Grub (14 page)

T
he ringing phone annoyed Henry Baffler. He had tried to ignore it, but whoever it was kept calling back and Henry worried that the bell’s rhythm would disrupt the cadence of his prose. Across the fall, he had pressed at his glacial pace, working with great patience and affection. It wouldn’t be a terribly long novel, but it would be a book without a single discordant word choice. Every phrase, every punctuation mark would be essential. He believed he was making a perfect thing. And that’s how he thought of it: as making something, rather than writing it. He was constructing a piece of visual art with words. It was a long poem, really, he sometimes thought.

But on other days, he thought, no, it’s a mosaic—and each word is a small colored tile.

“Yes,” he said harshly into the receiver of the old phone.

“Yes, Henry, dear, is Patrick there?” It was the syrupy drawl of his absentee roommate’s mother.

“I haven’t seen him today,” he said, and then caught himself.

“Because I just got in. Should I have him return your call when he gets back?”

“That’d be lovely. You know how a mother worries.”

Henry returned the phone to its cradle, then picked it back up, dialed the number of Patrick’s girlfriend, and left the dutiful message. He could not afford to lose this living arrangement. He’d already cut back on the number of students he tutored so that he could give himself more fully to his book. To survive during this particularly lean stretch, he’d sold everything of value he had and was down to his last three
CD
s, his signed first-edition of
Naked Lunch
, and his grandfather’s pocket watch, which his brother hadn’t wanted. These might have to go, too—a sad conclusion he accepted as the price of art. Such was the life of the writer, now as much as ever in history. Burroughs would have understood, even if his grandfather wouldn’t have forgiven him.

Henry knew that most people would have little sympathy for him, and he was keenly aware that those who passed him on the street—people in new clothes, people on their way to and from jobs and spouses and mistresses and stores—would view him as inert, weak, foolish, socially mutinous. They’d see him as an affront to every industrious person who bustles about, producing things people actually want to buy. They’d tell him that if he must write at all, he should take a page from Jackson Miller’s book.

But Henry believed what his friend Eddie Renfros wanted to believe but doubted: the fact that his talent was incongruous with the circumstances into which he had been born made that talent no less valuable. Had he been born rich, his literary labors might have seemed noble to others. Because he was poor, he was more likely to be scorned. And his beautifully honed book would most likely go unpublished or, at best, be published in a small way, its few reviews deriding it as too quiet, perhaps even tedious.

Of course Henry would have preferred to take a job and buy back his
CD
s and get new clothes. He would like to eat well, go out for drinks, attend movies. But that was not his fate. He accepted his destiny as a starving artist with humility and a sense of responsibility. That was the hand he’d been dealt, and he would play it. If God or Harmony or DNA wanted in him a starving artist, he would be the finest one he could. And by doing justice to his noble bailiff, he would honor all the people out there leading their simple lives as best they could.

He had been at work for more than eight hours, interrupted only by the phone call, when he typed the hundred and twentieth page of
Bailiff
. More than halfway, he thought, and decided to reward himself by walking down to the market for a day-old bagel and a can of beer. When he returned, he would put in another two hours before allowing himself some sleep.

M
argot Yarborough shifted from foot to foot, using up a few minutes in front of the storefront that used to house The Shadow of the Valley of Books. She didn’t want to arrive at the restaurant too early.

Because of her eye for color balance—and because she was smaller and more agile than anyone else who had worked there—it had been Margot who had composed the store’s displays in the large plate-glass window. Working sometimes around a color and other times around a theme, she’d stack books, arrange them in fans, or space them like dominoes waiting to be felled. Once she’d built a playground of children’s books, using a fan to send eight of them around like a merry-go-round. Another time she filled the window with books whose covers were every shade of blue, arranging them from a novel whose blue cover was so faint it looked white, through the azures and the ceruleans, the cobalts and the royals, the cyans and the navies, ending with a history of whaling in a midnight-blue wrap. The previous spring, over the weekend that launched daylight savings time, Margot had moved into the window every book in the store whose title contained the word ‘time’, from a horror novel titled
Killin’ Time
to a romance called
Time of Destiny
.

Other than a poster educating consumers about shade-grown beans, the window was now empty, allowing passersby and patrons of the new coffeehouse branch to see and be seen by each other. Margot remembered that one of the other titles from the spring display had been
Time Changes Everything
, and she indulged in a moment of melancholy before spinning on the heel of her only pair of tall shoes and smiling at the sign across the street. Its letters were painted in an ornate floral calligraphy that belied the simplicity and homespun connotation of the word: GRUB.

Though she had made sure she was on time to the minute but not early, she was the first of her party to arrive. During her ten minutes under the watch of the maître d’, who had handled her coat as though it were wet, Margot grew dissatisfied with what she was wearing. Surrounded by a sea of dark solid fabrics—black and gray and brown and olive—she felt like a schoolgirl in her print dress. At least she had worn her pumps. She rearranged her curls with her fingers and was just about to ask directions to the bathroom so that she could put on lipstick when two women pushed into the foyer. Both were tall, wearing slinky black slacks and muted silk blouses. One had darker hair than the other, but they had the same blunt-ended shoulder-length cut.

