THE HUNDRED-AND-EIGHTH PAGE

Earlier, peculiar happenings at my publisher’s offices had begun to take their toll. Telephoning there was increasingly avoided because the responses from assistants and the uppers were so snappish and peremptory that a phone call was a joyless enterprise. Who could be pleasant if they had just vomited into the trash container under their desk? And who would be polite if they had just opened a manuscript carton containing a decaying vole resting peacefully in Jack-o-Lantern giftwrap. Or who felt like being cheerful when one of the editor’s offices was beginning to resemble John Dillinger’s back office? And who know when the phones might go on the blink, as one had the electronic mail system?

Everyone coped, but my publisher was no longer on anyones “A” list, though the editors fought valiantly for submissions they dreaded opening for fear they were not a novel in verse or work for translation or computer instruction manual, but something worse, something that once had lived and had its being among us.

The happily hapless agent for the book of the auction of the century didn’t know of the upheaval at my company and had had her pants charmed off by My Editor, whose dark glasses never hid his seductive qualities. She was especially eager for him to see her heartland magnum opus. She thought she would enjoy working with him. No soap.