Are You Happy Now? (35 page)

“And another thing,” Flam continues. “I find it interesting that the opprobrium has fallen entirely on you. I mean, where’s the author in all this? It’s as if the template for this offense carries the underlying presumption—like in sexual harassment cases—that the older male seduced the naïve girl into the vile deception.”

Lincoln sips from the good wine. Oddly, he’s been drinking less lately—some nights, his mind is racing so hard he just forgets to pour a drink. He tells Flam, “Maybe they can’t find her.
I
could hardly find her. She’s hard to get hold of.”

Flam chews a piece of steak thoughtfully. “Maybe she’s talked to them for background, and the price of her cooperation is that they keep her out of it,” he suggests.

“I don’t think she’d do that,” Lincoln says after a moment. “She’d tell them how it was. She’s loyal, even though she doesn’t need to be.”

“You really like this girl, don’t you?”

“I feel I let her down.”

Later, they sit in the living room. They’ve finished the wine and moved to the bottle of vodka Lincoln keeps in the freezer. The alcohol has loosened Lincoln, and they reminisce about their days together at the
Tribune
, their nights on the town before Lincoln met Mary, their rivalries, arguments, the pleasure they’ve shared in belittling the city that became their home. It occurs to Lincoln that, though they still qualify as young, they are like a couple of old men on a park bench, recalling friends and adventures long departed.

Lincoln declares finally, “Flam, I’m getting out of here. I know I’ve said it before, but now it’s for real.” There’s no joy in the announcement, which Lincoln has been planning all evening. Just resignation. He’s leaving in defeat. “The iAgatha folks are giving me a bonus because
The Ultimate Position
sold so well. As soon as the money comes through, I’m going to New York. Just going. No prospects, no plan. I may have to camp out in Central Park. But I’m going. My Chicago days are over.”

How many times has Flam sat across from Lincoln—in a bar, at Barleycorn, at some other cheap and dim restaurant where they’ve eaten badly and drunk too much—and heard the same thing? This time, Flam says, “I know.”

31

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, a Monday, Lincoln is at his computer when his cell phone rings at around eleven in the morning.

“John?”

“Yes.”

“This is Jeff Kessler from Malcolm House. You’re a hard guy to contact.”

Lincoln throws off the L.L.Bean blanket. “Yes, well, I’ve changed jobs,” he blurts.

“I know. That’s in part why I wanted to talk. But we didn’t have your phone number or a private e-mail address. Finally, my assistant called the book editor at the
Tribune
, and fortunately, he had it.”

“Flam?”

“Yes, I think that’s it. Strange fellow, isn’t he?”

“Sort of an acquired taste.”

“Yes, well, here’s the thing. We’re looking to hire an editor, and with your background in online publishing, I thought it made sense for us to talk.”

“Of course.” (Talk? Lincoln thinks: I’ll scream, beg, pray, filibuster.)

“Do you suppose, in the next week or so, you could fly in for a visit? We’ll pay for the ticket, and I’d like you to meet some of the other editors in the office.”

“Of course.”

“Let’s make ourselves clear: This is just talk so far, but I assume you wouldn’t object to relocating? You’d be willing to move to New York?”

Glory Hallelujah!

That Friday, dressed in his lone gray suit and a blue tie he fished from the far reaches of his closet, Lincoln takes an early flight from O’Hare to LaGuardia. It’s an in-and-out trip—leaving just enough time for a round of interviews before Malcolm House, with typical New York efficiency, has booked him on a five-o’clock return flight. Lincoln’s luck holds from the start: the whole of the country east of the Mississippi is basking in a glorious, cloudless high. (He thinks: the heavens have opened for me at last.)

