The Celebrity (17 page)

“Gregory’s old books,” Thorn said. “I want to talk it over with Ed Barnard too, but he’s not in. Shouldn’t they be reissued in new editions, now that he’ll have a national audience who never heard of them?”

“I was thinking of just exactly that yesterday,” Luther Digby said. “Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

“Very.”

There was a pause. Then Thorn said, “It’s nice we see eye to eye on it. Maybe just as the movie is released would be a good time for the first one, if
The Good World
is slowing down by then, and perhaps at six-month intervals after that. I’ve read every one of them again, and they’re wonderful.”

“I’ve been doing that very thing.”

“Yes?”

“That is, I’m halfway through
Partial Eclipse.
It brought back old times too—you knew it was I who gave him his first contract, didn’t you?”

“I’m sure he must have told me.”

“I’ve always felt he was my special charge around here. That’s why I put in all that spadework with Zanuck and Goldwyn, phoning and sending galleys straight to them. Lucky thing I did, wasn’t it?”

“Very,” Thorn said again.

“Might never have been any active bidding at all if Imperial Century hadn’t had some stiff competition.”

Digby went on about everybody pulling together and Thorn was seized by a paroxysm of coughing. “Cigarette,” he sputtered, and used the time to get control of himself. The little credit-grabber! The only real competition had come from R.K.O. and two independent producers; Hathaway had cursed because the approach to Zanuck had been all fouled up. This Digby—you were supposed to be urbane and friendly in business, but who could be, with this little horning-in cheapskate, who made you think of the bug-eyed little man on the covers of
Esquire?
Since a selling trip to Chicago and Kansas City and St. Louis, Digby had put on an imperious air, as if he were J. Pierpont Morgan and U.S. Steel rolled into one. Whatever Barnard and Alan Brown thought of him in the office, Digby had status in the world outside and it was impossible not to resent that. Yes, status. A publisher automatically had position in the eyes of most people, while the ablest of insurance men had to fight for even a passing recognition. Passing. The roughest word in the language.

“I swallowed some smoke from my cigarette,” Thorn said to the phone. “Now about this idea of new editions, what would you say to a conference, when Barnard gets back?”

“Good. Good. I’ll set it up for tomorrow or day after. I’ll have a preliminary talk with Alan and Jack, and acquaint them with our thinking on it.”

Our, Thorn thought, and permitted a chuckle to escape him, “Fine,” he said. “Well, so long then.”

“So long. Ah—I’ve wondered if—” Digby’s voice trailed away.

“If what?”

“If—that is, will you continue acting as Gregory’s agent on, well, in the future? Or does he think now that it might be wiser—?”

Thorn smiled and let Digby struggle. So the little man was worrying already whether the next contract would slice the firm in on extra rights. Did he think a man learned nothing from success?

“Wiser and more businesslike—” Digby went on, and halted again.

“I hope to continue as my brother’s agent for the rest of my life,” Thornton Johns said slowly. “Just as you, I’m sure, hope to continue as his publisher for the rest of yours.”

That was neat, Thorn told himself as he hung up, just the right touch. It was turning into an exciting morning in all sorts of ways. He stared at the phone, made a decision, buzzed for Diana, and said, “Get Digby and Brown right back, will you?” Mornings were like that; if they started to go exciting on you, they kept popping of their own accord.

“It’s me again, Janet,” he said crisply. “I want Jack McIntyre too, and then Alan Brown.”

“F’reaven’s sake, are you going right around the office or something?”

“Just about. When do you take your vacation, Janet?”

“My
what?
”

“You heard me. V-a-c-a—”

“Why, July, August, whenever they let me, but—”

“Just wanted to know.” There was a tap at his door and he called, “Come in.” Oscar Hammerstein and Rex—

“Here’s Mr. McIntyre now,” Janet said at his ear.

“No, hold it, wait a minute. Jack, I’ll have to call you later.” He hung up and automatically rose to his feet. Diana was ushering Cindy into the room. In ten years Cindy had not come downtown to see him more than half a dozen times, and then never without phoning first.

Thorn glanced from her to Diana and, idiotically, felt himself blushing. Diana withdrew.

