Chapter 20

Northwest Airlines flies nonstop to Denver, and I book it even though American Airlines is the “official airline of the Oprah Winfrey Show.” I plan to leave on Thursday. I check my list. Have I done all I’m willing to do to make my latest book a bestseller? Maybe I can pretend to be a linen representative. Bette says when Oprah finally realized her wealth she surrounded herself with lush linens from around the world. She’s passionate about them. But she probably already has what she needs and I couldn’t afford to buy any to use as my “stock” to pitch her with anyway. Riding a bicycle through the hallways of her studio shouting, “telegram for Miss Winfrey” and handing her my book in a box wrapped like high-end chocolate doesn’t seem like the greatest idea either. I’ve run out of ideas. Maybe Randolph’s scheme is my last resort, that, and salvaging Miranda. I hope to mold the relationship with Irving into something long-term at Ardor Publishing. I have to get him to sign off on this book, authorize the next portion of the advance, and approve my idea for the next one. “I can do all things,” I remind myself. Or at least God can.

Ho-Bee will stay with Kari and Clint as I can get a cheaper round-trip ticket and fly back into Chicago. Then with success on my trail, I’ll hop the bus with Ho-Bee and head home. I’ll miss my royal, loyal pal Ho-Bee while I’m gone. “At least wanting a bestseller brought you to me.” I nuzzle his neck.

“John’s less lonely here,” Bette tells me when I call to let her know of my plans. She’s taken John to her own apartment. “People say cats are independent souls but I think they’re closet romantics. They don’t want to admit they need other people but they start acting strange when they’re alone too long.”

“I always left the radio on for him.”

“I know, but it’s hard to curl up with a radio. This way, if the power goes down, he’ll be in a climate controlled environment with a radio, CD player, whatever a cat of his culture likes.”

“Maybe I should have leased out my apartment for three months. I’d have saved some money,” I say.

“You’re certainly obsessed with money, these days,” Bette says. “I remember when you lived to write. Now it seems like you write to live. That wasn’t part of our bestseller goal.”

“ ‘I will not go there,’ says the cat. ‘I will not go there, that is that!’ “

Bette laughs. “Ok, so don’t think about it.” I wish I could. “Is John coughing up fewer bezoars?” I ask. “Haven’t seen any this week.”

“Good. I’ve been so absorbed in all this, in the plight of my life and how broke I am that I haven’t kept up well with you or John or anyone. I feel so self-centered. You know, I was a cellulite bump away from actually, maybe, if all worked out well, getting to meet Oprah. My oiled body betrayed me.” I ended up with a huge black and blue bruise and my muscles tensed back up like I’d climbed Mt. Everest, but I don’t tell Bette that. I don’t want my pals to think me ungrateful for gifting me with the massage. “I have a lot of foot treatment stuff I bought. When I get back, we’ll have a foot soaking party, a small thank you for paying for the massage. Meanwhile, I use it ‘everyday’ as I was told by the massage therapist. ‘Don’ wait. Every day,’ “ I say, as Croatian as I can.

“You could chuck it all and go back to Spain, Annie.”

“I don’t think Jaime really meant to suggest that we could somehow work things out. Nothing has changed from when I left. And besides, my translator was only eleven. She probably got it wrong.”

“But Kari read it too and what he said wasn’t just an offer, Annie. It’s a promise.”

“You’re right. Publishers make offers. Agents make offers. Publicists make offers.”

“They make promises, too. Just as lovers do. Along with commitments.”

“He was never my lover,” I say. “We never—”

“You know what I mean. He introduced you to his mother, for heaven’s sake. And his sister. He’s serious.”

“I’m not.”

“And the question is … why not?”

I can’t answer her. I think of the chameleon I made at the Children’s Museum and I think I might be seeing with new eyes.

Bette sighs. “Well, try to keep in mind that if things don’t go exactly the way you want in Denver that you still have other options.”

“I’m not going back to Spain, Bette—”

“Other financial options. You have two bedrooms. You could always sublet your office to a roommate to help pay the bills. I know a couple of people at work who might be interested. Maybe the newlyweds your agent is uniting will need a place to live for awhile.”

