Are You Happy Now? (25 page)

“That’s very generous.”

“It’s only fair. Matt will talk to you about the terms when we get them worked out.” The owner rises. “And welcome back. I think it’s going to be a great year.”

“I agree,” Lincoln tells his boss heartily.

Alone again in his office, Lincoln wrestles with the urge to call Amy with the good news: her book is now a prime candidate for the new, expanded Pistakee list. But he restrains himself—Mrs. Macintosh’s radar ears sit just a few feet from Amy. Lincoln returns to checking the copy edits in the manuscript of Morgenthau on management, though he violates one of the Founding Fathers’ principal tenets, according to the professor (“Focus on
one
thing at a time. There was no multitasking at the Constitutional Convention!”) by staring at the pages while
mentally buffing arguments on behalf of publishing
The Ultimate Position
.

Over the next week, he and Amy exchange the final chapters by e-mail (carefully using their personal Gmail accounts). Lincoln finds that collaboration is harder over a distance; cyberspace can’t match the immediate give-and-take of working side by side (and finishing off a polished chapter with a stirring orgasm). Apart, they drift into their separate regions of the cosmology, Amy drawn to the thinky-yin, Lincoln determinedly grabbyyang. In particular, Amy prefers her dreamy, gossamer ending: Mary Reilly concludes that her mysterious friend, Jennifer, has fantasized her sexual adventures, leading Mary to spin off into an unsatisfying Fitzgeraldian riff about wonder and imagination being the underpinnings of a rich life. Lincoln wants certainty: Jennifer is a wacko (albeit an alluring one), and the cops catch the sexual predator (who’s completely unconnected to either woman). The collaborators compromise by mixing both versions, a solution that Lincoln finds somewhat clunky, but he reasons: what the hell, if a reader gets that far, we’re at least offering more, not less.

The choreography of the book’s presentation has to be precise. Lincoln has decided he will leapfrog the editorial committee on Thursday and take the manuscript directly to Duddleston. From a personnel perspective, the move makes arguable sense: since the author is a Pistakee employee, the internal dynamics of the committee could be awkward. But Lincoln has a stealthier motive: he suspects that the owner/editor-in-chief will be flattered by the mano a mano approach, the suggestion that only Duddleston, that sage U of C English major, has the discernment to recognize the literary quality of this unusual (for Pistakee) book.

But making the pitch in Duddleston’s office with Amy sitting outside could be awkward in itself, so Lincoln waits until Friday afternoon, when Amy goes off to do photo research for
an oxymoronic book Hazel has brought in on Chicago fashion. Duddleston prefers to read on paper, so Lincoln prints out a copy of the novel—232 pages double spaced—and at three, he puts the manuscript under his arm, marches through the hallways, nods to Mrs. Macintosh (who may have been napping on this quiet afternoon—her chin pops off her chest when Lincoln walks by), and presents himself in the boss’s doorway. “Got a second?” Lincoln asks.

Duddleston looks up from studying an ominous spreadsheet that’s almost as wide as his desk. “Sure.”

“I think I have a spot of good news,” Lincoln teases.

Duddleston looks bewildered. He’s not used to such upbeat introductions.

“We have someone with extraordinary talent right here at Pistakee,” Lincoln continues. “Your assistant, Amy, has written what I think is a remarkable book. Smart, sexy, literary. It’s a great read, and Pistakee has the inside track to publish it.”

“Amy? No kidding!” Duddleston’s tense face relaxes into a wide smile. “What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s a novel.” The owner’s face tightens again, and Lincoln hurries on. “It’s about a young woman’s awakening, coming to understand herself and her sexuality. It’s set in a university town, and there’s some criminal intrigue. Amy has done a marvelous job straddling the literary and the commercial.” Lincoln tries to sound casual, yet impressed, hoping his confidential tone will plant the suggestion: Pistakee better publish the book or Amy will take it to a big New York house and make a fortune.

“A novel? Did you know she was working on it?”

“No,” Lincoln lies. “Not until she brought it to me.”

