Elise Blackwell - Grub

“Sorry, just stating the obvious,” Jackson said, still in motion.

“A particular talent of yours, it would seem.”

By a coincidence that seemed nearly perverse, the three friends’ publication dates were within a few weeks of each other. Jackson’s and Amanda’s were at the beginning of April. Eddie’s book would be released later in the month, after the other two were off on their tours. So Amanda arranged an early celebration, reserving a good table in one of Grub’s private rooms. Jackson asked Doreen to ensure they would have one of the restaurant’s best servers, someone who would take good care of them.

“Promise not to even peek at the check,” Amanda had instructed, and Eddie decided to obey. He ordered up and celebrated with those he had long thought of as his two favorite people.

Like many people who drink a lot, Eddie was generally unhappy sober, in great spirits during his first and second drink, either extremely happy or getting edgy by the end of the third drink, and turning sour fast after that. On that night, he decided to let himself feel important — more important than Amanda and Jack because of the quality of his writing. He chose to believe that quality would lead him to a longer and more prestigious career than the splashier flash-in-the-pan stuff written by his companions. As if to bolster his temporarily inflated self-worth, Amanda and Jackson steered the conversation to less successful writers: not one but two of their fellow alumni had recently killed themselves over failed writing careers.

Jackson shrugged. “But one of them was a poet.”

“Still have it in for poets?” Amanda asked.

“Until the day I die,” Jackson said.

A group of poets at Iowa had abandoned a reading at the intermission — after a fellow poet had read, but before Jackson had taken the podium to give his first-ever public reading — and had then showed up at the after-party to feel each other up in the jacuzzi. Jackson had never forgiven them and chose to scorn all poets from that moment on.

Almost keeping pace with Eddie, Jackson drained the last of a bottle of champagne into his flute and called for the wine list. “How’s Baffler holding up? Has he awakened to the smell of money and the bell of his publicist’s voice?”

“I doubt it. He told me he was glad that Bailiff was being published but that he was through with the book. ‘Once it’s written, it’s over for me.’ That’s what he said. And he’s developed serious reservations about his theories, says New Realism may not be all he’d hoped.”

“Still obsessed with that bleeding-edge girl? Clarice something?”

Amanda chimed in. “I think Henry’s sweet, and we would all do well to begin thinking about our next books.”

Unable to help himself, Eddie said, “I suppose that comment was for my benefit.”

“Not at all.” Amanda gave him a china-cold look. “I was chastising myself, if you must know. I think the ideal is to have the next book finished before the last one hits the stores. I wasted too much time this go round, but that’s my plan from here on out.”

Eddie worked on his fillet and horseradish mashed potatoes and had to admit that the food at Grub was nothing short of very good.

“Oh, I have news,” Jackson said, tapping his water glass with his fork. “I’m appalled, of course, but happy for her. My former girlfriend cum former roommate has betrothed herself to Whelpdale.”

Amanda laughed so hard she choked on her water.

“He became a regular customer here and apparently was quite smitten by her complete disinterest in all matters literary. He’s going to marry her and put her through cooking school. She says he’s the perfect eater.”

“He’s going to put her through cooking school with what?” said Amanda, now recovered from the skirmish with her water glass.

Jackson’s bangs fell across his eyes as he shook his head, laughing. “I would have been annoyed if my own lot hadn’t improved so much since the Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference, but Whelpdale’s non-writing writing career is going very well. He’s making a lot of money as a ‘manuscript doctor’ and gets scores of referrals from an unscrupulous agent he’s befriended. The agent hints to the authors of the lackluster novels that populate his slush pile that their work has real promise and that he might take them on with a bit of restructuring. He includes in these rejection letters a flyer touting Whelpdale’s services. Great racket, no?”

“That’s criminal,” Eddie said, glad he wasn’t one of the unfortunate souls.

“It would be,” Jackson agreed, “if it preyed on anyone who wasn’t completely lacking in both intelligence and talent. Anyway, Whelpdale’s fishing deeper waters now. He read some book about getting rich by hanging out around rich people, and, sure enough, he found some wealthy literary-wannabe to finance a publication. He’s calling it ProProse . Every story in the thing will be a contest winner, meaning he’ll clean up with entry fees. It’s like vanity publishing for the short story, but he’s also including interviews with real writers and what amounts to a literary gossip column — who’s publishing where, which prize judges are selecting their friends, that sort of thing. That will give the magazine some legitimacy and no doubt boost circulation.”

“Not so unlike what Fadge has done with The Monthly ,” Eddie said and then wished he hadn’t.

“Well, I’ve got to hand it to him,” Amanda said quickly. “If he pays for Doreen’s culinary training while removing some of those horrid stories from the desks of real journals, then maybe he’s actually doing the world some good. Speaking of real journals, how’s the Chekhov project coming along?”

“Speaking of literary gossip columns for the vain?” Jackson gave Eddie a pointed look, but smiled it away. “You’re not going to believe this: I actually did receive a rejection that accused the story of being too Chekhovian and another suggesting that Anthony Chernesky would benefit from reading more Chekhov. Eighteen of the twenty journals rejected the story, and the rejections contradict each other all over the place. Not enough setting. Too much setting. Not character-driven. Flimsy plot. Of course, the form letters all say the same thing.”

“What about the other two?”

“One journal still hasn’t responded. The last — some tiny magazine I’ve never heard of that publishes out of some woman’s house in Idaho — actually recognized the story. The editor sent a long letter about the evils of plagiarism but conceded that my choice was, at least, in good taste. She’s the one person I’ll allow to come off looking good in the piece I write.”

They finished with Stilton and port, and Eddie experienced as a warm swell the satisfaction he’d been missing. At that moment, he felt right with the world because he again felt a part of it. He sipped just a little more port, listening to the sounds of conversation and eating from the open dining room behind him, and set his gaze on his lovely wife, who — flushed from her wine and softly lit — seemed to glow from within.

It was a few weeks later, after Amanda left on her tour, that the sourness arrived and lingered, helped along at regular intervals by whiskey and its morning-after aftermath. Eddie knew he was turning feral and promised himself a return to structured living as soon as Amanda was back home. But for now, he needed to survive the four weeks alone. He told himself not to watch the calendar; instead he watched the clock.

At first twice a day and then giving way to hourly counts, Eddie checked the Amazon sales rankings of The Progress of Love, Oink , and Conduct . His book had not yet been officially published, so it was unsurprising albeit disappointing that his number was over a million while Amanda’s and Jackson’s ranked in the thousands, then hundreds.