How To Judge A Book By Its Lover Read online

  Jenna’s weird eating ruled the kitchen until she stopped eating altogether, and then it ruled our lives. My parents were in counseling with her at the Stony Brook University Hospital Eating Disorders Center the day I got my first period, and I was forced to go next door and ask Trish’s mother what to do. Mom barely noticed that I was walking like a cowboy from putting the tampon in wrong.

  By the time Jenna was discharged from the center, our kitchen had been turned into a machine designed to keep her fed. A colored chart tracked her every bite, with gold stars like those a preschooler might receive commending her intake of protein, carbs, and especially fat. I retreated into my writing, consoling myself with the knowledge that all sensitive artists come from bizarre families.

  After that history, Jenna went full health, which of course was a relief. Now she picked Sizzler for the family meeting because of its huge salad bar and keto-approved steaks. She’d gone from being a 92-pound scarecrow to a 115-pound fitness fanatic with six-pack abs and buns of steel. I had to give her credit for turning it all around, becoming beautiful, and finding a career in the process, but all I ever felt was that the spotlight never left her, only now she shines so brightly I don’t even try to get on stage.

  As my taxi pulled up to the restaurant, I imagined the fateful words: “Honey, we finally bought that condo at the Boca Esplanada.” Honestly, my parents deserved it. The weather would be warmer, and practically all their friends had moved there already.

  Then it hit me—nobody drives around those country club communities; they all have monogrammed golf carts! Excitement swelled in my heart as I imagined my father making the proud announcement: “Laurel, you get the Cadillac.”

  It would have to go to me, since Jenna already has two cars, not to mention a whole family to drive around in them. Dad would offer kind words, I knew. “Now that you’re well on your way in your successful writing career, you’ll probably be needing this for your book tours.” I decided to be modest and not tell him that television studios would send their own limos to pick me up. And I certainly wouldn’t say that I’d be trading in their old-fashioned wheels for a cool little Vespa motorbike. After all, Jenna may have gotten more attention, but my parents never failed to show their love for me, I realized as I entered the noisy restaurant.

  With its color-by-numbers, family-oriented atmosphere and waitresses running by with trays of mega bacon burgers, Sizzler was exactly the kind of place that made my skin crawl, but I had to concede that I felt comfortable in the slightly anonymous atmosphere that replaced the ranking, judgmental stares at the East Village poetry houses I hung out in. And if it made my parents comfortable, all the better.

  Before they noticed me, I paused for a second to take in the image before my eyes. Sure, Mom, with her chunky costume jewelry, might be a little too shopping mall for a downtown poetry slam, but for a fifty-eight-year-old she looked damn good with her perfectly pressed pants and backless pumps. Dad might not be the towering intellectual he imagined himself to be, but he was so at ease it barely mattered. Finally in his sixties, at the top of his career and with pride in his daughters, he looked ready to conquer the world, or at least the golf course down in Florida.

  For some reason, Jenna had left her husband at home. No doubt Rob preferred to be up in Port Washington polishing his boat. Without her handsome husband standing as living testimony to her ability to find lasting love, Jenna looked almost vulnerable, if you ignored the bulging biceps she showed off with her sleeveless dress. And had she bleached her hair, or was it just the lighting that softened her normally aggressive demeanor?

  “Hello, darling,” said Mom, leaning in for a lipstick-smeared kiss. Daddy took my hand, and I sat down between them.

  While the waitress scribbled our requests, I noticed that Jenna didn’t even seem to flinch when I ordered a carb-filled meal including a twice-baked potato and an ear of corn.

  After the small talk died down, Jenna gave my parents a meaningful look, and Dad took a deep breath before speaking.

  Here comes the car, I thought, preparing to act surprised yet gracious.

  “I have a little something for you,” he began, reaching into his pocket. Suddenly all those game shows popped into my head—the ones where the host gives an ecstatic contestant keys before pulling back a big curtain to reveal:

  “It’s an article you might have missed.” He unfolded a neat print-out.

