Reynolds, being one of the Times’s daily book critics, would be a great prize if Fred could impress him enough to get a review. Lear pointed him out when they sat down. He was at the other end of the room. Since the screening was about to begin, Lear whispered, “We’ll get him on the way out.”
His faith in Tom had been borne out, He had stuck by Fred even after reading the original one hundred pages— which Fred now believed had been so bad that the thought of Tom reading them sometimes startled him awake when falling asleep, as though it was a war veteran’s memory of a terrible scrape with death.
While the film credits rolled at the end of the movie (traditionally at screenings everyone remained seated until the last name of the third assistant gaffer rolled by), Fred repeatedly rubbed his right palm against his pants, trying to dry it in anticipation of shaking hands with Reynolds. He closed his eyes to try to relax: he saw an image of Harold Reynolds printed in New York Times type loom and obliterate everything. He sat up and whispered to Lear, “Let’s go, I’m starving.”
“No, I want to introduce you to Reynolds.”
“It won’t do me any good,” Fred said.
“Sure it will,” Tom said, giving him a big wink. “Name recognition. Very important.”
The lights came up moments later. Lear dawdled on their aisle, allowing others to pass them, and surged forward when Harold Reynolds’ row conjoined with the flow out. “Harold!” Lear said as though he had just spotted him.
To Fred’s horror, Reynolds looked balefully at Tom and said in a low voice, “Hi,” in the way one might address a doorman, someone to whom a hello is necessary but certainly not fervently desired.
Lear stepped next to the book critic, walking out shoulder to shoulder. Fred hustled to get himself behind, momentarily relieved by his being out of sight. “I loved your review of Heller’s book. Hilarious.”
This seemed to warm Reynolds. “Piece of junk,” he mumbled.
“Gutsy of you to say so.”
“I don’t care if they fire me. Been here too long anyway.” All this in a whisper so that even Fred, who was standing directly behind them, had to strain to hear.
“Well, it needed to be said,” Lear answered in a solemn tone. They arrived at the elevator bank and Fred found himself facing them. “Oh,” Tom said, looking at Fred as though just discovering him. “Do you know my friend Fred Tatter? This is Harold Reynolds.”
Fred stuck his hand out.
“Hello,” Reynolds said with a nod, his eyes barely lighting on Fred and missing the fact that his hand was out. Fred quickly withdrew it and didn’t hear the conversation continue as he tried to calculate whether or not Harold Reynolds had done it intentionally, cleverly disguising the insult as distraction.
They got into the elevator and everybody fell into the typical post-screening silence, no one daring to make a remark lest it offend someone whose connections or power were unknown to him. Lear, Fred noticed admiringly, made sure he stayed near Reynolds without seeming to. Once out on the street, the three of them broke off from the crowd, Reynolds glancing at the avenue and commenting, “Terrible time for a cab.”
“I think if we head over to Sixth …” Lear pointed, and, to Fred’s surprise, given Reynolds’ aloof attitude, he marched with them. “We’re headed uptown,” Lear said while they walked. “Can we drop you?”
“I’m all the way east on Seventy-second. East River Drive. It’s probably out of your way—”
“No, not at all,” Tom said.
“Oh good,” Reynolds mumbled, and glanced at Fred as though he were an obligation. “Did you like the movie?”
Now Fred wished he had listened more carefully at the elevator bank. He didn’t know what their opinion was. “I can’t say why,” Fred said, “but somehow I didn’t really get involved.”
“Yes,” Reynolds agreed. “I didn’t care whether they were together or not. I feel as though I’ve seen movies like that all my life. Guess I’m tired of them too. Are you in the movie business?”
Here it comes, Fred thought, and swallowed. “No, I’m a …” He wanted to say “novelist,” but in this situation somehow it seemed so bold as to be almost be rude. “… a writer.”
“Journalist?” Reynolds asked.
“I was …” And Fred paused, unable to admit his condition, afraid of how obvious it would then become that he wanted Reynolds to know and remember him.
Tom broke in, his voice tense. “Fred’s publishing his first novel in the fall.”
“Oh,” Reynolds said, utterly without self-consciousness. “Congratulations. Who’s your publisher?”
“Garlands.”
“Good house,” the critic said with a nod, a personnel man checking off items on a résumé. “What’s the title?”
“The Locker Room.”
“About sports?”
“No …” This, more than anything, was the moment he had dreaded. He would now describe the idea and if Reynolds made fun of it, life might simply become too terrible to face. “It’s kind of a response to The Women’s Room.”
“Well,” Reynolds said, smiling, “certainly time for that, isn’t it?”
Fred guffawed, laughing harder than he meant to because of the relief. He noticed that Reynolds glanced at him quizzically, and he cut off the amusement. They had reached Sixth, and to cover the awkwardness, Fred, without looking, stepped out with his hand up, signaling for a cab.
He heard Tom laugh behind him and say, “There are no cars, Fred.”
Now that he really looked at the avenue, he saw that for at least five blocks the avenue was empty. He pulled his hand in. “Gotta start early in this town,” he said, and guffawed again.
Reynolds smiled at him gently, almost mercifully. “That’s true enough.” He turned to Lear and began to question him about his current book. Lear answered the questions effortlessly, joking about his mixed reviews, bitching about his publisher, his manner natural and at ease, speaking no differently than he would to an intimate.
His performance made Fred conscious of how badly he had handled his interrogation. He took out a cigarette to calm himself, but in the curious swirling wind of the city, his first three matches all went out. Reynolds, out of the corner of his eyes, noticed his trouble and brought out a lighter, flicking it on and offering the flame.
“Thanks,” Fred said, humiliated. He brought the end of his cigarette into the fire, inhaling, and in an effort to loosen up, swept his arm away from the light.
For a brief, brief second the gesture had just the right dash and casualness …
… but then, like a victim in a fatal crash, he watched in slow horror as his hand and cigarette went directly into the left sleeve of Harold Reynolds’ pin-striped jacket, the bright red embers scattering in brilliant firefly sparks as they burned a small but quite irrevocable hole into the clothes of one of the country’s most powerful and influential book critics.
CHAPTER 14
Patty looked down at Gelb. He had his hands on her breasts, reaching up for them like a baby wanting succor, his eyes closed in blind, pleading ecstasy.
“I love you,” he said almost in a shout.
She held herself up, supporting herself by pressing down with her palms on his hips, clinging to the tip of his penis. He yearned upward, pathetically raising his buttocks, begging for more of her warmth: “I love you I love you I love you.”
Her arms trembled from the effort and she let herself down on his shaft, to his relieved groans, feeling him fill her, the penetration soothing but not exciting. She felt above both him and the experience, the pleasure coming from her possession of his genitals. She vacuumed him up, nothing touching but the most intimate parts of their bodies. She loved watching him from this distance. Looking down at that usually self-absorbed face and seeing him at her mercy, rolling in a blissful dream, seemed a perfect metaphor for their relationship. She had dominated this man with what had always seemed to be her weakness: sex.