, though I wasn't sure what it meant.

When he sat down again, he nodded at me.

“I
am
late almost every day,” I said. “But I stay late to make up for it.”

Wolfe's expression relaxed a little.

“I come in every weekend,” I said.

No one spoke or moved for a minute.

Then Honey plopped down on the sofa as an adolescent might. This seemed to strengthen my case.

“Okay,” Wolfe said to me, my signal to go. “Thanks.”

I felt I'd won for the moment, if only in the impartial court of Judge Wolfe. For the first time in my life, I'd done my homework, and it made me feel strong and hardworking and virtuous, as I never had before; I felt impervious.

This lasted about thirty seconds, until I got back to the Cave and realized what I'd done. Even if I'd won with Wolfe, I'd lost and lost big with Honey. I'd made my own boss look bad in front of hers, and it occurred to me that I was now in roughly double the trouble of lateness and deception, and I didn't know what punishment might come next.

Still, I didn't feel scared. I felt calm. I felt like I was beginning to understand something.