Chapter 22

At home I got my mail out of the box, and once inside the apartment I sat on the couch and separated junk mail from bills. Lots of the former, two of the latter. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was not quite eleven. Jesus, what time did she get up in the morning anyway? I had only had cereal and coffee, followed by some strenuous exercise, so I was still hungry.

I looked in the fridge, and it was pretty grim, but there were some eggs and bread, so scrambled eggs and toast it was. I’ll call it brunch. I’ll need more food in me, but it looks like a market run is looming.

So I ate, then remembered Liz’s latest chapters so I went and dug them out and read them while I ate. I’m no expert, but I’ve read a lot, fiction and non-fiction and sci-fi, in addition to scientific literature. And I had to say that I didn’t see a lot to change in what she’d written. I tried imagining what I might suggest, but everything I came up with just sounded worse than what she’d done.

And aside from the -- style, I guess you’d call it -- the style of her writing, her characters seemed to come alive and the plot made me worry about them and what might befall them. She really was quite good at this. I wondered what sort of changes Deb Morrow would suggest, having so much more experience than I, and how it would change Liz’s story.

I’ll read it again tomorrow, but I was having trouble coming up with something she might want to rethink or change. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to lose my non-paid position as typo-catcher.

I put the dishes in the sink to soak, made a shopping list, and headed out to the stores. That consumed the better part of ninety minutes, including putting everything away, so I found a movie that looked semi-entertaining and went to that, followed by a restaurant burger and then home to bed. You’ll have to run a little faster if you want to keep up with my fast-paced, glamorous life.

Sunday. Nothing happened. It bored even me.

On Monday Art and Ted were already in the lab (surprise!) when I got there. They said in passing that they were beginning the first preliminary experiments of attaching μ receptor agents to their new chelate and mapping the effects it had in mice. That was fast work on their part. I hoped this worked out for them.

I summarized the results gleaned from my experiment that just ended and forwarded them to Dr. Clark, with a couple of suggestions for a follow-up approach. Well, that pretty much cleared my plate. I had nothing I had to do, so I thought up a couple of possibly interesting experiments that might give some insight to Clark’s pet project, which would make him happy. I’ll spend the rest of the day fine-tuning that, and then send it to him.

“Sam?” I looked up, and one of the junior researchers was standing nearby. “There’s someone in the hall looking for you.”

In the hall? Why didn’t they just call if they wanted to see me? But I got up and walked to the hallway outside the lab, where I got a shock.

“Liz? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Sam, I just wanted to tell you and I didn’t want to wait for later.”

“Tell me what?”

“Deb Morrow called. This morning. I got it on my cell phone, and I’m not supposed to take personal calls at the desk, so I had to be quiet while Schwartz was catching up on his email. The stack’s about two inches high.”

“Deb Morrow called and...” I tried to encourage her to go on.

She reached out and put her hand on my arm. Twenty thousand volts, I can handle that. She lowered her voice, and whispered, “She said she’d read my stuff over the weekend, and she liked it! She wanted to know if I’d written any more, and if we could meet again! Sam, she likes it!”

“That’s amazing, Liz. I’m really happy and excited for you. You’re going to meet her?”

“Yeah, but I’ll have a hard time getting away during work hours, now that Schwartz is back -- he does have a tan, by the way, a very small tan -- so I told her that, I mean, not being able to get away from work during the day, and she said she might be able to stay late on Wednesday if I could come after work.”

“Wow, that’s wonderful. You must be over the moon.”

Her face lit up and she said, “You have no possible idea how excited I am! What if ... No, never mind, one step at a time. Look, I just wanted to share that with you, because you were the one who set it in motion, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

Then she reached up and kissed me on the cheek. I thought I’d go into cardiac arrest.

“So I won’t be able to tell you anything more till Thursday, but in case I appear to be acting a little strange, that’s why. Look, I’ve got to get back, but thanks, Sam.” She hurried off. Heads turned to follow her departure, and then she was gone.

I didn’t need the faster-than-light gossip hypothesis to explain the looks I got in the lab. Even the junior researchers, who normally didn’t interact much with us, were casting furtive glances. Frank and Ted and Art were just looking smug, wearing, “Told ya, didn’t I tell ya?” looks. But they forbore to say anything, apparently feeling that further comment would be gilding the lily.

I was happy for Liz. She deserved some success, especially after putting up with Schwartz and the other executives for so long. As she said, one step at a time, we’ll see what comes of this.

So for the rest of the day I sketched out the follow-up experiments I had thought Clark might like, then wrote them up in a report and asked for “guidance” as how to proceed. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but he was still the nominal head of the department so it had to appear to be his idea. I just had to frame it in a way that he could choose only one possible course.

