How To Judge A Book By Its Lover Read online

  “Kingpin!” I shouted, entering the spectacular, modern apartment at the summit of a new glass-tower residence along the river. The little half-schnauzer, half-poodle ran over with a leash in his mouth.

  His owner, Maury Blaustein, sat comfortably in the chair that had earned him all these riches.

  “Good morning!” I said. It was difficult to ask him what was new, since nothing was ever new with Maury Blaustein, but I tried anyway. “What’re you watching?”

  “Lifetime television,” he replied, pushing a button on the arm of the famous Lounge-Around, the rotating chair that had revolutionized sunbathing. With barely a whisper, it automatically shifted toward me. “Without Lifetime television, I’d have no life,” he shrugged.

  I had to agree. Since making his millions, Maury Blaustein seemed hard-pressed to figure out how to spend them all. He’d had a top designer import the finest silk fabrics for his matching brocade furniture, all of which went unused, since he practically lived in the Lounge-Around. The kitchen was filled with every culinary gadget in the Williams-Sonoma catalog, but I only ever saw cartons of takeout food in the fridge. A silver-plated coatrack held his smelly old Mets jacket.

  I passed it as I led Kingpin out through the hallway, which was decorated with photos of has-been actors sitting in the Lounge-Around. There was Rob Lowe with sunscreen on his nose. The frame next to him depicted Charlie Sheen looking relaxed. At the center, inexplicably, was a picture of the late, great Mother Teresa, looking more beatific than ever on her rotating chaise. She had written “Maury Blaustein should be sainted” across the bottom of the image.

  Ten blocks south, the apartment at Lincoln Plaza offered an escape from Lounge-Around Land. There I met Slobodan, my most well-behaved dog, which was no coincidence since her owners were so sweet. The Danilovas were a loving couple living in a comfortable apartment—no ostentatious gadgets, just pictures of their family. Mr. Danilova was a freelance graphic artist, and his wife did PR for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.

  “Hey there, Laurel, you’re early today.” Mr. Danilova, with his thick glasses and dorky shirts, wasn’t going to get any modeling contracts, but he was always ready with a friendly smile.

  “You’re a woman: Which would you like better, the pink or the striped?” he asked, pointing to a catalog featuring two versions of the same Furla handbag.

  “Definitely the pink,” I replied. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Nothing, I just love my wife. Does there have to be an occasion?”

  By then, Slobodan was eagerly sniffing Kingpin, so I offered a quick “of course not” and headed off to my next pickup.

  Anderson Gallant wasn’t home when I finally got to his place with five happy dogs twisting around my legs, and I added Cadbury to the mix without using the speech I’d spent three hours preparing the night before. It went something like this:

  It is an honor to look after the dog of a publishing great like yourself, and if my small contribution enables you to concentrate on your important work, that’s all the job satisfaction I need. However, I do want to inform you that I am the author of a soon-to-be-completed major novel which I would be honored to have you read.

  Perhaps it was just as well Anderson wasn’t there; it would give me more time to polish my pitch.

  Cad was thrilled to meet his new friends, but as we made our way into Central Park, his enthusiasm started to get on my nerves.

  Dogs are pack animals, and they like to walk in a group, but they have to find their position first. I had decided to make Cadbury the left guard on my basketball team, as that would keep him away from Slobodan. Just like in grade school, friends must be separated, or they disrupt everything for the rest of us.

  I could feel the stares of people who pitied me walking through Central Park with six dogs and pockets full of baggies, and they weren’t above ridiculing snickers when I used those baggies to fulfill my legal obligations and scoop the doggies’ poop.

  But I got the last laugh, knowing that for a service job, I was making more per hour than any waitress, data entry grunt, or eyebrow waxer in town. Even in torrential rain, I didn’t miss my days serving cappuccinos at the Copenhagen Café, where after a shift of aggravating customers, nasty bosses, and lecherous kitchen help, I would be lucky to scrape together fifty dollars in tips.

  Besides, what other job would allow me to get great exercise and puzzle out how Napoleon’s hairdresser learned the general’s deepest secrets?

