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T
here had been a time in his life when Andrew Yarborough considered himself an affluent man. That was before the literary world had gone to pot and before he had fathomed what the life he had grown accustomed to living would actually cost over time. Although at long last his wife was making some money with her goddamn healing workshops and assorted fru fra, she gave away more than she made to organizations buying cosmetics for war refugees and saving obscure species of invariably cute animals.

“Why don’t you save a snake?” he’d asked her once, to which she’d replied, “Snakes are very potent symbols in our unconscious life, and I would be proud to help any species in danger. Certainly no snake is more venomous than you’ve become.”

And, no great surprise, she spent even more than she gave away: a thousand dollars on the contraption that allowed her to bend upside down for hours on end—against gravity, she said—and who knew how much on her ridiculous clothing and the horrible things she hung on the walls of what was supposed to be his home.

They’d helped Margot with school some. Janelle had argued that they should give her a full ride, but Andrew had countered that it had been good for him to make it on his own and that he hoped his daughter could feel at least some of that pride. It was true—he’d admitted as much—that college cost a lot more now than in his day, but that was the reality of her times. His retirement fund held some money, but the stock market had seen to it that it wasn’t as much as he had expected. There was the house, of course, which had cost five figures and was now worth close to seven. But they had to live somewhere, and he was too old to be thinking of moving. Plus, it was the only insurance he had against the nursing home should something happen to dear Margot. She’d take care of him, he knew, but he didn’t trust her mother farther than he could smell her sandalwood perfume.

And so, as much as Andrew would have liked to launch a new literary publication, a journal that would be in every way superior to what Chuck Fadge had turned
The Monthly
into, it hadn’t seemed possible before the sale of Margot’s novel. Andrew was man enough to admit that it was a little humiliating that his daughter’s modest advance was equal to his own, but that was the way of the publishing world—always insulting older talent in the pursuit of youth.

Eyeing Margot’s advance, Andrew told himself he was not merely being selfish. No, Margot was young enough to take the financial risk that he could no longer afford, yet old enough that she should invest in her career rather than frittering away her money. It was in her best interest to use her bit of good fortune to start something worthy, something she could be proud of and eventually take over when he and Quarmbey retired.

Margot had always been a wonderful daughter—almost all a father could hope for despite the unfortunate DNA inherited from her mother—and he promised himself to be more obvious in his displays of paternal affection. And so, for several weeks after Margot finished proofing his galleys, he made a point of joining her at breakfast and of inquiring about her welfare and her work over dinner. He called her into his study several times a week to tell her a joke someone had sent him or to solicit her opinion on some book or other. Once, he asked her what she intended to do with her advance. She shrugged and said that she had put the money in the bank. She was pleased to know where it was, she said, and she’d be glad to have it when she was ready to take her next big step in life. Andrew took this to mean that she was at least agreeable to his proposition, though he worried when brochures for
MFA
programs began to arrive in the mail.

Taking advantage of the holidays as an excuse for entertaining, he invited Quarmbey over for some good cheer. “We must convince Margot that the time is ripe,” he told his old friend over the phone. Next he called a younger man, Frank Hinks, who had published a novel that had met with mixed reviews but of which Andrew approved. Hinks was just the kind of writer Andrew hoped to publish in his new journal—and the sort despised by Chuck Fadge because of his solid, old-fashioned craftsmanship. Andrew believed that Hinks’s presence would help Margot see the value of the undertaking. He also thought he’d be pelting two birds with a single stone if the young man happened to be good-looking enough to bump the horrid Jackson Miller from her affections.

Andrew instructed his wife to prepare some snacks and drinks but to stay out of the conversation beyond the initial pleasantries.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“Nothing at all. I just don’t want you frightening our guests with any of your psychobabble.”

“If you knew me at all, you’d know that I believe that Freudian analysis has done the world far more harm than good. Women especially. Jung is a different matter, of course, but that’s not psychobabble.”

She would have continued ad nauseam, he was sure, had the saving doorbell not sounded.