He did as I’d thought, sending me a request the next day to set up an experimental protocol for the idea I wanted to try and let him know when it was ready for review. So that’s how I spent the next couple of days.

I did meet Liz on Tuesday for her break, giving her my few paltry comments on the chapters I’d read, and she passed me a couple of more. She must do nothing after work except sit at her computer till late at night churning out page after creative page. Her output was commendable.

She disappeared from sight for Wednesday, didn’t show up for her afternoon break, which I could understand. Thursday I got the go-ahead from Clark to proceed with the experiment design and to let him know the timeline. All well and good, I suppose, but I was waiting to hear Liz’s news about her meeting with Morrow.

I actually missed lunch, I got into a discussion with Art and Ted about their experiments and before we knew it, it was late. So I decided to hold off and have a late lunch when I’d normally go for my snack. And around two, I went down to the cafeteria and got a sandwich and a small salad and coffee. I was going to get cake, too, but some part of me said Liz would think less of me if I did.

And right on schedule she swept in to the cafeteria. She looked like she had grown two inches, walking with a presence I hadn’t noticed before, positively regal with a glorious smile. She detoured to get a cup of tea and a very small cookie, then came to my table and sat.

I looked at her and before she could even say hello, I spoke. “I was going to ask how things went, but I think I know.”

She put her hands in front of her mouth and she laughed, as if afraid someone would see her showing humor. It used to be considered improper, unladylike, for women to display emotion in public like that, but I thought those mores had gone out of fashion a hundred years ago.

“Am I that obvious?” she asked. “Can you really tell?”

“It’s obvious to me. You look ... overjoyed.”

She nodded, still smiling.

“Okay. Tell me. Everything.”

“Oh, Sam. It’s overwhelming, like a dream, and I’m afraid I’m going to wake up.”

She took a sip of her tea while she tried to focus her thoughts.

“All right, I’ll just tell it in order. So I planned to meet her after work on Wednesday, I told you, and she stayed late so I could get there. So I showed up and her assistant -- get this, her assistant stayed late, too, so he could announce me when I got there. So her assistant shows me in and Deb tells him he can go home now, and she’ll lock up.

“She says, ‘I read your stuff, Conway. A lot of people can write short stories, but they fall apart when they try novels. You’d be surprised how many.’ Then she stops, she just leaves me hanging. She says, ‘Conway, I missed lunch today, a planning meeting that went on way too long. You got dinner plans?’

“What? She’s asking me to join her for dinner? So I shake my head, no, and she says, ‘Okay, gimme a minute here while I arrange something.’ And she looks up a number on her Rolodex -- she still has a Rolodex on her desk! -- and makes a call. I can only hear the one side of the conversation, and she says, ‘Maurice, it’s Deb Morrow. Can you fit me in in about thirty minutes? Party of two? Thanks, Maurice, you’re a sweetheart.’

“Then she grabs her coat and her bag and the folder I gave her with my writing, and she says, ‘Let’s go.’ And I ask her where we’re going, and she tells me ‘Le Château.’ And I gulp, ‘cause I don’t have that much money on me, and I’m a little embarrassed to tell her, but I do. And she says, ‘Oh, I’ve got this, Conway, don’t worry about it.’

“Sam, I’ve never even been in this place before, not even in the bar, I only know it by reputation. I’m wondering if I’m even dressed well enough for it. So, we step out of the building onto the curb, and she raises her hand and it’s like a scene out of some movie from the 1930s, a taxi swerves in to the curb, tires squealing, to pick her up.

“We get in the cab and she picks up the conversation she cut off in her office, she says, ‘A lot of writers fall apart when they try novels, Conway, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that yours -- What did Halloran say? Oh, it “captured him” -- yours captured me, it wound me up in its thread, the way your characters interact and how it’s intertwined with the plot.’

“Sam, at that point I was speechless. I was afraid she’d look at me and see my jaw hanging open, but she was kind of watching the traffic. And then the taxi stopped in front of the restaurant and the doorman rushed up to open the door while she paid the driver. And the doorman knew her and said, ‘Good evening, Ms. Morrow, nice to see you.’ And we went in and dropped off our coats in the checkroom and they knew her. And the maître d’, Maurice, of course knew her by sight, and we didn’t even have to wait for our table.

“She asks me if I have any dietary restrictions and I shake my head, and then she says, ‘You’ll like this place. I know what’s good here, do you mind if I order for both of us?’ Of course I don’t mind. She’s paying, she can order me a bowl of Kibble if she wants.”

I chuckled at that.

