AT EIGHT TWENTY-NINE that morning, Seth, still a bundle of nerves and unfulfilled expectations, swiped his ID card through the elevator turnstile at Arnold Worldwide. He sat down at his desk and booted up his computer. Doctoral candidate in American lit and promising novelist that he was, he would spend the rest of the day greeting visitors and saying, “I’ll buzz back and let him know you’re here.”
His first order of business was to scan his e-mail and see if the Almighty Knopf had gotten in touch with him in the forty minutes since he’d checked his e-mail at home.
Nope, nothing from them.
Just the first of many e-mails from Andie. “It’s been a half hour and I miss you already. Just kidding, kind of. The people at Knopf probably aren’t even in their offices yet.”
So Seth hung his old cowboy jacket in the closet. Then he arranged the magazines in order—AdAge and AdWeek and Creativity fanned out in one pile, Wired, Face, and L’Uomo Vogue in another. He checked to make certain the night supply supervisor had stacked more paper cups in the cubbyhole with the water cooler (they called it a bubbler in Boston). Then he thought about how his BA in Renaissance literature at Dartmouth had prepared him for this job. He truly was a man for all seasons.
At eight forty-five the agency account executives came marching in—not bad people, but with a sense of self-importance in their “How you doing, Seth, my man?” or, skipping the niceties, “I’m expecting the ad manager from J and J at nine. Just send him back. Make him feel like he belongs here. You know how to do it, Seth.”
The creative types wouldn’t start appearing until close to nine-thirty, some of them even later, some not at all. “I’m crashing at home today, Seth. Cover for me.” Seth retrieved the newspapers from outside the elevators and placed them on the coffee table. The Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times. The day was ready to begin.
He removed the lid from his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and refreshed his personal e-mail page.
And there it was! The e-mail he’d been waiting for for weeks, the e-mail from the editor who’d first read and loved his novel at Knopf. Well, she was in early after all.
Hi, Seth.
I’ll get right to what you want to know. Unfortunately, the news is not good. At yesterday’s editorial meeting the committee decided to pass on The Dream Chasers. The feeling is that in this tough economic climate a first novel with a coming-of-age theme in a science fiction framework is too challenging for the average reader, even the literary reader that Knopf cultivates and treasures.
Everyone agreed—even Sonny Mehta—that your novel is strongly realized and a uniquely written and well-constructed piece. But I am certain those observations do little to assuage your disappointment in this outcome.
I know there is a very good publisher out there who will jump at the chance to take on this fine project. And we at Knopf look forward to seeing your future work.
I will call you in a few weeks, to see if you’re starting another project. And, Seth, please know that I share your disappointment in not moving forward with Dream Chasers.
Best always,
Mariana Gortensen, Editor
Hell, no, you don’t share my disappointment, Mariana. Not even close. But hell, yes, you’re right about something else: This does little to assuage my disappointment in this outcome!
Seth couldn’t help reading the e-mail a few more times. Once he committed it to memory he did the only thing that might calm him down and bring him a little peace.
He called Gaby. He got her in the classroom, and she still spent several minutes talking him down off the ledge. She told him that he was a very good writer—and she knew what made a good writer—that she loved him enormously, and that now he had to suck it up.
For some reason that helped Seth a lot.
Suck it up. That was his mom.