About two weeks after seeing Margaret and Phil at the Blue Note, Sylvia received a message from a Jane Smith—a familiar name that she couldn’t immediately place.
“Did she say what it was about, Boogie?”
“Only that it was important.”
Something told Sylvia she should call.
“Q&A magazine.”
She knew the publication. An oversize, black-and-white arts and culture monthly with lots of one-on-one interviews. It was hugely successful in Britain. The U.S. edition was three years old. They used good writers. Martin Amis. Henry Louis Gates. Wole Soyinka.
“Oh, hi, Sylvia,” Jane said when she came on the line. “I’m a little frazzled here, bear with me, darling. Diego Peña referred me to you, by the way.”
“Oh, yes, I know Diego very well.”
“Well here’s the story, darling,” Jane continued. “I’d like to talk to you about doing an interview for an upcoming issue. The assigned writer called me last night from rehab, telling me he had to check himself in. God, I didn’t even know he was doing heroin. He’d always seemed more cocaine to me. But anyway, I just happened to be speaking with Diego when I got the call. He’s gonna be our March cover. And he said I should call you. Said you’re absolutely brilliant. What’re you doing for lunch today? Do you wanna meet at around say … two? I know it’s really short notice, but we’re running crazy here—there is just so much drama—and I must go now. But I must talk to you some more.”
“Aah … lemme check my schedule.”
She put the phone down and leaned back in her chair. Q&A was the kind of magazine she wanted to write for. But if she took the assignment she’d have to use a pseudonym. “Two sounds good. Where do you want to meet?”
“How about Café Beulah?”
“Café Beulah at two then.”
Jane’s purple Blahniks swept her into the southern bistro a half hour later than they should have. A fiftyish peroxide blond with short, spiky hair, she had a pale, bony face whose angles weren’t softened by horn-rimmed glasses. Wearing a camel-colored smock over black suede leggings, she toted a big leather pouch that contained, among other cargo, bottles of organic vitamins and minerals, and something labeled “Spirit Water,” which she explained to be H2O filtered through the ashes of a long-departed Navajo medicine man.
“It gives you this dramatic flow of energy,” she said, taking a swig. “I’d let you try it, darling, but each person’s spiritual profile is different and special incantations are said over each bottle before it’s shipped—it’s special-order, you know—to match your spirit profile. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.”
Sylvia shook her head and smiled. Even if this didn’t work out, she thought, at least she’d have some fun.
Over she-crab soup and vegetarian gumbo, they had a free-ranging conversation about the arts and politics. Jane was quite bright, Sylvia realized. She was a big blues fan. In between flirting with the ephebic waiters she would pat her chest and swoon. “Listen to that. That’s Freddie King. He sounds like he’s playing your spine.” And she didn’t place much emphasis on time. Whenever Sylvia tried to loop the conversation to business, Jane would ignore her and ramble on. When Sylvia checked her watch for the seventh time, she dug into her bag for her Nokia.
“Callem and tellem you’re lunching. You’re an editor. You must have long lunches. How else do you show your power?”
Then finally, when the table was cleared, Jane got around to business.
“Okay, here’s the drama,” Jane began. “You’ve heard of A. J. Heath, the novelist, haven’t you, darling? The Rudies? Miriam? Dangling on the Brink of the Edge?”
She hadn’t. But she knew better than to say that.
“Well, he’s who we want you to interview. He’s really neat and bright. He turned down a Rhodes Scholarship because he said Cecil Rhodes was a racist. He was short-listed for the Booker Prize this year but he didn’t win. He should’ve won though. But I think there’s been a backlash against non-British writers. After Rushdie and Okri people started complaining. From talking to you I think the both of you would make a very good interview. It would be five thousand words, at a dollar per word plus expenses. There are basic guidelines for our interviews but our interviewers basically make up their own. We like their personalities to come out as well. And you’ve got loads. Does it sound like something you’d like?”
“Well …” She was hoping Jane wouldn’t ask any deeper questions about the work. She knew nothing of British literature.
“I don’t mean to rush you,” Jane said. “But I do need to know by tomorrow morning.”
