Elise Blackwell - Grub

“I’m afraid he’s not in,” said Margot, realizing that her father had again failed to return from what was supposed to have been a short walk. “Can I take a message?”

“I just wanted to let him know about poor Hinks’s novel.”

“Wasn’t it terrible about his death!” Margot said. “He was a nice man and a very good writer.”

In truth, she felt more than a little guilt over not starting the journal that her father, Quarmbey, and Hinks had advocated. It would have been an economic failure, she knew that, but it would have been no worse than how things had turned out. Hinks might still be alive, and her father would be a happier person.

“I’ve done my best to place The Great Adirondack Novel so that his death won’t be a complete waste.”

“That’s a nice thing to do.”

“I’m afraid I’ve had no luck. I thought maybe the publicity angle would help — man dies in service of literature and all that — but the few editors willing to take a second look haven’t changed their minds since they rejected it the first time.”

“It just doesn’t seem fair. I suppose the novel is too well-written and too quiet? Maybe too rural?”

“Apparently the novel is actually quite awful. So many writers of the literary short story write plotless novels, but Hinks overcompensated. Too melodramatic is what I’m hearing back. Not quiet enough. Not literary enough. And his effort to write in a female point of view was apparently dreadful. Lots of talk of menstruation and that sort of thing. I always did view Hinks as a short story writer. Some writers have their form, their length, and that’s that. I should have warned him away from the novel. Anyway, let your father know I tried.”

“It was a good thing to do. Thanks for letting us know.” Margot paused to switch ears. “You should come see us sometime. We miss having you around.”

She was aware that no one came to visit them anymore, not even Quarmbey, and that her father’s notorious irascibility could not be the lone reason. Wondering if her mother had figured out what she had observed, she slipped out to help her ailing father find his way home.

Sitting only a few blocks away from the Frick and the painting that had sparked her wealth and fame, Amanda Renfros stared at the tall case of tortes and tarts in the Café Sabarsky. She made a mental note to ask her copyeditor if it was proper to say ladyfingers or ladiesfinger as she gazed at the Walderbeere torte buried under small, wild strawberries. But the chocolates vied for her attention: the simple, dense sachertorte, the flourless chocolate-walnut cake, the chocolate-rum cake, the German chocolate roulade. That was the problem, really, with Grub — no proper pastry chef. She was glad Jackson had picked this up-town location for their meeting. The world of women readers that could forgive her for being attractive and successful might be less generous about her ability to eat desserts without putting on weight. They might not see it as she did: compensation for living for her first eighteen years with poverty, anxiety, and weirdly colored boxes of generic cake mix.

“I’ll wait to order,” she told the obsequious waiter, “but bring some champagne.”

“Celebrating the end of summer?”

“I’m celebrating everything.” She held her smile as Jackson filled the entryway.

As they neared the end of their first bottle of sparkling wine and waited for her spatzle and his liverwurst and onion confit, Jackson got to the point. “I’m here to blackmail you. I know your secret.”

With Eddie, Amanda always felt a step ahead, in charge, the grown up, on top of the game. Part of the excitement of being around Jackson was that he was capable of one-upmanship, the trickier line, the ambush. He could pull her strings.

“I have no secrets from you, Jack.” She pulled back her smile, worked an expression of mild astonishment and light concern.

“From me? Not anymore. But you do have a secret.”

Jackson emptied the last of the champagne into her flute, paused as the waiter set down their food, and nodded that they did indeed want another bottle. As the waiter backed away, Jackson whispered, “Clarice.”

“Oh. That.” Amanda ducked her shoulder under her hair as she speared a piece of wild mushroom with a silver tine. She looked up, lifting her eyebrows, “But you said blackmail?”

“Surely you don’t want Amanda Yule’s legions of women fans to know that she dresses like catgirl and reads to liquored-up irony boys in the West Village? And isn’t Amanda Yule everything that Clarice Aames’s fans find repellent?” He concentrated on his food again, mumbling about the high quality of the liverwurst before saying in a way that sounded at once planned and off-hand, “And then, of course, there’s Eddie.”

Amanda continued to make her way through the mound of spatzle and sweet corn. “But you’re only supposed to blackmail people who are richer than you are. I don’t have anything you don’t.”

“Yes you do.” Jackson’s stare bore through her. “You have exactly what I want.”

Neither of them wanted to flatten the electricity with a long cab ride or spoil the romance with a bed one of them had shared with someone else. And so twenty minutes found them not at Jackson’s apartment but in the lobby of a newly opened East Side luxury hotel.

“Just one night?” the young woman at the desk asked.

“About four hours ought to do.”

“You’ll have to pay for a whole night,” the clerk said flatly, without looking up.

Jackson pushed a credit card across the counter. “Charge me for a week if you want. I intend to get my money’s worth.”

Feeling momentarily shy, Amanda concentrated on the elevator’s paisley carpet as they ascended to the eleventh floor, but Jackson caught her gaze and locked it. As she returned his stare, she felt more vulnerable than she had in years. But unlike in those early years, the vulnerability felt good. She was tired of always being strong.

Everything in their room was pale blue or glass, and Amanda felt as though she were floating in cool light as Jackson kissed her. Eddie’s lips were shallow, and sometimes with him Amanda had felt as though she were kissing his skull. And it had been months and months since Eddie’s mouth hadn’t tasted sour with Jim Beam or the cheapest of Highland malts.

Jackson’s lips were soft and full, the good champagne on his breath had a pleasing mineral taste, and their mouths fit together perfectly. As they stretched out on the king-sized bed in front of mirrored closet doors, Amanda realized that she was finally with the right person. Jackson pulled back from kissing her, stroked her cheek, and then swatted her hard on the rear.

“You’re going to do whatever you want to me, aren’t you?”

“You made me wait a long time,” he answered. “I’ve had a long time to think about it.”

The feeling that she wasn’t in control — that she wasn’t the responsible one, that she would do whatever he wanted — thrilled her. She was at his mercy, and her throat trembled.

At first Jackson’s moves were gentle and smooth. He touched her face, her hair, undressed her slowly, ran his hands down her sides, kissed her more, made love to her with real tenderness. But by the time the room was lit with only the faded, slanted light of dusk, she had, at Jackson’s bidding, submitted to nearly every act she could imagine even the most degraded of courtesans committing. She felt used, exhausted, and happier than she’d ever been.

“Maybe next time I’ll come as Clarice,” Amanda said as she dressed, pleasantly shaky on her feet. “And then we can really have some fun.”