Of course, there was something to what Roseann was saying. There is a large public that reads only fashionable books (and only enough of them to be able to talk about them fashionably). A book needn’t be good, or readable, to be fashionable, though it could be both, of course. And the way you can tell that a book is fashionable is to have it on the best-seller list. That means best sellers sell by virtue of being best sellers and therefore tend to remain on the best-seller list. For that matter, if a bad seller were put on the best-seller list by mistake it is very likely to become a best seller in truth merely because it was tabbed with the name.
There are ways of putting books on the best-seller lists by means of a good, hard (sometimes expensive) push and then letting them stay there and earn back the investment.
A strategically placed bookstore could do it. It might push a book over the line. And that meant Roseann Bronstein.
She is the owner and major force behind the Oriole, a downtown bookstore. It is a large barn of a place whose stock can’t possibly be known in full by any human being, including Roseann, but she says that, given time, she could find any book in the world—within reason.
I wouldn’t in the least consider it impossible that, growing interested in Crossover, she could push it effectively not only in her store but in other stores where her opinion in such matters was valued—and that meant places as far away as San Francisco. She was well placed to push the book in the downtown university area, and that was where, as a matter of fact, it had caught on first.
There was no question, for instance, of the great success of the autographing party at the Oriole in December 1973, because I was there. Giles was signing paperback after paperback in a never-ending stream while Roseann hovered over him in proprietorish fashion. That was the first time, I remember, that I had ever seen him sign books with those inscribed throwaway ball-points.
I remember he tried to get me to use similar pens, pointing out their triangular cross section and how easy that made the grip, but I demurred. I don’t sign books that often (though I signed about a dozen the day of that party—get a reader excited enough and he will find even a minor-league signature acceptable) and any pen will do for me. In fact, it’s a good idea not to carry a pen sometimes, since then when the inevitable youngster pushes a torn piece of paper at you, you can smile and say you have no pen, and of course, he’ll have none, either.
After that, Giles got to the point where he would use no pen but his own—monogrammed and triangular. How could he tell the fatality of it?
With that autographing party in mind, I said to Roseann, «I know you pushed the book, Roseann. Too bad you don’t push mine the same way. I take it Giles is ungrateful?»
«We were friends,» she said. «I did it for him out of friendship. We were very good friends.» She paused a little as though to recall the goodness of it and get it straight in her memory, and I got the very unpleasant feeling that by «very good» she meant that they had been lovers. I had the grotesque vision of Giles selling his body in return for Roseann selling his book. (I hoped earnestly that Roseann hadn’t heard my just expressed hope that she would push mine the same way.)
She was kneading my arm again. «You know, times are hard, and the Oriole is a relic. I’ve got to remodel, or move, or something—make it last my time—»
«Come on,» I said. «The Oriole is as permanent as the university is. It’s a historic monument.»
«The pigeons shit on it, if that’s what you mean, and the university isn’t all that permanent, either. It would help if Giles were to hold another autographing party, maybe identify himself with the place in some way. I did it for him when he needed it. He can do it for me now.»
«Well, ask him.»
«You ask him. I haven’t even managed to talk to him in over a year. In fact, it’s six-thirty now. Go, will you? I don’t want you to miss him.»
«I might not see him.»
«You’ll see him,» she said in desperate confidence, and heaved herself to her feet, puffing and stirring up the old-clothes smell.
«I’ll do what I can,» I said.
«Thanks, little fella,» she said, and slammed my shoulder in what was meant to be a rough, man-to-man, gesture of affection and sent me staggering sideways.
My first reaction was one of intense annoyance, but then I caught a glimpse of her face in a moment when her self-protective shield had failed her—anxious, pitiful, knowing herself unloved and unlovable.
I was sorry for her. Whatever there was inside that hulk, the inside Roseann, it was nothing at all like the body that imprisoned it, and it was helpless ever to express itself.
I said, «I’ll go to the party, Roseann.»
And that was the moment of decision. The conversation at the next table had held me for Roseann, and Roseann, by allowing me to catch her in all her vulnerability, made it impossible for me to refuse to make at least the effort.
So I went up the escalator to the third floor and to the ballroom where the party was to be held, and I had lost the chance of escaping, the chance I had all but taken.
9 MARTIN WALTERS 6:35 P.M.
The party was clearly beginning, for there was something unmistakably partyish about the women. They wore long dresses in black and exposed skin in white (a few blacks, too, but I didn’t see many) and carried purses, stoles, and a variety of other accouterments that had to be checked. Since the hotel carefully did not put a checkroom on that particular floor, it meant that the menfolks had to perform their time-honored male chauvinist task of scurrying up and down the escalator to find checkrooms.
I keep waiting for the liberated woman who will say, right after «Equal pay for equal work,» something like, «I’ll take care of checking the coats this time, kid.» I haven’t found her yet.
There was a long table at which last-minute tickets were being sold, so I adjusted my nameplate and stood in line.
There were only two or three ahead of me. I had two ten-dollar bills ready when it was my turn.
The young lady behind the desk was filling out forms. I suppose they wanted some record of attendees. She made her side vision do the work as she reached for the bills without looking up from the form.
«Name, please,» she said.
«Darius Just,» I said.
«How do you spell the last name?» she said.
«You guess,» I said, and she looked up to stare at my nameplate. Then she carefully spelled it out.
«How else can you spell it?» I asked.
She didn’t seem put out. She had dark hair and a skinny face and had probably spent her whole young life countering wise guys. She said, «It could have two ‘s’ or a final ‘e’ or it could begin with a ’d.’ We have all kinds of queer foreign names now.»
«But it’s just Just,» I said.
«That’s it,» she said, and handed me my ticket and two-fifty in change.
I stepped away glumly. I suspect that I made that small fuss in order to give her a chance to study the name and recognize me. She hadn’t, and it was a booksellers’ convention, too. How quickly they forget! Except that I had no reason to think she knew anything about me to forget in the first place.
But then, how come she didn’t ask me how to spell my first name? Perhaps it was only the easy names that roused her dark suspicions.
I took the opportunity of stepping into the men’s room before starting the round of happy festivity. The Duke of Wellington is supposed to have said that he never ignored an opportunity to piss, since a convenient time might not arrive very quickly thereafter, and I have always tried to follow the same principle.