Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk(16)

“Thank you, Artie, for seeing the good in me,” I said, standing up and proffering a hand to shake. “Now I must do my best impersonation of a track star and dash back to remain in the good graces of R.H. Macy’s.”

“Good-bye, my fair Miss Boxfish. Dash with care. We’ll be in touch once the reviews begin to roll in, and if any of them remark unfavorably on your title, then I promise not to say I told you so.”

“Oh, Artie,” I said, smiling. “If you want the last word that much, you can have it.” He laughed as I shut the door behind me.

I did have to hurry, but I walked back on Broadway, the better to gaze for a moment at the Flatiron Building, like the face of a friend, and to sneak a glimpse at Madison Square Park, a trusty destination on other lunch breaks. I still managed to make it back before Chester noticed I’d been gone longer than usual.

My victory pleased me, but all afternoon, whatever else I was doing, Artie’s alternate title kept rising to the top of my mind, like the fizzy little bubbles in a carbonated drink. Tickling my brain.

I remained sure I’d been right. But I would wonder later, much later, if I had done things differently—lots of things, even something as seemingly small as naming a book—other aspects of my life might have turned out otherwise. Then again, who doesn’t wonder?

*

When the book came out five months later, under the title I desired, it was a smash, selling out its print run within the first thirty days and hurrying through four subsequent printings. The reading public, at least some of them, wanted a break from the Depression, and found repose in my pose, world-weary but still cheery.

Although R.H. Macy’s was already paying me more than I could think to spend, I wanted to use my first royalty check for something celebratory. Symbolic. Thus I acquired—simultaneously, so as to let them get to know and learn to live with one another—two delightful little Hartz Mountain canaries to fill my apartment with song, and a red-haired kitten I’d named Tallulah—after Miss Bankhead—whom I fed on fish and cream.

The reviews glowed so hard they threw off heat; I could feel it on my face when I read them. They led to an avalanche of fan mail. Some went to E.P. Dutton, but most went to the thirteenth floor of the World’s Largest Store, since the biographical note below my author photo, which Helen had snapped, listed it as my place of employment.

One sunny day in late May of 1932, Chester Everett, in an unseasonably saturnalian disruption of the usual office order, brought me my mail. I thanked him and was about to set it aside to carry home with me to open that night, when he said:

“I’m curious—if it’s not too forward—what do all these people have to say to you, Lillian?”

“Let’s open one,” I said, “and we’ll see.”

The letter, as I’d suspected, was from another male stranger, an admirer, one of the dozens I’d acquired since my book’s birth date. I read it aloud:

“Dear, Sweet Miss Boxfish, I know I mustn’t be the only man to have made this joke, but Oh, Do Not Ask for Promises has got me wanting to ask you for the promise of joining me for dinner. You name the time and the place, and I’ll consider it an honor…”

“Is that what it takes these days to bring the poor boys a-runnin’?” said Chester. “For a single gal to sneer at love?”

“They can run all they want,” I said. “They’ll be rejected and exhausted.”

“Make something seem difficult to get and more people want it, I suppose,” said Chester. I noted something unsettled in his expression: concern, or jealousy, or both; it was indeterminate in its precise character.

I decided to ignore it. “That’s exactly it, Chip,” I said. “A lot of these love notes seem to be from well-read and lovesick young men with literary aspirations. That type doesn’t interest me in the least. They say they only have eyes for gazing at you and then end up gazing right back at their navels.”

“I hope so, Lil, because I don’t know what we’d do if one of those would-be Casanovas swept you off your feet and away from Macy’s institutional advertising.”

“Put it out of your mind, Chip. You needn’t worry. And actually, I’m trying to finish the summer campaign, so if you don’t need anything more, I’ll get back to it.”

“Actually, Lil,” he said, “I do have one concern, more serious than love. I’ll strive to be brief.”

He shut the door—thereby providing a month’s supply of grist for the office rumor mill—and took a seat. “It’s just,” he went on, “that your poems, well, they’re as snappy and as fun to read as your advertising. And you know I’m happy for your success in publishing, but—”

“You don’t want me to give away my best ideas?” I said. “To serve the muse before mammon?”

He looked relieved at my comprehension. “That’s the crux of it,” he said. “Your work has been finer than fine these past few months as the book’s been coming out, but as your supervisor, I felt I’d be remiss in not sharing my concern.”

“Chip, darling, I understand perfectly,” I said, because I did, and because I’d considered it already myself. “Can I let you in on a remarkable secret? I find that the more ideas I let myself have, the more ideas I have. They just pour out of me. Poems for ads and poems for poems.”