Rafael Yglesias - Hot Properties

“What are you doing here?” Fred asked Patty without even a hello. “Returning to editing?”

“Patty’s just handed in her novel. We’re publishing it in the fall,” Betty said triumphantly and — Fred thought — as though it were somehow a slap in the face. It did worry him.

“You’ve written a novel?” he asked Patty.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Patty said in a sarcastic and disgusted tone that also smacked of confidence and control. “I walk and talk too — I’m a real bargain.”

“Oh, stop,” Betty said. “Fred, you know Jerry Gelb? This is Fred Tatter. We’re publishing him also. When, Fred?”

“I guess in the fall,” he answered, terrified, now that he knew for sure that Gelb was Gelb, the man himself. Patty used to work for him, Fred remembered, and now felt better, assuming that’s why she had gotten a contract. Sure, and Betty, her best friend, is her editor. He regained his balance. “We’ll be on the same list. We should have a joint pub party.”

“I’m not gonna have a party,” Patty said. “I’m gonna stab the Times Book Review editor in the stomach and get some decent publicity.”

Fred frowned. Betty and Gelb laughed. They said goodbye to him and he felt keen resentment toward them while he walked to Holder’s office. He had been worked to the bone by Holder, had had to rewrite every page, while his advance was drained by the studio apartment he had sublet, his expensive social life, and his share of the couple’s therapy. Increasingly he felt financial pressure to return to Marion, which would automatically reduce his costs and restore access to her income. Life seemed so easy for these women. If they got into trouble, like Patty had a couple years ago, they banded together, found a man, a place to live, and even a career. He had struggled his whole life to get a novel published and Patty just got one handed to her on a feminist platter.

For once, Holder was wearing a sweater with no holes in the elbows. “I’m real excited, Fred. This book is terrific. I love the story …”

Fred nodded, smiling sheepishly while Holder went into this now familiar litany. The plot was Holder’s, and it seemed to bear a remarkable similarity to the progress of Holder’s life, with a few exaggerations, which were probably fantasies — mostly the hero’s sexual prowess. It was awkward and embarrassing to listen to his editor praise what were basically his editor’s ideas as though they had originated with Fred. If he accepted the compliments he would be a fraud, to refuse them might seem ungracious and resentful of Holder’s editing.

Instead, he changed the subject. “I just met your boss, Gelb, out in the hall. With two friends of mine.”

“Oh yeah?” The mention of the publisher’s name had Holder on the alert. “With who?”

“Betty Winters and Patty Lane.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Holder said. Whatever had worried him was gone. “Yeah, Betty’s nice. She’s doing her first novel with Patty. It’s exciting for her.”

“Patty? Or Betty?” Fred asked, not archly, but out of confusion.

“Both, I guess. I mean for Betty. Gelb has helped open things up around here — used to be so uptight, so scared to take risks. I really like him. Do you know him?”

“No,” Fred said, unable to conceal his irritation that Holder didn’t listen carefully. “I told you. I just met him.” Holder made Fred feel he was barely in the room, his words merely a string interlude between Holder’s orchestral crescendos.

“Oh. Yeah, he’s a great guy.”

“They were going to lunch together,” Fred mumbled.

Holder looked at him curiously. “That bother you?”

“What?” Fred maneuvered in his chair nervously. “No, no. Patty used to work for Gelb.”

“Oh!” Holder drew the word out, leaning back with a smirk on his face. “So that’s why she got a book contract.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Fred said, frightened somehow to admit to his opinion.

“Going to lunch with him doesn’t mean a thing, you know.” Holder leaned forward and raised his hand high in the air, his index finger pointed down, swooping through the air and landing on the title page of Fred’s manuscript. “ This is going to be a big book. I haven’t started lobbying in the house. I was waiting for the whole book. But you’ve done great work. And this book is going to be big.” Holder fixed Fred with his eyes and nodded solemnly. “Believe me,” he said.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Chico said, feverishly pulling David into his office and closing the door. After a wait of two hours David had been summoned by the Power Phone to Animal Crackers, Chico’s voice rasping anxiously, so that David guessed the news wasn’t good.

“What?” David asked, the word spoken in dread— though of what, he couldn’t imagine.

“You know why Thorn came here? Because of him! This is the most diabolically brilliant maneuver, or he’s an idiot, I don’t know which. What difference does it make?” Chico cried to the ceiling. “Either way, he’s saved himself.”

“What did he do?” David asked, panicked, the suspense unbearable.

“He resigned!” Chico spread his arms out, laying out for David his incredulity like a map. “Can you believe it? She’s ready to fire him and he resigns! Says he’s wrong for the job. Doesn’t like it!” Chico grabbed the sides of his skull as though to close in the bursting fury of his mind.

“But … but …”

“She said no! She’s so arrogant — she can’t allow him to resign! She has to fire him! The minute he said it, she was against it! It’s an abrogation of her power. Brilliant! Fucking brilliant! The guy’s an idiot savant!”

“Maybe she wasn’t ready to fire him.”

“Oh, she was ready. Came in dressed like the Black Widow Spider — ready to suck his brains out. Then he comes up with that he-doesn’t-want-the-job! No fun eating a prey that’s already dead. She ended up wooing him, begging him to stay, and she appeals to me to back her up—”

“Why were you there, anyway?”

“ He asked for me!” Chico almost shrieked this. “He’s so brilliant! We’re amateurs! Amateurs!” He flung himself into his desk chair and leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling.

David waited, hoping Chico’s silence would lead to a more articulate explanation. He felt relieved, to his surprise. There was something comforting about the lack of change, especially since it didn’t mean a true reversal. His position hadn’t become precarious, it was unchanged.

“We ended up,” Chico said, his voice hoarse. He paused to clear it. “We ended up asking him to stay for another year. She said she’d allow him to experiment some more with the magazine.”

“It’s just a delay.” David said with confidence. “Your insight is exactly correct — she wants to do the firing herself. She’ll wait till he’s back into the job and then yank the rug out.”

Chico brought his small infuriated eyes to David and nodded at him, a lost soul wanting to believe in the prophet. “I keep telling myself that.”

“There’s no doubt. One incident will break his back.”

“All right.” Chico sat up. “We’d better go back to normal operations.”

David smiled. “Right, chief,” he said, and saluted with mock formality before leaving.

Tony met Hilary for a late breakfast the day after his reading. She had called first thing in the morning to suggest the meeting, her voice cheerful and encouraging. The long night he had spent worrying over the play — he had read it through twice, hating it — had left him weak and willing to concede that it wasn’t ready.

Hilary began by chatting, complaining about the recent cutback in funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, saying that it would mean two fewer productions in the next season. To Tony this sounded like a preliminary of backing out of her partial commitment to putting him on the schedule.