Ruth had read aloud in a deadpan voice. Some of the audience seemed disconcerted by her final “Zzzt!” Eddie, who’d read the whole book twice, loved the ending of the first chapter, but a portion of the audience briefly withheld their applause; they weren’t sure the chapter had ended. The stupid stagehand stared open-mouthed at the TV monitor, as if he were preparing himself to deliver an epilogue. Not a single word was forthcoming—not even another charmless comment regarding his tireless appreciation of the famous novelist’s “hooters.”
It was Allan Albright who clapped first, even before Eddie. As Ruth Cole’s editor, Allan well knew the 2“Zzzt!” with which the first chapter concluded. The applause that eventually followed was generous, and it was sufficiently sustained for Ruth to appraise the solitary ice cube in the bottom of her water glass. The ice had melted enough to provide her with a single swallow.
The questions and answers that followed the reading were a disappointment; Eddie felt bad for Ruth that, after an entertaining performance, she had to suffer through the anticlimax that questions from the audience always engendered. And throughout the entire Q and A, Allan Albright had frowned at Ruth—as if she could have done something to elevate the intelligence of the questions! During her reading, Allan’s animated expressions in the audience had irritated her—as if it were his role to entertain Ruth at her own reading!
The first question was openly hostile; it set a tone that the subsequent questions and answers could not break free of.
“Why do you repeat yourself ?” a young man asked the author. “Or is it unintentional?”
Ruth judged him to be in his late twenties. Admittedly, the houselights were not bright enough for her to see his exact expression—he was seated near the back of the concert hall—but from his tone of voice Ruth had no doubt that he was sneering at her.
After three novels, Ruth was familiar with the charge that her characters were “recycled” from one book to the next, and that there were also “signature eccentricities” that she repeated in novel after novel. I suppose I do develop a fairly limited cast of characters, Ruth considered. But, in her experience, people who accused an author of repetition were usually referring to a detail that they hadn’t liked
the first time. After all, even in literature, if one likes something, what is the objection to repeating it?
“I assume you mean the dildo,” Ruth said to the accusing young man. There had been a dildo in her second novel, too. But no dildo had reared its head (so to speak) in her first novel—doubtless an oversight, Ruth thought to herself. What she said was: “I know that many of you young men feel threatened by dildos, but you really needn’t worry that you’ll ever be entirely replaced.” She paused for the laughter. Then she added: “And this dildo is really not at all the same type of dildo as the dildo in my previous novel. Not every dildo is the same, you know.”
“You repeat more than dildos,” the young man commented.
“Yes, I know—‘female friendships gone awry,’ or lost and found again,” Ruth remarked, realizing (only after she spoke) that she was quoting from Eddie O’Hare’s tedious introduction. Backstage, Eddie at first felt awfully pleased; then he wondered if she’d been mocking him.
“Bad boyfriends,” the persistent young man added. (Now there was a theme!)
“The boyfriend in The Same Orphanage was a decent guy,” Ruth reminded her antagonistic reader.
“No mothers!” shouted an older woman in the audience.
“No fathers, either,” Ruth snapped.
Allan Albright was holding his head in his hands. He had advised her against Q and A. He’d told her that if she couldn’t let a hostile or a baiting remark go—if she couldn’t just “let it lie”—she should not do Q and A. And she shouldn’t be “so ready to bite back.”
“But I like to bite back,” Ruth had told him.
“But you shouldn’t bite back the first time, or even the second,” Allan had warned her. His motto was: “Be nice twice.” On principle, Ruth approved of the idea, but she found it hard advice to follow.
Allan’s notion was that you ignored the first and the second rudeness. If someone baited you or was plainly hostile to you a third time, then you let him have it. Maybe this was too gentlemanly a principle for Ruth to adhere to.
The sight of Allan with his head in his hands caused Ruth to resent his demonstrable disapproval. Why was she so frequently in a mood to find fault with him? For the most part, she admired Allan’s habits—at least his work habits—and she had no doubt that he was a good influence on her.
What Ruth Cole needed was an editor for her life more than for her novels. (Even Hannah Grant would have agreed with her.)
“Next question?” Ruth asked. She had tried to sound cheerful, even inviting, but there was no hiding the animosity in her voice. She’d not extended an invitation to her audience; she’d issued a challenge.
“Where do you get your ideas?” some innocent soul asked the author; it was someone unseen, a strangely sexless voice in the vast hall. Allan rolled his eyes. It was what Allan called “the shopping question”: the homey speculation that one shopped for the ingredients in a novel.
“My novels aren’t ideas—I don’t have any ideas,” Ruth replied. “I begin with the characters, which leads me to the problems that the characters are prone to have, which yields a story—every time.” ( Backstage, Eddie felt as if he should be taking notes.)
“Is it true that you never had a job, a real job?” It was the impertinent young man again, the one who’d asked her why she repeated herself. She hadn’t called on him; he was at her again, uninvited.
It was true that Ruth had never had a “real” job, but before Ruth could respond to the insinuating question, Allan Albright stood up and turned around, doubtless in order to address the uncivil young man in the back of the concert hall.
“Being a writer is a real job, you asshole!” Allan said. Ruth knew he’d been counting. By his count, he’d been nice twice.
Medium applause followed Allan’s outburst. When Allan turned toward the stage, to face Ruth, he gave her his characteristic cue—the thumb of his right hand drawn across his throat like a knife. This meant: Get off the stage.
“Thank you, thank you again,” Ruth told the audience. On her way backstage, she stopped once. She turned and waved to the audience; their applause was still warm.
“How come you don’t autograph books? Every other writer signs books!” her persecutor called.