Nathan Hill - The Nix

“So if he won’t listen to me, why bother with this letter? Why bother calling me?”

“Because you have a somewhat respectable title, sir, and you’ve achieved a middling level of renown, and I will leave no stone unturned while there is still money in the fund. I have a reputation.”

“What is this fund?”

“As you can imagine, sir, Governor Sheldon Packer is pretty unpopular in some quarters. In certain circles, your mother is a kind of subversive hero.”

“For throwing rocks.”

“ ‘A brave soldier in the fight against Republican fascism’ was written on one of the checks I cashed. The money poured in for her defense. Enough to retain my legal counsel for upward of four months.”

“And after that?”

“I’m optimistic we can reach a deal, sir, before then. Will you help us?”

“Why should I? Why should I help her ? This is so typical.”

“What’s typical, sir?”

“My mother’s whole big mystery — going to college, and protesting, and getting arrested — I never knew any of that. It’s one more secret she never told me.”

“I’m sure she had her reasons, sir.”

“I want no part of this.”

“I should say your mother really direly needs help right now.”

“I’m not going to write a letter, and I don’t care if she goes to prison.”

“But she’s your mother, sir. She birthed you and, not to put too fine a point on it, suckled you.”

“She abandoned me and my father. She left without a word. She stopped being my mother then, as far as I’m concerned.”

“No lingering hope for a reunion? No deep longing for a maternal figure in a life that feels hollowed out and void without her?”

“I have to go.”

“She gave birth to you. She kissed your owies. Cut up your sandwich into little bits. Do you or do you not want someone in your life who remembers your birthday?”

“I’m hanging up now. Goodbye.”

SAMUEL IS LISTENING to cappuccino-related whooshing at an airport coffee shop when he receives the first message concerning Laura Pottsdam. It’s from his dean, the plague scholar. I met with a student of yours, she writes. She had some strange accusations. Did you really tell her she was stupid? And Samuel skims the rest of the letter and feels himself physically sinking into his chair. I’m frankly shocked at your impropriety. Ms. Pottsdam doesn’t seem stupid to me. I allowed her to rewrite her paper for full credit. We must discuss this immediately.

He’s at a coffee shop across from a gate where a midday flight to Los Angeles will begin boarding in about fifteen minutes. He’s there for a meeting with Guy Periwinkle, his editor and publisher. Above him is a television, currently muted, tuned to a news program showing Samuel’s mother throwing rocks at Governor Packer.

He tries to ignore it. He listens to the omnibus sounds around him: coffee orders shouted, intercom announcements about the current threat level and not leaving one’s bags unattended, kids crying, froth and steam, bubbling milk. Just next to the coffee shop is a shoeshine stand — two chairs elevated like thrones, beneath which is this guy who will shine your shoes. He’s a black man who’s currently reading a book, dressed in the uniform required of his job: suspenders, newsboy cap, a vaguely turn-of-the-century ensemble. Samuel is waiting for Periwinkle, who wants a shoeshine but is hesitating.

“I’m an exquisitely dressed white guy,” Periwinkle says, staring at the man at the shoeshine stand. “He is a minority in regressive costume.”

“And this matters why?” Samuel says.

“I don’t like the image. I hate that visual.”

Periwinkle is in Chicago this afternoon but on his way to L.A. His assistant had called to say he wanted a meeting, but the only time he had available was at the airport. So the assistant purchased Samuel an airline ticket, a one-way to Milwaukee which, the assistant explained, Samuel could use if he wanted but was really just to get him inside security.

Periwinkle eyes the shoeshine guy. “You know what the real problem is? The real problem is cell-phone cameras.”

“I’ve never had a shoeshine in my life.”

“Stop wearing sneakers,” Periwinkle says, and he doesn’t look at Samuel’s feet when he says this. Meaning that in the few minutes they’d spent together at the airport, Periwinkle had gathered and assimilated the fact of Samuel’s cheap shoes. And several other facts, probably.

Samuel always feels this way around his publisher: a little unseemly in comparison, a little derelict. Periwinkle looks about forty years old but he’s actually the same age as Samuel’s father: in his mid-sixties. He seems to be fighting time by being cooler than it. He carries himself in an erect and stiff and regal manner — it’s like he thinks of himself as an expensive and tightly wrapped birthday present. His thin shoes are severe and Italian-looking and have little ski jumps at the tips. His waistline seems about eight inches smaller than that of any other adult male in the airport. The knot in his necktie is as tight and hard as an acorn. His lightly graying hair is shaved to what seems to be a perfect and uniform one-centimeter length. Samuel always feels, standing next to him, baggy and big. Clothes bought off the rack and ill-fitting, probably a size too large. Whereas Periwinkle’s tight-fitting suit sculpts his body into clean angles and straight lines, Samuel’s shape seems blobbier.

Periwinkle is like a flashlight aimed at all your shortcomings. He makes you think consciously of the image you are projecting of yourself. For example, Samuel’s typical order at a coffee shop is a cappuccino. With Periwinkle, he ordered a green tea. Because a cappuccino seemed like a cliché, and he thought a green tea would have a higher Periwinkle approval rating.

Periwinkle, meanwhile, ordered a cappuccino.

“I’m headed to L.A.,” he says. “Gonna be on the set for the new Molly video.”

“Molly Miller?” Samuel says. “The singer?”

“Yeah. She’s a client. Whatever. She has a new video. A new album. Guest appearance on a sitcom. Reality show in the pipeline. And a celebrity memoir, which is the reason I’m going out there. The working title is Mistakes I’ve Made So Far. ”

“Isn’t she like sixteen years old?”

“Officially seventeen. But really she’s twenty-five.”

“No kidding?”

“In real life. Keep that to yourself.”

“What’s the book about?”

“It’s tricky. You want it blasé enough that it won’t hurt her image, but it can’t be boring because she has to come off as glamorous. You want it smart enough that people won’t say it’s bubblegum pop sold to twelve-year-olds, but not too smart because twelve-year-olds are of course the principal audience. And obviously all celebrity memoirs need one big confession.”

“They do?”

“Definitely, yes. Something we can give the newspapers and magazines ahead of the pub date to generate buzz. Something juicy to get people talking. That’s why I’m going to L.A. We’re brainstorming. She’s doing pickups on her music video. Comes out in a few days. Some fucking stupid shitty song. Here’s the chorus: ‘You have got to represent!’ ”

“Catchy. Have you decided on a confession?”

“I am strongly in favor of an innocently small episode of lesbianism. An experimental time in junior high. A special friend, a few kisses. You know. Not enough to turn off the parents but hopefully enough to get us some rainbow-flag awards. She’s already got the tween market, but if she could get the gays too?” And here Periwinkle pantomimes with his hands something small exploding into something large. “Boom,” he says.