Publishing: sex
My Best Lunch Story Ever
And I still don’t know the details
He was older, a few novels under his belt, not yet hitting the bestseller lists but I was pushing him in that direction and had high hopes. I’ll call him Frank.
She was half his age, twice as successful, had two Oscar nominations, and I was trying hard to hold back my worship instincts. Let’s call her Kate.
Lee was my third guest. Really, it had all been Lee’s idea. Lee was one of those Hollywood shadows, always on the credits as something like an associate deputy production assistant but in real life — as much as you could pin them down to anything approaching reality — he was one of the connections that helps build an idea into a project into a production into a movie and who somehow ends up with more money than anybody doing the actual work.
We were past the idea stage. The book had been published, the movie rights picked up — that was what was paying for lunch at the Fiery Phoenix; don’t let anybody tell you that the publishing business alone will make you rich — and we were shaping the project.
Lee had an advance copy of the script and was feeding it out in calculated doses. You don’t want to give the author a complete copy because they will moan about their vision being butchered for Hollywood, and you don’t let the actors see the whole thing because they will show it to their agents and they will insist on bigger parts or pull out entirely if they don’t like it, and the poor old scriptwriter is going to do about a dozen rewrites anyway and will be heartily sick of it by the time filming finally starts because they have been living on painkillers for months and have completely and literally lost the plot.
We had all read the novel at this stage, we had seen outlines of the script, and we were kind of feeling our way toward some sort of half-baked notion of how the thing might shape up.
I was cautiously optimistic that this might be the one that actually got made and we could publish a movie tie-in edition and really clean up.
Then again, I’d seen a dozen great movie ideas get to this point and fall apart. What was needed right now was bonding and connections and a feeling that we were all walking down the same path. Good food and good wine and good words to build the good vibrations.
Time for Lunch
The Phoenix was my great place for good vibes. If it was just a regular how-are-things-going-and-where’s-the-manuscript meal, we went to the Golden Fingerbowl and I had the veal and a bottle of the house rosé without Micky the waiter even needing to do more than glance in my direction.
But here, an inch-thick steak, the charred pepper sauce, and a tasty merlot was singing out to me.
I told the waiter that, Lee ordered with a nod and we waited for our two creatives to sort themselves out.
“I could use a taste of fish,” Frank began. “What’s good?”
There was swordfish, sole, salmon, and trout on the menu, and when Frank began talking about flyfishing and battles with trout, I moaned inside but my face looked enthralled.
He settled for sole in the end. It appeared he didn’t like trout because they were full of bones and not worth the effort. “I throw them back after I give them a kiss on the lips,” he said, licking his.
“Would you like a side of corn with that?” Kate asked, before delivering her five minutes of discussion with the waiter about grass-fed red meat. She made it sound like she wanted the whole steer but it was an eye fillet about the size of a quarter that finally ended up on her plate. With salad, no potatoes, no sauce. And a slug of some Aussie wine that wasn’t Yellowtail and rhymed with orange twice over.
“We only sell it by the bottle, I’m afraid,” the waiter said. “It will go very nicely with your steak, I can assure you.”
So I agreed to my comfortable merlot being replaced with this Ozzie stuff. Anything to make an actress already attracting some admiring glances happy. Nobody had actually come up to our table to ask for an autograph yet, but as the meals around us developed I could see it happening.
Nobody ever wanted my scrawl on a napkin. On the other hand, if he was anything like your regular author, Frank possibly had a carton of books concealed on his person that he could whip out, sign, and sell.
Footnotes
There was some delay with the wine. And the steaks, of course, but we struggled along with some starters and a crisp Cali white.
I figured they were pulling the Australian swill out of the cardboard box and pouring it into a decanter for decency’s sake and in the meantime, if there was good wine to be had, I’m happy to drink it down.
And happier after drinking it down. That’s the way these deals go. Get everybody full of wine and love and joy and the contracts almost write themselves.
And just try to stop an author from telling stories. We wouldn’t lack for entertainment with Frank in form.
“When I’m writing,” he announced. “I’m focused. With a big F. Laser focus. No time for socialising, no interest in anything but the book. Even the cat gets the cold shoulder.”
