Over dinner, Patty listened to Betty’s politely worded complaints about Tony. She spoke circuitously, joking casually about being married to a traveling salesman, but when Patty confirmed that this was only Tony’s third trip to LA since first signing to write the screenplay. Betty couldn’t explain why such brief and rare separations should bother her. Betty moved off the subject and returned to a more familiar bitching: about how she remained unable to find a novel she both wanted to publish and could. Agents no longer bothered to submit fiction to her because she had been thwarted so many times by the ed board (the editorial committee that decided what to publish), and without such submissions the odds she would see a terrific first novel were poor. Two other editors her age, both men, had gotten novels through the board, and a few, and one in particular, had been quite successful, so that even if an agent found himself with a new good writer and wanted to submit his work to a young editor at her house, she would be the last choice.
“Why don’t you quit?”
“And do what?” Betty snapped.
“I mean, and go to another house.”
“Where are the offers?” Betty said.
“I thought Caruthers offered you a job.”
“Same job I have now. They wanted someone to work under Phyllis Racknell. I would have been line-editing her multigenerational sagas and acquiring more self-help books.” Betty frowned at the table. “I get offers like that. No reason to take them. Wouldn’t change things.”
“Then leave publishing,” Patty said. She was angry at Betty’s whining. First, because it made her not want to give her what she had written, and second, because her attitude seemed self-defeating, more concerned with seeing herself as a victim rather than triumphing over her obstacles. Other women had made it in publishing. Escaped their domineering mentors, gone to less classy houses, taken chances on unknown writers, and eventually carved out a niche for themselves. Phyllis Racknell had, for example. Patty didn’t say so, but she suspected Betty had turned down that offer because Phyllis was a woman, and if Betty couldn’t gain her independence from her, no one would believe her cries of sexism. Even if they were true.
And Patty was especially, given her own situation, irritated by Betty’s beef that agents didn’t send her their new hot young writers. Was she only willing to put herself on the line for unknowns who were already stamped with “potential”?What was so great about signing young writers who were in demand? Any imbecile could do that. Patty would have no trouble being an editor the way most of them were: taking huge chances on novelists like Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, and the occasional new writer, like some punk who had been writing for Esquire for three years, and knew every publishing person in town. Betty bitched because she wasn’t able to break into that circuit. Well, tough shit, Patty thought, feeling bitter about her own exclusion from that world.
We’re a pretty fucked-up pair, Patty said to herself, looking at Betty while a waiter poured them coffee. The thought amused her. She was pleased to think of herself as Betty’s equal, even if it was a miserable peerage. She knew instinctively that Betty was no happier being married to Tony than Patty was living with David. The moaning about Tony’s absence wasn’t the longing of a loving wife; it sounded more like the petulance of a neglected child for whom separation only made clear how little intimacy there was normally. “What does Tony say?” Patty asked, to approach this assumption the long way.
“He doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“He doesn’t pay attention.” Betty shook her head as though to rid herself of these thoughts. She didn’t want to confess these problems. “He’s busy. He’s under pressure about this script.”
“How’s it going?”
“I don’t know. He had a meeting today with Garth.” She stared off for a moment. “He hasn’t called. Maybe it went on all day. I’ll call him when I get home.”
“Is this a meeting where they’re going to tell him if they make his movie?”
Betty shook her head. “Tony says it doesn’t happen that way.”
“How does it happen?”
“He says there are … I don’t know. That a lot of people have to agree before they make the film.”
“But they pay well, right? And he can still write his plays.”
“He hasn’t worked on a play in a year.” Betty admitted this in a tragic tone, a wife of thirty years telling her friend that her husband had become an alcoholic.
“We’re not worried about Tony, are we?” Patty asked.
“No.” Betty smiled. “No. we’re not.”
“He’s been getting on our nerves.” Patty supplied the complaint for her. “Too obsessed with his work.”
“Poor us,” Betty said, laughing.
“We don’t live our lives through our men, though.”
“Of course not.” Betty agreed, trying to keep her face straight. Patty looked so earnest, Betty couldn’t even be sure how much of it was joking. “How’s the torrid romance novel, by the way? Are you close to finishing?”
This was the moment. “I hate it.”
Betty looked startled. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I hate doing it. It’s so dumb. Dumb. Dumb.”
“Yeah, but it pays.”
Patty nodded. She took that point to heart. Ultimately, even if Betty thought her serious novel was good, money would still be an issue. The odds against her getting a first novel published were bad enough without also needing to earn a living from it. “There has to be a better way for us to make money than publishing self-help books and writing romance novels.”
“Yeah, what?”
Patty reached in her bag and brought out a manila envelope. “You should publish this and make it a bestseller. Then we’ll both be fine. Tony can quit writing screenplays and return to the theater. David can leave Newstime and have my babies.”
“What is it?” Betty said, taking the package. She seemed wary.
“It’s half a novel. Next year’s bestseller.” Patty amazed herself with this remark. Not even in jest did she ever predict success for herself.
“David wrote it?” Betty said, barely making it a question. She spoke in a suspicious tone, as though Patty were trying to fool her.
“No!” Patty was furious. “I wrote it. You think only—”
Betty, embarrassed, tried to head her off. “I thought you said—”
“—David can try to write seriously. I can only write about these airheads who—”
“Stop! I thought from what you said that this was David’s. Of course you can try to write a novel.”
“Try?” Patty had never yelled at Betty and she had little reason to. But keen resentment suddenly ballooned in her mind. She felt overwhelmed by everyone’s attitude toward her: the silly little blond who wasn’t even permitted the delusions everyone else has. Betty can think of herself as another Maxwell Perkins, but Patty can’t hope to be Fitzgerald. “I’m doing it!” she shouted at Betty, leaning over the table and shooting the words at her.
Betty held up her hands, surrendering. “Okay. That’s great.” She looked down at the package.
Patty, her anger spent, sat back and stared off, an exhausted shopper whose buying impulse is satisfied but now wonders if poverty will be the consequence. Had she bankrupted the friendship, or, more to the point, Betty’s willingness to be a sympathetic reader?
Betty looked up. “When did you do this?”
Patty couldn’t bring herself to return the glance. “Last two months,” she said, sulking.
“It’s the whole book?”
“No, just half. I don’t know! That’s why I wanted you to read it. I think it’s … well, I just don’t know where it’s going.” Patty had straightened and looked at Betty once again, apologizing with her tone and her wide-open pleading eyes.