Scissors (19 page)
At the end of what seemed like an eternity, I turned over abruptly, determined to wake Dan up so he’d stop breathing down my neck.
But he wasn’t snuggled against me. He was sitting in the wicker chair.
I pushed away the hair blocking my sight. When my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I saw that Dan was staring into space, as frightened as if he’d just learned that his days were numbered.
I stretched out my arms to him.
“I’m here,” I said. “Don’t you see me? I’m here. My love. I’m here.”
On Saturday we take up our posts at O’Brien’s, an Irish pub a few steps from our house. We sit in a corner and set to work. Each of us has a copy of the story. I drink tea. Raymond has apple juice, which is the color of whiskey.
“ ‘The Mattress.’ You’re sure about the title?”
“Positive.”
“But is the mattress at the heart of the story? Besides, what kind of mattress are we talking about?”
At first he thinks I’m joking. Then he realizes I’m not going to let anything pass.
“They talk about an innerspring.”
“Then you should call it ‘Innerspring.’ ” I scratch out the original title.
“ ‘The Innerspring,’ then,” Raymond says.
“I think ‘Innerspring’ is very good.”
He laughs his little laugh.
“What’s funny?”
His face melts me, but I’m not about to relent. I say, “Are we playing or are we working?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that … it’s the title Douglas would have chosen.”
He stops laughing and concentrates on the story. I emulate him. The manuscript of Raymond’s collection, sent back by Douglas, is under my copy of “Innerspring.” Douglas’s manuscript bears no trace of his cuts. The edited text is clean, unmarked, retyped at Raymond’s expense. I’ve checked the number of pages. More than half have disappeared.
I didn’t dare tell him. I was evasive. “His cuts aren’t all bad,” I said, trying to spare him a shock. If he saw them, he’d start drinking again.
At the end of several minutes, he looks up at me and says, “Have you finished going through Douglas’s manuscript?”
“Raymond. We’re correcting ‘Innerspring.’ ”
“Sorry, I lost focus.” He turns his attention back to the story. “ ‘Innerspring,’ ” he says, his voice trailing off. “Why not?” He sips his apple juice and makes a note of the new title.
When he puts down his glass, he notices the envelope. “Say, what’s in there?”
“Hands off!” I say, tapping his fingers.
“Joanne—”
“I’ll show it to you later.”
“How many cuts?”
“Later, I said.”
He wants to know. The most I can do is delay the moment a little.
“Raymond, you say it yourself: You have to revise a story while it’s still warm.”
I don’t like the expression on his face. His left eyebrow’s more furrowed than usual. Like he was ogling a bottle of gin.
I’m afraid he’s going to snatch the envelope away from me, but I don’t put my hand on it. Let him decide.
He smiles and looks toward the bar.
I should be relieved, but I remain tense. My eyes go back to “Innerspring.” The page with the last words is sticking out from under the rest of the pages.
“Let’s start at the end,” I say.
“The end?”
“The final sentences.”
He picks up the page and begins to read slowly. “ ‘I’m here … Don’t you see me? I’m here. My l—’ ”
“ ‘My love. I’m here,’ ” I say, finishing it for him so it won’t take two hours.
“You don’t like the ending?”
“I think we can get rid of the third ‘I’m here,’ don’t you?”
“Wait,” he says, looking at the page.
I start to lose patience. “The reader understands she’s there. No need to say it three times!”
I pick up my pencil and strike the third “I’m here.” I press so hard the lead breaks, leaving a zigzag mark on the page.
I look at Raymond out of the corner of my eye. He’s gazing at the envelope.
I say, “And you know what? I almost feel like striking ‘My love,’ too.”
“Striking it?”
“I don’t see what it’s doing there.”
“It’s what she feels.”
I’m waiting for his tongue to slip, I’m waiting for him to tell me, “It’s what Marianne feels.”
“As far as I’m concerned, she’s not in love anymore. Yes, she wants to save her marriage. She’s hanging on to that. But there can’t be any more talk of love. If the story ends with that word—”
“It ends with ‘I’m here.’ ”
“She’s there, but her love for him, that’s gone. It’s run away, it’s flown off!” I say, flinging my hands in the air. “That’s what the story’s about, isn’t it?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s more complicated than that,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s some ambiguity.”
“That’s the whole question.”
He looks up at me. I raise my teacup and hide behind it.
Raymond turns a few pages. “Show me the places where the ambiguity poses a problem.”
I sit back in my chair and start to go over the story again. But I can’t concentrate. Or rather, I focus on details. I search for proof that this story is truer than the others.
Is he still in love with her?
I look at him.
He’s not paging through the story anymore. He’s filched the envelope Douglas sent.
“Raymond!”
He winks at me, holds up the envelope, and slips out the manuscript.
I heave a sigh. I’m afraid for him, for us.
