Bestseller. Olivia Goldsmith

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ then?” he asked.

      She shrugged. “I wasn’t offered a place at Cambridge.”

      “So, what did you do?”

      “Well, I deeply disappointed Sister Agnus. And I proved my mother’s thesis right when she said that Cambridge wasn’t the place for the likes of us.” Camilla took another sip of wine and then tried a bite of her meal. But she’d lost her appetite. She put her fork down. Even now, years later, the experience was raw.

      Frederick reached his hand across the table and patted hers just for a moment, very gently. “I mean,” he said, “what did you do about school?”

      “Well, I did well in my A levels. Well enough for Sister Agnus to put me in for a full scholarship at Marymount. It’s a Catholic girls’ college in New York City, and she knew one of the deans. I did my undergraduate work there and then my graduate work at Columbia.”

      “So you lived in New York,” Frederick said.

      “Yes, for a long time.”

      “And those are fine schools.”

      “Yes. Marymount might have been stronger—there were a lot of spoiled rich girls there—but the faculty was kind to me. And Columbia was top-drawer.”

      “Still, it wasn’t Cambridge.”

      “No, it wasn’t.” She looked over at him, into those red-brown eyes. Somehow they seemed to understand a great deal about pain. Had he experienced so much? It didn’t seem possible. After all, he was a wealthy, young American man with a devoted mother and a good education. Once again, Camilla wondered if he was gay: If that was the burden he carried, it gave him an insight into the burdens of others.

      “It wasn’t Cambridge,” she repeated. “Cambridge was my last chance to find a place where I fit in among my own kind. I might have found a niche among other bright scholarship students. You know, all the other smart ones who didn’t fit in at home. And then I would have gone down to London and been a part of that world. But it didn’t work out. So, instead, I was a poor Brit in New York, a scholarship student among debutantes. Then, in graduate school, I was a woman among men, and an expatriate to boot. I had no connections, no way to get any. I was passed over for all the good jobs.”

      “Then what?”

      Camilla shrugged. “Here I’m just a foreigner. I can’t go back to Birmingham, and I’m not sure where to go next.”

      Frederick waited, as if he understood her feelings. “So you wrote a book,” he coaxed. She nodded. “And now what?” he asked.

      Camilla thought of Gianfranco. She sighed. “I don’t know,” she told him truthfully and raised her glass of wine to her lips.

      “Well, I think it’s obvious. I think you have to send your book to my sister.”

      “I’m not sure about that,” she said.

      “Yes,” he told her. “My sister in New York. Remember? She’s an editor with Davis & Dash. And it sounds as if she would like your book. Of course, there are no guarantees. But what have you got to lose?”

      What indeed, Camilla thought. Would he send the book as a quid pro quo, a payment for future services rendered? He certainly didn’t seem that type. Camilla looked at him, this very plain American who had entered her life, made no demands, and seemed to offer so much. What did he expect of her? What could she deliver? “I couldn’t,” she said, “I really couldn’t.”

      “Sure you could,” he told her. “You’d be silly not to.”

      “But I always thought I’d publish it in England. After all, I’m English.”

      “Yeah, but it’s a book about Americans, and you’ve lived in America. And I know an American editor. I promise you, if I had a sister who was editing in London, I would send it to her. But since I don’t, you’ll have to live with this.”

      Camilla laughed. “All right,” she said. “I guess I will live with it.”

13

       Each publishing season seems to bring us another photogenic female author trying to get funky with pulp fiction.

       —James Wolcott

      Susann waited while the driver stepped out of the limo and opened the door for her. She had a lot to do today, and the phone call from Kim had been upsetting. Not that Kim had sounded high or even hostile. Actually, her daughter had sounded unusually calm. But was it the calm before the storm? Susann had agreed to meet Kim for tea at the New York Palace, and then she was off to Alf’s office to wrap up some final details, now that her new book was handed in.

      Susann stepped out of the limousine and gave her best smile to Ralph, her driver when she was in New York. She walked through the elaborate gate and the hotel courtyard where the eight poplar trees were perennially wrapped in tiny white Christmas lights. She entered the hotel and turned right, walking up one side of the elegant staircase, her gloved hand barely touching the ornate railing. Despite her age, Susann had kept her posture and height thanks to her Alexander technique sessions. It was only her hands … She walked to the entrance of the Villard Room knowing she looked far too young to be the mother of the woman who waited for her.

      But Kim looked surprisingly well—at least for Kim. She had gained some weight, but she always did that when she wasn’t on cocaine. Kim looked more like Susann’s second husband than she did Susann. She was chunky and dark-haired. Now Kim must be about the same age that Alan was when Susann had married him. What an ill-fated marriage it had been. Alan had abandoned them when Kim was seven, but not before beating both of them regularly. Perhaps that was another reason Susann didn’t like to see Kim: She reminded Susann of those days and made her feel guilty because of them.

      “Hello, Sue,” Kim said. For some reason, Kim had never called her Mommy or Mother. Not even when she was little. Susann hated to be called Sue but said nothing. Didn’t Kim’s greeting have a slightly ironic cast to it? Susann ignored it and merely took a seat opposite Kim. They didn’t kiss.

      “How are you?” Susann asked.

      “Do you mean am I straight? Yes, I’ve been clean and sober for eight months now.”

      “Good. That’s very good.” Susann could have bitten her tongue. She knew she sounded prissy, but what could one say? I hope that this time you won’t go back to your five-hundred-dollar-a-day habit? And, if you do, know that this time I will absolutely not intervene. No. They had established that already.

      Susann was relieved when the waiter came and asked for their tea order. “Darjeeling,” she told him with her best smile. Kim asked for chamomile. In moments the waiter reappeared with a trolley of tiny sandwiches—cucumber, smoked salmon, tomato, and cheese. Kim, despite her weight, asked for two of each, but Susann only had one thin cucumber. The waiter placed their teapots before them and left them to face each other. Susann took a bite of her sandwich. “Well,” she said, “you said you had some news.”

      “Yes,” Kim said. “I wanted you to know. I’ve written a book.”

      Susann paused for a moment, almost choking on her food. “You’ve СКАЧАТЬ