  I was still hoping the news item had something to do with my windfall, but reality started to sink in when I remembered my parents’ annoying habit of giving me book reviews. They were always trying to get me to read the latest mainstream pulp they mistook for good writing.

  Sure enough, the clipping was from the arts section, I noticed as my father handed it to me, his fitness tracker peeking out from under his cuff. My ears burned with shame at my stupidity. Obviously, Jenna would be getting the Cadillac and I would be getting a review of the latest mass-market drivel.

  Entertainer to the Stars

  Which famous rap mogul had to calm their child’s tantrum with the promise that Clowny Zary would entertain their party?

  Which British Royal hired Clowny Zary to provide a transatlantic show for her tot?

  And which A-list actress refused to conceive with her rock star boyfriend until he booked Clowny Zary for the baptism?

  But the real question on everyone’s lips is: Who is behind the loud makeup, fright wig, and global phenomenon that is Clowny Zary?

  Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any more surreal, along came Clowny Zary to prove me wrong. “Why am I reading this?” I asked my family.

  “Just keep going,” Mom pointed with her chin.

  A year ago, Zarabella Kantwatar was just another wannabe actress pounding the pavement in search of a job. She hadn’t passed an audition since, as a teenager, she was cast as an understudy in the ill-fated musical version of “The Plague.” The pain of her glaring lack of success, mounting bills, and dilapidated apartment was compounded as she watched her friends fulfill their dreams while she was stuck financing her hopeless quest by teaching driver’s ed.

  “Finally, it hit me,” the twenty-seven-year-old brunette said, reclining on the terrace of her new penthouse duplex. “As an actress, I stink. Time to bow out gracefully.”

  I hated this woman, and I couldn’t understand why—until it hit me. They think I stink, and it’s time to bow out gracefully.

  Screw you all, I thought, glaring at my family through eyes that were quickly filling with tears of blind rage.

  I threw the article on the table.

  “I am not dressing up in a rainbow afro and size 16 rubber shoes just so you can have something to tell your friends when they ask what I’m doing with my life,” I spat.

  “It would be more dignified than dog-walking,” Jenna said with a snide little smile.

  “This isn’t the point at all, Cookie,” said Mom, buttering a roll. “We don’t expect you to be a clown, just to stop and think about the message here: No matter how long you’ve been at something, it’s never too late to quit.”

  “If I’ve learned one lesson from my years in business,” Dad put in, holding a breadstick like a cigar, “it’s that open-minded people open the way.” He took a bite, crunching contentedly.

  When the waitress arrived with our dinner, it took every ounce of control I had not to knock over the whole steaming tray and storm out. I cooled off while she distributed the food, and when she walked away, I asked, with suppressed rage, “Is this why you brought me here? To insult me? To humiliate me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, dear,” my mother said. “We would never do that to you.”

  “We love you, Laurel; you know that,” said my dad.

  Jenna, spearing a cherry tomato with her fork, cut to the chase. “Yes, that’s why we brought her here! And you shouldn’t deny it. Isn’t that what we’re all trying to overcome here—denial? I for one am no longer going to pretend that it is okay for my thirty-year-old sister
to be picking up doggie doo for a living!”

  “Mom, Dad,” I stammered in disbelief, “is this true? You all got together in advance to plan this coordinated attack?” They didn’t need to answer; the guilt was written all over their faces. “Well, you could have saved yourselves the effort,” I declared, deciding to take the high road. “It just so happens I’m on the verge of a major breakthrough.” Please, dear God, I thought to myself, let Anderson Gallant be the one.

  “Not another verge,” said Jenna, rolling her eyes. “You’re the only person I know who’s been living on the verge for the last eight years.”

  “Hold it, Jenna. Remember Dr. Schneider’s parameters: no labeling,” my mother said sternly, leaving me to wonder just how elaborately they’d been conspiring. “But dear, you must admit . . . No, no, I’m supposed to begin this sentence with ‘I’ . . . I feel as if I have heard this before.”

  Dad nodded, vigorously cutting into his steak. “There was that major breakthrough with your dermatologist’s sister who promised to read your stuff but then dropped dead.”