“Very funny. Subletting to a total stranger won’t be my first choice for getting out of debt,” I say, “but I appreciate your effort to strategize.”

“You can always get clear about what matters —”

“— Have the courage to act on that.”

“Bingo,” she says and I can see her pointing her finger at me long distance.

We finish talking about the bills. She gets me up to date on the Sunday school kids. She’s thinking of signing up for an art class at the college. “Oh, and your lawn mowing kid asked for a final payment. I guess you forgot about him.” I had. “See you when you get back,” she signs off cheerfully.

Ho-Bee has a supply of food and a new pillow in his kennel where he’ll stay while Clint and Kari work. Kari’s agreed to take him for a walk twice a day and I’ve provided her with pooper-scooper items to finish up with. I’m set to go west and meet the maker — or breaker of my career.

“Maybe you should fly to Spain when you finish meeting with your editor,” Kari suggests as she drives me to the airport. “To find out if you came home when maybe you should have remained. Maybe all this misery with your writing, something that used to give you so much joy, is really part of a larger plan. A divine intervention.”

“It would take that kind of intervention for me to fly back to Spain,” I say. “I made a choice. It’s over for Jaime and me. It was then and still is. I have a book to finish and a career needing a major fire built beneath it. No more kindling and that’s that.”

On the plane, I sit next to a man who, after we exchange stories about airline travel and comment on our occupations, tells me that he’s always wanted to write a book.

“Good for you,” I say and mean it. “I think people doing research on bezoars would have interesting stories to tell.” Is it coincidence that I actually know what a bezoar is? That bit of knowledge impresses him.

“It’s quite a fascinating research project and I plan to work that in, what composes hair balls in cats and how to diminish them. It’s all that licking that does it. All that self-indulgent grooming cats are known for makes their hair roll into a ball that can actually choke them.”

“Imagine getting choked by self-absorption,” I say. “I heard that’s how people catch peacocks, too, by putting out a mirror. The peacocks can’t pass by without preening in front of it. Gives their keepers time to throw a net over them. Vanity,” I say. Then think, “Not unlike humans, I suppose.” I suffer from a mental health disorder I’ve decided: It’s either metaphormosis, seeing metaphors everywhere. Or maybe it’s metamorphosis, a disease of the literary mind that is forever changing into something different. “Bezoars are mostly composed of fats, right?”

“Yes,” he says, eyebrows lifting. “How is it that you’re aware of the composition of bezoars?”

“It was in the University of Wisconsin Alumni magazine. That’s where I read it. Might have been an article you wrote.”

His enthusiasm increases. “Cat food companies are barking at our door, so they can configure new formulas that will decrease bezoar production.”

“Have they thought of creating canine cuisine dishes? I know this chef who —”

“My story wouldn’t really be about the hairballs so much as the cats we use for the research. Nothing harmful,” he says aware that I might be an animal activist with so much inner knowledge of a fur ball. “Our cats get to eat food and have any bezoars dissected. But back to my book: I could create this character that doesn’t like cats but gets involved in research with them,” he continues. “The researcher studies the contents and writes it all down noting changes in the cat’s behavior as well. I think it could be riveting.”

“Riveting.” I agree though what rivets me at that moment are engine sounds. We’re seated right over the wing and after we’d taxied out and been given the all clear to take off, my knuckles grip the seat.

“First flight?” he says.

I shake my head, no. “Eighty percent of airplane accidents occur on take-off and landing,” I say. “It’s the most dangerous time.”

“I suppose that’s true in research too,” he says. “Setting up the study and drawing conclusions are the hard parts. Plugging along in the middle, that takes perseverance and maybe a little bit of faith.”

“Not unlike writing … and life,” I venture and suck in a deep breath as the plane lifts into flight. To keep myself distracted during the climb out I say, “You could become the Murder, She Wrote of the twenty-first century with a whole series of stories with your crime fighting researcher and his cat. Publishers like series works. Call it Bezoars Galore.”

