And so I read her novella with nervous expectation. I read the seventy-six pages again with relief and growing delight. The third time, I forced myself to read in a solemn search for subtle flaws that I had overlooked. At one thirty in the morning, I reorganized the pages and hurried down the hall to her room, intending to wake her. The door stood ajar and light shone beyond. She was sitting in bed, propped up by a mass of pillows, with a double-layer box of bonbons in her lap. She said, “I’ve finished more than half these chocolates waiting for you. I thought by the time you finally came I’d be as fat as Oliver Hardy. Why are you carrying a drawer? Did you throw up in it? Couldn’t you getto the toilet in time? Was it the plot or the prose that nauseated you? Was it both?”
Rounding the bed, I said, “Oh, shut up, you silly genius. I’m coming up there. Don’t stuff yourself with more chocolates. I need my share to drown my jealousy in sugar.” I clambered onto the bed with the vanity drawer containing the manuscript. She’d anticipated my visit and had piled more pillows beside hers. Between her and me were two boxes of Kleenex. “We’re not going to need those. Let’s get right to it. Kid, your craftsmanship is superb. I would never have imagined you knew more than rudimentary English, enough to converse with Rafael and contribute childish observations when the rest of us are engaged in sophisticated banter, but you have proven me wrong.”
“You sure know how to lift a girl’s spirits.”
“I was mocking your misplaced self-doubt.”
“Yeah, it was hard to mistake your intention. Is it really any good, Addie? Any good at all? Don’t coddle me.”
“Your craftsmanship is really excellent. Twice you thought the subjunctive mood was required when it wasn’t, and once you misused a semicolon.”
“The hell you say!”
“You’re succinct. The prose flows, flows so smoothly.”
“Diarrhea flows. Vomit flows.”
“Fortunately, you didn’t write anything like that in this fine novella. Check yourself in the future when the impulse arises. Your style is quite another thing from your proper use of English.”
“How badly does it stink?”
“Oh, it stinks like a rose. Your phrasing, pacing, similes, metaphors, all the rest of it. It’s unique. It’s yours. It’s you. It’s not a fully mature style yet—”
“The hell you say!”
“Not fully mature, but for a girl of eighteen—”
“Eighteen plus.”
“—it’s amazing. I’m serious, Gertie. I’m not jazzing you. Would you like me to go through it with you, page by page, to note the strongest and weakest parts?”
“I assume that discussing the strongest parts will take until Monday.”
“At least until late Sunday afternoon,” I said, “as long as you don’t waste too much time preening over every compliment.”
She handed me the box of bonbons. “Better fortify yourself.”
Half an hour later, as I finished what I had to say about page seventeen and took it out of the drawer and set it aside, Gertie put her hand on mine and squeezed gently. “Do I understand what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Honey, that’s too sweet a setup for a funny put-down. I won’t stoop to it. What do you think I’m trying to tell you?”
“I’m almost afraid to say it.”
“Let’s find Rafael. Maybe you can write it on a slip of paper and he can read it to me.”
Her sweet face, so smooth with youth, grew smoother still as her eyes widened, as if the prospect that occurred to her was so restorative that it erased what few marks the years had left on her. “Addie, are you trying to tell me ... Do you mean ... Is it really possible that you think this novella is publishable?”
“In spite of this rotten economy, not all magazines have gone out of business. Quite a few come out every month, and many of them publish short stories, novelettes, and novellas. I would guess more than a few would pay to have this.”
Gertie regarded me as though I had just fallen out of the sky, crashed through the roof, landed in bed, and announced that I was Peter Pan. She let go of my hand, fell back against her mountain of pillows, stared up at the ceiling, and said, “Whoosh.”
“I want to read everything else you’ve written these past two years. This novella can’t be a fluke. Maybe it’s the best thing you’ve done, but I suspect not.”
She said, “Even if everything ...”
I waited and then said, “If that was a complete thought, I need a translation.”
“Even if everything I’ve written and rewritten and finally feel is finished ... even if it were all publishable, would I?”
