Elise Blackwell - Grub

“And now I must get back to work.” She paused, spinning Eddie’s chair back toward his computer. “Perhaps you’d feel better if you did the same.”

For the next four hours, Amanda typed away on her new book: an increasingly autobiographical novel about a pretty young girl reared in poverty who marries an aspiring writing whose star seems to be rising.

As she was taking a break to fix dinner, Henry Baffler phoned.

“How’s Harlem?” Amanda asked.

“I like having an apartment, but I hope it won’t corrupt my work.”

Amanda laughed: at least she hadn’t married Henry. “Impossible,” she said. “And Henry, I want you to know how much we love Bailiff . It’s terrific.” She eyed the book on the coffee table, vowing to move the bookmark further along before Henry’s next visit. Perhaps she could memorize a few key lines and make him think she’d studied the whole thing.

“Thank you, Amanda.” Henry sounded moved. “That means a lot to me. A lot.”

She noticed that he said nothing about her book. Maybe he couldn’t afford it, and she knew it was tough to borrow — all the public libraries had waiting lists.

“I just found out that one of the best writers in the country will be reading at the CIA Bar. Clarice Aames. I thought you and Eddie might want to go hear her.”

“Terrific.” Amanda thought quickly. “When is it?”

When he told her the date, she said, “Rats, I’m going to be out of town.”

“That’s a shame. It’s really amazing what she does with non-realism. I’m rethinking my whole aesthetic. I already got tickets. Maybe Jackson will want to go with me and Eddie.”

Amanda realized that she was going to have to improve her disguise or, perhaps, cancel the event. Maybe Clarice should only make surprise, unadvertised appearances in New York.

“Amanda, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“The word copse . How many times can it be used in one book?”

“Once every hundred pages,” she said without hesitation.

“Yes, I think that’s the right answer.” He paused, then asked, “What about splay ?”

“Just once,” Amanda said.

“Even in a very long book?”

“Yes,” Amanda answered with the confidence of the popular. “Just once per book.”

“Damn it all to hell!” Henry exclaimed before apologizing. “Of course you’re right. It’s just that I was hoping to use it a few times. I’m writing an open book.”

“I almost understand what that might mean, and I certainly look forward to reading it.”

“Goodbye, Amanda.”

“Nice chatting with you, Henry.”

She dropped the receiver into its cradle, knowing she should cancel Clarice’s appearance but already imagining how it would feel to have her friends there listening to her read, even her husband, none of them guessing her secret.

Jackson Miller strode across the room and opened the door to Margot’s light knock.

“Let me take that.” He shook water droplets from her dark umbrella and slid it into the frog-shaped holder that Doreen had given him as a housewarming present.

As Margot arranged her short curls with her fingers, Jackson was smitten all over again by the elegant shape of her head, her lithe arms, her slender waist.

“Your apartment is beautiful,” she said.

“Albeit still nearly empty.” He gestured to his first piece of real furniture: a lone leather sofa.

“So,” she asked after she’d perched on the sofa. “How are your friends the Renfroses?”

Jackson felt peculiar for having told Margot about his friends, about having linked the two spheres of his life, yet he valued her opinion — not necessarily as one he would follow but as one to consider as the most ethical if not the most practical route. That was one role Margot could play in his life: the voice of duty, of how he should act.

“Well, they’re certainly happier now that they have more money,” he said. “Amanda wasn’t cut out to be the supportive wife of a struggling novelist.”

“You don’t have a very high opinion of her?” Margot looked quizzical.

“On the contrary. And even the fact that Eddie and I quarreled over her hasn’t changed that.”

“Quarreled over her?” Margot held her voice steady, but it was tight, and Jackson recognized concern, perhaps jealousy.

“It’s nothing really. It’s that Eddie — before his book sold, mind you — blamed me in part for Amanda’s unhappiness with him.”

Margot did not speak and did not lift her eyes.

“It’s funny really. My fault was supposed to have been glorifying worldly success and so contributing to Amanda’s discontent with their lot. Ridiculous, no?”

Margot nodded.

“The thing of it was that Eddie was as serious as a boat taking on water with no way to bail it out.”

Again she nodded, giving away nothing but earnestness in her expression. “But you don’t think your talk had a negative effect?”

“Who knows? I certainly didn’t mean it to.”

“Well,” said Margot, “if it did, then Amanda can’t be very strong minded.”

“You mean if she was influenced by so insignificant a fellow as me?” Jackson smiled, touched her damp hair.

But Margot didn’t take his flirtatious bait. “To be influenced by anyone in such a way, to accept someone else’s values as her own,” she said.

“You think the worse of me now?” Jackson pictured the conversation as something solid, slipping into a place both unknown and unpleasant and himself helpless to right it.

“Of course not, but I don’t quite understand it. What was the tone of your conversation with her?” Margot’s tone was matter-of-fact, but she folded her arms.

“Same as always. You’ve heard me say it before. Unless you’re a genius, then the goal of writing is to make money and gain a reputation. If that’s scandalous, I’m sorry.” He paused, at once hurt and rankled at Margot’s response to what he’d brought up only in passing. “It’s possible that Amanda was a little too vigorous in agreeing with me. She saw that in my case my writing was leading to solid results at the same time that she was frustrated with Eddie for not working so practically.”

“That’s a shame.” Her head tilted, she stared across the room.

“You think it’s my fault?” He heard his own tone tightening, as though the key to his vocal chords had been turned by an unsympathetic hand. He didn’t understand why Margot, who had always seemed supportive, even adoring, was now critical. It’s not like he hadn’t been up front about who and what he was.

“I’m sure you were only speaking in your natural way and didn’t mean to cause your friend trouble. I think you’re probably a very good friend so long as it doesn’t inconvenience you. Didn’t you once tell me something like that?”

Jackson pushed back in his seat, thinking that he’d been too open with Margot. She’d always been so agreeable, so anxious to please him, that he’d assumed he could be frank with her. Before, he had only to speak when he wanted assurance of her devotion. Now she seemed changed, seemed much more self-possessed, even aloof.

“You have doubts about me? Because I recognize the necessity of making money at writing in order to keep writing?”

“You resign yourself quite happily to the necessity.”

Her gaze felt more clinical than adoring as he searched her face, looking for the sweet, insecure girl who could barely pump her own gas.

“You would rather have me bemoan my fate in not being able to devote my life to nobly unremunerative work?”

“That you never do does give me pause,” she said, “but I don’t mean to be harsh.”