“So she orders in French. I don’t know what we’re getting because the last time I spoke French was in high school and I wasn’t that good at it. So once she’s ordered, she gets right down to business. She says, ‘Conway, I’ll be blunt, I like what I’ve read so far and, damn you, you’ve got me hooked with your story, and I want to see how it turns out. Have you written more?’

“At this point all I can do is nod or shake my head. But before I can answer the waiter comes up with the wine and she has to approve it before he’ll pour, but she does, and I down half a glass hoping to steady my nerves. So I tell her, yes, I have more. Then I remember that I have it with me, so I reach into my bag and pull it out and pass it to her.

“And she smiles and puts her hand out, and says, ‘Gimme.’ She said, ‘Gimme’, Sam. That’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever gotten. She starts reading, then she stops herself and says, ‘No, I’m being rude. I’ll read it later.’ Then she starts talking about the story, asking about the characters and if I know what’s going to happen to them, like that, and I tell her I think I’ve got most of it worked out in my head.

“She says, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing what happens. Conway, I like what I’ve seen, I think this has real potential. It needs some editing in places, maybe some color, but not much, really. If you can finish this satisfactorily, I’d like to publish it.’”

Liz sat back in her chair and watched me while it sank in. She’d been building up to this, probably had rehearsed telling the story just so she could spring that line on me.

“Liz, I’m dumbfounded. I’m thrilled for you. I know how hard you’ve worked for this. This must feel like Christmas, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, all rolled into one. I’m really delighted for you.”

“Thank you, Sam. And I mean that. All the time I’ve been doing this, you’re really the only one who believed in me, who genuinely seemed to like what I was doing. Even my girlfriends weren’t as involved as you’ve been. That support meant a lot to me.

“Anyway, here’s the last bit of the story. So we talked over dinner -- and by the way, amazing food, I may have to save up my pennies just to go there for dinner once a year -- and once we were into the wine we got chummy. She started making some small suggestions about characters and their voice and like that. So we left it that I was to finish the novel or get to an ending point, she wasn’t clear, and we’d sit down and look at rewriting certain sections. But she emphasized that she thought there would only be a few of those.”

She looked at me like she still couldn’t believe she was saying this. “Sam, she wants to be my editor. She wants to help get it ready for publication. We’ll sign a contract and all that, and I’ll get an advance. Money. Someone is going to pay me to publish my stuff.”

“Liz, I’m proud of you. You’re very talented, and now everyone else will know it.”

“I’m still processing this. I can see the arc of the story, and see where it ends, and how to get there now, so it won’t be long. This has been my dream, and now it’s closer, and I have you to thank for that.”

I raised my hand to demur, but she stopped me and said, “Yes, I do, Sam. You encouraged me, and you were honest with your criticism and you offered suggestions, and it was just what I needed at just the right time. I don’t know what you like, or I’d buy you a small thank-you present, so can I make you dinner instead? It won’t be Le Château quality, but I haven’t poisoned anyone. Recently.”

I had to laugh at that, because it was funny, even while my heart was pounding in my chest. I have no idea how she was unaware of it. But I said, without too much stammering, “I would be delighted, if you’ll let me bring some wine.”

We agreed on a time Saturday evening, and she passed me a business card with her address handwritten on the back as she got up. “Sam, the past week has been the most amazing time of my life. I can’t wait to see what happens. With me. With the story.”

I sat there after she left, because I wasn’t quite sure if my legs were still working. Anyway, I still hadn’t finished my sandwich, so I did that and ate the salad, while I thought about Saturday. Part of me was terrified, wanting to run away for fear I’d screw things up, and another part was wanting to strut around telling every male in the building, “Guess where I’m going Saturday night.”

But that got me to thinking about what I expected from this. It was sweet of her to offer to make me dinner, and I was grateful for the kindness, but at the same time I was in awe of her. I don’t know what it is about her, but I feel like I’m tripping over my tongue when she’s around, and of course every time there’s the briefest physical contact, I am almost paralyzed. I don’t have this much trouble with other women. Is it just her reputation of unattainability, of that aura of a creature slightly above mere mortals?

I didn’t know, but I’d better figure it out before Saturday.

Nothing else that happened after that point is worth noting, as it pales in comparison to Liz’s news. I did notice that I was distracted for the rest of that day and Friday. To be expected, I guess. And I noticed that I was getting nervous, dropping things, forgetting things, like a kid getting ready for his first prom. I started to worry about little things, like do I still have the supplies to shine my shoes, and did I need a haircut. I wasn’t sure about the former, but I called and made an appointment for a haircut for Saturday morning. Just in case.