Duddleston squirms. “I mean, that’s great—great for Amy, but I don’t think the book’s for us. Remember, we decided to stick to nonfiction. It says so right in our mission statement.”

Two years ago, as the crazed search for mission/vision statements was finally winding down in the rest of corporate America,
Pistakee’s top staff wasted two days with a relentlessly cheery facilitator in a chill meeting room at an overpriced resort near Galena coming up with seventy-nine typed words on a sheet of paper that promptly disappeared somewhere, utterly forgotten. Except, apparently, by Duddleston.

“Yes,” Lincoln responds thoughtfully, “but I think the mission statement also talks about publishing books that speak to Midwestern readers about their times and their culture, and that’s exactly what Amy’s book does, albeit using fiction as the vehicle. So in that sense, this exactly meets the intent of the mission statement.”

“Hmmm.” Duddleston resists. He warily eyes the manuscript in Lincoln’s hands, as if worried that the executive editor will force it upon him, breaching some line of propriety. “I don’t really have confidence in our ability to evaluate fiction. None of the novels we published before really went anywhere. I mean, what’s good? What will sell?”

“But it’s all storytelling, just in alternate modes.” Lincoln hesitates, then shifts into what he hopes will be the closer. “You said yourself the other day that Pistakee has to expand its list, and this is exactly the sort of book that we can acquire cheaply and produce efficiently. Very cleanly written. Needs almost no editing. Just take a look. It’s good!”

Duddleston chews the inside of his lower lip and stares balefully at the manuscript. For a moment Lincoln even feels bad for his boss. Just a few months ago, Lincoln pressed a book of poetry on him, and Duddleston went along (not even bringing up the noxious mission statement), mostly to appease his most accomplished and hard-working employee. Now, Lincoln is back with a novel. But Lincoln’s fleeting sympathy doesn’t prevent him from holding out the wad of pages, virtually forcing Duddleston to take the manuscript or risk appearing stubbornly indifferent to the work of his own assistant. The boss places it on the south
end of his big desk atop a pile of papers that appear to have been there, undisturbed, for months. “I’ll give it a look,” he says.

Lincoln smiles benevolently on the prickly Mrs. Macintosh as he makes his escape.

23

T
HE AGONIZED WAITING
. After several days of silence from Duddleston, Lincoln starts to feel like someone sitting in limbo until the results come back on a scary medical test. Does his career, his happiness, really pivot on the whim of an obsessive-compulsive literary hobbyist? Lincoln tries to reason himself back from his anxiety, but Amy doesn’t help matters. As a week ticks down with no news, she calls Lincoln at home one night. “It’s bad,” she says. “He won’t even look me in the eye. You know how they say that a jury has brought in a guilty verdict if they come back from deliberations and don’t look at the defendant? I’m the defendant.”

“Maybe he hasn’t read it yet,” Lincoln offers feebly.

“I just don’t want him to say it’s terrible. He can turn it down, fine. But I don’t want him to say it’s terrible and ruin my confidence.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You and I know ten times as much, a hundred times as much about literature as Duddleston does. And we think the book’s good.”

“But he’s the owner. What we think doesn’t count.”

Lincoln can’t really argue with that.

To make things worse, the weather turns, and suddenly a quiet, ineffectual January fills out its true Chicago bones. In the
space of a few days, a moderate snowstorm, five or six inches, precedes a temperature drop to the single digits, followed by a brief, slush-producing spike, then sleet, another deep freeze, more snow, wind. Each panel of the
Tribune
’s little seven-day weather cartoon features nothing but cruel, gray clouds spouting precipitation like the quills on a porcupine. Getting anywhere is a chore. Lincoln takes to wearing his heavy, black Timberland Classic boots all day every day, the little toe on his left foot developing a painful corn from rubbing against the stiff leather. Since the owners don’t live in any of the three-flats on Lincoln’s block, no one takes responsibility for shoveling the snow out front. The manic pattern of freeze/melt/freeze produces a long stretch of treacherous, iced sidewalk that even Lincoln’s fierce boots won’t grip. After seeing two people go down ahead of him one morning, Lincoln bails out and starts dodging cars in the snow-narrowed street. That evening on his way to the L station, his head buried in his shoulders against the barbed wind whipping down wide LaSalle Street, passing similar headless, bundled, human forms, mummies fighting for life, Lincoln wonders: Why the fuck did the Indians settle here in the first place? Why stop in Chicago? Why not keep going, down to Arizona, Florida, Costa Rica, someplace where Mother Nature offers at least modest hospitality?

