Bestseller - Olivia Goldsmith

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Now both had moved on in the ever-changing kaleidoscope of publishing-house musical chairs.

      Gerald approached a cluster of people. Tiny Harry Evans was in the center of it with Colin Powell, whose autobiography he’d published with S. I. Newhouse’s approval and money. Rupert Murdoch had published Newt Gingrich. Clash of the titans! Which publisher would get to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, down the hall from his bestselling author? Gerald smiled grimly. When it came to serious nonfiction, include me out, he thought, quoting Sam Goldwyn. Gerald stuck to movie stars and gossip—it never went out of style or got you bomb threats in the mail. He was glad he hadn’t published Salman Rushdie. This controversy over Chad Weston was more than enough for him.

      Alice Mayhew, the self-appointed Washington expert at Simon & Schuster—a distinction she seemed to feel was enviable—had arrived and was talking to some young woman. What did she have to feel so proud of? In the seventies she had published all the Watergate principals; it was called “the felon list.”

      Charlotte Abbott, one of the new young hopes at Avon, smiled at him. The girl was tall, fair, and intense, the kind who wouldn’t be intimidated by big words. “Hello, Charlotte,” he said.

      “Hello, Gerald. Is what I hear about the Chad Weston novel really true?”

      This was becoming extremely irritating. “Yes, Charlotte, it is,” he said in a bored voice. “Chad has decided to switch genres. He’s moving from literary novels to thrillers.” He feigned excitement. “Move over, Thomas Harris! There’s a new Hannibal Lecter, and I’ve got him!”

      Donna Tartt walked by. She had been touted as a literary second coming when her first novel was published. Despite the hype, the profiles, and its substantial sales, it was what Gerald referred to as a media blow job. In his opinion her book had been a slightly-above-average, somewhat pretentious murder mystery. After all the furore had died down, nothing more had been heard from Ms. Tartt. But then, it had taken her something like eleven years to write the first book. “She hasn’t written anything in years,” he said to Charlotte. “I hear she just can’t be alone with her work.”

      “She should be an editor then,” Charlotte laughed.

      “Yes. Or have my debts.” Gerald smiled at Charlotte. “I need a drink,” he said and wandered off toward the door. He certainly needed something. Liz Ziemska, the stunning and bright young agent with Nicholas Ellison, caught his eye. Ah, there were two opportunities there. But Gerald remembered Susan’s put-down, and for a moment he held back. In that moment, Liz was captured by Lawrence LaRose, who moved her toward one of the windows. Gerald despised LaRose. He was too smart, too young, too good-looking. So much for that.

      Gerald nodded at Alberto Vitale, head of Random House. Gerald despised him too, but they did share something: Both craved publicity. Gerald merely acknowledged him coolly and moved on, a shark making headway through turgid water.

      There was no prey here. This high-end boutique publishing house didn’t draw much glitter. He waved and turned his bade on the crowd, which, he reflected, would give them such a nice opportunity to talk behind it. Gerald knew he wasn’t noble, but he tried always to oblige.

       I don’t believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.

       —Isaac Asimov

      Opal sat alone in the smallest room at the funeral home, but even so the room seemed cavernous. There were, perhaps, ten rows of chairs, and aside from Opal and the young man in the back who had handled the cremation arrangements, there wasn’t a single other guest. Opal had cried all of her tears the day before, back at Terry’s grim apartment, so here she had merely sat, white and wordless, while an unknown minister mouthed a few trite, awkward generalities and Albinoni’s Canon played over the PA system. Then Terry’s ashes were given to Opal. It hadn’t taken long—less than fifteen minutes—and that included the inexcusable mangling the minister had done of the Langston Hughes poem—one of Terry’s favorites. All of it had flown by, and Opal had merely sat, exhausted. She hadn’t slept very well in Terry’s narrow bed. All night long she had thought of the lines from the Hughes poem:

       Sometimes a crumb falls

       From the tables of joy,

       Sometimes a bone

       Is flung.

       To some people

       Love is given.

       To others

       Only heaven.

      Had anyone flung a bone from the tables of joy to Terry? Opal had given her daughter love, but is a mother’s love ever enough? Certainly it wasn’t for Terry. There had been no comfort for her. And now Opal was alone, left with only Terry’s dust to comfort her. She sat with the small metal box on her lap, and somehow it seemed as if it weighed enough so that Opal would never again be able to move from under the burden.

      Now, while the Albinoni droned on endlessly. Opal merely stared at the front of the little room.

      She jumped when she felt the hand on her shoulder and turned to look into the face of a woman slightly older than she. “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “Did I startle you?”

      Opal nodded. The woman had a long, kind face, and Opal could see that tears had gathered on her reddened lower lids.

      “I’m Roberta Fine. I worked with your daughter.”

      Opal tried to gather herself together. Of course. Terry had written to her about Roberta. What was the name of her shop? The Book Stop? No. The Bookstall? Opal tried to smile and was about to say something—one of those things that people say—about how nice it was for you to come or how thoughtful you were to remember, when the woman’s face seemed to reconfigure itself, morphing into a rictus of sorrow. She burst into noisy, hysterical sobs.

      “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she cried. After that Opal couldn’t understand much of what she said except for something about letting Terry go, and how it hadn’t been Terry’s fault, and how Roberta felt so responsible. “I just had no idea,” Roberta gulped. “I didn’t know the job meant so much to her. I can’t tell you what this has done to me. But it must be so very much worse for you.” Once again the woman’s face collapsed, and she began searching in her neat black purse for a handkerchief.

      Opal handed her one of her own. She also reached out and patted Roberta Fine’s thin, black-dad shoulder. The woman did look ravaged. She had fired Terry, apparently. But for her to think that Terry had killed herself over that! Well, Opal had lived long enough to know that everyone thought that their own experience was the true reality, the center of the world. Now she took Roberta’s long, thin, damp white hand in her own ruddier one. “It’s not your fault,” Opal said. “Please, please don’t think that for a minute. Losing the job didn’t do this to Terry. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have encouraged her. I shouldn’t have pushed her—”

      “But you inspired her! She loved you, she admired you. She talked about you all the time.” The woman paused. “Oh my God, you don’t think this is your fault, do you?” The two women looked into each other’s eyes for an endless minute. “Perhaps I’ve been very foolish,” Roberta said.

      “Perhaps I have, too,” Opal agreed. “And perhaps blaming ourselves is very self-indulgent. Disrespectful of Terry, too.”

      Roberta continued to look into Opal’s eyes. “It is easier to feel guilt than pain, isn’t it?”

      Opal nodded. “Yes.” She paused. “It’s also easier to feel responsible than to feel powerless.” Roberta looked away, then nodded.

      After a moment Opal reached into her own battered purse and took out the letters, all of Terry’s rejection letters. “If anyone is responsible, here are the culprits. But I think we have to give Terry the dignity of making a

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