Dream Girl(41)

Also, he was miffed that Rudin had bought Franzen’s book, not his, back in 2001. He didn’t want to be anyone’s second choice.

“Options have changed, Gerry. It’s hard to get that big money now. But an actress is attached, someone who wants to play Aubrey.” Thiru shared a name that meant nothing to Gerry, then showed him a photograph on his phone.

“Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Too beautiful, in fact. Aubrey isn’t conventionally pretty. That’s central to the book.”

“Jesus Christ, Gerry, of course she’s going to be beautiful. Have you been to the movies?”

“Not recently, no. I do like that one television show.”

“Which one?”

“That one that people talk about.”

“You’re going to have to narrow it down, Gerry.”

“He sells drugs?”

“Breaking Bad?”

“That’s it.”

“Gerry, it’s not even on the air anymore.”

“I guess I’m watching it on iTunes.”

He sampled the uni. He had no idea what it was, but he had to admit, it was pretty good.

“What’s next?” Thiru asked.

“I want to take something low-culture and elevate it.”

“Like Zone One or Station Eleven?”

Gerry frowned. He always insisted he did not begrudge any talented writer his or her success, but he also considered himself an original, marching to the beat of his own drum. He was trying to be a good sport about the attention that Colson Whitehead was getting for The Underground Railroad right now, but it wasn’t always easy.

“Yes and no,” he said. “I’m not interested in zombies or pandemics. I’m interested in—don’t laugh—soap operas.”

Thiru’s chopsticks clattered to his plate and came dangerously close to sending up a flume of sauce onto his beautiful lapels. Today’s suit was plaid. Probably a precise kind of plaid, with a special name, but all Gerry knew was that it was gray with subtle crisscrosses of burgundy, gold, and green. Fashion bored Gerry even more than food did. He lived in khakis and oxford cloth shirts, cotton sweaters from the Gap.

“What?”

“My mother watched them and then, in the 1970s, when I was a teenager, inevitably I did, too. There was only one television in our house and she had one afternoon off, Thursdays. We watched the ABC shows together. All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital. And even though she could watch only once a week, she never really missed anything. It was amazing, how much happened and yet how slowly it happened.”

Yes, the horrible lighting, the strange slowness, the fact that it was done daily, that the writers and actors were chained to this vehicle that had to keep hurtling forward. Soap operas dared to take their fucking time even as everything else in culture rushed, pushed, competed. The soap opera, in its slowness, its comfort with redundancy and exposition, had its merits—and now it was dying. If he were a younger writer, one in need of attention, he would write an essay in its defense. As it was, he wanted to take what worked—the pace, the human scale, how huge it could feel to be inside a dying marriage, or an affair—not that he had any knowledge of the latter—and place those problems against the backdrop of something large. Not 9/11 or the 2008 economic collapse, but something truly epic.

“It sounds”—Thiru took a bite and chewed, making Gerry wait a long time for his adjective—“promising.”

“I hear the doubt in your voice. Trust me, Thiru. My instincts are good. You know that. I actually have a talent for the—” He did not want to say zeitgeist, a word he loathed. Gerry preferred to say he understood the present’s subtext. He saw the currents, what was going on underneath. His parents’ marriage had trained him to do that.

“How far along are you?”

“Writing every day, but I haven’t felt the quickening yet, the moment I know this book is the one.” Gerry had a high fail rate, starting at least three books for every one that came to fruition. It was part of the reason he no longer took advances, instead insisting on selling finished books. Not that there was ever any suspense about his longtime editor making an offer, or whether the offer would be a good one. Still, it made him feel less encumbered, not being under contract. And it gave Thiru the leverage of potential bidding wars, Gerry always being available.

“Maybe if the soap opera thing was part of a memoir—” Thiru began.

“No. Never.”

“Even with your father dead?”

“With him dead, when my mother is dead, when I am dead—there will never be a memoir.”

“I can see waiting until your mother is gone—”

“Wasn’t I right about the uni?”

The magnificent woman was back at their table, clearly on her way out, a striking coat of boiled red wool tossed over her arm. Gerry was doubly grateful for her reappearance. She not only derailed the conversation about the memoir, she was wonderful to behold, sexy yet classy, with long, praying mantis limbs. He had dated desultorily since he and Sarah split. He didn’t like dating. And the women he saw were disappointed in his preferences, which came down to long walks in Central Park, carryout or delivery from his favorite neighborhood places, watching the Orioles on cable.

“You were,” Gerry said. “It was quite good. I still don’t know what it is.”