The Pursuit Of Happiness Page 22

  'Are you really going to take this job with Nat?'

  'I'm afraid so. And yes, I know all the logical reasons why I should dodge it. But I'm a coward. I need to know where the next paycheck is coming from. I also believe in the mysteries of timing . . .'

  'How do you mean?'

  That's when I told him about the postcard I'd received that morning from Jack.

  'All he said was, I'm sorry?' Eric said.

  'Yes – it was short and not so sweet.'

  'No wonder you're taking the job.'

  'I would have accepted Nat's offer, no matter what.'

  'But Lover Boy's goodbye note clinched the matter?'

  'Please don't call him Lover Boy.'

  'Sorry. I'm simply angry on your behalf.'

  'Like I told you weeks ago, I'm cured.'

  'So you said.'

  'Eric, I threw his card away.'

  'And accepted Nat's job offer a couple of hours later.'

  'One door shuts, one door opens.'

  'Is that an original line?'

  'Go to hell,' I said with a smile.

  The beers arrived. Eric raised his stein. 'To the new assistant fiction editor of Saturday Night/Sunday Morning. Please keep writing.'

  'I promise I will.'

  Six months later, I found myself replaying that conversation in my head on a snowy December afternoon, just before Christmas. I was in my cubbyhole office on the twenty-third floor of the Saturday/Sunday offices in Rockefeller Center. My small grimy window gave me a picturesque view of a back alleyway. There were a pile of unsolicited short stories on my desk. As usual, I had sifted through ten manuscripts that day – none of which were remotely publishable. As usual, I had written a report of varying length on each story. As usual, I had attached standard rejection letters to every story. As usual, I bemoaned the fact that I wasn't getting any of my own writing done.

  The job had proved far more laborious than expected. It also had virtually nothing to do with editing. Rather, I was employed (along with two of Nat's other assistants) to work my way through the three hundred or so manuscripts that arrived at Saturday/Sunday each month by unknown writers. The editorial board of the magazine prided itself on the fact that every unsolicited manuscript was 'given due consideration' – but it was pretty clear to me after eight weeks there that, by and large, my job was to say no. Occasionally, I would bump into a story that showed promise – or even real talent. But I had no power to get it into print. Rather, all I could do was 'send it upstairs' to Nat Hunter with an enthusiastic recommendation – knowing full well that the chances of him running it were negligible. Because the magazine only reserved four of its fifty-two annual issues for stories by unknown writers. The remaining forty-eight weeks were given over to established names – and Saturday/Sunday prided itself on its weekly offering of fiction by the most prestigious writers of the day: Hemingway, O'Hara, Steinbeck, Somerset Maugham, Waugh, Pearl Buck. The list was formidable, and made me realize just how absurdly lucky I was to be one of the four unknown writers to be plucked out of obscurity during 1946 for publication in the magazine.

  As scheduled, 'Shore Leave' did appear in the September 6th edition of Saturday/Sunday. Several of my colleagues in the office complimented me on the writing. An editor at Harper and Brothers dropped me a nice note, saying that if and/or when I had amassed a book-length collection of stories, he'd be interested in considering them for publication. Someone from RKO Pictures made a tentative telephone inquiry about the rights to the story, but then sent a letter, explaining that 'wartime romances are now passé'. As promised, I did despatch a copy of the magazine to Ruth in Maine, and received a cheery card back in return ('You really have it as a writer . . . and this reader wants to read more!'). Eric squandered a significant portion of his weekly salary on a celebratory dinner at 21. And Nat Hunter also marked the occasion by taking me to lunch at Longchamps.

  'So do you regret taking the job?' he asked as our drinks arrived.

  'Hardly,' I lied. 'Do I seem like I regret it?'

  'You're far too well-mannered and polite to ever openly express dissatisfaction. But – as I know you've discovered – yours is not the most fulfilling of jobs. Nor, for that matter, is mine – but at least I have the fringe benefit of an expense account, which allows me to lunch writers . . . like your good self. On which note: where's the next story?'

  'I'm working on it,' I said. 'It's taking a little longer than I expected.'

  'You are a terrible liar, Miss Smythe.'

  He was right, of course. I was utterly transparent. And I was getting nowhere with my next story . . . even though I knew what I was going to write. It was a tale of an eight-year-old girl on summer vacation in Maine with her parents. She's their only child: over-protected, over-pampered, over-indulged . . . but also deeply aware of the fact that her parents don't like each other very much, and that she is the glue which is holding them together. One afternoon, her parents get into a horrendous argument, and she wanders off out of their rented beach house. She leaves the beach, takes a wrong turn and finds herself in a deep set of woods. She remains lost there overnight, and is found the next morning by the police. She's in shock, but basically unscathed. She has a tearful reunion with her parents. For a day or so afterwards, harmony reigns within the family. But then the parental fights start again, and she runs off into the woods. Because now she realizes that, as long as she's in jeopardy, her parents will cling to each other and get along.

