“It is? I thought it was good. I thought it was a lot tighter.” She looked disappointed.
“You’re right. It’s terrible because there isn’t a damn thing I can do to improve this. You’re getting too good for me, Alex. Slow down a little. You learn too fast. Give an old man a chance.” She smiled at what he said and was pleased.
“Don’t worry. I just had a good run this week. I’ll make a mess of it again next time.” But he doubted it. She was learning quickly. And one day she wouldn’t need him anymore, but the time hadn’t come yet. He still had a few tricks to teach her, and she was an avid student.
He sent her home early, back to work on the book, and after she left, he poured himself another glass of wine, and thought that if he’d had children, all he could have wanted was a daughter like her. But he knew he would never have been that lucky. He was just happy to be her mentor and her friend. She had added immeasurably to his life. And he hoped it would never end. It made up for some of what he’d been missing for fifteen years.
Chapter 9
When Alex went back to college in September for her junior year, she was finally able to enroll in more of the electives she wanted to take for her major in literature and her minor in creative writing, which seemed less crucial now, with a book sold to a publisher. But she was looking forward to taking classes which were of more specific interest to her. She worked hard in school and kept up her grades. She was writing her fourth book when she went back to school, and she continued to spend Saturdays with Bert Kingsley. He always had useful comments about what she wrote.
Alex took a heavy course load again. Her advisor felt she could handle it, since she always maintained her grades. And all through the fall, she had the fun of approving the book jacket, ads, and flap copy of her upcoming book. She carefully read the galleys and made corrections. Everything was sent to her through her agent, and Rose forwarded it to the convent since Mr. Green was supposed to be in Scotland.
Alex loved the cover of the book. It was a shimmering steel blue, with a knife blade as the main graphic. She could hardly wait for it to come out in April. And for spring semester she signed up for a fiction class, despite the fact that her career was taking off. The professor was a well-known female novelist whose books Alex had enjoyed. They were entertaining and fun and totally different from her own. Scott Williams, the teaching assistant, was an unpublished writer so far, but he told the students he was working on a novel, and took over for the professor for a month, while she went on a seven-city publicity tour for her latest book.
Scott was lively and intelligent, and told Alex he liked her writing style, although he criticized her plot twists and said they were weak, which surprised her. She handed in her assignments on time, and was particularly proud of the one which he gave her a C? on, and told her that her characters were unappealing, not believable, and didn’t move him. Then she realized that he was competitive with her, and judging her work harshly, whenever she felt she had written the piece well. She finally took some of the stories to Bert for his opinion.
“Is this as bad as he says?” she asked about the story she’d been shocked to receive a C? on. He read it and looked up at her with a grin.
“You must be kidding. I like your crime stuff better, but this is great. What’s wrong with this guy?”
“I’m not sure. He’s very nice to me, but he doesn’t like what I write, and he keeps giving me lousy grades.”
“It’s the green-eyed monster again, my dear.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s jealous as hell. Have you seen anything he’s written?”
“No. He’s not published. He’s writing the great American novel, and has been working on it for six years.”
“You can write circles around him, even in a different genre from what you’re best at. You’re a hell of a writer, Alex. My guess is that this guy can’t write for shit, and recognizes you for what you are, a real writer. I’d love to see what he’s written.”
“So what do I do now? I don’t want grades like this on my transcript. I could drop out, but I hate to quit and waste the time and effort I’ve put into it, and get an incomplete in the class. I was taking his assignments seriously till now, but that last grade made me think something wasn’t right. I can argue with him about the grade. But he’s tougher on me than he is on everyone else.”
“Has he seen your crime stories?”
“Of course not. I have you for that,” she said glumly. “I don’t need him to teach me how to write thrillers. Besides, I already know how to do that. I wanted to learn to write other kinds of stories.”
“So you can switch to romance novels?”
“No. I just thought I might pick up some pointers and it would be interesting to write something else.” But Scott was taking the fun out of it for her, and was overly critical of everything she wrote for the class.
She tried discussing it with Scott at the next opportunity, and he suggested they go to dinner and talk about it, and she accepted. She liked him, except for the bad grades.
They agreed to meet at the Washington Square Tavern, a few blocks from the campus, and she rode up on her bike on a freezing cold night. Her cheeks were pink and her dark hair gleamed when she got there. He was waiting for her at the bar. His eyes lit up when he saw her. And he managed to avoid the subject of her grades and assignments for most of dinner, and only got around to it over dessert. They had eaten burgers and ordered ice cream afterward. Hers melted while she listened to him explain everything that was wrong with her writing and why it didn’t work. And none of it made sense. He contradicted himself several times about her plots and her characters and said there was no depth to her work. He was actually quite insulting, and she would have been crushed if she didn’t have a book contract under her belt and Bert to reassure her. But what she couldn’t figure out was why he was so hostile about her writing. He said it politely, and smiled at her while he did, but when she thought about it afterward, she realized that he had been incredibly mean.
She got a C from him on the next short story assignment. When he asked her out again, she accepted his invitation, wanting to solve the mystery of his attitude about her. He was even more critical the second time, although he was charming and funny over dinner, and kissed her on the lips when he drove her home. But all she could think of were the things he had said about her work, which canceled out everything else.