The Nix(20)

He’s at a coffee shop across from a gate where a midday flight to Los Angeles will begin boarding in about fifteen minutes. He’s there for a meeting with Guy Periwinkle, his editor and publisher. Above him is a television, currently muted, tuned to a news program showing Samuel’s mother throwing rocks at Governor Packer.

He tries to ignore it. He listens to the omnibus sounds around him: coffee orders shouted, intercom announcements about the current threat level and not leaving one’s bags unattended, kids crying, froth and steam, bubbling milk. Just next to the coffee shop is a shoeshine stand—two chairs elevated like thrones, beneath which is this guy who will shine your shoes. He’s a black man who’s currently reading a book, dressed in the uniform required of his job: suspenders, newsboy cap, a vaguely turn-of-the-century ensemble. Samuel is waiting for Periwinkle, who wants a shoeshine but is hesitating.

“I’m an exquisitely dressed white guy,” Periwinkle says, staring at the man at the shoeshine stand. “He is a minority in regressive costume.”

“And this matters why?” Samuel says.

“I don’t like the image. I hate that visual.”

Periwinkle is in Chicago this afternoon but on his way to L.A. His assistant had called to say he wanted a meeting, but the only time he had available was at the airport. So the assistant purchased Samuel an airline ticket, a one-way to Milwaukee which, the assistant explained, Samuel could use if he wanted but was really just to get him inside security.

Periwinkle eyes the shoeshine guy. “You know what the real problem is? The real problem is cell-phone cameras.”

“I’ve never had a shoeshine in my life.”

“Stop wearing sneakers,” Periwinkle says, and he doesn’t look at Samuel’s feet when he says this. Meaning that in the few minutes they’d spent together at the airport, Periwinkle had gathered and assimilated the fact of Samuel’s cheap shoes. And several other facts, probably.

Samuel always feels this way around his publisher: a little unseemly in comparison, a little derelict. Periwinkle looks about forty years old but he’s actually the same age as Samuel’s father: in his mid-sixties. He seems to be fighting time by being cooler than it. He carries himself in an erect and stiff and regal manner—it’s like he thinks of himself as an expensive and tightly wrapped birthday present. His thin shoes are severe and Italian-looking and have little ski jumps at the tips. His waistline seems about eight inches smaller than that of any other adult male in the airport. The knot in his necktie is as tight and hard as an acorn. His lightly graying hair is shaved to what seems to be a perfect and uniform one-centimeter length. Samuel always feels, standing next to him, baggy and big. Clothes bought off the rack and ill-fitting, probably a size too large. Whereas Periwinkle’s tight-fitting suit sculpts his body into clean angles and straight lines, Samuel’s shape seems blobbier.

Periwinkle is like a flashlight aimed at all your shortcomings. He makes you think consciously of the image you are projecting of yourself. For example, Samuel’s typical order at a coffee shop is a cappuccino. With Periwinkle, he ordered a green tea. Because a cappuccino seemed like a cliché, and he thought a green tea would have a higher Periwinkle approval rating.

Periwinkle, meanwhile, ordered a cappuccino.

“I’m headed to L.A.,” he says. “Gonna be on the set for the new Molly video.”

“Molly Miller?” Samuel says. “The singer?”

“Yeah. She’s a client. Whatever. She has a new video. A new album. Guest appearance on a sitcom. Reality show in the pipeline. And a celebrity memoir, which is the reason I’m going out there. The working title is Mistakes I’ve Made So Far.”

“Isn’t she like sixteen years old?”

“Officially seventeen. But really she’s twenty-five.”

“No kidding?”

“In real life. Keep that to yourself.”

“What’s the book about?”

“It’s tricky. You want it blasé enough that it won’t hurt her image, but it can’t be boring because she has to come off as glamorous. You want it smart enough that people won’t say it’s bubblegum pop sold to twelve-year-olds, but not too smart because twelve-year-olds are of course the principal audience. And obviously all celebrity memoirs need one big confession.”

“They do?”

“Definitely, yes. Something we can give the newspapers and magazines ahead of the pub date to generate buzz. Something juicy to get people talking. That’s why I’m going to L.A. We’re brainstorming. She’s doing pickups on her music video. Comes out in a few days. Some f*cking stupid shitty song. Here’s the chorus: ‘You have got to represent!’?”

“Catchy. Have you decided on a confession?”

“I am strongly in favor of an innocently small episode of lesbianism. An experimental time in junior high. A special friend, a few kisses. You know. Not enough to turn off the parents but hopefully enough to get us some rainbow-flag awards. She’s already got the tween market, but if she could get the gays too?” And here Periwinkle pantomimes with his hands something small exploding into something large. “Boom,” he says.

It was Periwinkle who’d given Samuel his big break, Periwinkle who had plucked Samuel out of obscurity and given him an enormous book contract. Samuel had been in college then, and Periwinkle was visiting campuses all over the country looking for authors to sign for a new imprint that featured the work of young prodigies. He recruited Samuel after having read only one short story. Then he placed that story in one of the big magazines. Then offered a book contract that paid Samuel an exorbitant amount of money. All Samuel had to do was write the book.