Elise Blackwell - Grub

One afternoon, a courier hand-delivered an envelope from her publisher, and from the cardboard rectangle she pulled the proposed cover for her book. A beautiful woman with long curly black hair sat under a tree dripping with Spanish moss. Over the tree, in a looping script suggestive of French Quarter ironwork, curved the word Pontchartrain .

She was delighted for nearly an hour, walking around the house with light footsteps, humming, telling herself that, yes, her book really was being published. But the twelfth time she stared at the cover, it struck her that the design was all wrong. The composition was beautiful, but therein lay the problem. It should be the leper, not the Creole beauty, on the cover. Maybe a close up of a man’s twisted face would work, or a blow up of the bacterium that causes leprosy. And if the book was to be called Pontchartrain —it still didn’t sound right to her — then the letters should be solid and austere.

She checked her contract and pondered the meaning of the word ‘consult’: “The publisher shall consult with the author about the design of the book jacket.” She spent the next half-hour drafting and revising a reasoned email to her editor. She argued that tricking romance readers into buying her book might do more harm than good in the long run. And she voiced her concern that those readers who might actually want to read her book, who might understand it, could be put off by the proposed jacket. “And so,” she concluded, “while the last thing I want to be is a difficult author, I wonder if we might try out a different idea for the cover.”

The following day, a day on which her father had gone into the city to have lunch with his friend Quarmbey, Margot finally talked to her mother about Jackson. “I guess I love him,” she said.

Her mother hugged her and kissed her cheek. “That explains so much.”

“I know that he was awful to you down at Blue Ridge. He’s just, well, he’s ambitious. He was trying to impress Dad.”

“You know that I believe that grudges hurt only those who hold them. One of the very best things we can do for our own spiritual health is to forgive those who harm us. One day, everyone is going to practice this, and that will be the end of all war.”

“Not while Dad’s alive.”

“Your father is another sort of animal altogether. At least he’s unarmed. Tell you what, you know as well as I do that I haven’t much sway with your father these days. But I do have a card or two left up my sleeve. I’ll see what I can do to get your friend invited.”

Before Margot could embrace her and thank her, her mother added, “If your stars line up. So to speak.”

It took Margot more than an hour to complete the personality profiles for herself and for Jackson, and then she watched her mother spend forty minutes at the kitchen table, plotting her answers as locations on a nine-point star.

“Let’s see,” her mother said at last. “You are modest and quiet, while he is materialistic and brash. You are studious and introverted, while he is gregarious and power hungry. You are internally motivated, and he is externally motivated.”

Margot sat, hunched, as her mother enumerated the myriad ways that she and Jackson were fundamental opposites.

“Well, my dear, it seems as though your friend Jackson’s rather obnoxious personality may indeed be your true solace.”

It took Margot a few moments to understand that her mother was condoning the match. She straightened. “True solace?”

“If only I’d known the significance of this system before I’d married your father! I could have saved myself decades of his toxicity.”

“Then I wouldn’t have been born.”

“Well, yes, that’s true, dear. Good point. And you know how I dote on you.” Her mother crinkled her eyes and gave her a breast-squishing hug.

Later, at her computer, Margot read the response from her editor. “Of course you aren’t a difficult author,” Lane had typed, “and you know how we all adore you and your book. But we’re certain that we’ve landed on the right title and the right cover to maximize your readership. After all, a writer writes to be read. It may seem odd to you, but you have to trust that we know what we are doing.”

Margot tried to feel comforted; of course publishers hired professionals who knew what they were doing. But she was nagged by memories from her days at the bookstore, reminded particularly of a terrifically dark war novel whose cover — a cameo-like oval on a black background — had been ignored by browsers because it looked like a volume of contemplative poetry.

Amanda Renfros prepared for the holidays as though she and Eddie had no money problems, reasoning that their financial woes were near their end. She was hanging a plush wreath on the door to their apartment when her husband came home from the library one Wednesday evening.

“Only two people live above us,” Eddie objected. “Who are you trying to impress?”

Amanda followed him inside. “I don’t need to impress anyone but myself, and you should give me some credit for trying to pretend this is a home. I’m not going to just let things slide. You know aesthetics are important to me. Don’t underestimate what dreary surroundings do to a person. Take poor Henry; he lives in that squalid place, and it follows naturally that he lets himself go to hell. I can only imagine that his book will necessarily be grim and ugly. That will, in turn define — and by define I mean limit — his readership. And that, in turn, will further dampen his outlook on life. And so on and so on, and I worry he’ll wind up selling used books on the street.”

Eddie emptied an ice tray and fixed himself a drink. “He’s a better writer than I am. Want something?”

Amanda suspected that her husband was saying this so that she would protest, and there was a time when she would have jumped in to reassure him of his great talent. But she was tired of his pleas for ego stroking. Often his efforts to awaken her sympathy were followed by clumsy efforts to stir her desire, and she wondered if he knew her at all. There were women, she knew, prone to caretaking and attracted to weakness, but she wasn’t one of them, and Eddie should know that by now.

“Look,” she said. “If the wreath on the door cheers up the upstairs neighbors, it’s been worth the effort.”

“You’re talking about the Levines, Amanda. I bet their December would be just fine without our Christmas wreath.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “we may decide to have some friends over for a bit of holiday cheer.”

“Which friends?” The edge to his voice was unmistakable. “I really can’t stomach Big Time Jack until I hear word on my book. Last chance on that drink.”

“Don’t be morbid, and don’t be ridiculous.” Amanda dragged a chair across the room so that she could reach the high closet that held their holiday ornaments. “Yes, pour me a glass of wine. I’m thinking all natural materials on the tree this year. You know, straw animals and raffia bows and the like. Maybe we have some trimmings from Christmas past that we can carry over, to save money.”

She waited for Eddie to lend her a hand before climbing off the chair with the box in hand, gracefully, really, given the awkwardness of the maneuver. She started to make a comment about chivalry. But the sight of him slid halfway between sitting and laying on the sofa he had pretended to love when she bought it, combined with her certainty that at least one new book contract was in their very near future, swelled her generosity. There he was: the man she’d married, the author of the critically hailed Sea Miss , which couldn’t have been completed without her.