34.
It could have gone worse. He hadn’t been rebuffed outright. And he agreed with his agent that constructing a thriller around a man battling his own sense of inadequacy was strictly a question of execution. The more daring the proposition, however, the more finesse required to carry it off, and Pfefferkorn knew his own limitations. Perhaps there existed someone capable of writing such a book. He was not him.
He sat at his desk, answering fan e-mail. A woman asked if he would take a look at her novel. Pfefferkorn thanked her for her interest, explaining that it was his policy never to read unpublished material. An elderly lady chastised him for his use of profanity. For kicks he drafted a long, profanity-laced reply, then scrapped it, responding that he was sorry he had offended her. A community center in Skokie invited him to deliver the keynote at its annual authors’ luncheon. He referred them to his speakers bureau. He handled the remainder of the queries in short order, leaving him no choice but to click on a file labeled “novel 2,” bringing up the half-page of text he had managed to produce in eleven months of work.
For Harry Shagreen, life was never simple.
It wasn’t great literature, but it served its purpose. It was what followed that made him cringe.
Shagreen was a marked man.
“For God’s sake,” Pfefferkorn said.
He deleted the sentence. Then he deleted the sentence that followed, and the next, until he was left with his opening line and the germ of a conversation.
“Make it a double,” Shagreen said.
“You’ve had enough,” the bartender said.
Pfefferkorn had had enough as well. He deleted the dialogue. He did a word count. So far, his new blockbuster novel was seven words long.
35.
“I hate to say I told you so,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said.
They were at her apartment, sitting on the sofa while Paul finished making dinner. Pfefferkorn had mentioned that he was flying to California in a few days’ time. His daughter smirked whenever Carlotta’s name was mentioned, as if she’d known all along they’d end up together.
“Then don’t say it,” Pfefferkorn said.
“I won’t.”
“Except that by not saying it, you’re still saying it.”
“Oh, Daddy. Lighten up. I think it’s sweet. What’s on the agenda?”
“There’s a party for the Philharmonic.”
“Sounds glamorous.”
“Boring,” he said.
“So jaded, so fast.”
“It doesn’t take long,” Pfefferkorn said.
From the kitchen Paul yelled that dinner would be ready in five minutes.
“He’s such a magician,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said.
Pfefferkorn bit his tongue. He had been the victim of his son-in-law’s cooking on a few too many occasions. Invariably, something went awry—a pot boiled over, a pudding failed to set—and substandard equipment, rather than the chef’s lack of skill, was blamed.
Paul popped his head in. “We can start with the salad, if you’re hungry.” He was wearing an apron that said Culinary Ninja.
“Yum,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said.
They filed into the eat-in kitchen. The apartment was the same postage-stamp one-bedroom Paul had lived in as a bachelor, and with the arrival of a second person, it had begun to feel a bit like a refugee camp. Pfefferkorn had made sure to use the restroom before sitting down, knowing that once he got into his chair, he would be unable to leave without Paul sliding the entire table out, which necessitated scooting over the watercooler, which in turn involved removal of the freestanding butcher block.
“We have too much stuff,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said as Pfefferkorn sucked in his gut.
The salad was complicated, with exotic seeds and rinds. Pfefferkorn had to be told which bits to swallow, which to chew but spit out, and which were strictly aromatic.
“This is amazing,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said. “Where’d you get the recipe?”
“The Internet,” Paul said.
Pfefferkorn used his fork to pry a husk from between his front teeth. “Delicious,” he said.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“It has such a nice smokiness to it,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said. “What is that?”
“Something’s burning,” Pfefferkorn said.
Paul lunged for the oven door. An acrid black cloud billowed out. Pfefferkorn’s daughter ran to the sink and began filling a bowl with water. Pfefferkorn, coughing, strove gamely to extricate himself from behind the table.
“Wait,” Paul yelled.
Pfefferkorn’s daughter doused the interior of the oven. Hissing and sizzling ensued. Grease spattered everywhere. Pfefferkorn’s daughter shrieked and dropped the bowl, which shattered. Paul dove headfirst into the steaming oven, hoping to salvage the chicken, but it was soaked and charred beyond repair. He beheld it and moaned. Pfefferkorn’s daughter said consoling things as she bent and gathered shards of the bowl in her bare hands.
“Can somebody please help me here?” Pfefferkorn asked. “I’m stuck.”
By consensus, the oven was the culprit. Pfefferkorn and his daughter returned to the sofa to let the kitchen air out.
“We’re at the end of our rope with this city,” she said. “It’s like living in a zoo.”
“Where else would you go?”
She named a suburb.
“It’s not that far,” she said. “You can be at our house in thirty minutes.”
“You make it sound as if you’ve got the place all picked out,” he said.
“I do,” she said.
She led him to the closet Paul used as a home office and showed Pfefferkorn the listing on the computer. “Isn’t it so pretty?”
“The pictures are nice,” he said.
“You should see it in real life.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Our broker took me last Sunday.”
“You have a broker?”
“She’s the number-one person in the area,” she said.
“That’s nice,” Pfefferkorn said.
“I was wondering,” she said, “if you wanted to come out and see it yourself.”
“Honey? Dad?”
“We’re back here. I’m showing him the house.”
Paul appeared, plastic bags of takeout hooked on his fingers. “Nifty, right?”
Pfefferkorn looked at the images on the computer screen. “You said it.”
36.
Following the party for the Philharmonic, Carlotta retired early, complaining of a headache and a sour stomach. As a precaution, they elected to spend the night apart. By now Pfefferkorn knew his way around well enough to find his own linens, and after tucking her in with tea and aspirin, he headed downstairs.
He paced the library restlessly, prying down volumes and putting them back. He wasn’t in the mood to be sedentary. He was in the mood for activity. Specifically, he was in the mood for sex. He had hidden his disappointment from Carlotta, but his body had expectations. He scolded himself, remembering Oscar Wilde’s remark about a luxury once sampled becoming a necessity. He wondered if that might make an interesting premise for a novel.
Aiming to burn off some energy, he went down to the pool room. He had gotten in the habit of swimming a few laps every day. He was no Bill, that was for sure, but at his age even moderate exercise accrued enormous benefits. He had trimmed down noticeably and could now swim for thirty minutes without needing to stop and catch his breath. He usually went in the afternoons, during Carlotta’s tango session. She had tried to get him to join her, but he didn’t like dancing any more than Bill had, and moreover, he didn’t care for that Jesús María de Lunchbox character, what with his silk shirts and buttery pectorals.