  At the dog run, I unleashed the puppies and pulled out a folder. There was something uplifting about having a project; it seemed to prove that I was more than a dog-walker; I was a creative writer with a manuscript to polish.

  The market scene was one of my favorites because it blended characterization with the promise of destiny fulfilled. At that point in the action, Marguerite was still just a young nobody from the banlieues, the suburbs of Paris.

  As the wagon—a hand-me-down from her controlling second cousin—bumped along the crowded boulevard toward Le Marche Discounté, Marguerite listened to the church bells with anxiety. “Merde,” she cried. “It’s nine a.m., and I’m late again because of all the traffic.” As usual, there was no place to park her buggy in the crowded lot. Throwing caution to the wind, she took the spot reserved for lepers and smallpox victims, telling herself she had her own disadvantages, chief among them her tragic combination of ordinary background and extraordinary aspirations.

  Making her way through the crowded stalls, past the Hoopskirt Emporium and the greasy crepe stand, Marguerite hurried to her chair at La Supercoif.

  “Late again!” the muscular proprietress, Madame Le Bouffante, screamed. “I should demote you back to powdering wigs.”

  Marguerite set to work, feeling deep in her heart that she possessed a talent far beyond the understanding of the superficial ladies in waiting who—

  Suddenly, an irritating electronic ringing drew me out of this magical world. I was even more dismayed when I saw who was calling.

  Taking a breath, I tapped the phone screen. “Hey, sis,” I said, trying to sound happy to speak to her even as I felt the familiar Jenna headache sinking in.

  “Well, it’s about time you answered your phone! I know you’ve been avoiding me. It’s not like you’re busy or anything,” she said accusingly.

  I wanted to tell her I was in the middle of work, that I never call her at her oh-so-impressive fitness studio, but that would only open a whole conversation about how I didn’t have a real career, and I was trying to avoid an even worse headache.

  “I told you to get back to me about the family conference that Mom and Dad want to have.” Too late. I felt the pounding reach the center of my brain and echo like a bell.

  “What’s this big conference about?” I asked, imagining my parents finally announcing The Move to Florida.

  “You’ll find out on Sunday night at seven at Sizzler,” she commanded. “And you’d better be on time,” she warned. “Mom’s therapist said she is not to have any extra stress this month. And you know we can’t count on Dad to keep things calm.”

  I’d rather chew the soggy cardboard I noticed was hanging from Slobodan’s mouth than be served up on a platter to my neurotic parents, but I knew I had no choice. “Drop it!” I screamed at the sheepdog.

  “One of these days,” my sister said, assuming I’d been talking to her, “you are going to have to face reality, and when you do, you’ll thank me.” She hung up.

  Jenna’s nasty tone couldn’t keep me down as I ascended to the fifteenth floor in the San Remo’s gilded elevator. This was exactly the kind of building I’d always pictured myself living in once the world recognized the brilliance of my writing. It had the kind of old-world charm I just knew Lucien would appreciate. The high ceilings, the wood paneling, the tiled fireplaces, and the wraparound balconies would be perfect for our twice-monthly salons with the glitterati of the New York arts scene. “The Booker Prize committee is here to see you, Mrs. Brosseau,” I could just hea
r the doorman announcing over the intercom.

  The elevator opened into Anderson’s cavernous living room, and I was delighted to see that the man of the house was there, eating a bucket of chicken wings and watching Extreme Candlepin Bowling on some sports channel.

  The books lining his shelves everywhere reminded me that I was far from a published writer, just an unrecognized talent unless someone plucked me out of obscurity. Someone like Anderson Gallant.

  Cadbury leapt for the greasy fast food, nearly knocking his master to the ground, but Anderson loved the attention. “Caddy! That’s your happy face! You like your new walker, don’t you?” he said, wiping the boxer’s drool off of his Tweety Bird T-shirt.

  Encouraged, I leapt in Cadbury’s wake. “I’m not just a good canine management professional, you know,” I said, studying Anderson’s green eyes for a reaction.

