Tenpenny smirked at Beresford’s youthful optimism. “Oh, that’s okay. I’ll man the fort when the calls start streaming in.”
There’s an old saying in non-WASP circles (radioactively leaked to Tenpenny by his outgoing third wife) that the reason trust funders are so cheap is because if they ever did lose their money, they wouldn’t have a clue how to get it back. Of all the mean things #3 said to him, this one hurt the most, because it was the truest, and every broke day that Roger suffered through was a victory for the cheating bitch and a defeat for him. Roger had had a few interesting business ideas over the years—a combination toilet paper/baby wipe dispenser for adults who liked extra cleanliness; a nonalcoholic tequila; a fake bumble bee on a stick that you could scare your friends with, etc.—but what he had in creativity he lacked in follow-through. After the initial excitement over the concept, his only avenue was to find a successful CEO who could do the heavy lifting and split everything 50/50 with him, which of course is not how commerce works.
As the fall progressed and money grew scarce, time seemed to speed up for Tenpenny. This was an illusion, of course, caused by sleeping fourteen hours a day and being foggy-brained for most of the waking ones. Suddenly the Christmas season was at Tenpenny’s throat—seemingly leapfrogging over a couple other holidays—and with it came the vestigial pain that Jesus’s birthday brings to the downtrodden.
Roger sat picking at a tin of sardines with crispless crackers at four o’clock on a darkening afternoon. It was his first meal of the day. His adrenals, shot from stress and worry, had not permitted three cups of yesterday’s coffee to register, so when his phone rang all he could do was stare. The machine picked up, informing the caller that everyone at the “Providence branch” of Guardian Angel Associates was either on another line or out to lunch.
“Hello,” a man said, tentatively. “This is Paul Scholl calling from Alfred A. Knopf in New York. Could you please ask Charles Beresford to call me regarding his novel Danke, Dolores—”
Tenpenny grabbed for the phone. “G-A-A,” he trilled in a high, officious voice, “How can I direct your call?”
“Yes, um, I’m not certain I have the right place. Is there a Charles Beresford at this number? I’m calling about a manuscript he sent us.”
“You must be looking for Mr. Tenpenny. He’s our resident scribe.” Tenpenny tried to sound jovial. “I’ll connect you.”
He tapped a couple numbers on the phone and then in his own voice said, “Roger here, what’s shakin’?”
“Hello,” the man said. “I’m calling from Knopf Publishing in New York and I’m looking for a Mr. Charles Beresford.”
“That’s me. Well, I’m him. That is, Charles Beresford is my nom de . . . whichimicallit. Is this about my book?”
“Well, yes it is, Mr. . . .”
“Tenpenny.”
“My name is Paul Scholl and I have rather quite good news for you. We loved your novel and want very much to publish it.”
Rather quite seemed rather quite wordy for an editor, and for a millisecond Tenpenny wondered if this was the right publishing house for him, but then he glanced at the sardine can and said, “Fantastic! That’s wonderful news!”
After a little more back-patting and some small talk, the editor asked if Tenpenny could find a gap in his schedule to come to the city for a few days. Roger beamed. “How does tomorrow sound?”
*
A puffy-eyed Tenpenny was leaving his apartment early the next morning when he heard a shout and saw Beresford bounding up his front steps.
“Monsieur Ro-jay!”
“Hey. How’s it going?” Tenpenny bustled past him toward the sidewalk. The city had sustained an overnight dumping and the trees were shaking off the snow, their limbs animate and noisy.
“Great,” Beresford said. “I’ve been meaning to stop by and pick up my novel.”
Which was inside the briefcase Tenpenny was toting to New York.
“Really shitty timing, buddy-boy. Gotta catch a flight and running late—mind grabbing it some other time?”
Tenpenny trudged briskly to his car. Beresford had to hop every third step to keep up.
“Really? Can’t you just run inside? It’ll take a sec.”
“Problem is, if I open my apartment I’ll have to reset the burglar alarm and the little fucker’s as fickle as my third wife.” Tenpenny chuckled. “What a twat she was!”
“Oh. Okay. No big deal. So . . . where are you off to?”
“New York. Business.” Tenpenny brushed snow off the windshield with his coat sleeve. “By the way, have you thought about what we talked about?”
“What’d we talk about?”
“You know, about publishing houses being the kiss of death for writers, and you going home to England?”
“When did you say anything about me going back to Britain?”
“Okay, what about the other thing?”
“You mean about not being published? I thought you were just talking about you.”
“Not just.”