He laughs. “So tell me about the book you’re reading.” He points to the mock up I’m carrying, the one Misty had made.

“This is a promotional piece for my next book.”

“How did you go about getting it published? Do I need an agent? I mean, can you get published without an agent?”

“With brute force and awkwardness,” I say. “I’ll give you the name of mine if you’d like. He’s a good judge of ideas. If he likes yours, he might take you on.”

He pushes his black-rimmed glasses up against his nose. “Do you mind my pumping you like this? I’ve never met a real author before.”

“It’s fine,” I say. I write Randolph’s name down.

“I know this is really personal, but what can I expect to make off of a book like I’m planning? Seventy, eighty-thousand?”

“Well, I shouldn’t have quit my day job,” I say. “I made about twenty-five cents an hour writing last year. I’m on my way right now to confer with my publisher, Ardor Publishing, about a pay raise.”

“What sort of books … are they?” He whispers the words as he presses his chair to recline. I think his eyes gleam just a bit.

“Light romantic novels. Kindling stories, the kind that might take off if the conditions are right and burn into a passionate frenzy. Entertaining stories. Passion isn’t about lust, after all,” I say. “It’s about intensity, believing in something deeply that consumes and makes you forget about anything else. That’s passion. It’s the perfect name for a publisher of totally engaging, fiery stories. Ardor Press.”

“I see.”

“Authors get published when they’re passionate about their stories, and they never let the impossibility of its being published or the likely outcome that their story will never be read by anyone else stop them from simply writing that story down. We assume the position of a writer, keep the commitments we make to ourselves and the story, and tell the harpies sitting behind us that we’ve gone deaf, that we can’t hear them and then we write and write. As long as I can put down one word after the other, that’s all the farther ahead I have to see. And then I make a list of ways to promote my book once it’s published and —”

“Like getting on Oprah? I mean, that would really make it, wouldn’t it? Have you considered that?”

I sigh. “I’ve done a number of things to get my book noticed,” I say. “I’ve considered paying people on airplanes to hold my book like I am now. Not that they’d have to read it. They can put the real book they’re reading inside it. Just having it ‘seen’ can help. I make my mother go in and buy a book so the bookstore will be glad they stocked at least one copy. It isn’t always the smartest author who gets known but the one who persists.”

“Oh yes, I read a study about that. After a first test, half the students were praised for their brilliance and the other half for their effort. On the second test, the kids praised for their brains dropped 20 points while the effort kids raised theirs forty.”

“You see what I mean.”

“Have you tried to get Oprah interested? Seems like that’s a natural way to go.”

“I find it’s more fruitful to expend energy on the writing,” I tell him and realize it’s true. I launch into my effort speech, the one I need to give myself. “Don’t wait for inspiration because she might not show up. Start writing before you think you should. Ignore that dry scratchy cough and pay attention to your commitment. Don’t even let yourself imagine that your cough can keep you from your calling. Think of it as hairballs in the morning, that your body is telling you not to listen to your passion. It’s your job to show up, not throw up, that’s all; and to tell the story you’ve been given the best way you know how and to trust that you’re not alone in the telling.”

“These harpies, you say they’re with you when you write? You co-author with them then?”

“No, with the muse, your guiding spirit, God. That’s who writes with you. And readers, too. I’m always thinking about the readers.”

The person in front of me arches his neck, looking at my seatmate while the person on the aisle side of him raises his eyes to the ceiling.

Perhaps I’m being a bit too passionate about my stories.

“Is everything all right?” A flight attendant approaches.

“Everything’s fine,” the researcher beside me says. “She’s a writer and she’s excited about her new book.”

My face feels hot. “Yes. Everything’s fine,” I say. “We’re discussing the publishing business.” I hold up the mock-up. I’m sorry I got carried away.”

“You wrote that?” the flight attendant asks. “How exciting. Are you working on something? I’ve always wanted to write a book.” She leans on the seat in front of me. “How did you go about getting published?”

I’m actually grateful for the turbulence that forces the “seatbelt” sign back on so the flight attendant has to scurry away.