That night, a basement door in his building blows open and a pipe freezes, forcing the management company to shut off all water. Lincoln gets up in the morning and can’t make coffee, can’t shower, and has to get by with a single flush. He ends up cabbing it to Flam’s apartment to borrow the facilities. The old friends haven’t seen much of each other in the last few months, and Lincoln suspects that Flam misses those weeks they shared as roommates after Lincoln’s marriage fell apart and before he got his own place. Flam is eager to recount his latest romantic interest, and while Lincoln dries off from his shower and shaves, Flam hovers outside the bathroom and talks through the thin
door. His new love, by his description, is a busty and brilliant young college dropout who works in the men’s department at Macy’s.

“Had a date yet?” Lincoln calls through the door.

“Working up to it,” says Flam, without irony. “So far, I’ve bought three ties and a Calvin Klein dress shirt.”

When the conversation turns to news of the
Tribune
, Flam reveals that starting in the spring the vastly reduced weekly book section plans to devote a page a month to online and digital publishing. “Oh, Christ,” Lincoln groans.

“It’s all going electronic eventually, anyway,” Flam presses. “Already there are plenty of these online packagers who can help you get your book published on whatever platform you want.”

“Without editing,” Lincoln says, talking to his reflection in the mirror as he shaves. “The stuff they publish is junk, worse than a vanity press.”

“Some of the books have become hits,” Flam points out. “They find their audience. The Internet is direct, writer to reader. No intermediation. Why should smug assholes like you and me decide what the world wants to read?”

It’s still early in the morning, and Lincoln is out of training for Flam’s provocative arrogance. He says nothing.

“These days, everybody is a writer,” Flam pronounces to the door. “It’s easy.”

When Lincoln finally emerges from the bathroom, Flam asks, “By the way, how’s the sex novel coming?”

“Still coming,” Lincoln dodges as he throws on his clothes and hurries to get away.

Duddleston often takes manuscripts home to read over the weekend, but after a second Monday passes without word from the boss, Lincoln begins to despair. Late that afternoon, Tony Buford calls. “I’m on the lineup for the poetry slam at the Funk Hole in Wicker Park tonight,” he says. “I can bring one guest who gets a free pitcher of beer. Want to come?”

“Are they still holding those things?” Lincoln asks.

The question annoys Buford. “The famous one is every Sunday night at the Green Mill. This slam isn’t at that level, but it’s a good program. How about it?”

“Ahh.” Lincoln attended a few poetry slams in college, when the events were relatively fresh on the scene. By some accounts, the slam is one of Chicago’s worthier recent inventions: Poets declaim their work in a bar, and the audience shouts its assessment. “I think of slam poems as, say, angrier than yours,” Lincoln says, reasonably.

“They invited me,” Buford snaps.

Lincoln needs a diversion. Why not? “OK, I’ll meet you there.”

The Funk Hole is a dim, almost windowless bar that decades ago served as the ersatz living room for punch-press operators, steelworkers, truck drivers, and the like back when Chicago was a manufacturing town and this neighborhood was a working-class enclave. Since the artists, the kids, and then the money started moving into Wicker Park, the crowd in the bar has changed, though the proprietors wisely retained the authentic grunge, and even Lincoln shudders to imagine what a harsh, bright light would reveal.

Standing inside the doorway, peering through the gloom, Lincoln sees scattered tables that, surprisingly, are mostly filled. A line of customers stands at the bar. After a moment, Buford spots him and beckons from deep in the room. “Already ordered your pitcher,” the poet says, when Lincoln joins him at a small table up front. “Old Style. Sorry. That’s the deal.”