He was tempted to alert his parents—they certainly deserved a spot of promising news—and he wished he had a discreet way to let Mary know, just to prove he wasn’t completely stalled. But he decided not to get ahead of himself, reasoning that a show of optimism could amplify eventual disappointment. So (save for an evasive conversation with Flam, who naturally was curious about the call from Malcolm House) Lincoln has savored his glad tidings alone. On the taxi ride in from LaGuardia, Lincoln worries that his excitement will be too obvious, that he’ll expose himself for the outsider he’s become. But by the time he’s crossing the sinuous Triborough Bridge, with all of Manhattan laid out alongside, a cruise ship ready for boarding, Lincoln accepts his simmering stress. The quickened heartbeat, the surging adrenaline, the elevated metabolism—they soothe, and he wonders if in fact they represent his natural state, given that he’s a New Yorker at heart. When he steps out of the cab in front of the Malcolm House building, a glassy fifties box on East Forty-Ninth Street,
he almost collides with a stunning brunette motoring along the sidewalk in a pair of towering stilettos. “Excuse me!” she snips, glaring. Lincoln can only smile.

In the lobby, Lincoln registers with security and takes the elevator to the twenty-ninth floor. The reception area has been redesigned since Lincoln’s intern days, but the huge blowups of classic Malcolm House book covers and the enormous signage behind the receptionist’s desk signal that this is an enterprise with permanence, with reach. At just after eleven, he is ushered down several meandering corridors and into Jeff Kessler’s large office. None of the cushiony, clubby trappings here—just glass and laminate and sharp angles. Everything gives off a polished shine, as if all fingerprints, indeed, any trace of human physicality, have been scrubbed away that very morning. (Lincoln remembers the eraser bits that drifted through his Pistakee office like sand dunes, somehow always missed by the night cleaning crew).

The publisher is a tall, slender man, still only in his midforties, with an olive complexion and shiny black hair and a breezily elegant manner. (Lincoln recalls that Kessler could enthuse equally about opera and the Knicks). He’s dressed this day in a slim navy suit and red tie. Lincoln takes a seat in a sleek chair—stainless steel tubing interwoven with a kind of rubbery string. For a few comfortable minutes, they catch up and chat about acquaintances from Lincoln’s days as a Malcolm House intern, and then Kessler gets down to it.

“When I heard you’d gone to an online operation, I thought you might be interested in an opportunity here,” the publisher says.

“How did you know I’d moved?” Lincoln asks.

Kessler flatters with a sly smile. “I keep an eye out on promising up-and-comers.”

Lincoln blushes. Imagine—those agonizing hours with Professor Fleace, et al., and Jeff Kessler was watching out, like a guardian angel.

“What sort of talent did you find out there—out there in the Land of Lincoln?” the publisher asks.

“At iAgatha, not much,” Lincoln says carefully. “I’m afraid it was mostly amateurs. I did work on one book that I thought was quite good, though. And it ended up selling pretty well.”

“Was that the one about the sex positions?”

This is getting intimate. Kessler knows Lincoln’s CV line by line. “Well, yes,” says Lincoln. “Though the book was quite a bit more than that.”

“Brilliant marketing,” Kessler says. “The website, changing the author’s name. Brilliant.”

“I, ahh...actually, the website just popped up. I can’t claim it was my idea.”

“I didn’t read the book myself,” Kessler continues, ignoring Lincoln’s disclaimer, “but one of our editors here did. Peter Falcone. I want you to meet him later. He dug it.”

“Great.”

“And how is your former publishing house—Pulaski, is it?—holding up in the downturn?” Kessler asks.

Lincoln blathers on for a minute or so about niche publishing and backlists built on timeless reference books.

“I saw from the Internet that you even made a hit out of a collection of poems,” the publisher says.

My God, thinks Lincoln, the world has turned upside down. “A small hit,” he says sheepishly. “By poetry standards.”

Kessler shakes his head and laughs. “Another marketing coup—getting Michelle’s mother to show off the book.”

Lincoln decides to shut up and go for the ride.

“So what caused you to leave your old job?”

Of course, Lincoln has anticipated this question and carefully considered his response. Lying, even hedging, won’t do. Candor is the only way. So he carefully explains that after he’d separated from his wife, he and the author of
The Ultimate Position
, a company employee, developed a brief, intimate relationship while
he was editing the manuscript. She was not a direct report, and afterward, she acknowledged her complicity, resigned in solidarity, they remain platonic friends, etc.