  Mom bit the head off a shrimp. “And then there was the agency we paid a thousand dollars to read your work, but they still never came through with anything,” she recalled, shaking her head sadly and no doubt imagining how many treatments at Elizabeth Arden that money would have bought.

  Jenna, brandishing an asparagus spear, had her own memory to share. “What about the time she met that trick-or-treater at Halloween whose daddy was supposedly a big publisher? She threw her novel into the kid’s plastic pumpkin.”

  “It wasn’t a pumpkin; it was a goody bag. And the father said my work was Chekhovian,” I seethed.

  “But he didn’t publish it,” Dad pointed out. “And neither did any of the dozens of others you said promised a lucky break right around the corner.”

  I was ready to walk out in fury when my mother reached across the table and put her warm, familiar hand on top of mine. “The point is, we hate to see you suffer,” she said. Something in her voice was tender and sincere, and I suddenly felt like a six-year-old girl who just fell off her rollerblades. The pain from all those years of struggle and dashed hopes that had been as backed up as the sink in my apartment came rushing forth. “What am I supposed to do with my life?” I whimpered quietly.

  “There, there, let it out,” said my sister. “Just go ahead and have a good cry.” I felt so vulnerable, even Jenna sounded sweet.

  “And when you’re done, cheer up!” my father said. “Because I’ve got a great lead on a real job for you.” He handed me a rolled-up magazine while explaining that my uncle Lewis could get me a position there as a staff writer with a starting salary in the low forties.

  A magazine, I thought, intrigued. But my glimmer of hope lasted only until I saw the cover. In bland, Helvetica type there was the name of my future: Girdle and Support Hose Quarterly.

  It took me the better part of the next three days to print out a copy of my novel for Anderson Gallant to read. I’d been using the same printer since the incident with the dermatologist’s sister, and it jammed about every other minute, but I finally coaxed out all 732 pages of Napoleon’s Hairdresser, wrapped it in a crisp folder, and cradled it in my arms as I headed off to pick up Cadbury.

  “Well, here it is,” I said to my client, who was wearing a Pepe Le Pew T-shirt and reading Snapchat magazines on his phone.

  “Oh, you’re delivering the dog food now?” he asked. “Just put it over there in the corner.”

  Not the most auspicious beginning, but I was determined not to let my family crush my dreams. “It’s Napoleon’s Hairdresser,” I explained. When that drew a blank look, I added, “My novel.”

  Suddenly, Anderson’s eyes lit up as if he could picture a future bestseller. “Your novel—of course!” he said expansively. “How exciting! This is the one about the racecar driver who gets cancer, right? I’ll read it this weekend.”

  Not wanting to diminish his enthusiasm, I didn’t correct him and instead took Cadbury for the usual walk. I was relieved but worried Anderson would read it too quickly; I wanted to give him a revised version of Chapter 38 based on the comments my writers group was due to give me that week. I planned to slip the new text in on my next visit so that Anderson would have the most polished manuscript possible.

  - 4 -

  I’d never been more eager for feedback than that Tuesday evening when I arrived at the Ninth Avenue community center. I’d taken the advice of José, the only professional editor in our group, if only of children’s textbooks, and I was looking forward to his comments, which were dependably supportive.

  But when I got there, hoping to see everyone’s scribbled-on copies of “Chapter 38: Waterloo ‘Do,” I was confused to see nothing but pizza and soda all around.

  “You look like you could use this,” said Margo, handing me a cold 7UP. I’d obviously missed a WhatsApp notification somewhere along the way.

  “What’s the occasion?” I asked, but before she could answer, Portia walked in and everyone screamed, “Surprise!”

  “Congratulations!”

  “We knew you could do it!”

  “Helen Ellenbogen–she’s the best!”

  “Don’t forget us when you’re famous!”

  They were all shouting at once. I managed my own tribute: “Your stuff always was the most commercial.”