The darker-haired one walked straight over and said, “You can only be Margot! It’s great to finally meet you.”

Margot recognized the voice of her agent, Lana Thorpe, and offered her hand to the woman’s cool grip.

“This is Lane Thompson.”

The lighter-haired woman squeezed her hand in something slightly more feminine yet also far less committal than a handshake. “So good to finally meet you. We are thrilled to be bringing out your wonderful novel.”

Both women gushed over her dress, calling it charming, quaintly chic, and ever so flattering to her slim frame. The maître d’, smiling, reassured that she was not a waif or an aspiring waitress, showed them into the dining room. Lane and Lana insisted that Margot take the booth seat so she could view the room. “We come here all the time,” Lana said. “Besides, we know you fiction writers need to people-watch. Never gossip, I always say, because a writer might just be eavesdropping.”

Like the lettering on the sign outside, the room also belied the restaurant’s name: white tablecloths, Japanese flower arrangements in square black vases, and several small fountains spaced so that the sound of trickling water could be heard from every table. A handsome waiter with a Castilian accent brought them water and bread and a small dish of olive oil so green and viscous that it glowed. Next he delivered the bottles of white wine and still water that Lane requested.

Margot scanned the menu. The prices were all in whole dollars, in fancy script, and shockingly high. Before her mother had gone New Age and stopped dispensing practical advice in favor of spiritual platitudes, she’d told Margot never to order spaghetti, fried chicken, or anything laden with powdered sugar on a first or second date. Margot figured the same held true for a first meeting with your agent and editor. None of these options were on the menu, and Margot didn’t know how to start eliminating anything else. Looking the menu down and then up, she decided that she would order neither the least nor the most expensive meal.

The waitress came before she had decided. In unison, Lane and Lana insisted that she order first. Stymied, Margot looked up to see Doreen smiling at her, hands clasped behind her back, ready to memorize her heart’s culinary desires. Doreen cocked her head slightly in a way that revealed but didn’t require recognition. Not knowing whether it was good or bad manners to acknowledge the acquaintanceship under the circumstances, Margot was further flummoxed. “It’s good to see you,” she said softly. She ordered the crab sandwich, which was the only thing she could remember from the menu.

“But what are you going to start with?” Lana asked.

“Start with,” Margot repeated, fingering her menu and looking up to Doreen, who rescued her by recommending the roasted asparagus soup. While they waited for the food, Lana and Lane praised the originality of Margot’s novel.

“Your prose is hypnotic, absolutely gemlike,” Lane said. “That’s what drew me in.”

“And the story,” Lana took up. “Devastating.”

As Doreen set cups of soup on the table, Lane murmured in agreement. “I wonder, though, whether it wouldn’t be even more powerful if the Creole girl came back into the novel.”

“Oh,” said Margot, forgetting her social discomfort and finding her voice. “That’s just it. She never leaves. She is always with Laird, always his inspiration. She’s his better self.”

“And that comes off marvelously. You really pulled that off. But I’m wondering if there’s a way to embody that, by giving her an actual scene.” Lane sipped her soup expertly from the almost flat cutlery.

Lana was not quite so skilled with her spoon, and Margot noticed other differences between the two women who had at first seemed almost clones of each other: Lana’s jewelry was gold while Lane’s was dainty and silver, and Lana spoke a little louder.

Lana said, “Exactly. Embody as in body. Maybe her body could re-enter the picture, if you see what I mean. Or does leprosy, you know, affect all areas of the body?”

Margot detected a patronizing sympathy as Lane paused from her soup to smile at her.

Lana continued. “I know. What if the beautiful Creole girl hears of Laird’s sacrifice and comes to join him, even though she knows that she, too, will contract the disfiguring disease? I can’t think of anything more romantic.”

“But it’s her absence, see, more than her presence. She’s his ideal. He can only approximate her.” Margot’s voice locked as Doreen replaced her soup cup with the most frightening plate of food she had ever seen.

Sticking out from the two triangles of bread that purported to make the meal a sandwich were the grotesque legs of an extraordinarily large soft-shell crab. “You’re not crab salad,” Margot whispered to the gangly dead creature before her.

“I take Margot’s point,” Lane was saying. “And, let’s be frank, leprous sex isn’t, well, it isn’t sexy. Frankly, it’s disgusting. I’ll grant you that there’s probably a pervert or two in the world into it. No one else wants to read about that. No one.” She paused as Doreen set before her a large plate containing three yam ravioli decorated with drizzles of brown butter and a bouquet of sage leaves. “But I do think the Creole woman could come to him. Maybe for a non-contact visit, like through the glass in prison scenes. Or maybe Laird turns her away. As drastically as he loves her and wants to see her, he won’t risk her well being. Now
that
would be romantic.”