To be honest, he was pretty regular with the manuscripts. They tended to get fairly sparse and strained in the end chapters and half my job was coaxing him to put flesh on the bones but rub a little butter on an author and it pays off.
Not sure what he was doing with his royalties. He looked like he shopped at Goodwill. Tweed jacket that probably got used for fly-fishing adventures, trousers that didn’t match no way, and a polo shirt that bore the logo of a charity marathon ten years back. Carefully selected from the “used sportswear” rack, I cynically thought.
There it was again.
Tap-tap on my ankle. Without letting my expression change as I drained my glass and looked for more, I withdrew my legs from competition. There’s some careful negotiation needed before I indulge in skin time and I was pretty sure that none of my lunch guests were careful negotiators, if I may put it that way.
Kate, it must be said, was dressed for success. She was wearing the tightest of jeans and a midriff knotted top that set her figure off superbly. When she had walked to the table in push-up heels, every eye in the place had been on her.
“She stands in the door and looks at me,” Frank went on, leaning back in his chair. “And I ignore her plaintive calls. She gets her kibble in the morning, and no love till the final chapter is done.”
“Poor pussy,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t dare ignore mine; she has ways of getting her own back. Does she lay on your keyboard and do your writing for you?”
Frank’s eyebrows shot up around the seventh word. Poor fellow has no poker face at all but he had time to gather his wits because our steaks arrived at that moment. And the wine, some horribly amateur effort. Honestly, it almost looked like the office assistant had typed up the label. At least it was in a bottle.
The Wonder from Down Under
Kate leaned back, took up her wine, and swirled it around the glass. The waiter should have offered it to me, as the host, but I don’t mind if a creative gets a little attention.
I almost rolled my eyes at her antics. Some cheap Australian red. Why bother delicately inserting her nose to sniff up the bouquet? The hard part would be holding back the gag reflex.
She took a lingering taste, swirling it around in her mouth. Frank looked on with keen interest, enjoying the show.
Hmmm, maybe there’s more going on here than meets the rolling eye, I thought. Will she swallow?
She did.
I almost guffawed at the look of bliss on her face.
“That is so good,” she sighed, holding out her glass to the waiter.
He took it and glugged a generous amount into her glass before filling up Lee’s. I indicated a precise level on my glass. Just a mouthful really, for politeness.
Frank waved him away and filled up with the last of the white. He was having fish, after all.
Kate and Lee were looking at me. I held up my wine in salute.
“To best-sellers, Oscar winners, and Hollywood hustlers!”
“Break a leg!” Frank said, looking at Kate.
She returned his gaze steadily. “Do you know why actors tell each other to break a leg at auditions?”
Frank shook his head. To be frank, I had no idea myself.
“So they’ll be in the cast.”
Her delivery was immaculate. I snorted with delight and covered it with a swig of the wine.
My God. Dear Lord.
I have never had a mouthful of wine so sweet it sings in my memory twenty years on. After the first rush — hey, wow! — every sense bud in my mouth began lighting up at once. Think of plum and anchovy. Fig and sesame. Pepper and liquorice.
I am not at all religious but I have never tasted anything remotely like this. Hermitage, they say? Well, if lonely monks get fed this stuff, they must be halfway to heaven.
Lee hadn’t even tasted his. He had his nose perched well above the glass, eyes closed as he delicately inhaled. I thought he might purr.
I hooked my nose over the rim of my wineglass and tried to identify each element. There was too much going on but for sure I knew that the combination was perfect. Against all reason, Australia had managed to produce a wine that was as good — no, better! — than California. Or even France, I thought, thinking back to golden afternoons in Bordeaux.
Red Wine, Red Meat, Blue Balls
For a change, my food was an accompaniment to the wine. I measured each sliver of steak with a lingering mouthful of Grange.
Our glasses were refilled and after Frank demanded a taste, the first bottle had gone and another was on the way.
Kate watched him closely as he took his first sip. Red wine with fish, huh, his face said, but the expression changed and became thoughtful.
Kate winked at him. “Oral delight from down under, hey?”