G
REGORY AND
A
BBY
J
OHNS’
arrival in California was slightly marred by two natural phenomena. It was pouring rain, and Gregory had a cold.

The rain had begun at the edge of the desert and from San Bernardino on, through Pasadena, through the orange groves bordering the roadbed for the last miles into Los Angeles, it emptied out of the close gray sky with unremitting ardor. The porter told them that water was good for vegetation, that the end of the rainy season was at hand, and that they would see the most glorious sunshine in the world before they returned East. But they were both sorry that their first impressions of California should be so untraditional.

Gregory’s cold, he kept saying, was nothing much. It had begun after their eight-hour stopover in Chicago, between the arrival of the luxurious
Century
and the departure of the luxurious
Super Chief.
In their private drawing room, which could have accommodated four people handsomely, Gregory airily ascribed the ache in his back and legs to their relentless day-long pursuit of landmarks and museums, but Abby sent for aspirins, bicarbonate, and hot lemonade, just the same. Not wishing to rob her of these rare wifely pleasures, Gregory swallowed everything, only to sneeze six times and settle down to his first illness since his thirtieth birthday. The prospect of being bedridden in such luxurious surroundings delighted him; he saw it not only as a heaven-sent excuse to avoid the camaraderie of the lounge car but as a virtual command to satisfy one of his curiosities and order an extravagant dinner served in their room.

Heretofore the most ambitious traveling either of them had ever experienced had been their trips to the Cape to visit Abby’s parents when Hat was small. These had been accomplished in day coaches smelling of plush and pickles, or in an upper and lower berth, with the baby tucked in beside Abby for half the night and then hoisted up to Gregory for his turn. This time, as they left New York (nearly the whole family east of Wyoming had gathered at Grand Central to see them off) Abby had gone into raptures about their drawing room. She had exclaimed over the color scheme, the movable armchairs, the washbasin and clothes closet and tiny bathroom. She had worked the air-conditioning and radiator and fan, discovered how to empty the streamlined ashtrays, pulled down the window shade, and turned on the blue, night light in the ceiling. When Gregory coldly asked, “No icebox?” she had laughed hysterically and hugged him and laughed again.

Gregory had enjoyed himself too, despite his cold, but his largest happiness began after Chicago and had nothing to do with fans, thermostats, and plumbing. It came because, for the first time in many weeks, he was able to do sustained work. Propped against three pillows, and comfortable in his new dressing gown, he spent part of two nights and all of one day writing, and when, on the last morning, he finally packed away his pencils and yellow pads, he had eight acceptable new pages.

Which is to say he had written enough to fill thirty or forty unacceptable ones. This seeming imbalance between Total Effort and Total Achievement occurred during the first half of every one of Gregory Johns’ novels (though it was rarely in evidence when he wrote anything else) and sprang from his conviction that no paragraph came even close to what he wanted it to be until he had tried it four or five different ways. Sometimes he would struggle for an hour with one sentence in the paragraph; often he would tear up an entire page and begin afresh, only to enter mortal combat with each substitute sentence. His passages of brief, sharp dialogue first appeared as lengthy, snail-paced exchanges between people who spoke in perfectly rounded periods; his spare, precise descriptive touches, to which critics gave their praise, had to be; carved away from massive blocks of verbiage.

Gregory Johns knew that some authors wrote entire books without pausing to read back or do over; he knew that others could abandon an obstinate passage or scene temporarily and go on to the next, but the first kind of author he would not, and the second he could not for the life of him, emulate. As for him, he
had
to do battle with each sentence, with each, phrase, until he had won unconditional surrender.

So it was that, when he carefully packed away his eight dearly won pages—which he would later call his first draft—Gregory Johns was suffused by the warm glow of accomplishment. Unlike the author who writes to sublimate sorrow, or to make an ex-employer sorry he fired him, or to take a purely coincidental revenge on an ex-wife or ex-husband—unlike any of these, Gregory Johns wrote because he was happy writing. Not happier, not happiest, but a simple uncomparative happy.

And Abby was happy with him. As she sat watching him put away his manuscript and pads, the only part of his packing he didn’t dump on her, she was thinking it was lucky she wasn’t a woman who resented her husband’s work or felt it a rival. Quite the opposite. With them it was always best when Gregory was working hardest, and that meant not on a newspaper article, not on a review, not on a story, but on a novel. Hours might go by without an exchange of words, but then the pause would come, the talk, the closeness.

