yet—he’ll be too busy and so will I.”
“You?”
“Who’s going to be handling all his business detail?”
“Of course. I hadn’t thought of that at all.”
“For a while, anyway, and there’ll be plenty of it.”
“There will?”
“Sure. A stream of phone calls about splitting up the payments, people to meet and discuss things with—”
“What people?”
“Oh, I don’t know. From Digby and Brown, I guess, maybe from Best Selling Books, Incorporated. I’ll find out tomorrow how these things are done.” Cindy was watching him with a strange look, almost a look of, well, whatever it was a look of, it flattered him. His mind raced; he felt himself reaching confidently into new areas of living. “There might even be a movie sale in this,” he heard himself saying with calm authority, though this was a notion which had just been born. “And that would mean people from Hollywood too. Producers and people.”
Cindy’s head lifted and her shoulders straightened. She turned and looked about the room expectantly, as if guests were due. “It’ll be fun, won’t it?” she said, and smiled at him.
If Gregory Johns had been as close and constant an observer of human nature as authors are popularly held to be, he would have noticed long before this that the happiness of some of his nearest and dearest relatives was no longer unmixed.
But Gregory Johns was not such an author. He always needed time to develop the impressions left upon his mind during moments of high import, and only in retrospect did the subtleties of behavior take on their true values for him.
Thus it was that the small signs of distress here and there seemed to escape his notice. He had heard his sisters grousing about baby-sitters, had seen Cindy’s scrutiny of her own face in the mirror, and had a fleeting impression that though Thorn had been pensive, even sad, until after the call to Chicago, he had swung into violent, almost manic, good humor before it was over.
But none of these notes jotted down upon the surface of Gregory Johns’ mind were, as yet, easily legible even to him. For some time, his most active preoccupation had been with the idea that it would be nice to go home, and now that he had escaped from the noise and hilarity in the living room, he found himself longing for the moment when he and Abby could be alone.
He looked about him vaguely. He was in Cindy’s and Thorn’s bedroom; it was cool and blessedly silent. He sat down near the telephone table but made no move to lift the receiver. Ed Barnard had driven down to Philadelphia to work with an invalid author and would get home at two or three in the morning. He wondered if Ed knew, and what he would feel about it when he did know. Apart from Abby, Ed was the one person in the world with whom he might be able to discuss this, turn of fortune and the unprecedented emotions crowding his breast because of it.
Never as long as he could remember anything would he forget that first moment when Jake Zatke’s slow-paced voice told him his book had been selected. There was one dazzling, blinding instant of joy, unequivocal and pure, at the vision of hundreds of thousands of people reading something he had written, something into which he had put his faith and his love. Never had he worn a face of scorn for the size of one’s audience; never had he pretended that it mattered not whether ten people or ten thousand saw one’s work. Now many times ten thousand people would see his—the knowledge was a huge burst within him, exalted and exulting.
Later, when Jake had reached the part about the money, there had been another kind of pleasure, of a different nature, less private, more gaudy. This second pleasure one could describe more easily; it dealt with bills and expenses and physical things for Hat and Abby—he thought fleetingly of a large and very white refrigerator. But that first, that inner delight—could he ever share that, even with Abby?
All evening,
“You?”
“Who’s going to be handling all his business detail?”
“Of course. I hadn’t thought of that at all.”
“For a while, anyway, and there’ll be plenty of it.”
“There will?”
“Sure. A stream of phone calls about splitting up the payments, people to meet and discuss things with—”
“What people?”
“Oh, I don’t know. From Digby and Brown, I guess, maybe from Best Selling Books, Incorporated. I’ll find out tomorrow how these things are done.” Cindy was watching him with a strange look, almost a look of, well, whatever it was a look of, it flattered him. His mind raced; he felt himself reaching confidently into new areas of living. “There might even be a movie sale in this,” he heard himself saying with calm authority, though this was a notion which had just been born. “And that would mean people from Hollywood too. Producers and people.”
Cindy’s head lifted and her shoulders straightened. She turned and looked about the room expectantly, as if guests were due. “It’ll be fun, won’t it?” she said, and smiled at him.
If Gregory Johns had been as close and constant an observer of human nature as authors are popularly held to be, he would have noticed long before this that the happiness of some of his nearest and dearest relatives was no longer unmixed.
But Gregory Johns was not such an author. He always needed time to develop the impressions left upon his mind during moments of high import, and only in retrospect did the subtleties of behavior take on their true values for him.
Thus it was that the small signs of distress here and there seemed to escape his notice. He had heard his sisters grousing about baby-sitters, had seen Cindy’s scrutiny of her own face in the mirror, and had a fleeting impression that though Thorn had been pensive, even sad, until after the call to Chicago, he had swung into violent, almost manic, good humor before it was over.
But none of these notes jotted down upon the surface of Gregory Johns’ mind were, as yet, easily legible even to him. For some time, his most active preoccupation had been with the idea that it would be nice to go home, and now that he had escaped from the noise and hilarity in the living room, he found himself longing for the moment when he and Abby could be alone.
He looked about him vaguely. He was in Cindy’s and Thorn’s bedroom; it was cool and blessedly silent. He sat down near the telephone table but made no move to lift the receiver. Ed Barnard had driven down to Philadelphia to work with an invalid author and would get home at two or three in the morning. He wondered if Ed knew, and what he would feel about it when he did know. Apart from Abby, Ed was the one person in the world with whom he might be able to discuss this, turn of fortune and the unprecedented emotions crowding his breast because of it.
Never as long as he could remember anything would he forget that first moment when Jake Zatke’s slow-paced voice told him his book had been selected. There was one dazzling, blinding instant of joy, unequivocal and pure, at the vision of hundreds of thousands of people reading something he had written, something into which he had put his faith and his love. Never had he worn a face of scorn for the size of one’s audience; never had he pretended that it mattered not whether ten people or ten thousand saw one’s work. Now many times ten thousand people would see his—the knowledge was a huge burst within him, exalted and exulting.
Later, when Jake had reached the part about the money, there had been another kind of pleasure, of a different nature, less private, more gaudy. This second pleasure one could describe more easily; it dealt with bills and expenses and physical things for Hat and Abby—he thought fleetingly of a large and very white refrigerator. But that first, that inner delight—could he ever share that, even with Abby?
All evening,
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