Dewey dropped into his chair. “Boy, I know what you mean! I was too excited to hang around the office!”
“Would you gentlemen care for something from the bar?”
“Nah,” Dewey said. “Gee, Tom, I— Wait a minute; do you want a drink or something?”
“Maybe so,” I said casually. “Bourbon and soda.” (There’s something about meeting a new editor that drives me to that particular drink.)
“I guess I’ll try one of those, too,” Dewey said, grinning at the maître d’, who gave him the old fish-eye and stalked off.
Dewey’s happy face zeroed in on me again. “Gee, Tom,” he said, “I’m really happy about this. When Miss Douglas handed the file over, she said you were a little worried, maybe the new editor wouldn’t be as enthusiastic as she was, but gosh, Tom, I want you to know I think The Christmas Book is just great! I mean it, it’s fabulous!”
“Thank you,” I said modestly.
“See, I have a lot of ideas about publishing,” he said, shoving his silverware and display plate out of the way so he could lean his forearms on the table. “New ideas to shake up the whole industry!”
“Ah.”
“And this book of yours, Tom, this book of yours fits right into what I’m thinking about.”
That was depressing. I looked politely interested.
“Pictures,” he said. “Color. Youth appeal. You see what I mean?”
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“We’ve got to attract that youth audience, Tom,” he told me. “Those are the readers of the future!”
“Undoubtedly true.”
“They see things differently, Tom! They’re used to, they’re used to, video screens. Display! Computer programs! Rock and roll!”
“Ah hah.”
“If we want youth to be interested in us, Tom,” he said, leaning close over his forearms, eyes and nostrils staring impassionedly at me, we have to be interested in what interests youth.”
“Interesting,” I said, as our waiter brought our drinks.
Dewey lifted his. “To a long association, Tom!”
“Mmm,” I said.
We drank, he putting away close to half his bourbon and soda at once, then grinning and nodding and gesturing with the glass as he said, “Nice!”
I thought: He has never tasted bourbon before. “Dewey,” I said, “if we’re going to get to know one another, maybe you could tell me a little about yourself.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “See, I’ve always been interested in books, you know.”
But he was interrupted at that point by the waiter, bringing us our menus and wishing to tell us today’s specials. He did so in a sepulchral tone, as though reporting a list of towns destroyed by the Italian earthquake, during which the happy Dewey polished off his drink. When the funeral march of specials was done, the waiter picked Dewey’s glass out of his fingers and said, “Would you care for another, sir?”
“Yeah, sure! Tom?”
“I’ll nurse this one,” I said.
The waiter went away, and Dewey said, “Let’s see. Where was I?”
“Interested in books.”
“Right. So naturally I was an American Lit major. Northwestern. I got my Master’s in June and came straight to New York!”
I stared at him. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“I have a cousin at Random House,” this Master went on, “but there weren’t any openings there—”
Smart cousin.
“—but he has a good friend on the board at Solenex, so he—”
“Solenex?”
“That’s the company that owns Craig, Harry & Bourke.”
“Oh,” I said. I had vaguely known that Craig, like most of the other New York publishing companies, was no longer an actual independent publisher but was a subsidiary of some conglomerate somewhere, but the fact had never seemed to matter very much. Not till now.
“Anyway,” Dewey said, “This fellow at Solenex called somebody at Craig, Harry & Bourke, and the next thing I knew, I was an editor!”
This is not happening, I thought. And yet it was. The waiter brought Dewey’s new drink and I said, “On second thought, I believe I will have another.”
The waiter gave me a dirty look and went away, and Dewey said, “Of course, this is still a trial period for me.”
“For all of us,” I said.
“Eh?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Tell me more.”
He gulped half a drink. “For right now, of course,” he said, “I’m not generating any of my own projects, but that will come. What I’ve got on my plate so far is three books from Miss Douglas, and some war books a man named Scunthorpe had.”
“The fellow who died.”
“Oh, is that what happened to him?” Glugg went more bourbon into the Heffernan maw. “Anyway, what’s so exciting about your book is how it fits in so perfectly with what I want to do anyway!”
“That is nice.”
“See,” he said, gesturing widely, “I want to do adult books, but with the zing and zip of juveniles!”
“Oh?”
“Science fiction!” He brought his unsteady hands close together over the table, palms down and cupped slightly, as though holding down a soccer ball. “Books that just, just — fly out at you!” And his hands flew up and out and away, just missing the waiter with my new drink. “Pop-ups!” Dewey went on, all oblivious, staring madly at me. “You know what I mean? They put ’em in kids’ books! Why not grown-up books?”
“Pop-ups in grown-up books,” I said.
The waiter said, “Would you care to order?”
Dewey drained his drink. “Yeah!” he said, but to me, not the waiter. “Start with science fiction, just to get the idea across, see? You turn the page, and the planet comes up, or the spaceship comes up!”
Or the lunch, I thought.
The waiter said, “Are you ready to order, gentlemen?”
“But it wouldn’t,” Dewey said, “it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have to stop there! All kinds of books. War books, historicals! You turn the page, and there’s the cavalry right there, comes right up!”
“And there’s always pornography,” I suggested.
Dewey blinked owlishly at me, stymied. The waiter said, “Would you like to order now?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “I’ll have the sole Veronique.”
“And to begin?”
“The endive salad.”
“Thank you.” He turned to Dewey. “Sir?”
Dewey frowned massively, looking utterly helpless. “I don’t know, I—” He stared at the closed menu beside him, then looked at me. “What was that you said?”
“Sole Veronique.”
“Okay.” Dewey nodded to the waiter as he pointed at me. “That’s what I’ll have.”
“And to begin?”
“Begin?” said Dewey.
“The other gentleman is having the endive salad.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll have that, too. Oh, and another one of these drink things.”
“Yes, sir.”
The waiter left. Dewey rubbed a knuckly hand over his mouth, frowning at his place. A busboy removed the display plates, which startled Dewey; he jumped slightly, then stared after the busboy. I said, “What does Wilson have to say about The Christmas Book, do you know?”
He considered that. “Who?”
“Robert Wilson. The managing editor, or whatever his title is. The man in charge.”