  “You mean you have another job besides pooper-scooper?”

  Undaunted, I drew a deep breath and declared, “I’m a novelist.”

  I’d said it in front of the mirror hundreds of times during my practice rehearsals for interviews on the “Today Show.” In my fantasies, the reply was always, “Who are your greatest influences?” but Anderson Gallant remained silent, and suddenly I realized that he must have heard that hundreds of times from caterers, plumbers, window washers, and other domestic help like me.

  “Really?” he asked after what felt like an eternity. “That’s interesting.”

  Interesting as in “Go to hell,” I wondered, or interested as in “I’m interested”?

  “You should show me some of your stuff someday. I’m in publishing, you know.”

  At first I felt shocked, and then terrified, and then I thought, This is it, and I’m ready.

  I sat down at the computer that afternoon with excitement I hadn’t felt in years. One hundred and seventeen rejection letters can take the thrill out of revising a masterwork, but with a miraculous chance to bypass all of the agents with their form responses—“Your manuscript does not interest us at this time,” “The market for fiction is very tight at this time,” “We’re not taking on any unpublished writers at this time”—I set a schedule for myself: Polish the first three chapters in the next week. That was how long I figured it would take before he asked for some text.

  No sooner had my computer blinked to life than my apartment began to shake as if there was an earthquake. I didn’t have to look out the window to know that jackhammers were to blame. The corner underneath my place was apparently among the most blighted in the city—water main breaks, potholes, electrical work—it seemed the sidewalk had to be torn up every other week and repaired on the weeks in between.

  After seven years of urban disaster, I had learned how to cope and broke out my handy earplugs. I was calling up the document “Napoleon’s Hairdresser Revision Eighteen” when the screen went black.

  My vintage computer system was on the brink of death, but I couldn’t afford a new model, and I didn’t want to ask my parents for the money. After all, they’d already bought me two start-up computers, and each time I’d promised I’d make it before the machines became obsolete.

  Repeated failed attempts to reboot didn’t dissuade me from my task. Instead, I took a red pen and the latest printout and began rereading the opening page for what seemed like the millionth time.

  Long had the world wondered who was responsible for the distinctive forward-brush of the great emperor’s coif. Before the invention of gel, mousse, and least of all leave-in conditioner, Napoleon’s hairdresser devised ingenious ways of keeping out frizz and keeping in shine.

  It seemed as irresistible as ever, and I didn’t see the point in messing it up, especially with that week’s issue of Celebrity Style staring at me from the top of the mail pile. Not that I really cared for cheap gossip—it was much more important to read the copy of Schopenhauer I’d copped in preparation for my big date with Lucien—but they wouldn’t let me back into Long Island unless I knew something about the latest star to get liposuction.

  I laughed out loud reading “Tummy Tuck Tragedies” and then flipped to my favorite segment, “Hollywood Dish,” with its inane quotes. That week’s issue featured a piece about a starlet who thought Judge Judy was on the Supreme Court. “Luckily, Kimmy isn’t on the Senate Confirmation Committee, or ‘Do I have “STUPID” written across my forehead?’ might be the Court’s new motto,” the article said.

  Who writes this stuff? I wondered, curling up in bed with the trashy magazine. After all, I still had six days left to get my book into shape.

  Luckily, I wore all black to the dialectics of jazz seminar Lucien had invited me to, or else I would have stuck out like a girl from Long Island trying to fit in with the intelligentsia. I had spent two and a half aggravating hours trying on everything in my closet before I called my writer friend Danny Z. for advice. “Dollface, there’s only one color in this city. Black is the new black, the old black, and all the colors in between. Wear an outfit; don’t let the outfit wear you.”

  “And,” he’d added, “you’d better give me details if you get lucky.”

  I was hoping for just that as I made my way down the crowded aisle at the Columbus Avenue Arts Center, plastic cup of red wine in hand. It turned out that I was seated next to a famous pill-popping socialite and behind someone unrecognizable sporting a fashionable Slavic accent. If only I’d escaped from behind the Iron Curtain instead of just being from the land of superstores, I might have felt worthy of this smart crowd.

