style="font-size:15px;"> “Oh, not at all. But then, I’m an architect.”
There was a silence. To be polite, Camilla smiled and asked, “Then it’s not your first visit to San Gimignano?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I try to come back every year, although I haven’t been able to make it for the last two. We spent the day at Saint Peter’s, and then we climbed all three towers.” He paused. “How did you spend the day?” Somehow, it was irresistible not to tell him.
“I finished writing my novel,” Camilla said.
“Good for you! Do you write novels often?” he asked, and she saw the mischief in his grin.
“This is my first,” she admitted.
“Well, I am most impressed. How are you going to celebrate?”
Just then the waiter appeared with her drink and the bottle of wine. “This is my celebration,” Camilla told him.
His face crumpled in dismay. “But we spoiled it for you! Oh, I’m so sorry. Mother isn’t usually like that, but she was tired. She’s been under some pressure.” He stood up. “Excuse me,” he said again.
“No.” Camilla put her hand out. “Please don’t go.” Her voice had more feeling in it than she had intended, but it was too late now. Suddenly it seemed as if being alone would become unbearable. The man hesitated for a moment, his reddish-brown eyes not quite focusing on hers. He wasn’t at all handsome, not in any way, Camilla thought. But there was an attractiveness about him, a pleasantness that, though it could not make up for his total lack of beauty, still had a certain charm.
Hesitantly, he sat down again. “Well, what’s the name of the novel?”
“I’m not certain,” she told him.
“Then what is the name of the novelist?” he asked, and she had to smile again.
She extended her hand. He reached out but fumbled for a moment in the air before he took hers in his own cool, long, freckled one. “Camilla,” she said self-consciously. “Camilla Clapfish.”
“Well, Miss Clapfish, permit me, Frederick Sayles Ashton, to be the first to congratulate you on the completion of your as-yet untitled debut novel.” His formality was very un-American but quite endearing.
“Thank you,” she told him and took back her hand reluctantly. She picked up her drink, but he quickly stopped her by lifting his own glass. Some of the wine slopped over one side, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Before you sip, permit me.” He tilted his head and looked over the rim of his wineglass at her. “I think my mother thought you had ordered a mixed drink,” he confided. “It may have induced her departure. She doesn’t approve of cocktails.” He put his glass down, dipping his elbow in the puddle of wine on the tabletop. He didn’t seem to realize it.
Camilla looked at her own innocent aperitif. “Oh. She must have thought I was asking for a gin martini. No. Here it’s a brand name for vermouth.”
“Yes. Well, I know that, but I don’t think Mother does. Father was a drunk, you see.” Camilla nodded, silent. Having lived in New York, she was familiar with Americans and their candor, but it did often leave her speechless. Luckily, Frederick Sayles Ashton was not. “To the alliterative Camilla Clapfish and the future publication of her first book.”
And then, for the first time, dismay hit her. My God, she thought, the book had been hard enough to write. It had started so tentatively as an exercise, then became absorbing, a labor of creation and love and also a torture that had filled her empty evenings. But now that it was finished, she’d have to try and get it published. How in the world, Camilla thought, would she ever manage that?
I am not a snob, but rich people are often a lot of fun to write about.
—Noll Coward
Susann Baker Edmonds lay on the chaise-longue staring out toward the Mediterranean as if somewhere out there she would find chapter twenty-eight. There shouldn’t even be a chapter twenty-eight. The book was too damned long. The distant sea glinted, but Susann hadn’t a reflecting glint of an idea. She stood up and paced the north side of the marble-edged pool. She heard Edith, her secretary, recross her heavy legs and sigh.
“Could you be still for just a moment?” Susann snapped.
“I’m sorry,” Edith said, but she didn’t sound sorry. She sounded bored and impatient and eager to get away. As if something in Edith Fischer’s boring, middle-aged life was more important than a new novel by Susann Baker Edmonds. Susann knew she had to calm down. God, she hated to feel this way, so edgy, so nasty. She was not a nasty person. She put her hands up to either side of her lovely, lifted face and looked over at the dreary Edith. Physically Edith was everything Susann despised—dowdy, overweight, and drab. She was spunkless, and yet Edith was exactly the audience that devoured Susann’s books. That’s why bland Edith, sitting there knitting in the sun, was not simply an annoyance that could be terminated by the termination of her employment.
Because to Susann, Edith was a secret touchstone. When they were working together and she saw Edith’s eyes glowing, her mouth slightly open, and her breathing quickened with interest and excitement, Susann knew she had a story that worked. But how long had it been since Edith had been responsive like that? Certainly not while they worked on A Mother and a Daughter. And not while she struggled through The Lady of the House. Perhaps Edith was merely jaded. Both books had come out on Mother’s Day of the previous two years, and each had climbed to the top of the bestseller list, as all Susann Baker Edmonds’s books did. But even Susann had to admit that the past two had climbed a little more slowly and held the vaulted top slot for a far briefer period.
Susann knew she was at a nerve-racking place: Realistically, she knew that being at the top so long simply meant it was sooner that she’d fall. But Susann liked the top. She wanted to stay there. She prided herself on being a number-one bestselling author. From out of nowhere to number one: She’d been one of the very few to make the leap.
And Edith had watched her climb. Back when both of them worked together as legal secretaries, Susann had brought in her stories, page by page, and Edith had devoured them, always asking the question sublime to any writer—“What happens next?” It was because of that enthusiasm that Susann—just plain Sue Ann then—had kept writing. If not for Edith, Susann would surely have quit. Because it had been hard, so hard, to work all day and spin stories at night.
It was still hard. Now a bestseller, a number one, was expected of her. Now, at last, she was paid an enormous advance for her stories.
Susann paced the length of the pool again and turned to look out at the horizon. “Any mail?” she asked.
Edith shook her head without even looking up from her knitting. “Nothing important.” Edith handled all the bills, forwarding them to Susann’s accountant to be paid, and all of the fan mail, sending customized responses. Actually, the only thing Edith didn’t handle for Susann was Kim and her begging letters. But Susann hadn’t heard from Kim lately. She would like to think that perhaps her adult daughter had finally begun to behave like an adult, but from long experience she doubted it.
Susann