“Would you be so gracious, dear,” he said, “as to open our home to our guests?”

For the first time in years, his wife surprised him. She stuck out her tongue.

“The orator’s last recourse?” He inserted a sneer in his tone, but what he was thinking was that his wife was still an attractive woman underneath the swirling prints and absurd earrings and layers of so-called natural cosmetics. He pressed this thought from his mind and mixed himself a Scotch and soda.

The smell of cigar smoke on wool moved with Quarmbey into the kitchen, where he made himself at home stirring vodka around a large tumbler of ice.

“What’ll it be for you?” Andrew asked Frank Hinks.

“Wine, I think,” said the younger man, who hurriedly added, “or beer is fine.”

Andrew worked the corkscrew into a bottle of red wine while he took stock of Hinks. Though nondescript, his face was not unattractive. The nose was all right, and he had a decent jaw on him. But Andrew’s hopes shrank to nothing when Hinks removed his blazer, revealing sloped shoulders and womanly hips. The young man had a severely inclined neck, making his face jut far out in front of his body; it was clear that he would look more and more like a turtle as the years went by. He doubted that Margot would go for such a fellow, nor could he wish on himself an old age surrounded by terrapin-like grandchildren. He pulled out the cork with a loud thwop and consoled himself that Hinks could still serve the primary function of convincing Margot to finance the journal.

The three men sat in the living room and talked about the state of literature, Quarmbey arguing that the relegation of literary fiction to university writing programs had drained the vitality from the short story and Hinks arguing that the academy was as good a home and patron to literature as any other arrangement.

“Margot!” Andrew bellowed. “Do pour yourself something and join us.”

When she finally entered the living room, Margot was wearing a simply cut black dress and sipping half a glass of wine.

“What’s your view, Margot,” Quarmbey asked. “Should the country have a fiction laureate in addition to a poet laureate?”

Hinks, who was sitting in the room’s most comfortable chair, huddled himself up and offered the seat he had been occupying to Margot.

She sat and tucked a curl behind her ear. “I think it might lead to more literary quarrelling, and we have quite enough of that as it is.”

Quarmbey and Hinks laughed, murmuring “True, true,” and Andrew produced a smile before steering the conversation to periodicals.

“There’s really no journal or magazine that publishes uniformly fine short stories. The problem with the university-based journals is that it’s always decision-by-committee, or student readers who don’t know what the hell they’re doing, or else editors trying to boost their meager circulations by including the drawer-leavings of anyone with a name bigger than their own. It’s the usual suspects, but it’s the stories
The City
didn’t want.”

“And of course,” chimed in Hinks, “they all publish their friends.”

“And each other,” Quarmbey agreed. “You publish me, and I’ll publish you, and we’ll all get tenure.”

“But the magazines outside the university are just as bad in their own way. Hopping on trends, half of them, or surviving by bilking aspiring writers with contest after contest with ever-higher entry fees and ever-smaller prizes.”

“I’ve spent hundreds of dollars this year,” Hinks said, “and I don’t mean to sound immodest when I say that the winning stories are worse than what I submitted.”

Quarmbey nodded. “The judges often pick the work of their friends or former students. Or else the readers screen out everything that’s actually interesting, leaving the poor judge to try to pick something from among the bland leftovers.”

“The other day,” Hinks said, his neck curved, his head jutting from his tortoise body, “I received a rejection letter from a journal that was considering two of my stories. The editor wrote that she couldn’t decide whether to publish one or both of the stories, so she was going to opt for neither.”

“That’s terrible,” Margot said sympathetically. “I once received my self-addressed stamped envelope back from a journal, and they hadn’t even bothered to put in the form rejection letter. They just sent the empty envelope.”

Hinks pumped his head. “I once received a lovely rejection letter that went on and on about the story’s wonderful control of tone, vivid characterization, and all. Then I realized that it wasn’t even about my story and that some other writer had received my rejection letter.”