  Nothing like a little alcohol to loosen inhibitions, I thought, downing my wine in one gulp.

  As the lights faded, I felt a strange, buzzing contentment. Of the six panelists, Lucien was by far the most attractive, with his sexy beaded wristband and loafers with no socks. I couldn’t resist closing my eyes for a sec to better picture our wedding: A perfect June afternoon . . . the Conservatory Garden in Central Park . . . the scent of fresh flowers floating in the air…

  Unfortunately, my lids didn’t open again until the lights came up and the applause roused me. How mortifying; I had slept through the whole symposium! It must have been the combination of the wine and the muscle relaxant I’d taken earlier that day after Mini nearly pulled my arm out of its socket. I joined the applause, hoping nobody had noticed, and tried to inconspicuously pat down my hair.

  Still, I wasn’t going to miss my chance to be part of a New York City arts scene power couple. And every great writer has a bit of dramatic flair, I thought, bracing myself for a performance.

  I nearly forgot all my lines when I caught those sexy blue eyes looking my way, and when Lucien smiled, I practically froze but managed to sputter, “What a fascinating evening! Thank you so much for inviting me.”

  “So what’s your name anyway?” he asked.

  “Laurel,” I responded, grateful to remember it, given how he turned my brain to mush.

  “I’m Lucien,” he said.

  “I know that, of course,” I practically whispered. “You were the best speaker.”

  “Really? I thought you’d fall asleep,” he replied with a casual laugh. “Even I started getting bored when Professor Thackery enlightened us about the theory of phallocentric harmonics.”

  “I got a little lost there myself,” I confessed, thinking about how he is not only smart and cute but also doesn’t take himself too seriously! I had to get to date two. “But in general, I find these events really . . . stimulating,” I added, feeling a real sensation somewhere well south of my brain.

  Lucien absentmindedly stretched, and I could see his skinny, pale stomach through his T-shirt. “Next week’s the last event in the series, if you’re interested. I’m not on the panel, but I guess I should show up. Maybe I’ll see you there?”

  Hope was such an unfamiliar feeling, but I was starting to see beyond my self-image as a lonely loser to a future where I could make it as a real artist with an incredible man.

  - 3 -

  Looking forward to my date with Lu
cien—in my fantasies, it was sure to last until daybreak—kept me happy even as I headed out to the dreaded family meeting on Long Island. As the crowded passenger cars of the LIRR passed the familiar, dreary suburban landscape, I imagined Lucien cupping my face in his hands and giving me that delectable first kiss, but by the time we neared Hicksville station, an odd presence began to disturb my thoughts, and when we hit Plainview, I knew what it was: Jenna.

  I think my parents wanted to give Jenna a companion when they conceived me, but all I ended up being was an audience member in the drama that was her life. Sure, Mom and Dad meant to celebrate my kindergarten graduation, but instead they were busy putting out the fire that flared up in our kitchen after Jenna’s failed attempt at baked Alaska. Sure, after I won the spelling bee in third grade they said I could have anything I wanted, but when I asked for dance lessons, the money had been spent on Jenna’s gymnastics classes. And too bad about that Sweet Sixteen I was supposed to have at Leonard’s; Jenna’s anorexia was in full swing, and Mom was too preoccupied to organize a party.

  Tall, blonde, athletic, and beautiful, you’d think she’d be blessed, but she was just tortured—and tortured everyone else. First it was gymnastics. My parents practically took out a second mortgage just to fund all those private instructors, and then when Jenna came in with the silver medal at the state championships, they spent even more on the psychiatrist to console her crushed ego.

  Next came the ulcer—who ever heard of a fifteen-year-old with an ulcer? But Jenna’s was peptic and aggravated. And aggravating! Suddenly, every meal had to be planned around her. Only white foods—bread, mushrooms, and mozzarella—and absolutely no spices. My timid request for a pepperoni pizza was met with a horrified rebuke.