  After a round of limp pizza and even more flaccid compliments, Danny Z. and I escaped, commiserating on the way to the subway. As we walked east toward Broadway amid the theatergoers rushing to make the curtain, he summed up our feelings succinctly: “That bitch Portia couldn’t write a customs form. Don’t worry, she’ll get horrible reviews, her book will bomb, and then we’ll have a real party.”

  It seemed like grim revenge, especially since I couldn’t really celebrate anything until my own book was published and my family felt ashamed for ever having doubted me. We’d all be at the Grand Ballroom in the W Hotel, with the chief editor of the New York Review of Books congratulating Mom and Dad for raising such a genius. I’d be loving every minute of it, with no stress from Jenna, because her invite would be for two hours later than everyone else’s. By the time she’d arrive, there would be nothing but crumbs of stale bread and a stream of well-wishers in line to buy an autographed copy of my book.

  Snapping back to reality, I told Danny Z. he’d likely be the next one we’d be celebrating. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to buy What to Wear When You Want More than an Affair? I know I could use that advice.”

  “Tell, tell,” he said. “I might just oblige.”

  On Saturday evening, Danny Z. obliged. He and I ripped through my closet in search of the perfect outfit for my date that night.

  “Stay away from that skirt; florals indicate neediness,” he said disapprovingly. I dutifully hung up the cotton mini.

  “What about this?” I asked, pulling out a striped, boatneck crew top.

  “Are you crazy?” Danny Z. counseled. “No confusing parallel lines—you want him to think convergence.”

  He rejected thong underwear—“too suggestive”—open-toed shoes—“too casual”—and a wraparound shawl—“too ugly.”

  After three hours of debate and a forty-minute lecture on lipstick, it was time to tackle my coif. Unfortunately, Danny Z. was still researching his next book, What to Do With Your Hair When You Want to be Part of a Pair, so he couldn’t tell me whether leave-in conditioner would make my locks limp or if gel plus volumizer would be a delight or a disaster. We settled on a touch of curl control and hoped for the best.

  Glancing at my reflection on the way out, I had to concede that Danny Z. was a genius. Even though I was wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, I had that glow of famous starlets who intentionally dress down, the kind I always envied in my favorite guilty pleasure, Celebrity Style. Added to this was the magic fact that every thread in the ensemble was subliminally geared toward getting me hitched.

  Even though we hadn’t picked a place to meet, I j
ust knew that as soon as I entered the large auditorium, electric attraction would naturally bring Lucien and I together. During the lecture, neither of us would be able to concentrate on the Socio-Economy of Tempos; instead, we’d feel a frisson of excitement each time our knees casually touched. By the time the lights came up he would have taken my hand, and we’d burn to be alone. Back at his place—God knows I couldn’t let him see mine—it would be only seconds before we were frantically pulling off each other’s clothes. And when the wedding bells finally chimed, Danny Z. would thank me for bringing him fame by proving that it really was much, much more than an affair.

  I could feel Lucien’s intelligent, masculine presence somewhere amid the black turtlenecks and wire-rimmed glasses, the goatees and ethnic jewelry sported everywhere, and told myself it wouldn’t be long before our eyes finally met.

  “Hey there,” I heard someone call behind me. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it.” I blushed deeply before I turned around, only to find myself facing a husky-voiced woman calling out to her lover across the room.

  Thinking Lucien must be up near the lectern, I made my way toward the stage, where I accidentally became caught up in what in this crowd passes for a barroom brawl.

  “Lacan had it completely backwards. The phallocentric simulacrum was never the dominant modality in Irigaray’s reaction,” a bushy-haired professor-type sputtered.

  “Oh, please,” replied his bottle-blonde companion. “The feminist critique isn’t about reaction; it’s about representation,” she said. “Every Semiotics 101 student knows that.”

  “You,” she added, planting her Birkenstocks in my path. “Settle this for us. Which post-structuralist paradigm played precisely into the hands of the French analysand advocates? I know it’s obvious, but humor me.”

  In all my longing for Lucien I never wanted him more than at that moment, but he didn’t magically appear. “Of course it’s obvious,” I stammered. “Why do you even ask?”