Elise Blackwell - Grub

“And I have to work lunch today, so that’d be great.”

Noticeably pretty on first glance, Doreen was one of the few women he knew who looked good in bangs. The rest of her light brown hair was long and straight, and her face was lightly sprinkled with freckles undisguised by makeup. Unless dressed for work, she wore only faded jeans and white tee-shirts. She looked like someone who had done little but ride horses until she was an adult, despite the fact she was from Manhattan and had never owned a pet. Most of all, Jackson admired the line of her back, the way the small of it curved in, leaving a slight gap between her jeans and her skin and revealing the color of her panties, which, in contrast to her tomboyish outer clothes, were always lacey, shiny, silky, or otherwise tempting.

He would have very much liked to win back her romantic affections, but had for months now been assigned to the twin categories of entertaining-but-perplexing friend and money-owing roommate. He knew that any effort on his part to loosen the belt of her turquoise robe and lure her back into bed would be greeted with amusement at best and more likely with irritation. Jackson sighed and cracked the eggs into a bowl. He added a splash of milk and whisked the mixture the way she’d taught him. He buttered a skillet and lit the gas burner with the disposable lighter they kept next to the stove.

Doreen poured orange juice and set the table with cloth napkins, reflecting her commitment not to dining elegance but to frugality. She was a practical young woman, a trait Jackson respected even as it exasperated him.

“You know, Eddie Renfros should have married either an heiress or a girl like you. I don’t think Amanda is going to be satisfied with a modest life.” Jackson divided the omelet between two plates and carried them to the table.

“Things aren’t going well for them?”

Jackson took a large bite. “Eddie still can’t publish his second book. He’s supposed to be well into another one, but I don’t think he’s gotten very far with it. He’s just the kind of guy to end it all with a bottle of vodka and pills.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Jack. All the more so because you sound like you enjoy the prospect.”

“Of course not. I will admit that I was jealous that he conned the prettiest girl at Iowa into taking a chance on him, but he’s still my best friend. It’s frustrating to see him squander his talent. And her life. He’s just not the kind of person who can make it without a job.”

“As opposed to you?” Doreen’s tone bordered on scornful.

“At most Eddie’s going to write a competent, modest seller every three years.” Jackson drank his whole glass of juice. “As for me, I’ve got a plan to make some decent money. Then maybe I’ll marry a rich woman.”

Doreen laughed. “I thought you were going to wait until you were old enough to marry a woman half your age. You’ll need your own money for that.”

“Doreen, you should write a book. One of those cat mysteries or maybe a children’s book. What you need to do is get together half a dozen examples of the kind of book you want to write. Study their conventions. Think of something new to add — an attractive twist, something that will get you a bit of attention — and then go to work methodically.”

“Like you?”

“I’m serious. Forget the muse and just write a certain number of pages every day. Five pages a day, and you’ll have a whole novel in two months. Clean it up, query forty agents at once, and you’ve got a career.” Jackson noticed that Doreen was surreptitiously reading the front page of The Times , but he continued, undeterred by her lack of interest. “That’s what Eddie doesn’t understand. He thinks he’s Homer or Shakespeare. He thinks I’m a hack, which of course I do aspire to be in a way. If you want to make a living writing, you’ve got to give the people what they want. You can’t tell them what they should be reading. We’re not geniuses — just smart guys who should be supplying the public with the food it likes.”

“Like I’m supplying the food you like?” Doreen stood, cinched her belt, and cleared the dishes. “I’m guessing that you’ll need a patron, or at least an indulgent roommate, to be able to enact your scheme.”

Jackson was glad he hadn’t phoned her for money from North Carolina. “If I had it in me, I’d write the trashiest of trashy novels.”

“Under a pseudonym, I suppose?” she said, rinsing the dishes in the kitchen sink.

“Absolutely not. I’d sign my name proudly. But I’m not claiming that it’s easy. To please the vulgar, you must somehow embody the genius of vulgarity. I doubt I have that specialized talent, but I know that I can write for the college-educated dolt. I think I could write the books that doctors and lawyers read on planes — or at least buy at the airport to hold while they nap. Or the kind of books that people just out of college talk about with each other. What they want is to feel that what they are reading is special and clever, even though they can’t distinguish between fine pastry and supermarket birthday cake, to use an analogy from your world.” He paused for a breath. “I’m gearing up to write a vapid book that appears to be smart.”

“Please don’t rock the chair back like that. The slats are getting loose.” Doreen leaned against the kitchen counter, the sun wrapping her shoulders. She gnawed at the fingernails of her left hand — her single unattractive habit.

“And,” Jackson finished, “I’ll get laid left and right. What was the name of that guy who joined The Band because someone told him he’d get more pussy than Frank Sinatra?” He’d said it to get a reaction from her — she hated crudeness — but she was already headed for the shower, and didn’t hear.

Jackson showered after she was done, then dressed in his last clean shirt and pocketed the two emergency twenty-dollar bills he kept hidden in an empty CD case.

When Doreen emerged from her room, pretty and neat in her white blouse and short black skirt, Jackson said, “I’ll walk you to work. I’ve got to talk to a girl who works at the bookstore.”

“The cute short-haired one?”

“Curly hair? Skinny?”

Doreen nodded.

“How do you know her?”

“I’ve talked to her a few times at the store or when she picks up takeout for the owners. She’s a nice person. Not your type at all. How did she have the misfortune to meet you?”

“At the conference, sort of.”

“It’s a small world, I guess is the thing to say.”

“See, you could write for the masses.”

“You know what else they say: New York is a big city of small neighborhoods.”

“Exactly,” Jackson said, bounding down the stairs. Out on Ninth Street the late summer sun warmed the stacks of garbage bags and the air smelled like overripe bananas, coffee grounds, and something less pleasant.

As they walked, Jackson asked himself if he believed his own arguments and the answer was equivocal. He didn’t really want to write trash, but neither did he want to waste years of his life writing things that no one would read much less pay for.

A block later, he asked: “Doreen, why do you say she’s not my type?”

Doreen just laughed and shook her head.

“Doreen, I really am going to pay you back.” He put his arm around her shoulder as they strode toward midtown.

When Margot Yarborough encountered Jackson Miller at a North Carolina gas station, she’d been on the cusp of two realizations. The first was that she was writing a novel — possibly a fine one.

As the daughter of Andrew Yarborough and the filer of new fiction at a large, failing bookstore, she suspected that the last thing the world needed was another novel. Particularly one by someone like her: young, lacking in real-world experience, and sometimes more interested in words than in people. But it was precisely her love of words that made the realization pleasing. She was making the thing she most valued: a lovely novel.