There was no stopping them after that. Whatever laser focus Frank had in writing was replaced with an interest in thinking up the exact right response to her outrageous flirting.
Me, I lapped it up. The wine, the performance, the wordplay.
I took off my jacket and hung it over the back of my chair, getting comfortable, settling in. There’d be no chance of work back at the office now.
The second bottle vanished and we called for a third with dessert. Lee winked at me and I smiled. This was a movie that might just get made if we could keep the wine and the love flowing.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much drink the human body can hold and I rose to excuse myself for a necessary moment, indicating to the waiter with the customary gesture that the check might be made up.
When I returned, Frank and Kate had vanished — no surprise there, they were probably horizontal in the back of a cab by now — and Lee was pushing around the last crumbs of his pie and glaring at the staff who looked like they might remove my not-quite-empty glass of heaven juice.
The check was awaiting my attention in an elegant leather folder. I opened it up.
My God. Dear Lord.
“More than one person getting screwed today, buddy,” Lee said.
Perhaps I should have glanced at the wine list with more attention. I almost broke out in a cold sweat as I calculated the tip. Frank’s next book had better bring home the bacon.
Oh well, nothing for it. I reached around for my jacket and pocketbook.
And came up empty. I frowned. This was my chair, wasn’t it?
My jacket had vanished from the back of my chair. Frank’s jacket, however, was still in place, less natty than mine. More ratty, for sure.
“He’s not coming back,” Lee assured me.
Well, I’d worked that out.
Frank’s jacket, upon examination, held his wallet, and I opened it hopefully. A best-selling author wasn’t going to be broke, now was he?
No, as it turned out, but there was nothing like the thousands I needed to settle the check. Enough cash for a cab fare home, a video store membership card, and a couple of prophylactics tucked into a pocket. I eyed his credit card for a moment, but that was fraud, right there, and no matter how much wine I’d had, that was a line I couldn’t cross.
Now the headwaiter was hovering beside me. “Is there a problem, Sir?”
“Ahh, no,” I explained, putting my stumbling thinking apparatus into gear. “Can we get coffee now?”
“I must insist on the check, first,” he said. “Sir.”
I glanced over at the front door where a couple of police were looking in.
Just then Kate plopped back into her chair.
“Tea,” she said. “Pot. Earl Grey. Make it so!”
We looked at her in astonishment. She was now dressed in the check pants and white top of a kitchen hand. None too clean. But she was every inch the famous actress, and the headwaiter had a good deal more sang-froid than Lee or I.
“Of course,” he said with a smile — a wide, genuine, and cheerful smile — and a flourish of his hand. “It will be here directly.”
It was, and we got our coffee as well.
Anticlimax?
“Ah,” I said, looking at Kate, but trying hard not to ask any awkward questions with my eyebrows. “Do you think Frank might be back with my jacket?”
“Shouldn’t think so.”
“Um.”
We sipped our drinks thoughtfully. I was barely touching my coffee. I was pretty sure that if I rose to use the facilities again — now why oh why had I even thought that? — I’d be escorted every step of the way.
I looked at Lee, who shrugged. I was doomed.
Frank slipped into his chair. “Any wine left?”
He lifted my glass. “Thanks, Dunc.”
Frank was not wearing my jacket.
Nor was he dressed from the same dirty laundry bin as Kate.
“There’s a tag on your top,” I offered.
“Thanks,” he said, pulling at a stout cardboard label on the cuff of his hiking jacket. He appeared to be dressed for an expedition in the wilderness, complete with what looked like boots that could climb mountains.
“Scarpa,” he said. “Italian. Lucky they had my size.”
He drained the last dregs of my heavenly red.
“Thanks for the loan,” he said, reaching into his expedition outerwear and extracting my pocketbook. “Good thing you’ve got an easy signature. I’ll fix you up for the duds later. Maybe take it out of my royalties, hey?”
I nodded.
“Lady reaches for her underwear in a crisis,” he said, indicating Kate, “but a gentleman grabs his wallet and runs.”
And that was all the detail we ever got.
As it happened, that movie got made, but with a different leading lady. Our first choice had unexpectedly fallen pregnant.
Duncan Klein
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