“Terrible,” Margot agreed. “And the rejection letters are getting smaller and smaller, have you noticed? I’m all for saving natural resources, but it is disheartening to receive a sentence on one-sixteenth of a piece of paper in exchange for a thirty-page short story.”

“Thirty pages?” Quarmbey asked. “I don’t want to offend you, sweetheart, but that might be the problem right there.”

“There are the glossies, of course,” Andrew put in quickly. “But they’re hodgepodges, and it’s rare for any of them to publish more than one decent story amid their general clap-trap. What this country needs is a good quarterly publication that publishes the highest quality fiction with a few good critical essays.”

“It wouldn’t take a lot of start-up money, either,” Quarmbey added, “and the thing would likely pay for itself in no time, with grant money and such.”

“I think it would be downright successful just in subscriptions. It would take its place between those academy-based annuals and Fadge’s horrendous monthly. It would publish only the finest stories, without taking the pulse of the trendy set. Solid craftsmanship, strong imagery, vivid characterization, classic plot arcs. The kind of stories you write.” Andrew paused and turned to Margot. “Did you know that Mr. Hinks, one of our finest short story writers, has trouble placing his work?”

“That’s terrible,” she said. “Especially since there are so many journals these days.”

“But not of the right kind! Hardly one of them is worth its salt,” Andrew spouted.

“I ran across one the other day,” said Quarmbey, “that actually bragged about publishing no realism whatsoever, while claiming to be socially and politically relevant. How can you pretend to be socially and politically relevant if you don’t publish representations of the times in which you live?”

Hinks shook his head, and the three men proceeded to discuss their imaginary journal as though they were its editorial committee and the first issue was about to go to print.

A good half an hour had passed when Margot, who had finished her drink and was not participating in their conversation, rose to leave. “Can I get anyone another drink before I retire?” she asked, collecting Quarmbey’s empty glass as he nodded.

“Yourself,” Andrew said. “Get yourself another drink.”

His daughter lifted the back of her hand to cover her yawn.

“We very much wanted you to be part of this discussion. I’m thinking about your wellbeing, financial as well as intellectual, and I think the opportunity to launch a really quality literary journal would prepare your way.”

Margot’s gaze held his steadily, yet he could not read it.

“I’d hate to see you squander your literary gains when you could be ensuring not just your literary future but indeed that of your country.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Dad. It’s just so clear to me that there are more journals than there are good stories. Most of them fold. And it seems as though soon more than half of them will be online only. If we start a journal, no one will notice, and what little money I have will be gone.”

Anger rose in Andrew’s chest, but he stayed seated and kept his mouth clamped.

“Besides, my paltry advance would cover you for all of six months.”

Quarmbey countered: “But by then we’d be fundraising, applying for grants, putting on some events, and of course building circulation all the while.”

“I don’t want to be the arbiter of taste,” Margot said. “I just want to write some stories and then maybe another novel.”

Now Andrew rose and in his lowest growl said, “About what? Syphilitics in Alabama? That’s what the world needs, not a quality journal, no indeed, but a very quiet novel about syphilitics in Alabama written by an upper-middle-class white girl from Annandaleon-Hudson.”

Quarmbey looked down and shook his head. Hinks rose, placing a physical obstacle between father and daughter.

“You’ve always been bellicose and pig-headed and basically selfish. But I didn’t realize until just now that you are a cruel man.” Margot did not cry before leaving the room.

“It’s time for you to leave,” Andrew told the two men. “My wife will drive you to the train.”

Later, he sat in the dark in his study and pictured himself walking down the hall, tapping softly on his daughter’s door, asking if he could read her a story. He knew he should go and apologize, but he could not translate the thought into action, could not lift himself to stand. He pushed the skin of his face, using his fingertips to smooth it up and out, trying to remember the names of the books he’d read to Margot when she was a child. Some of them he must have read a hundred times, forcing himself to repeat them over and over while she listened raptly, fighting sleep, as though the ending might be different each time.