Elise Blackwell - Grub

“Oh,” said Margot, forgetting her social discomfort and finding her voice. “That’s just it. She never leaves. She is always with Laird, always his inspiration. She’s his better self.”

“And that comes off marvelously. You really pulled that off. But I’m wondering if there’s a way to embody that, by giving her an actual scene.” Lane sipped her soup expertly from the almost flat cutlery.

Lana was not quite so skilled with her spoon, and Margot noticed other differences between the two women who had at first seemed almost clones of each other: Lana’s jewelry was gold while Lane’s was dainty and silver, and Lana spoke a little louder.

Lana said, “Exactly. Embody as in body. Maybe her body could re-enter the picture, if you see what I mean. Or does leprosy, you know, affect all areas of the body?”

Margot detected a patronizing sympathy as Lane paused from her soup to smile at her.

Lana continued. “I know. What if the beautiful Creole girl hears of Laird’s sacrifice and comes to join him, even though she knows that she, too, will contract the disfiguring disease? I can’t think of anything more romantic.”

“But it’s her absence, see, more than her presence. She’s his ideal. He can only approximate her.” Margot’s voice locked as Doreen replaced her soup cup with the most frightening plate of food she had ever seen.

Sticking out from the two triangles of bread that purported to make the meal a sandwich were the grotesque legs of an extraordinarily large soft-shell crab. “You’re not crab salad,” Margot whispered to the gangly dead creature before her.

“I take Margot’s point,” Lane was saying. “And, let’s be frank, leprous sex isn’t, well, it isn’t sexy. Frankly, it’s disgusting. I’ll grant you that there’s probably a pervert or two in the world into it. No one else wants to read about that. No one.” She paused as Doreen set before her a large plate containing three yam ravioli decorated with drizzles of brown butter and a bouquet of sage leaves. “But I do think the Creole woman could come to him. Maybe for a non-contact visit, like through the glass in prison scenes. Or maybe Laird turns her away. As drastically as he loves her and wants to see her, he won’t risk her well being. Now that would be romantic.”

Margot worked a fork and knife as inconspicuously as she could through one of the crab’s legs, seeking a bite-size piece of food. The soup had awakened her appetite, but it would be difficult to lift the monstrous sandwich even if she didn’t care how uncouth she looked. And in front of her editor and agent on what was supposed to be the best day of her life, it didn’t seem possible. She put down her cutlery, deciding that soup and dessert would be plenty, would be just right. “Actually,” she said, “leprosy isn’t really that contagious. You generally have to live in close quarters with someone for a decade to contract it.”

Lane and Lana relished their normal-looking food, saying “delicious” and “to die for.” Margot’s stomach rumbled as she saw Lana twirl linguine on the long tines of her fork. She caught whiffs of garlic, fennel, and something with a bit of fire to it.

Lane paused from eating. “I only ask that you give it some thought. You’re the author, of course.” She weighted the word ‘author’ as though to make sure Margot heard that she’d said author rather than writer. “But I am going to have to put my foot down about the title. I mean, if you really think about it, aren’t all lepers reluctant? And besides, he’s reluctant before he’s a leper. Once he’s a leper, he’s more resigned, right?”

Margot retrieved her purse from the floor and withdrew a wrinkled square of paper. “I brought a list with some ideas.”

“Excellent. Good girl,” Lana exclaimed. “Didn’t I tell you she’d be a dream to work with?”

Margot read the titles she had devised, feeling increasingly wretched as she realized that each and every one of them was much worse than terrible: Laird the Leper, Under the Spanish Moss, The Unnatural History of Louisiana, Leper in Love , and Redemption . The last made her choke down her own laugh. “They’re terrible. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Lana nodded. Lane smiled kindly and said, “We understand. You’re a virgin.”

“Virgin?”

“First-time author. Don’t worry about it in the least, and that self-deprecating thing you do is really charming. I promise we’ll come up with something.”

“The thing of it is,” Margot recovered, “the thing of it is that I think that The Reluctant Leper is the true title. You see, he’s reluctant in his acceptance of his situation, but then he comes to identify with the lepers to such an extent that he becomes one.”

Before she could explain Laird’s multiple levels of reluctance and how they play out in his final choice, Lane cut her off. “Never you worry. I have every editor at the house on the job. They’ve all promised to bring me five titles by Friday. I’ll let you know what we decide.”

Seeming to notice that she was the only one still eating, Lana set down her fork even though it held an entire bite of food. “You mean you’ll run your choices by her and see which ones she likes the most.”

“You’ve got a good agent on your side, Margot. Of course we’ll show her the title. She’s the author.”

The handsome assistant waiter cleared their dishes, and Doreen followed with a dessert tray. Margot’s gaze shifted from a vanilla-raspberry roulade to a walnut-honey napoleon, from a sugar-crusted lemongrass crème brulee to a slice of chocolate cake decorated with thin curls of real gold. “We also have two soufflés,” Doreen said directly to Margot, “chocolate with bitter orange and a really delicious key lime.”

Lana pushed in her stomach. “I really shouldn’t.”

Transfixed by the pastries, Lane answered without looking up, “But you always do. And we can’t leave our author underfed.”

“Starvation is for the unpublished only,” Lana added.

“We haven’t time for the soufflés,” Lane told Doreen, “but bring us one of everything else and three forks for each.”

Fifty minutes and one-third of four desserts later, Margot rang the bell at Jackson’s address and was buzzed in. She ascended the stairwell slowly, made anxious by all that sugar. She was also decidedly sore of foot from her grown-up shoes.

Jackson was standing at his open door when she stepped onto the fourth-floor landing. “Welcome, author.” He smiled before adding in a more natural tone, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Though Margot was used to spending long hours alone and had never been the chatty type, she found herself leaning sideways into Jackson’s sofa, telling him the details of her lunch, her breathing out of pace with her words.

“Are their names really Lane and Lana?” Jackson shook his head in exaggerated disbelief. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing, but perhaps you and I will beat them to the perfect title.”

“You couldn’t do any worse than I did.”

“I know we’d planned to stroll, but what would you think of staying here, sipping some wine? I had Doreen recommend a special bottle to toast your success.”

Margot, without another pair of shoes, was relieved to avoid the walk. “That’s nice, but we must toast your success first.”

“Not yet, Margot. I’ve two more days of agony, and I’m bracing myself for bad news.”

“It will be good news, I’m sure of it. If someone will publish a book about lepers in nineteenth-century Louisiana, they’ll publish anything.” She added hastily, “By which I don’t mean to suggest that your book is just anything. I only meant that any topic has a chance.”