It was too early to check into La Posada, so I left my bags and slipped out for a walk through downtown Santa Fe. Once the writers’ conference began, the world would shrink to the size of the hotel, and between workshops, panels, pitch sessions, luncheons, and dinners, I would have no time to indulge myself. Blazing sun glanced off the adobe buildings and flooded the streets; the air tasted of pine and dust. It was just past noon and very hot. Island-dweller that I was, I felt the altitude as a lessening of gravity, as if a single strong gust would send me soaring, Chagall-like, over the adobe walls into the deep-blue distant sky.
Over the course of a year, I, like most agents, receive a dozen or more invitations to attend writers’ conferences. Most I turn down, because it’s rare to find a publishable writer among the attendees, much less one whose work I loved enough to take on. But this Santa Fe conference held two big attractions. The first was that one of my favorite clients, Max Messinger, was among the presenters; the second was Santa Fe itself. I’d been there with Hugo, a year into our marriage, and if I kept my eyes straight ahead, I could imagine him striding beside me, hear his voice in my ear.
I found my way to the plaza, which looked exactly as I’d remembered it and probably not very different from the way it had looked two hundred years ago. In the portal of the Palace of the Governors, Native American women sat on low stools behind blankets covered with crafts: jewelry for the most part—silver and turquoise and coral—but also woven blankets and rugs, baskets, pottery. The women did not hawk their wares but rather sat in dignified silence, speaking only when addressed. On the last day of our visit, Hugo bought me a silver pendant set with turquoise and coral from a woman who mistook me for his daughter. I wondered if she was still there. Resisting the lure of the shady cottonwoods, I crossed to the portal and made my way down the line of vendors. I studied each one in turn, but if the seller was among them, I didn’t recognize her.
Well, I thought, twelve years. Anything can change in twelve years. Isabel Delgado, Hugo’s friend and collaborator, might have sold her house on Canyon Road, though I hoped not, for it suited her so well. It had adobe walls a foot thick and rounded windows, hand-carved vigas, and kiva fireplaces in all the principal rooms. The terra-cotta floors were strewn with bright Navajo rugs, and niches in the walls displayed her collection of Indian pottery. There was a separate adobe outbuilding fitted up as a state-of-the-art music studio, where she and Hugo worked on the project that had brought us to Santa Fe: a rock opera based on his first novel, Distant Cries. Every morning, before they started working, the three of us drank coffee on the patio beneath a trellis of orange trumpet vine, surrounded by pots of periwinkle, sage, and desert marigolds. Afterward I’d leave them and go off on my own to explore the city.
In the early days of my marriage, I had been wary of other women. Hugo was a famous playboy, and I did not yet feel myself an equal partner in our marriage; I didn’t even feel equal to the worldly, accomplished women who orbited around him. But Isabel Delgado didn’t worry me, because the composer was old, forty-five at least, well past the age of dalliance. (That Hugo was even older never occurred to me; in my eyes he was ageless.) She was a fine-looking woman for her age, tall and slender with strong features and long black hair, filigreed with silver, that she wore in a single braid down the middle of her back. Though she was as acclaimed in her world as Hugo was in his, she lived simply and without airs. And she was kind to me in an Auntie Mame sort of way. She gave me things: an embroidered shawl, turquoise earrings, and a Hopi bowl . . . When Hugo died, she flew to New York for the memorial service.
I should call her, I thought. But somehow I didn’t care to.
• • •
I had checked in with the conference organizers and was just getting my room key when a hand clasped my shoulder. At once I flashed back to Sam Spade grabbing me on the street and, without thinking, I knocked the hand away and spun around.
Max Messinger raised both hands. “Easy there, bruiser.”
“Max!” I cried, and we fell into each other’s arms. Max was a legacy from Molly, but one I’d long since made my own. He was six-foot-two with a gleaming bald head, a trim goatee, and one gold hoop earring. Before he took to writing thrillers for a living, he’d been an FBI profiler, and before that a field agent. I kept expecting the sedentary life of the writer to take its toll, but the body pressed to mine was as soft as a refrigerator.
He held me at arm’s length and inspected the goods. “You’re a breath of New York air.”
“My new scent: Eau D’exhaust.”
He laughed. “Come have a drink.”