She glanced at Gregory; he was fidgeting with his wallet. He looked rested and well, except that he had occasional bouts of coughing. He had read his eight pages aloud at two in the morning—they were so scribbled over she had been unable to decipher them herself—and she had thought them quite fine. Now she realized she had an odd personal sense of gratitude toward them, as if they had added depth to her happiness during the trip. Unaccountably, she felt her face flush, and she thought, Well, really! And thought instantly, It’s the sense of privacy we’ve had in this place, never having to worry about Hat in the next room. And thought again, Well, really, making up excuses!

She turned toward the window and watched the neat-clumpy trees slipping past. From the air these endless groves could look like nothing more than green meadows, their orange globes of fruit unseen and unsuspected. “I wonder how their flight was,” she said.

“We’ll know soon enough. I wonder how they celebrated their first night in Hollywood.”

“I wouldn’t have flown out, and missed this trip for anything, would you?”

“No.” He had taken two bills out of his wallet, and sat fingering them uncertainly. One was for five dollars and the other for ten.

“You’re not arguing
that
out all over again?” Abby said sternly.

“Five might seem awfully mean. With all the trouble he had about me being in bed the whole time.”

“Give him the ten, then, and stop worrying.”

“But overtipping is as bad as under.” He put the ten away, and folded the other bill into an inch-wide strip. “I should have asked Thorn about tips in fancy trains and hotels.”

“He’ll take care of it at the hotel. You know, I’m
glad
Thorn’s out here. I mean, apart from our real reason for asking them out. It’s helped you already.”

He said, “I know what you mean,” and sounded as though he didn’t.

“Look how relaxed you’ve been about getting in, not all worked up about whether you’ll find a little delegation at the station or what.”

“Like so many generous ideas, this could work out to my own advantage?” He laughed and the laugh made him cough. The cough was tight and hard; it turned into a paroxysm, and Abby watched him anxiously.

The train was now slowing down to the barest possible forward motion. In the narrow aisle, the thumping of suitcases, hatboxes, and golf clubs had given way to the sound of talk and laughter, as the people moving up toward the platform yielded to that noisy abandon which comes at the end of a long, well-mannered trip.

“Los Angeles,” the porter called, as if he were pronouncing the name of The Eternal City. “Los Ang-el-eeze.”

“All of a sudden,” Gregory said, “I’m as excited as a kid.” He pulled out his wallet. “Damn it, it’s going to be the ten.”

In a roped-off area in the station, at the bottom of the longest inclined ramp they had ever seen anywhere, Thornton and Lucinda Johns were waving and shouting hello. Then all four were greeting each other, asking about their respective trips and all talking at once. Thorn and Cindy might have been old-time settlers welcoming newcomers, as they apologized for the rain and warned them not to be discouraged by the dismal look of downtown Los Angeles.

“Wait till you see the Strip,” Cindy cried, “and Beverly Hills and the hotel. We have two rooms and two baths and a sitting room and a balcony stringing along outside the whole suite. It’s heaven, and we’re dining tonight at Romanoff’s with the MacQuades.”

“At Romanoff’s?” Abby said.

“The MacQuades?” Gregory asked. Josh MacQuade was the head of publicity at the studio—the last man he expected to be seeing so promptly.

“You’ll like him,” Thorn said firmly. “We had drinks and a big talk last night, and he knows all about you.”

While he spoke, he took the luggage checks out of Gregory’s hand, signaled to a porter, and counted the pieces of cardboard. Then he handed them over, said, “A dark green Cadillac in the right-hand lot,” and led the way out of the station.

“Whose Cadillac?” Abby said.

“The distances are so huge,” Thorn said. “I let Josh lend me his to fetch you. I’ve rented us a car; we’ll have it tonight.”

“A Cadillac?” Gregory asked.

“No, a big Buick.”

Gregory and Abby glanced at each other. Thorn was in fine fettle, and so was Cindy. An air of excitement and adventure clung to them both; the strain of disagreement had vanished and it was as if they were sharing a triumph equally earned.