Margot worked a fork and knife as inconspicuously as she could through one of the crab’s legs, seeking a bite-size piece of food. The soup had awakened her appetite, but it would be difficult to lift the monstrous sandwich even if she didn’t care how uncouth she looked. And in front of her editor and agent on what was supposed to be the best day of her life, it didn’t seem possible. She put down her cutlery, deciding that soup and dessert would be plenty, would be just right. “Actually,” she said, “leprosy isn’t really that contagious. You generally have to live in close quarters with someone for a decade to contract it.”

Lane and Lana relished their normal-looking food, saying “delicious” and “to die for.” Margot’s stomach rumbled as she saw Lana twirl linguine on the long tines of her fork. She caught whiffs of garlic, fennel, and something with a bit of fire to it.

Lane paused from eating. “I only ask that you give it some thought. You’re the author, of course.” She weighted the word ‘author’ as though to make sure Margot heard that she’d said author rather than writer. “But I
am
going to have to put my foot down about the title. I mean, if you really think about it, aren’t all lepers reluctant? And besides, he’s reluctant before he’s a leper. Once he’s a leper, he’s more resigned, right?”

Margot retrieved her purse from the floor and withdrew a wrinkled square of paper. “I brought a list with some ideas.”

“Excellent. Good girl,” Lana exclaimed. “Didn’t I tell you she’d be a dream to work with?”

Margot read the titles she had devised, feeling increasingly wretched as she realized that each and every one of them was much worse than terrible:
Laird the Leper
,
Under the Spanish Moss
,
The Unnatural History of Louisiana
,
Leper in Love
, and
Redemption
. The last made her choke down her own laugh. “They’re terrible. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Lana nodded. Lane smiled kindly and said, “We understand. You’re a virgin.”

“Virgin?”

“First-time author. Don’t worry about it in the least, and that self-deprecating thing you do is really charming. I promise we’ll come up with something.”

“The thing of it is,” Margot recovered, “the thing of it is that I think that
The Reluctant Leper
is the true title. You see, he’s reluctant in his acceptance of his situation, but then he comes to identify with the lepers to such an extent that he becomes one.”

Before she could explain Laird’s multiple levels of reluctance and how they play out in his final choice, Lane cut her off. “Never you worry. I have every editor at the house on the job. They’ve all promised to bring me five titles by Friday. I’ll let you know what we decide.”

Seeming to notice that she was the only one still eating, Lana set down her fork even though it held an entire bite of food. “You mean you’ll run your choices by her and see which ones she likes the most.”

“You’ve got a good agent on your side, Margot. Of course we’ll show her the title. She’s the author.”

The handsome assistant waiter cleared their dishes, and Doreen followed with a dessert tray. Margot’s gaze shifted from a vanilla-raspberry roulade to a walnut-honey napoleon, from a sugar-crusted lemongrass crème brulee to a slice of chocolate cake decorated with thin curls of real gold. “We also have two soufflés,” Doreen said directly to Margot, “chocolate with bitter orange and a really delicious key lime.”

Lana pushed in her stomach. “I really shouldn’t.”

Transfixed by the pastries, Lane answered without looking up, “But you always do. And we can’t leave our author underfed.”

“Starvation is for the unpublished only,” Lana added.

“We haven’t time for the soufflés,” Lane told Doreen, “but bring us one of everything else and three forks for each.”

Fifty minutes and one-third of four desserts later, Margot rang the bell at Jackson’s address and was buzzed in. She ascended the stairwell slowly, made anxious by all that sugar. She was also decidedly sore of foot from her grown-up shoes.

Jackson was standing at his open door when she stepped onto the fourth-floor landing. “Welcome, author.” He smiled before adding in a more natural tone, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Though Margot was used to spending long hours alone and had never been the chatty type, she found herself leaning sideways into Jackson’s sofa, telling him the details of her lunch, her breathing out of pace with her words.

“Are their names really Lane and Lana?” Jackson shook his head in exaggerated disbelief. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing, but perhaps you and I will beat them to the perfect title.”

“You couldn’t do any worse than I did.”

“I know we’d planned to stroll, but what would you think of staying here, sipping some wine? I had Doreen recommend a special bottle to toast your success.”

Margot, without another pair of shoes, was relieved to avoid the walk. “That’s nice, but we must toast your success first.”

“Not yet, Margot. I’ve two more days of agony, and I’m bracing myself for bad news.”

“It will be good news, I’m sure of it. If someone will publish a book about lepers in nineteenth-century Louisiana, they’ll publish anything.” She added hastily, “By which I don’t mean to suggest that your book is just anything. I only meant that any topic has a chance.”

“Your book sounds beautiful, Margot, and I love the few pages you’ve shown me. You’re a master of the perfect word choice, that’s clear.”

Jackson rose and Margot’s gaze followed him into the clean, almost professional looking kitchen. He pulled a bottle from a horizontal wine rack, carefully turning it upright before removing the foil with a small knife and the cork with the attached screw. “Your point about topic is good. I certainly take heart from a review I saw recently—get this—for a hundred-page novel—they’re actually calling it a novel and not a novella—about the siege of Leningrad. Has no one heard of scale? Sounds awful, but the reviewer was nice about it and it certainly gives me hope.”