I asked the desk clerk to send my bags to my room and hooked my arm in Max’s. We strolled out to the garden and chose a table beside a fountain. There was something so comforting about being with Max; it was like walking a mastiff.
“How’s Molly?” he asked.
People asked me all the time, and I usually said she was doing fine, holding her own. I couldn’t lie to Max, though. “Not great. It’s in her bones now.”
He said all there was to say, which was nothing. Dragonflies darted through the spray of the fountain. A waitress came and took our orders: white wine for me, beer for Max.
When she left, Max said, “Barry sends his love and two pots of jam from our very own strawberry patch. Can you believe those words coming from a New York Jew? Life is so incongruous.”
“Who does the canning?” I asked.
“Elves. You didn’t think Barry would stain his lily-whites, did you?”
Barry Roth was an entertainment lawyer and Max’s husband. Molly took credit for the match, having sent Max to Barry when the movie rights to his first book sold. Within a month they were living together; and days after gay marriage was briefly legalized in California, Molly and I flew to L.A. for their wedding. At the dinner we sat next to Max’s mother, Estelle, a plump little widow from Queens, who danced the hora with gusto and confided, after a few White Russians, “I always hoped he’d marry a nice Jewish girl. But two out of three ain’t bad.”
Of course, by then Max was out of the FBI. They’d known he was gay—Max was too big to fit in any closet—but marriage might have strained his colleagues’ grudging acceptance to the breaking point. Or so I imagined, for while Max made prodigious use of his years in the bureau for his thrillers, he rarely talked about his own time there. Couldn’t have been easy, I imagined, being gay and Jewish to boot. But writers do tend to be outsiders, and whatever else he was, Max was a writer to the bone.
Over our drinks we discussed his new publisher. I had moved him over to Random for a three-book deal with a 50 percent bump in his advances and a fresh marketing plan to back up their investment. The first book was due out in a few weeks and Random had already gone back for a second printing. There was a twelve-city tour in the works, along with a national radio campaign. Max should have been over the moon, and a part of him was, but another part of him worried. “What if they don’t earn out? What if I don’t make the list?”
Writers. Every one I’d ever met was bipolar, the poles being arrogance and insecurity. Even my Hugo had had his moments of doubt. I never knew what would trigger them. A clueless review, the success of a lesser writer (not even great writers, I’d learned, were immune to jealousy), a significant birthday. It was better in Paris, where we spent six months of every year, but the troughs between books were always fraught with danger. I’d come home from shopping on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, carrying our daily baguette, fruit, and cheese, to find him sprawled across our brass bed, wiry gray hair furrowed with tugging, surrounded by balled-up sheets of loose-leaf paper.
“I’m done,” he’d say. “I’m finished. I’m out of words.”
“They’ll come back,” I’d promise. And they always did.
Max had opened a menu and was studying it closely. “I’m starving. Eating for two now, you know.”
“Excuse me?”
He gave me a sly grin. “Didn’t I tell you? We’re pregnant.”
“Highly unlikely.”
“And yet true, thanks to an egg donor and a lovely surrogate named Pamela.”
I was speechless, but Max, secure in my delight, rattled on without noticing. He’d always wanted kids, he said. Barry was the hold-out, but when he hit forty, something changed. “We don’t know which of us is the biological father. Better that way, don’t you think?”
“Much better.” I managed a smile. It’s not that I wasn’t happy for them. He’d taken me by surprise was all.
“If it’s a girl, we’re naming her Molly.”
Something cold and hard throbbed in me, like the beating of a dead heart.
“You don’t think she’ll be offended?” he asked. “Technically Jews aren’t supposed to name children after the living.”
“She’ll be thrilled and honored. It’s a lovely name. If I’d had a daughter, I’d have called her Molly.” I don’t know why I said that. It felt like sticking a fork in my hand. There was a time when I thought Hugo and I would have a child. It didn’t happen. Since then I’d put fruitless longing behind me and moved on. Still, now and then it flared up, like malaria or some hidden disease of the heart.
Max probed my face. At certain angles, you could still see the detective in him. “What’s going on in your life, Jo?”
“Same old same old. Fighting with publishers. Doing their job for them.”
“And? Anyone special?”
That again. Max was as bad as Molly, always urging me to start dating, get back in the game. I’d had offers, from men far more attractive than the oily Teddy Pendragon, but none of them were Hugo; none of them compared.
