Elise Blackwell - Grub

Henry knew that most people would have little sympathy for him, and he was keenly aware that those who passed him on the street — people in new clothes, people on their way to and from jobs and spouses and mistresses and stores — would view him as inert, weak, foolish, socially mutinous. They’d see him as an affront to every industrious person who bustles about, producing things people actually want to buy. They’d tell him that if he must write at all, he should take a page from Jackson Miller’s book.

But Henry believed what his friend Eddie Renfros wanted to believe but doubted: the fact that his talent was incongruous with the circumstances into which he had been born made that talent no less valuable. Had he been born rich, his literary labors might have seemed noble to others. Because he was poor, he was more likely to be scorned. And his beautifully honed book would most likely go unpublished or, at best, be published in a small way, its few reviews deriding it as too quiet, perhaps even tedious.

Of course Henry would have preferred to take a job and buy back his CDs and get new clothes. He would like to eat well, go out for drinks, attend movies. But that was not his fate. He accepted his destiny as a starving artist with humility and a sense of responsibility. That was the hand he’d been dealt, and he would play it. If God or Harmony or DNA wanted in him a starving artist, he would be the finest one he could. And by doing justice to his noble bailiff, he would honor all the people out there leading their simple lives as best they could.

He had been at work for more than eight hours, interrupted only by the phone call, when he typed the hundred and twentieth page of Bailiff . More than halfway, he thought, and decided to reward himself by walking down to the market for a day-old bagel and a can of beer. When he returned, he would put in another two hours before allowing himself some sleep.

Margot Yarborough shifted from foot to foot, using up a few minutes in front of the storefront that used to house The Shadow of the Valley of Books. She didn’t want to arrive at the restaurant too early.

Because of her eye for color balance — and because she was smaller and more agile than anyone else who had worked there — it had been Margot who had composed the store’s displays in the large plate-glass window. Working sometimes around a color and other times around a theme, she’d stack books, arrange them in fans, or space them like dominoes waiting to be felled. Once she’d built a playground of children’s books, using a fan to send eight of them around like a merry-go-round. Another time she filled the window with books whose covers were every shade of blue, arranging them from a novel whose blue cover was so faint it looked white, through the azures and the ceruleans, the cobalts and the royals, the cyans and the navies, ending with a history of whaling in a midnight-blue wrap. The previous spring, over the weekend that launched daylight savings time, Margot had moved into the window every book in the store whose title contained the word ‘time’, from a horror novel titled Killin’ Time to a romance called Time of Destiny .

Other than a poster educating consumers about shade-grown beans, the window was now empty, allowing passersby and patrons of the new coffeehouse branch to see and be seen by each other. Margot remembered that one of the other titles from the spring display had been Time Changes Everything , and she indulged in a moment of melancholy before spinning on the heel of her only pair of tall shoes and smiling at the sign across the street. Its letters were painted in an ornate floral calligraphy that belied the simplicity and homespun connotation of the word: GRUB.

Though she had made sure she was on time to the minute but not early, she was the first of her party to arrive. During her ten minutes under the watch of the maître d’, who had handled her coat as though it were wet, Margot grew dissatisfied with what she was wearing. Surrounded by a sea of dark solid fabrics — black and gray and brown and olive — she felt like a schoolgirl in her print dress. At least she had worn her pumps. She rearranged her curls with her fingers and was just about to ask directions to the bathroom so that she could put on lipstick when two women pushed into the foyer. Both were tall, wearing slinky black slacks and muted silk blouses. One had darker hair than the other, but they had the same blunt-ended shoulder-length cut.

The darker-haired one walked straight over and said, “You can only be Margot! It’s great to finally meet you.”

Margot recognized the voice of her agent, Lana Thorpe, and offered her hand to the woman’s cool grip.

“This is Lane Thompson.”

The lighter-haired woman squeezed her hand in something slightly more feminine yet also far less committal than a handshake. “So good to finally meet you. We are thrilled to be bringing out your wonderful novel.”

Both women gushed over her dress, calling it charming, quaintly chic, and ever so flattering to her slim frame. The maître d’, smiling, reassured that she was not a waif or an aspiring waitress, showed them into the dining room. Lane and Lana insisted that Margot take the booth seat so she could view the room. “We come here all the time,” Lana said. “Besides, we know you fiction writers need to people-watch. Never gossip, I always say, because a writer might just be eavesdropping.”

Like the lettering on the sign outside, the room also belied the restaurant’s name: white tablecloths, Japanese flower arrangements in square black vases, and several small fountains spaced so that the sound of trickling water could be heard from every table. A handsome waiter with a Castilian accent brought them water and bread and a small dish of olive oil so green and viscous that it glowed. Next he delivered the bottles of white wine and still water that Lane requested.

Margot scanned the menu. The prices were all in whole dollars, in fancy script, and shockingly high. Before her mother had gone New Age and stopped dispensing practical advice in favor of spiritual platitudes, she’d told Margot never to order spaghetti, fried chicken, or anything laden with powdered sugar on a first or second date. Margot figured the same held true for a first meeting with your agent and editor. None of these options were on the menu, and Margot didn’t know how to start eliminating anything else. Looking the menu down and then up, she decided that she would order neither the least nor the most expensive meal.

The waitress came before she had decided. In unison, Lane and Lana insisted that she order first. Stymied, Margot looked up to see Doreen smiling at her, hands clasped behind her back, ready to memorize her heart’s culinary desires. Doreen cocked her head slightly in a way that revealed but didn’t require recognition. Not knowing whether it was good or bad manners to acknowledge the acquaintanceship under the circumstances, Margot was further flummoxed. “It’s good to see you,” she said softly. She ordered the crab sandwich, which was the only thing she could remember from the menu.

“But what are you going to start with?” Lana asked.

“Start with,” Margot repeated, fingering her menu and looking up to Doreen, who rescued her by recommending the roasted asparagus soup. While they waited for the food, Lana and Lane praised the originality of Margot’s novel.

“Your prose is hypnotic, absolutely gemlike,” Lane said. “That’s what drew me in.”

“And the story,” Lana took up. “Devastating.”

As Doreen set cups of soup on the table, Lane murmured in agreement. “I wonder, though, whether it wouldn’t be even more powerful if the Creole girl came back into the novel.”