I have also had occasion to write Andy Warhol.
Dear Mr. Warhoclass="underline"
Thank you for the photos of the old round Coca-Cola tray with the smiling Santa Claus face on it. and the Santa Claus hand holding a Coke glass. The outlines you drew around everything in red and green are very thought-provoking, but unfortunately we have already made arrangements with the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Atlanta. Georgia, to print a representation of the same tray in The Christmas Book. Not with your additions, of course, but perhaps the simple original will work best within our context.
What I did, when I got the Warhol package, was immediately phone the Coca-Cola company, and spoke to a PR woman there, and once she understood this was a legitimate middle-class operation with a respectable publishing company behind it she agreed I could use the tray photo for free. Those who wish doodles on the picture can mark up their own copies in the privacy of their homes.
In the meantime, despite Annie’s assurances, the greater shadow still looms over the book and me and all living things: Vickie Douglas continues to be my editor. Annie’s discussion with Wilson changed nothing. Day after day I am involving myself with this book — not only in correspondence with potential contributors, but also in library research for oldies and goodies, and in poring at home over endless anthologies and collections — and all the time, from the far distance, I can hear the slow beat of that muffled drum. “Vick-ie Doug-las,” the drum says, steady and deadly. “Vick-ie Doug-las. Vick-ie Doug-las.”
I couldn’t even forget it yesterday during the ball game. At the top of the seventh Seaver, suffering a strained leg muscle, was replaced by a rookie named Doug Sisk, who maintained the steady pace, retiring the side without trouble. Unable to fight it any more, following that third out I got to my feet. As the Phillies trotted back onto the field, Carlton still leading them, and Dave Kingman (who had already struck out three times in this game) coming up to bat, I excused myself to the boys and walked back around the press level to the Diamond Club bar, where I found a phone booth and called Craig, Harry & Bourke and, after some small delay, spoke with my bête noire in more or less person. She remembered me almost right away, and I said, “Vickie, I’m worried.”
“Worried? About what?”
“About us,” I said. “You and me. Maybe I was distracted or something last week, but I just don’t feel we had that real meeting of minds we should—”
“Oh, you didn’t?” She sounded mildly surprised. “Well, of course, we were just getting to know one another, that sort of thing always takes...” She faded away, apparently torn between ending the sentence falsely (“...time.”) or truthfully (“...forever.”). Outside, the crowd roared.
“Vickie,” I said loudly, in case she was falling asleep, “I’m not one of your prima donnas, one of those people who can’t take advice or help. I believe in a strong relationship between author and editor. This is a very important project for me, Vickie, and I—”
“Well, sure it is.”
“And I want us to work on it together. I want your output, I want you to feel this is your book as much as it is mine.”
“Oh, that’s sweet,” she said. “But honestly, Tom, I think an editor who stomps all over a book, leaves his own footprints everywhere, isn’t doing anybody any favors. This is your—”
“Our, Vickie. Mine in concept, mine for the most part in execution, but yours in translating that concept and work into a marketable, sellable package, something that Craig, Harry—”
“Oh, Tom,” she said, “you should never let commercial consid—”
“I just want the best book possible,” I said quickly, desperately. When your editor tells you not to let commercial considerations stand in your way, you know you’re doomed. “And,” I scrambled on, “with you there to be sure I don’t go astray, I can—”
“I have every confidence in you, Tom,” the bitch said, while far away the damn crowd roared again for some reason.
We went on like that, flinging the responsibility like a baseball at one another, putting ever-increasing spin on it, neither of us getting anywhere. I was reminded of the old movie cartoons where Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam would throw the smoking bomb back and forth until it finally exploded, and in every case it blew up while Yosemite Sam was holding it. I have considered our personalities and our relationship, and I have come to the reluctant conclusion that Vickie Douglas is Daffy Duck.
The end result of the phone call was that we made another lunch date, during which we can get to know and hate one another even better. Next Tuesday it is, the twelfth. Another lunch. Now the fun starts.
Another result of the phone call was that I missed the only action of the afternoon. Dave Kingman, whom I’d been relying on to strike out again, started the inning with a single into left field, followed by a George Foster single to right, moving Kingman to second. Hubie Brooks was next, and his sacrifice bunt was so perfect it wasn’t even a sacrifice; he beat the throw to first, loading the bases. Then came Mike Howard, who bounced another single into left, scoring Kingman. Brian Giles, up next, belted a long one into right field that Pete Rose caught for the out, but Foster scored after the catch, making it two to zip with men on first and second, and only one out.
And that’s when I returned from my phone call, to find the boys careening around in our area like Mexican jumping beans. They both simultaneously tried to tell me all the terrific stuff I’d missed, while I sat there and listened and thought about Vickie Douglas and watched Steve Carlton get things back under control, putting out the next two men at bat and returning the game to its pitchers’ duel, which it remained until the end. So the Mets won their opener, two to nothing, making nine seasons in a row in which they’ve won the opening game, tying the record (1937-45) of the St. Louis Browns, and I am still flailing away with The Christmas Book.
I do not want to hear any more about Vickie Douglas’s mother.
Sunday, April 10th
Another expense. Ginger and I just came back from Fire Island, where we looked at rental houses. The train from Penn Station got us to Bay Shore in time for the 1:00 ferry over to Fair Harbor on Fire Island, where we had about an hour and a half to look at houses and to walk in the thin sunlight on the cold tan beach, hand in hand, smiling foolishly, before taking the 3:10 ferry off again. It was nice to be out there, nice to see the early spring flowers and smell the salt air with its promise of summer, nice to stop thinking about Christmas (and that awful woman!) for just a little while.
Summer house rentals are outrageous; they always have been, and they get worse every year. We saw at once that we wouldn’t be able to afford August, the more expensive month, so we resigned ourselves to the second-class existence of being July renters. (And even that can only be afforded if Vickie Douglas and her superiors at Craig, Harry & Bourke agree on June first that five of my contributors are sufficiently today and famous to activate the next stage of the contract. With Capote and Galbraith already having been dismissed, who knows what names would impress that awful woman?)