“You know,” I said, “ever since you found wedded bliss, you’ve turned into an awful yenta.”
“I come by it honestly,” Max said. “You met my mother.”
“You should be glad I’m married to my work. No distractions.”
“It’s not all about me.”
“Shhh!” I said, looking around. “Don’t let the Authors Guild hear you.”
“I mean it, Jo. Listen to Uncle Max. The best book in the world won’t keep you warm at night. You need a man for that.”
“You think? Goose down’s warmer, and a lot more malleable.”
“Always with the jokes,” he said, sighing.
• • •
My suitcase was waiting in the room. I unpacked and took a long shower. When I came out of the bathroom, I went to check my e-mail and realized only then that my laptop was missing.
I called the desk. The clerk took the particulars and promised to send the computer over at once. I finished dressing, dried my hair, and did my makeup; then, as the computer still hadn’t arrived, I took the conference folder outside to read on the patio, which was shaded by a large oak and surrounded by sweet-smelling banks of geranium, sage, and lavender. The folder contained a list of presenters with bios; a schedule of all events, with a digest of mine; and four novel synopses to be read prior to Sunday’s one-on-one pitch sessions. Among the writers on the presenters’ list was one whose work I admired, and I made a mental note to seek her out. I don’t poach writers from other agents, but it never hurts to plant a seed. There were editors from Doubleday, Crown, Morrow, and a few smaller houses. The agents were a mixed bag: some one-man shops, some junior agents from large agencies, and a smattering of regional agents I didn’t know at all.
I put the file aside. It was time for the cocktail party, and I was ready for a drink. From the pool area came the sound of children laughing and splashing, but the garden was deserted.
The phone rang. I went inside and answered. The hotel manager’s voice sounded spongy, like plush carpet laid over a waterbed. He was so sorry; he couldn’t explain it—this never, ever happened—but somehow my laptop had disappeared from the luggage room.
“Find it,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely. We’ll search the entire hotel if we have to. We’ll—”
“I’m going out,” I said. “I’ll be gone for an hour. When I return, I expect to find my laptop in my room.” I hung up. I hadn’t raised my voice, hadn’t tapped the arsenal of invective amassed over a decade of New York City cab rides. I know disaster when I see it, and this was no disaster. Nevertheless I was furious. How dare they? My entire life was on that computer. I couldn’t have felt more exposed if I’d walked naked into a ballroom.
• • •
“They what?” Max said.
“You heard.”
He couldn’t stand up—he was already standing. But he gave the impression of doing so. “Allow me to deal with this.”
I put my free hand on his arm. The other held a double scotch. “I gave them an hour. Let’s not haul out the big guns just yet.”
“Is something wrong?” said a voice behind me.
I recognized that smarmy tone at once, though his name hadn’t been on the list.
“Charlie,” I said. “What a surprise.” Charlie Malvino, my former employee, was the only man in the crowded hospitality suite dressed in a suit and tie, and I had to admit it suited his sleek, foxy looks. Give him a cane and a top hat and he could have doubled for a young Fred Astaire.
“Last-minute thing,” he said. “I’m pinch-hitting for Janie Aldridge.”
“Is she all right?”
“She is. One of her brood has chicken pox or measles or whatever rug rats get these days.” He turned to Max with a charming smile and outstretched hand. “Charlie Malvino, Mr. Messinger. We met when I worked for Jo.”
“I remember,” Max said in a markedly cool tone. I never told him about the business with Charlie, but Max keeps his ear to the ground. Or maybe he hadn’t cared for the rug rat remark.
“You sounded upset, Jo,” Charlie said. “Is something wrong?” He looked concerned, but I saw the smirk hovering below that blond wisp of a mustache. I considered the possibility that he had hijacked my laptop just to mess with me. Unlikely, I decided. Charlie preferred the safety of cyberspace. After I fired him, he’d led a chorus of attacks on me by bloggers, which was picked up by Gawker, Mediabistro, and various publishing gossip sheets. I was scourged as “a top literary agent who defends free speech for writers while denying it to her employees.” The charge stung, though it wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t objected to Charlie’s pseudonymous “Jack the Ripper” blog, only to his using it to make fun of writers we’d rejected.