  I had a title for the story: 'Getting Lost'. I had the basic narrative structure worked out in my mind. What I didn't have was the will to sit down and write it. The Saturday/Sunday job was enervating. I'd arrive home at seven each night, sapped. After eight hours of reading other people's stories I felt like doing anything else but tackling my own work. So I began to play the postponement game – as in, I'm just too depleted to open my typewriter, so I'll wake up at six a.m. tomorrow and crank out three hundred words before heading to the office. But then, when the alarm went off the next morning, I'd roll over and sleep on until eight thirty. When I got back home that night, I'd be feeling as devitalized as ever, unable to think about my short story. On the nights when my energy level was high, I'd find other things to do. Like heading off to see a great Howard Hawks double bill at the Academy of Music on 14th Street. Or I'd squander the evening with an enjoyably pulpy William Irish novel. Or I'd decide that this was the moment the bathroom needed cleaning . . .

  The weekends were worse. I'd wake up Saturday morning, determined to put in four hours at the typewriter. I'd sit down. I'd type a sentence. I'd hate the sentence. I'd yank the paper out of the typewriter. I'd roll in another piece of paper. This time I would get two, maybe even three sentences on paper before ripping it from the Remington.

  And then I would decide it was time for a walk. Or a coffee at the Cafe Reggio on Bleecker Street. Or a trip uptown to the Metropolitan Museum. Or a late morning foreign movie at the Apollo on 42nd Street. Or a trip to the laundromat. Or any other piece of busy work which would help me dodge writing.

  This went on for months. Whenever Eric asked how the new story was going, I'd tell him that I was making slow, steady, progress. He'd say nothing, but the sceptical glint in his eye let it be known that he realized I was lying. Which made me feel around ten times more guilty, as I hated deceiving my brother. But what could I tell him? That I had lost all confidence in my ability to string a sentence together, let alone a story? Or that I now knew I was a one-off writer – someone with only a single story to tell.

  Eventually, I confessed this to Eric. It was Thanksgiving Day 1946. Like the previous year, I met my brother for lunch at Luchows. Unlike the previous year, I wasn't in love. Instead, I was enveloped by disappointment: with my work, with the circumstances of my life . . . but, most tellingly, with myself.

  Like the previous year, Eric ordered a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate. After the waiter poured out two glasses, Eric raised his and said, 'To your next story.'

&
nbsp; I lowered my glass and heard myself saying: 'There is no story, Eric. And you know that.'

  'Yes. I know that.'

  'You've known that for a long time.'

  He nodded.

  'Then why didn't you say anything?'

  'Because all writers know what it's like to have a block. It's something you really don't want to talk about with anybody.'

  'I feel like a failure,' I said, swallowing hard.

  'That's dumb, S.'

  'It may be dumb, but it's the truth. I messed up at Life. I should never have taken that job at Saturday/Sunday. Now I'm unable to write. Which means my entire literary output will end up being one forgotten story, published when I was twenty-four.'

  Eric sipped his wine and smiled. 'Don't you think you're being just a tad melodramatic?'

  'I want to be melodramatic.'

  'Good. I prefer you when you're Bette Davis, not Katharine Hepburn.'

  'God, you sound like him.'

  'Is he still on the brain?'

  'Only today.'

  'It being your anniversary, I suppose.'

  I winced. And said, 'That wasn't nice.'

  'You're right. It wasn't. I'm sorry.'

  'You're very hard on me sometimes.'

  'Only because you're so hard on yourself. Anyway, it's not criticism. Just constructive teasing, an attempt to get you to lighten up. So stop torturing yourself about not being able to work. If you have a story to tell, you'll tell it. If you don't. . . it's not the end of the world. Or, at least, that's what I've decided recently.'

  'You haven't given up on your play, have you?'

  He stared down into his glass for a moment, then reached (as always) for his cigarettes and matches. He lit one, but didn't look back up at me.

  'There is no play,' he said quietly.

  'I don't understand . . . ?'

  'It's simple, really. The play I've been writing for the last two years doesn't exist.'

  'But why doesn't it exist?'

  'Because I never wrote anything.'

  I tried to disguise my shock. I failed. 'Nothing at all?' I said quietly.

