“I'm not sure,” said John Wolf, who sat bewildered at his desk. “You didn't like the book.”
“Like it?” Jillsy cawed. “There's nothin' to like about it,” she said.
“But you read it,” John Wolf said. “Why'd you read it?”
“Lawd,” Jillsy said, as if she were sorry for John Wolf—that he was so hopelessly stupid. “I sometimes wonder if you know the first thing about all these books you're makin',” she said; she shook her head. “I sometimes wonder why you're the one who's makin' the books and I'm the one who's cleanin' the bathrooms. Except I'd rather clean the bathrooms than read most of them,” Jillsy said. “Lawd, Lawd.”
“If you hated it, why'd you read it, Jillsy?” John Wolf asked her.
“Same reason I read anythin' for,” Jillsy said. “To find out what happens.”
John Wolf stared at her.
“Most books you know nothin's gonna happen,” Jillsy said. “Lawd, you know that. Other books,” she said, “you know just what's gonna happen, so you don't have to read them, either. But this book,” Jillsy said, “this book's so sick you know somethin's gonna happen, but you can't imagine what. You got to be sick yourself to imagine what happens in this book,” Jillsy said.
“So you read it to find out?” John Wolf said.
“There surely ain't no other reason to read a book, is there?” Jillsy Sloper said. She put the manuscript heavily (for it was large) on John Wolf's desk and hitched up the long extension cord (for the vacuum cleaner) which Jillsy wore on Mondays like a belt around her broad middle. “When it's a book,” she said, pointing to the manuscript, “I'd be happy if I could have a copy of my own. If it's okay,” she added.
“You want a copy?” John Wolf asked.
“If it's no trouble,” Jillsy said.
“Now that you know what happens,” John Wolf said, “what would you want to read it again for?”
“Well,” Jillsy said. She looked confused; John Wolf had never seen Jillsy Sloper look confused before—only sleepy. “Well, I might lend it,” she said. “There might be someone I know who needs to be reminded what men in this world is like,” she said.
“Would you ever read it again yourself?” John Wolf asked.
“Well,” Jillsy said. “Not all of it, I imagine. At least not all at once, or not right away.” Again, she looked confused. “Well,” she said, sheepishly, “I guess I mean there's parts of it I wouldn't mind readin' again.”
“Why?” John Wolf asked.
“Lawd,” Jillsy said, tiredly, as if she were finally impatient with him. “It feels so true,” she crooned, making the word true cry like a loon over a lake at night.
“It feels so true,” John Wolf repeated.
“Lawd, don't you know it is?” Jillsy asked him. “If you don't know when a book's true,” Jillsy sang to him, “we really ought to trade jobs.” She laughed now, the stout three-pronged plug for the vacuum-cleaner cord clutched like a gun in her fist. “I do wonder, Mr. Wolf,” she said, sweetly, “if you'd know when a bathroom was clean.” She went over and peered in his wastebasket. “Or when a wastebasket was empty,” she said. “A book feels true when it feels true,” she said to him, impatiently. “A book's true when you can say, “Yeah! That's just how damn people behave all the time.” Then you know it's true,” Jillsy said.
Leaning over the wastebasket, she seized the one scrap of paper lying alone on the bottom of the basket; she stuffed it into her cleaning apron. It was the crumpled-up first page of the letter John Wolf had tried to compose to Garp.
Months later, when The World According to Bensenhaver was going to the printers, Garp complained to John Wolf that there was no one to dedicate the book to. He would not have it in memory of Walt, because Garp hated that kind of thing: “that cheap capitalizing,” as he called it, “on one's autobiographical accidents—to try to hook the reader into thinking you're a more serious writer than you are.” And he would not dedicate a book to his mother, because he hated, as he called it, “the free ride everyone else gets on the name of Jenny Fields.” Helen, of course, was out of the question, and Garp felt, with some shame, that he couldn't dedicate a book to Duncan if it was a book he would not allow Duncan to read. The child wasn't old enough. He felt some distaste, as a father, for writing something he would forbid his own children to read.
The Fletchers, he knew, would be uncomfortable with a book dedicated to them, as a couple; and to dedicate a book to Alice, alone, might be insulting to Harry.
“Not to me,” John Wolf said. “Not this one.”
“I wasn't thinking of you,” Garp lied.
“How about Roberta Muldoon?” John Wolf said.
“The book has absolutely nothing to do with Roberta,” Garp said. Though Garp knew that Roberta, at least, wouldn't object to the dedication. How funny to write a book really no one would like to have dedicated to them!
“Maybe I'll dedicate it to the Ellen Jamesians,” Garp said, bitterly.
“Don't make trouble for yourself,” John Wolf said. “That's just plain stupid.”
Garp sulked.
For Mrs. Ralph?
he thought. But he still didn't know her real name. There was Helen's father—his good old wrestling coach, Ernie Holm—but Ernie wouldn't understand the gesture; it would hardly be a book Ernie would like. Garp hoped, in fact, that Ernie wouldn't read it. How funny to write a book you hope someone doesn't read!
To Fat Stew
he thought.
For Michael Milton
In Memory of Bonkers
He bogged down. He could think of no one.
“I know someone,” John Wolf said. “I could ask her if she'd mind.”
“Very funny,” Garp said.
But John Wolf was thinking of Jillsy Sloper, the person, he knew, who was responsible for getting this book of Garp's published at all.
“She's a very special woman who loved the book,” John Wolf told Garp. “She said it was so “true.”
Garp was interested in the idea.
“I gave her the manuscript for one weekend,” John Wolf said, “and she couldn't put it down.”
“Why'd you give her the manuscript?” Garp asked.
“She just seemed right for it,” John Wolf said. A good editor will not share all his secrets with anyone.
“Well, okay,” Garp said. “It seems naked, having no one. Tell her I'd appreciate it. She's a close friend of yours?” Garp asked. Garp's editor winked at him and Garp nodded.
“What's it all mean, anyway?” Jillsy Sloper asked John Wolf, suspiciously. “What's it mean, he wants to “dedicate” that terrible book to me?”
“It means, that your response was valuable to him,” John Wolf said. “He thinks the book was written almost with you in mind.”
“Lawd,” Jillsy said. “With me in mind? What's that mean?”