It was a mean-spirited blog, but funny and full of insider gossip. Like most people in the industry, I read it now and then for a laugh and joined in the speculation about the Ripper’s real identity. I’d had my suspicions—the voice was familiar—but I wasn’t sure until the day he posted a sampling of that month’s slush-pile rejects.
I read the blog on a Wednesday night, six months ago. The first thing I did was call Molly. By then she’d turned the agency over to me, but Charlie was her hire and he’d worked there longer than I had. We talked it through and agreed on what had to be done. The next morning, I went in early, copied Charlie’s files, and started sorting through his list. Lorna saw me doing it, but Lorna’s loyalty was to me alone. At ten o’clock I heard Charlie stroll into the office. A moment later he tapped on my open door.
“Lorna said you wanted to see me?”
“Come in,” I said. “Shut the door.”
He took the visitor’s seat and arranged his narrow face into a look of polite interest that told me he knew damn well why he was there. Carelessly, recklessly, he’d blown his cover.
“What were you thinking?” I said.
He stroked his mustache, a recent acquisition. “About what, Jo?”
“Let’s not waste time. I read your blog.”
I watched as he considered playing dumb and wisely decided against it. “Were you amused?” he asked.
“I was the first time you said those things, in this office. It was a lot less funny online where anyone could read it, including the writers you ridiculed.”
“I didn’t use names.”
“You summarized their stories; you quoted from their work. You don’t think they’ll find out?”
“What are the odds?” he scoffed.
“Quite good, I should think. Unpublished writers read agent blogs.”
“You should read what they write about us. I could show you some sites—they rip into literary agents like we’re all a bunch of goose-stepping little Hitlers conspiring to squash their creative genius.”
“I’ve read them. So what? It’s just writers blowing off steam. Rejection hurts, Charlie. Why would you think of pouring salt on the wounds?”
“Hey, it’s a tough business. If they can’t take the heat, let ’em self-publish.” He leaned back in his seat and stretched out his legs.
I would have fired him anyway, because sooner or later he was bound to be outed as Jack the Ripper, and when he was I didn’t want his name associated with my agency. The arrogance of his posture just made it easier. Charlie had never been a writer, never lived with one. He had no idea what that life is like, starting with all the rejection on the front end, which is like hazing except that it continues even after you make the club. For every yes, there are a dozen nos. Once Hugo started publishing, rejection was not a concern, but he still bore the scars, along with every other writer in our large acquaintance.
“Pack your stuff and get out,” I said.
Charlie was too astonished to argue. If he’d imagined this encounter, none of his scenarios had ended this way. He left the room without another word, and a short while later I heard him stomp out of the office. By then I was already on the phone to one of his clients.
I called only those I wanted to keep, good earners or good writers or, in a few cases, both. “Charlie’s leaving the agency,” I told them. I didn’t say why, and though they probed and hinted, none came right out and asked. “I’m not sure what he’ll be doing next, but I wanted to let you know that you won’t be left hanging. We value our association with you, and if you choose to stay with Hamish and Donovan, I will undertake to represent you myself.”
Some agreed on the spot. Others, to their credit, asked for time to consider—time for Charlie to make his case. But in the end, every one of them accepted my offer. Charlie had the relationship, but I had the agency, the name, the connections, and the reputation. It was no contest. And there was no malice to it, not on my end. Those writers were agency clients; I had as much right to them as he did. If I’d wanted to hurt him, I could have taken his whole list.
Charlie, of course, didn’t see it that way. He was furious, but there was nothing he could do except bitch online. According to Molly, with whom he stayed in touch, things didn’t work out badly for him. He took his remaining list and set up shop in his apartment. Someone at Mediabistro put two and two together and outed him, but far from hurting, the publicity from the blog and his firing brought in a flood of submissions. I heard he’d even sold a book or two since then.
I could see that he still hadn’t forgiven me. He smiled, and spite glinted in his eyes. He asked how I was doing and I said fine and he said he was glad to hear it, because he’d hate to think of anything bad happening to me. I said grow up, why dontcha, and we smiled some more. Max interrupted all this smiling by slinging an arm around my shoulders and walking me away.
“Sweet guy,” he said.
“For an asshole.”
“If your laptop doesn’t show up, I know where to look.”
“He’s not stupid,” I said. Then I had a vision of my computer lying at the bottom of the pool and my stomach clenched.