  He bit his lip. 'Not a word,' he said.

  'What happened?'

  He shrugged. 'There's only so much rejection one can take. Seven unproduced plays is enough for me.'

  'Things change. Tastes change. You've got to travel hopefully.'

  'And while you're at it, physician heal thyself.'

  'You know how impossible it is to heed one's own advice.'

  'Okay – then listen to mine. End the self-flagellation. Put the typewriter away until you're really ready to use it again.'

  'I'll never use it again.'

  'Stop sounding like me, for Christ's sakes. Especially as you will use it again.'

  'How can you be so sure?'

  'Because you'll want to. I'm sure of it. And because you will get over him.'

  'I am definitely over him.'

  'No, S. He's still around, nagging you. I can tell.'

  Was I that transparent? Was it that obvious? Ever since I'd received that card from Jack, I had resolved to expunge him from my head; to file him away, and slam the cabinet door shut. Initially, I was so angry and hurt by his terse reply that it was easy for me to write him off as a delusional mistake. I mean, how dare he only write three lousy words in response to the three dozen or so letters and cards I sent him? He'd made me feel like a chump, a dupe. Over and over I heard myself at the gates of the Brooklyn Navy Yards, telling him he'd better not break my heart. Over and over I heard Jack say that he loved me. How could I have been so naive, so damn green?

  Anger is always a sensible antidote to heartache – especially if you have very good reasons for feeling aggrieved. For months I held on to that sense of intense rancor. It helped me deal with his wholesale rejection of me. I had made a massive mistake. As Eric predicted, Jack Malone turned out to be a fly-by-night artist; a Don Giovanni in Army khaki. If only he'd had the decency (or the courage) to write me straight away, telling me that there was no future between us. If only he hadn't kept me dangling for so long. If only I hadn't been such a romantic sap.

  After anger comes resentment. After resentment, bitterness. And when that acrid aftertaste finally diminishes, what you are usually left with is wistfulness. A rueful cocktail of acceptance and regret. The sadder but wiser school of needlepoint mottos.

  But by the time of my Thanksgiving lunch with Eric, I wasn't merely wistful. Naturally, the day in question (my so-called anniversary with Jack, as Eric so tartly noted) made me reflect on all that had happened to me during the past chaotic year. But it also brought home something which I kept trying to deny (but which Eric, damn him as usual) quickly detected: I still missed the guy.

  And I still couldn't work out why one single night with someone had made such a resounding, lasting impact.

  Unless . . .

  Unless he was it.

  But I tried not to dwell on this thought. Because it meant dwelling on Jack. And I didn't want to dwell on Jack because, in turn, it meant wondering if there was a thing called destiny – a thought which rekindled the residual grief I still felt about losing Jack.

  A few days after Thanksgiving, however, a little perspective returned – and, once again, I retired Mr Malone to that drawer of my mental filing cabinet marked 'Romantic Mistakes'.

  During that same week, I also took Eric's advice and put my Remington typewriter into hibernation at the back of my closet. Initially I felt a considerable degree of guilt at giving up the idea of writing. But by mid-December, the constant stab of angst had receded. And, rationalizing like crazy, I was able to convince myself that my writing career hadn't crashed and burned. Rather, it had decided to take an extended sabbatical.

  'Am I ever going to see that new short story?' Nathaniel Hunter asked me at our Christmas lunch.

  'Not for a while, I'm afraid.'

  He looked at me quizzically. 'And why is that, Sara?'

  I met his gaze directly. 'Because I never wrote it, Mr Hunter.'

  He grimaced. 'That's a damn shame.'

  'It's just a story.'

  'You have a lot of promise, Sara.'

  'That's very kind of you, but if I can't get the story written, then promise means nothing, does it?'

  'I feel bad. Responsible.'

  'Why? You did warn me. But it's not the job that stopped me from writing it. It's me.'

  'Don't you want to be a writer?'

  'I think so. But . . . I can't really figure anything out anymore.'

  'It's a common complaint, I'm afraid.'

  'Tell me about it. Especially since I have learned one basic rule of life over the last year.'

  'Enlighten me.'

  'Every time you think you know what you want, you bump into someone who alters your perspective completely.'

  'Some people would call that "keeping your options open".'

  'I would call it an ongoing recipe for unhappiness,' I said.

  'But maybe some people do bump into what they want.'

  'Without question. The problem is: having found what you want, can you actually hold on to it? And the terrible thing is: the answer to that question all comes down to things like luck, timing, maybe even a pinch or two of serendipity. Stuff over which we have such little control.'