Kessler listens closely, leaning back in his chair, holding the palms of his hands together as if praying, a wan smile playing on his lips.

“The Midwest,” he says conclusively when Lincoln is finished.

“Exactly,” says Lincoln, hugely relieved.

They chat for a few more minutes about books, agents, writing programs, even the Bulls vs. the Knicks, and Lincoln senses he’s holding up well in the game of volleying insights and observations, his skill level elevated by the Olympic virtuosity of his partner. Finally, when Lincoln pronounces
The Devil in the White City
“a newspaper clip job—but a masterful clip job” and wonders aloud “what other potential best-sellers are buried out there in the archives,” Kessler smiles upon him benevolently.

The publisher stands. “Let me introduce you to a few of my colleagues,” he says. “And I will be in touch. I’d like to make a decision soon.”

Kessler has arranged a talking tour. He deposits Lincoln with Rhoda Zimmerman, a grand dame of quality fiction who lectures for several minutes on the gender crimes of Lincoln’s (former) homeboy Bellow. She then directs Lincoln to Elizabeth Warner, the young refugee from
Time
whose hiring dismayed him last fall. She is polite but harried, and she rushes through a perfunctory conversation before walking Lincoln down the hall to the office of Peter Falcone.

Lincoln has been hearing about Falcone for several years—blog posts,
PW
references, even the occasional items on
Gawker
, usually references to book parties that spilled into downtown clubs and collected a seasoning of movie stars and rockers. Oddly, Falcone is a visual echo of Kessler, with a narrow face, dark complexion (permanent tan or Mediterranean pigmentation?), flowing black hair combed behind his ears, and a navy
suit and lavender tie. He’s about Lincoln’s age, maybe a couple of years older, and he sits behind a glass-topped desk clear of everything but a laptop and a phone—there’s not even a cup for pencils, scissors, or other implements of a vanishing age.

“Hey!” Falcone says in greeting when Lincoln appears. “Malcolm House intern made good!” He stands to shake hands. Firm grip, strong baritone, angled, almost conspiratorial smile. Lincoln can see why the blogs love this guy.

They trade bona fides (Falcone easily bests Lincoln with a Brown economics degree, a dalliance at Goldman Sachs, an introduction to publishing through the agent side at ICM, and then a quick rise at Malcolm House). They seem to hit it off, and at exactly twelve thirty Falcone pronounces, “Let’s have lunch!” (In Chicago, Lincoln reflects, everyone wants to eat at noon, before his appetite ever has a chance to sharpen.)

Falcone leads Lincoln to a small, modern Italian spot on Second Avenue, already noisy though it’s only half filled. The curvy young hostess knows Falcone and seats them at a table near the front window. Their curvy young waitress (Flam would love this place, Lincoln thinks) drops off a menu for Lincoln. She already knows what Falcone will order (salmon spinach salad and a bottle of San Pellegrino). Lincoln follows suit with his host.

“Tell me about Amy O’Malley,” Falcone says abruptly once they’ve settled in.

“Jeff said you read her book,” Lincoln responds, slightly disconcerted.

“Yeah, I did.” End of statement. No compliment. No assessment.

“She’s bright,” Lincoln proffers. “Lively style. Young, but promising.”

“What’s she look like?”

Lincoln pauses. What’s this about? “She’s attractive,” he says, nodding, then quickly adds, “And she managed to survive the
University of Chicago’s English department without disappearing into all that poststructuralism and genderizing crap.”

“Did you fuck her?”

Lincoln is speechless. He slurps his water, buying time. Finally, he says, “We had a brief fling.” (A
fling
? How sappy! How Midwestern!)

Apparently reassured, Falcone proffers, “It wasn’t a bad book. Had some energy, some life. Did you have to do a lot of work on it?”

“Well, yes, there was a lot of line editing, even some rewriting. But she was there every step of the way.”

“You do a lot of that heavy line editing?”

“Most of my manuscripts take a lot of work.”