He mutters, “I can’t let him do this,” and turns over the cover page.
“July 8, 7 a.m.”
Should I put the time or not? What’ll he think if I do? He’ll think I’m a wreck. Ah well, let him think that, since it’s the case.
“Dearest Douglas, You have to get me out of
…
I have to get out of this. I’m going to explain and you’ll understand. Things have never seemed so clear to me.”
May as well lay it all out.
“
Even though I didn’t sleep last night. I’ve been rereading the manuscript and looking at your changes, your amputations, your
…”
He calls them cuts. Better just write “your cuts” so as not to antagonize him.
“I’ve
read over all the stories and examined every sentence, I’ve consulted the original texts and compared the two versions, yours and mine
.”
Watch out here. Kid gloves.
“Yours is often better than mine.”
Tell him that so he’ll listen to the rest.
“Douglas, listen to me, I’ve reread the manuscript until the letters jumped off the page and started vibrating in front of my face. Not an hour ago, I was still shooing them away like flies. If Joanne had woken up, she would have called the emergency number and I would have wound up in the same medical center as I did
two years ago. The one that used to be a hospital for the criminally insane. You could see their names carved into the linoleum with knives, and their obscene drawings
…”
What’s got into me, telling him that? Besides, it’s not true. The medical center was built only recently. I’m writing a short story.
“But now I can see clearly. I don’t want my stories to be published in their present form. (Did you edit ‘Mine’? It looks as though you didn’t—I counted the same number of words as in my version.) Put simply, they’re no longer my stories. I recognize something very dark in them that resembles my past life, but I don’t see myself in them as I am today. I’ve come through all that. I sure came close to not making it, but if there’s one thing this collection—in my version—shows, it’s that I’ve come through. I didn’t write twenty-two short stories as hard-edged as despair. I don’t know where that despair comes from, Douglas. Is it yours?”
Christ. I tell him that and I’m dead. He’ll scrap my stories. I have to win him over, soften him up with compliments.
“Cutting the last five pages of ‘Think Twice’ (which you’ve renamed ‘Fill It with Super’) so that it ends just when the guy finds himself alone in the middle of the desert—you ought to get a medal for that, the Astutest Editor Award. But that’s just it, it’s not mine. It’s too brilliant to be mine.”
Precisely, he’ll reply. Precisely.
“I know you’re going to think I’m an ingrate. I’m not forgetting that you’ve spent long hours, maybe even entire nights, revising these stories to make them better. They’ve cost you time and money. I want you to know that I’ve just placed the check, the generous advance you procured for me, in an envelope, and I’m prepared to return it to you.”
That makes me think … The check I mailed him to cover his typing expenses is sure to bounce. Let’s wait until he asks me for the money. Don’t make a move until he asks for it.
“Now I fear the worst. If just one of my stories were to be published in your version, I think I’d be blocked again, incapable of writing. Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
And look at this, I’m starting to shake. “You
have to understand: I’ve escaped from the grave. I had one foot in it already, thanks to alcohol, but these stories saved me, they got me out. They’re the proof that I survived. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
”
No, no all caps. Strike that. Makes me sound like my back’s against the wall.
“That’s why I’m dedicating the collection to Joanne.”
Why bring that up? He’ll take it badly. He loves when the books he’s butchered are dedicated to him.
“Douglas, if you could publish my stories as I wrote them, correct them a little, improve them without changing them entirely, if you could be content with doing that, I wouldn’t have this feeling that I’m in danger …”
Good grief, I’m getting paranoid. A case of acute paranoia. “God
Almighty, Douglas, please get me out of this
.
“Raymond
“P.S. You understand me, don’t you? I’m asking you to stop production on my short-story collection. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Not humble enough. Too short and not sufficiently humble. I’ll toss it and start over. I can write it straight out and have it finished before the mailman comes. Already eight o’clock. Twenty cigarettes in one hour. Joanne’s still asleep.
I’ve got to finish this letter and mail it before she wakes up and sees me in this state.
“
July 8, 8 a.m. Dearest Douglas
…”
His July 8 letter. The long supplication of Raymond. I read it, of course. I read it, but I didn’t heed it.
Heeding it would have been a mistake.
Don’t get too close to your authors; if you do, they’ll make you pay.
They’ll drag you into considerations that aren’t and shouldn’t be yours.
Ray can’t unilaterally interrupt a process I’ve put my whole weight, my whole reputation into.
My blood, my sweat.
His collection has to appear with all my revisions, just as they are. It has to appear minus the passages I’ve cut, whether he wants it to or not. As for his letter …
I was about to tear it up, but I’ve changed my mind.
It would have been a mistake.
There’s a market for authors’ letters. Even when they’re badly written.
*
Ray’s story collection was published on July 20, as scheduled.