Sylvia had been a journalist long enough to know she could do this piece—any piece, really—with a good press kit and some research. But as she walked down Park Avenue to Union Square, thinking about her luck, five thousand easy dollars, she cautioned herself about getting excited. If she took the assignment and was discovered, she would lose her job. But this was the kind of assignment that her résumé needed. She was still thinking of moving on—after finishing the new novel, which she estimated would take a year.
I need to call Diego, she thought as she crossed Fourteenth Street and picked up Broadway. And I need to get copies of those books.
She went to the Strand, a musty used-book store with scuffed wooden floors and shelves and crates packed with books. She found used editions of Miriam and Dangling in rough condition—hardcover without slipcovers.
She asked a clerk for The Rudies.
“Can’t keep it in hardcover,” he said. His nose was pierced in five places. “We don’t get many and when we do they don’t last. Try paperback.”
She squeezed past the crowd milling around the art books table and went to the paperbacks.
“Rudies? We had one today but I think it might be gone. See that trough of books over there? Dig somewhere in there.”
She found the book after a difficult search. It was a thick volume, with a porkpie hat and a .38 Special on the cover. She began to read it on the train platform. The gangland epic engrossed her so much that she was almost home before she realized that she was headed in the wrong direction. There was simply no point in returning to her office.
She called in sick and continued reading and taking notes until three A.M., by which time she was sure she wanted to do it. There was an honesty to the writing and an eye for detail that she found compelling. She began to find the author fascinating. What did he look like? All she knew of him was his blurb. So he was Jamaican and had won a Somerset Maugham and a David Higham, two outstanding awards.
Fuck, she would have to lie to get the time off.
She called Diego.
“Hello?”
She didn’t answer.
“Hello?… Hello? Hello?”
She tried to say something.
“Who the fuck is it? Okay I’m jacking off too, maricón. I’m wearing lace lingerie and I have an ass that’s big like Brooklyn—”
“Hi, Diego, how are you? It’s me.” She sighed heavily.
“Heavy breathing. I knew it had to be some pervert calling me this early in the morning. Lemme go on … I got an ass that’s big like Brooklyn but I wish it was as big as Sylvia Lucas’s ego, because it took her so fucking long, after all the shit we been through, to call me, not to say sorry, but just to say, ‘Motherfucker, how you doing?’ ”
“I’m sorry, Diego,” she whispered. She didn’t want her voice to crack.
“I love you, mi hija.”
“I love you too, Diego. I miss you. I’m sorry about everything.”
“It’s okay. We’re all allowed three stupid things in life. That was one. Getting engaged to Lou-Lou was the second—don’t ask how I know. And if you’re calling to tell me you’re not gonna take the assignment, that’ll be the third. I worked hard to hook you up. I even licked Jane Smith’s lily and I’m allergic to flowers. Come on, fuck it. What’re you worried about? Umbra? Fuckem. What’ve they done for you lately, Janet Jackson? Tell them a relative died in Jamaica. They’ll give you the time. Whose gonna question a death in the family?”
She began to laugh as he outlined the scenario, using different voices.
“You’re right,” she said. “I should go. Even if it’s just to see what it’s like to work at another level again. I owe it to myself.”
“Good. Give Jane a call and tell her you’re down and give me a call back, okay?”
They stayed on the phone for over an hour when she called him back.
“What’re you doing later, by the way?” he asked before hanging up.
“Stay home and read. It’s Saturday. Jane’s sending over a press kit, so I’ll be in.”
“Good. I’ll bring you breakfast.”
He arrived an hour later with juice and croissants. The messenger arrived as soon as he sat down.
“Oh shit …”
Diego looked up. Sylvia was shaking.
“What?”
She was sifting through the package on her way back from the door. “Oh shit.” Her voice was trembling.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I can’t take this assignment, Diego. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t do this.”
“Come on, you’re a professional.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Well tell me.”
She gave him Fire’s photograph. “I had an affair with this guy over the summer.”
November 10, 19—
Dear Fire,
I need a break from this fucking place. Feel like I losing my mind. I hope you get these lines in time. I’m coming to Jamaica on the twenty-fourth at 3:30. I don’t have the flight number. Fuck, how much flight coming from New York at that time? See you then, soon. Mama have a good birthday?
—Ian