John Cramer - Einstein's Bridge

Relieved at finding Janet, Alice threaded her way to the door of the indicated cubicle. Through the glass door panel she could see a young woman with curly black hair, presumably Janet Renfrew, whom she had not yet met in person. The woman seemed to be screaming into a telephone.

Alice wondered if she was intruding on a private matter, maybe a lovers’ quarrel. She thought perhaps she should sneak away and wait outside for a time. But before she could put this plan into action, the woman inside saw her, smiled and waved, mouthed the words “your agent,” and rapidly terminated the telephone conversation.

The woman strode to the door and opened it wide. “Alice! My dear!” she said, embracing her. “I’m Janet. So we meet at last. Come on in. Can I get you some coffee? Sit down! Did you have any trouble finding your way here? How’s the writing going? You must tell me about the new book you’re working on.”

Alice sat in the chair by the cluttered desk. On the desk was an open manuscript that had the obvious stain of a recent coffee spill on its center. Alice was feeling uncomfortable and confused. She wondered if she had made a mistake coming here. Last month Alice had not been present when her agent had negotiated the new contract and advance for her yet-to-be-written novel. Then, to her surprise, Janet had invited her here and sent a plane ticket. Alice would have brought her agent along, but he was away on a West Coast business trip.

Janet had taken over her books at Wagner from her previous editor, Damien Howell, who had been fired last year in the aftermath of the most recent of a continuing series of leveraged buyouts, corporate takeovers, and consolidations of publishing lines and imprints. Damien had been a wonderful editor. He had been largely responsible for successfully launching her writing career and had helped her to put her life back together after Steve died.

Alice was still uncertain about Janet as a replacement for Damien. Janet had been involved mainly in the production phases of her last book. She had, to her credit, arranged for the Earthworms paperback to have a cover that had beautiful artwork and was embossed with large gold letters and a peekaboo cutout. That was a first, and Alice had liked it very much. Janet and Alice had so far communicated only by fax, the Internet, and telephone. There had been several pleasant and encouraging telephone conversations, but this was their first meeting.

“Getting here from LaGuardia was no problem,” Alice said. “I just jumped in a cab, and three traffic jams later I arrived. Finding your office once I was on the right floor of the building was far more challenging. There was a nice young man in jeans and a camel-hair coat who was very helpful.”

“Oh sure,” said Janet. “That was Albert Jukes. He’s my boss’s boss, the executive publisher of the corporation. Isn’t he nice?”

Alice blinked. “I must be getting old,” she said. “I thought he was an office boy. Isn’t he rather young for a position like executive publisher?”

“He’s older than he looks,” Janet said. “Albert likes to walk while he’s thinking, so he frequently runs into our visitors. He calls it ‘management by walking around.’ Would you like some coffee?”

Alice nodded. “Yes, please. Black.”

Janet picked up the telephone and dialed a number, hung up and dialed a second number, then a third. Finally she slammed down the receiver. “Shit!” she said. “This telephone system is utterly worthless. Who needs ‘voice messaging’ when you want to ask the damned receptionist to bring in some fucking coffee?”

She stalked out of the cubicle, returning after a while with two.. steaming mugs. She handed Alice a mug bearing the Wagner Books corporate logo emblazoned in gold.

“Well,” Janet said, putting both elbows on her desk, placing one hand under her chin, and looking across at Alice, “we’re going to be working together, and we need to get better acquainted. So tell me how a nice girl like you wandered into the business of writing disaster thrillers that are crawling with bugs.”

Alice laughed. “Sometimes I wonder about that myself,” she said. “I was a couple of years out of college and working as a newspaper reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. My byline at the Democrat was Alice Lang. My late husband was a sharp lawyer with political ambitions. We had a nice house and a very active social life aimed at furthering his career. But after a while I found that I needed some creative outlet as a pressure relief valve. I’m a naturally inquisitive person, and I thought about doing some freelance investigative reporting. There were plenty of things going on in Florida that were potential subjects for investigation. But my husband, Steve, was concerned that if I looked under the wrong rock I might antagonize one of his rich clients. So I decided to do something else.

“I found that I was always buying a certain kind of paperback at the supermarket, the ones with the pictures of crawly creatures and metallic letters on the cover. Whenever I was feeling depressed or overstressed, I’d read one of those and I’d feel better. Then one day it suddenly hit me that I’m actually a much better writer than the people who were writing those books. I had plenty of source material from my job at the Democrat, so I decided to try writing one myself. The result was A as in Arachnids, my first novel published by Wagner. I adopted the Alice Lancaster pseudonym to avoid embarrassing Steve, but he still wasn’t too happy about my second career.”

“You implied your husband is dead,” said Janet.

“Yes,” said Alice. “Steve was killed in a mountain-climbing accident in Switzerland at just about the time when my second novel was coming out.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Janet, looking directly at Alice.

“It was a long time ago,” said Alice and sniffed.

Janet nodded. “So tell me about your plans for your latest project.”

Alice took a cautious sip of the coffee and placed the mug on the desk. She reached into her briefcase, extracted the summaries of her earlier books and the outline of the one presently in progress. She handed the packet to Janet. Then she took a deep breath and started her carefully prepared opening. “You must have read this outline of my new book already, when the new contract was being negotiated last month. You’ll recall that all of my books are techno-disaster thrillers with similar themes involving plagues of dangerous insects and vermin. Arachnids was about spiders from a failed genetics experiment attacking a small isolated university town. My most recent published novel, E as in Earthworms, is along the same lines. Earthworms from a worm farm in a small Mississippi town are mutated by a hazardous chemical spill and develop an enzyme that dissolves human and animal flesh. My agent says that Earthworms is my breakthrough book. It’s only been out for a month, but he projects that by the end of the year it could sell over one hundred thousand copies, provided Wagner is willing to go into a second print run.” She paused, hoping to hear a confirmation from Janet.

“Just a minute,” Janet said. She rummaged through several drawers of her desk, then stood, cursed, and walked to a file cabinet against the wall. After looking unsuccessfully in two of its drawers, she extracted a folder from the third drawer. She returned to her desk and scanned its contents for a moment. “Yes, it is doing very well,” she said. “So far at least,” she added cautiously.

Good, Alice thought, she’s noncommittal but positive. Her agent had plans to negotiate next time for a multibook contract and a much bigger advance.

“In fact,” said Janet, “it’s doing well enough that for your new one we’re considering a major promotion, with advertising and a big push to the bookstore chains. How would you feel about going on a promotional tour?”