I watch the world beneath me, the orderly plains, the mountains dusted with white. Everything looks organized which is what I want for my life, not a Spanish knight with promises they can’t keep. Spanish Knight. Might be a book title to consider.

The researcher and I exchange cards and I add Randolph’s number on the back of mine. “Tell him we talked,” I say. “It might help.” I stick the card in a copy of The Long Bad Sentence that I pull from my purse to give him.

“An appropriate name for a literary novel,” he notes looking at the cover. “Is it about the academic world, grammar, sentence length, and all that? I see it has a few bars on windows of the institutional-looking building. Academia feels like a prison sometimes.” He smiles.

“Not exactly,” I say.

“Well, I’m happy with your suggestion of my book. Bezoars Galore,” my seatmate says. “I like that. If it ever gets written or published, I’ll send you a copy.” He looks at my card again. “Do you have a cat?” I nod. “And if a new cat food is developed as a result of the bezoar research, I’ll send you a bag. Small payment for your writing consultation today.” He smiles.

Give and you shall receive. It’s a promise.

A little sweetheart from AP meets me at the airport surprising me. I thought I’d need to take the shuttle. This is promising. “Mr. Stellar would have come himself but he’s in meetings all afternoon.” She introduces herself as Miss Sweetheart and giggles when I give her a questioning look. “It’s such a silly name, don’t you think? But it’s mine.” She’s dressed in a chic chocolate-colored suit with matching four-inch heels.

I want to vegetate, not have to relate, so I’m looking forward to a time to recover before meeting Mr. Stellar.

“Mr. Stellar, Irving he likes to be called, he’s so nice, will pick you up for dinner about 6:00 p.m. That should give you enough time to rest and freshen up, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Miss Sweetheart chatters throughout the forty-minute drive from Denver International airport. She loves working at Ardor Publishing, enjoys all the people. “Will anyone from Sales or Marketing or Publicity be joining us for dinner?” I ask.

“I think it’s only Mr. Stellar. Irving,” she says and my heart sinks. The dinner partners, the time and place of the meal, all speak clearly where one stands within the publishing house. So does where they put an author up for the night or if they do. Dinner with my editor alone before the fashionable dinner hour of 8:00 p.m. has “gum on the bottom of a sneaker” written all over it. If the restaurant and accommodations are less than first class, so am I.

The motel looks like the ones where CSI victims appear, but it’s inexpensive and I booked it myself. Still, a lovely basket of flowers and fruit await me on the dresser in my room with a card from the AP staff. How sweet! The rose offers a fragrant scent and is reminiscent of my first book with them, my one and only regional bestseller.

Irving calls me promptly at six. “I hope your flight went well,” he says.

That cello voice. “It did. Thanks for asking.”

“Excellent. There’s been a slight change in plans, for which I apologize. A rep from New York has flown in unexpectedly and I’ve been called to a dinner meeting with him and the publisher and another author. I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve asked Miss Sweetheart, whom you’ve met, to arrange for your meal and anything else you’d like at our expense, of course. And we’ll have the whole morning to work on the edits and come to final resolutions.”

Someone flying in unexpectedly from New York could mean disaster. Could that be the high-powered female editor Randolph spoke of, the one whom Irving was involved with? If she wants to resume the relationship, he’ll be distracted and if she doesn’t, he’ll be morose. Either way, he’ll have a difficult time considering my dilemma—or Miranda’s. If my sister were here she’d tell me to cool it, that my imagination is running away with me. Yes. Be calm.

“I’d hoped we could talk about the next book this evening. And about the decision to move Miranda—I still think of the book, as Miranda of La Mancha — to the later publication date. I want to understand what you have in mind. To talk about your wiggle room.”

“I’m sure you’re concerned,” he says. “And we can address that in the morning.”

He didn’t say, “You’ve no reason to be concerned,” just “we can address that in the morning.”

Violins out of an English horror movie screech into my brain. All my imaging as I left Chicago sinks. The Greek harpies rip the duct tape from their mouths singing, “You’re going under now! Bezoars galoooooooore.”