Tiffany Reisz - The Original Sinners - The Red Years

This is what I see—Caroline, who at twenty still retains the coltish legs of a much younger girl, pushes a stool to the counter. It wobbles nervously under her knees as she kneels on it with a steadying breath. She opens the cabinet that houses my wineglasses, my deliberately mismatched collection, all of which are older than her and one or two which are older than this adolescent country. She takes them one by one from the rack; their fragile stems shiver in her delicate fingers.

I brought her to this moment by design. I could have tortured her with tasks, with arduous acts of service. Instead, I chose to torture her with boredom, curious to see what the devil would do with her idle hands. Interesting that in my home it is the objects most easily broken that draw her attention first. With a soft, clean cloth she polishes every glass. She holds the bowl like a bird, strokes the stem like the back of a cat, wipes every old whisper off the lip. I see her eyes count the glasses. I count them with her. Thirteen. Last night I showed her the lash but did not use it on her. Thirteen…one lash for every glass she touched without my permission.

Thirteen…tonight I think I’ll whip her first and tell her why after.

Zach closed the manuscript and waited for J.P.’s reaction. J.P. whistled, and Zach raised his eyebrow at him.

“I think that rather turned me on. Should that worry me?” J.P. asked with a rakish grin.

“Since I’m the only other person in the room, I think it should probably worry me a great deal more,” Zach said. “It’s rather good, isn’t it? The content is slightly unsettling but the writing…”

“She’s got talent. I told you. I hope this means you are no longer planning on killing me.”

“Killing you?”

J.P. grinned. “Yes, for twisting your arm over Sutherlin.”

Zach laughed a little. “No, I’m not going to kill you anymore. But tell me—was I really the only editor who could or would work with her?”

“I suppose I could have dug up someone else. No one near as good as you, though. Anyway, Sutherlin requested you.”

Zach looked up in surprise.

“She did?”

“Well, not by name.” J.P. looked slightly sheepish. “She told me to give her to whichever editor would flog her the hardest. Yours was the first and quite honestly the only name that came to mind.”

“I’m hardly flogging her.”

“What would you call it?” J.P. had a dark twinkle in his eyes.

“I don’t believe I will justify that insinuating tone in your voice with a response. We were discussing the book after all.”

“Yes, quite a stunning little book you waltzed out of Rose’s party with Monday night.”

“I’m a professional,” Zach said calmly. “I don’t shag my writers.”

He omitted mentioning how shamefully close he’d come to asking Nora up after the cab ride to his building. He still couldn’t believe she’d gotten to him that fast. In ten years of marriage he’d never once been unfaithful to Grace, never even wanted to be. And then in one day Nora Sutherlin was putting thoughts in his head he hadn’t let himself have in years.

“I’ve seen her. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But it’s just a shock. I’m surrounded by postfeminists and neo-Freudians. Whatever happened to that ‘forgot the author, only the book matters’ philosophy?”

“One cab ride and one good conversation hardly makes me a Freudian. I’ll admit I was a bit of a prig about her. She is a good writer and the book has potential. If I’m warming up to her it’s only because I’m warming up to the book. But she is starkers. That I was right about.”

“She’s a writer. She’s supposed to be mad.”

“At least she’s also a mad worker. She’s already sent me a full synopsis of every chapter and the new outline I ordered.”

“How’s the new outline?”

“Better,” Zach said and glanced at his notes. “But still, more sex than substance. I think she’s capable of substance. Just afraid of it.”

“She does seem fairly married to her bad-girl writer persona,” J.P. said, and Zach nodded his agreement. “It lends her credibility if she makes people think that she practices what she preaches. Getting her to retire her proverbial whip and take up the pen full-time won’t be easy.”

“But if she did…” Zach glanced down at the manuscript and remembered his reaction Tuesday morning when he’d forced himself to read it again, this time with an open mind. The words had simmered on the page, flared into life and burned. He’d gotten so engrossed in the story he’d forgotten that he was supposed to be editing it. “If she did, she could set the world on fire, and she wouldn’t even need a candle. And don’t you dare tell her anything I just said. I’ve got to keep her afraid of me if I’m going to keep her writing.”

J.P. laughed to himself, and Zach stared at him.

“What?” Zach demanded.

J.P. took the newspaper out from under his arm and unfolded it. It was a copy of the New Amsterdam Noteworthy, a biweekly New York trade publication that carried the most recent news in publishing. J.P. threw the paper on Zach’s desk. On the bottom front page was a small photo of him and Nora on the staircase at Rose Evely’s party. Zach hadn’t remembered a camera flash. Apparently the photographer had been far enough away he’d missed it. In the photo Nora leaned toward Zach with her mouth near his ear. It looked as if she was about to kiss him on the neck. Zach knew exactly what moment that was. It was when he’d said he couldn’t believe he was doing this and she’d responded with a seductive “I can.” The caption under the photograph read, “Nora Sutherlin—the only writer who could make Anaïs Nin blush.”

“She doesn’t look scared to me,” J.P. said. “You look a little petrified, however.”

“J.P., I—”

“I don’t want to have to find another editor for Sutherlin. But I will if I must. I don’t mind if the book sells because of the sex in it. But I don’t want anyone thinking that writers have to do more than write when they come to Royal.”

Zach rubbed his forehead.

“I swear it’s just about the book. And no, you don’t have to find another editor for her. I know we can make something good together.”

“I think you can, too. If you stay focused.” J.P. sounded skeptical.

“I am focused.”

“Easton, I’m an old man. My hearing’s going and I’ve got two knees on the way out. But my eyes can still see. Since the day you arrived here, you haven’t once smiled like you meant it. And when I walked into this office and caught you reading her book, you were smiling like a lad who just found his father’s Playboy stash. I’ve tried writing in bed before. I never seem to get much done.”

Zach opened his mouth again, but J.P. raised his hand to cut him off.

“You can keep working with Sutherlin. For now. Just take a little advice—”

“I’d rather not.”

J.P. reached across Zach’s desk and grabbed the manuscript. He flipped it open and whistled. No doubt his eyes had landed on one of the myriad erotic encounters in the book.

“In the words of Charlotte Brontë,” J.P. began, “‘Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.’ Or in the words of me… Keep it on paper, Easton.”

Zach clenched his jaw and did not reply. J.P. grabbed the newspaper with Zach and Nora’s picture and left him alone once again with her book.

Closing his eyes, Zach conjured an image of Grace. God, he was glad she was in England where she wouldn’t see that photo. But why worry? Even if she saw it, saw him with another woman, would she care? Of course not. If she did, she’d be with him in New York right now.