Lawrence Looks for Treasure

Part 2 - Chapter 38

38

The following week, I returned to the writers group red with fright. I had no idea how they would receive my work. It was not particularly profound, like the girl's story of aging told through the lens of glasses, nor the whiskered man's dystopian epic of a world without books. My work was simply good fun. I hoped my new group of literary friends would take to it, as I did not think it was mere superficial fun, but the wholesome kind, the fun that comes from leaving your home, and living on an overstuffed boat without a penny in your pocket or a calorie in your belly. A worthy distraction, I suppose. However, my hopes were not high.

Happily, their feedback well exceeded my hopes. The writers group was positively fawning. They loved every word, each for their own reason, and I was instantly catapulted to the top of the group's hierarchy. I thus became doubly determined to finish my second novel.

At the end of our meeting, just when I thought the day had gone perfectly, and thus could not go better, the man with the whiskers approached me on my way out. He re-introduced himself, repeated that he thought my work excellent, and reported, for the first time, that he had worked at a top publishing house, but was leaving to start his own. He wanted my book on his roster of first prints. He would pay me $4,000 for the work, plus 15% of sales. He would pay me another $4,000 to write a second. I couldn't believe it. That was more than I made in a year. That was enough to bring Inès to America. That was enough to leave Ziegfeld and write full time. I shook his hand and thanked him. I told him I would come to his office and sign my life away. Once we had finished up, I walked to the bathroom, sat on the toilet and wept. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. Although I hate to ruin a good surprise, that happy moment would only become happier.

I am quite confident there is no rhyme or reason in life. To think that there is may be dangerous, life can be so unfair. Yet there are curious patterns to it. One pattern in life is that we worry too much about those things we cannot change, and so neglect the things we can. Another is that both good and bad events frequently occur all at once, like a flood gaining momentum with each broken dam. Well, the latter happened to me following the book review.

When I had finished weeping joyfully in the bathroom, I ran into James, the leader of our writers group, on the street. James complimented my novel, and informed me he had been looking for me. I thanked him, informing him that the novel was just purchased by the man with whiskers. James replied that he himself would like to purchase my book. He worked at a leading publishing house in New York, one that had previously refused to even consider my work, let alone reject it.

James offered the same as the man in whiskers--$4,000 plus 15% of sales—but I told James I would go with him. I wanted to publish with an established house. More than that, I wanted to publish with James. I did not like the whiskered man. I found his writing painfully stylistic, and his person even more so. How could I trust the judgement a man who wrote like that? I could not. Thus, I assured James I would meet him the following morning—my meeting with the whiskered man was to occur in the afternoon—and firm things up.

I left James in high spirits, turned around, and fumbled into the bespectacled girl. It seemed no one had yet gone home. I apologized for knocking into her, and she did me. I complemented her on her work, and she did me. I asked her where she was going, and she did me. We lived, as it turned out, two blocks apart. Thus, together we walked home.

The sun was setting as we walked. The girl's name was Ruth. Although I told Ruth I enjoyed her work, the truth was, I had not yet read it. But I knew, simply from Ruth's demeaner, that her work was strong. There was intelligence in her eyes and wisdom in her movement. She was not a pretty girl, but her presence was rejuvenating and calm, like sunrays on a summer's eve. I asked her all kinds of questions, poking and prying like she was an object of curiosity, and at each turn, she had something clever to reply. She had an easy intellect in a way that Inès did not. Where Inès worked for it, Ruth came to it blithely. I could not help but feel for her in a way that forsook Inès. Even after I dropped Ruth at her apartment, her spirit stayed with me.