A long sigh. I started to lie back, but stayed in my position, not wanting to take any chances that he’d ask if I was lying down and then feel weird and want to end the call.
Because I could talk books all day with Billy Montrose. And it seemed I was getting my chance.
“At first I was incredibly flattered. I mean, IloveSalinger, you know?” I nodded, but of course he couldn’t see me. He went on like he could. “And then it got kind of annoying. This wasmybook.Mywork.Myideas. I got a chip on my shoulder about it. Those were what I endearingly call my ‘prick years.’”
“When was this?” I asked.
“The last two years.”
“You don’t seem too much like a prick now. Are you out of that phase?”
“Depends on the day. That’s why I’m here. Well, nothere,at my parents’, but at Bribury. I didn’t like what I was becoming.”
“A prick?”
“Oh, I had fully become a prick. The next stage I seemed to be careening toward was ‘self-entitled prick’, and it was coming hard and fast.”
“So, Bribury.”
“Yeah. I used the excuse that I needed a change of scenery to ‘get out of my head,’ in order to write the next book. And that’s true, but I knew I was just one martini-soaked, three-hour lunch away from being someone I didn’t want to be. Because I had the sneaking suspicion thathecouldn’t write for shit.”
I laughed at that. And kind of marveled at his self-awareness. Given the chance, I’d probably be perfectly happy to become a self-entitled prick and enjoy all the perks that came with it.
“Anyway. You don’t want to hear all that.” Oh, I so did! “Why the Salinger question?”
“Well, if there were all the Salinger comparisons, why would you bait that by having your protagonist named Esme? Seems like you’re waving a red cape at them.”
An out-and-out chuckle from him now. “Is it possible that we really just ‘met’ yesterday? Are you sure you haven’t been organizing the files of my shrink?”
Ooh, he had a shrink—so Manhattan. There was a couch I’d like to lie on with him. And not inthatway. Okay, in that way, too, but I’d love to hear the deep thoughts he spilled to his therapist.
“Yeah, that’s where Rachel came in. At first, always, she was Esme in my head. But…my own Esme if that makes sense.”
“It does.”
“And I loved her. I wanted to write her, to be her. I could easily spend a whole book with her. And then I realized I was playing into their hands and I’d be crucified if I used the name Esme.”
“So she became Rachel.”
“Right.”
“I’m not through everything here—obviously—but I think the dates on your notes show that you went back to Esme. Is that right?”
“Yeah, that was when the prick started rearing his head.” (I can’t even mention what visualthatturn of phrase conjured up for me.) “And I was all ‘Fuck you, he doesn’t own the name. I can do great things with my Esme too.’”
“Wow.”
He let out a sigh, but I could see—hear—the smile on his face. “I know, right? Total prick.”
“Well…hubris at the very least.”
“Right. Exactly. Esme hubris.”
“The very worst kind.”
“Yes. But I couldn’t see it at the time.”
“Because you’d become a prick.” There was no question in my voice.
