Read Online Cabot Wright Begins: A Novel by James Purdy - Free Book Online
Authors: James Purdy
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love.”
“Life is full of incidents,” she spoke as he pulled her down to him again.
“Don’t do this because you think you have to or because we’re both away from home,” she cautioned him. “And for God’s sake no little games of spite on poor old Carrie, please.”
“You look good to me. I told you that,” and he put his mouth to hers again.
After a night in Bernie’s arms, Mrs. Bickle found that if she had not yielded to him as ardently as Carrie always testified she did, she had warmed him up from total despair, and on returning to her Gramercy Park apartment, taking off her high heels as she sat with a drink on her divan, she realized that she had replaced Carrie more completely than Joel Ullay had Bernie. She would probably never be Bernie’s lover in any full sense of the term, though nobody can be sure what is coming so far as love is concerned. In any event she had better take over Bernie’s book about Cabot Wright, or Princeton Keith would make her life a hell.
ON HER FIRST day in New York, Keith and Zoe had met for their talk at a fashionable hotel, in a huge court of potted palms, in an alcove protected by an awning, exclusively reserved for the publisher by the management at certain hours each day of the week. (A gentleman from a rival publishing house had once inadvertently approached Keith’s reserved space a bit ahead of the editor; Keith had commanded him to be off; when the other refused, they had come to blows; worsted, the interloper had left with a bruised cheek and eye, cursing his assailant roundly.)
Studying Keith closely now, Mrs. Bickle discovered he was happy over two things, one that Bernie had a book about the rapist and the actual rapist in tow, and two that Zoe was here, on the spot.
“It’s a little bit too wonderful for me to believe,” he told her. “And I need a book like this, believe you me, Zoe, dear. My publisher, Al Guggelhaupt, needs it too, God knows. We’ve got to find something good . We’re dying from best-sellers. All money and no bite.”
Mrs. Bickle looked away.
“And to think,” Princeton went on to exaggerate a bit, “that it would be an old girlhood sweetheart who would bring this all about!”
Zoe Bickle smiled, and even flushed faintly, trying to remember what Princeton had been like as a boy in the small Illinois town where they had grown up. He could have been nobody’s sweetheart, she was sure.
Her uneasiness about Princeton was not prompted by his inadequate memory of their childhood, but by the offer she knew he was about to make, which he had already referred to as something concrete and substantial.
When he realized what was wrong—her obvious distrust of him—for he was nothing if not sharp, he began to work on her, hard.
“There you’ve been for years,” she heard his voice as she sipped the incredibly frondescent mint julep he had insisted on selecting as her drink, “hiding your light under a bushel, nursemaid to a ne’er-do-well hypochondriac writer, a wet nurse, if the truth were told, when you could be one of the best editors in publishing. But now I’ve got you here, I’m not going to let you go. You know I have this offer to make to you, or you wouldn’t be sitting before me. We’ll forget the other little job you came here to do. A ghost can do that… Let me put it this way, Zoe dear, you can send Curt money, enough to let him study Hebrew the rest of his life, if you’ll see the light of reason here in New York.”
Without waiting for Mrs. Bickle to say no, he named the sum of money he would give her.
As it was an incredible amount of money, she expressed her surprise by total lack of expression. Princeton repeated his offer.
She could only sit there, perhaps stunned, but looking bored and dull.
“I’m offering Gladhart half as much,” he was clearly puzzled by her poker face.
“Just enough to put him on easy street,” she quipped, to his relief.
As he rattled on with his plans, he was careful
“Life is full of incidents,” she spoke as he pulled her down to him again.
“Don’t do this because you think you have to or because we’re both away from home,” she cautioned him. “And for God’s sake no little games of spite on poor old Carrie, please.”
“You look good to me. I told you that,” and he put his mouth to hers again.
After a night in Bernie’s arms, Mrs. Bickle found that if she had not yielded to him as ardently as Carrie always testified she did, she had warmed him up from total despair, and on returning to her Gramercy Park apartment, taking off her high heels as she sat with a drink on her divan, she realized that she had replaced Carrie more completely than Joel Ullay had Bernie. She would probably never be Bernie’s lover in any full sense of the term, though nobody can be sure what is coming so far as love is concerned. In any event she had better take over Bernie’s book about Cabot Wright, or Princeton Keith would make her life a hell.
ON HER FIRST day in New York, Keith and Zoe had met for their talk at a fashionable hotel, in a huge court of potted palms, in an alcove protected by an awning, exclusively reserved for the publisher by the management at certain hours each day of the week. (A gentleman from a rival publishing house had once inadvertently approached Keith’s reserved space a bit ahead of the editor; Keith had commanded him to be off; when the other refused, they had come to blows; worsted, the interloper had left with a bruised cheek and eye, cursing his assailant roundly.)
Studying Keith closely now, Mrs. Bickle discovered he was happy over two things, one that Bernie had a book about the rapist and the actual rapist in tow, and two that Zoe was here, on the spot.
“It’s a little bit too wonderful for me to believe,” he told her. “And I need a book like this, believe you me, Zoe, dear. My publisher, Al Guggelhaupt, needs it too, God knows. We’ve got to find something good . We’re dying from best-sellers. All money and no bite.”
Mrs. Bickle looked away.
“And to think,” Princeton went on to exaggerate a bit, “that it would be an old girlhood sweetheart who would bring this all about!”
Zoe Bickle smiled, and even flushed faintly, trying to remember what Princeton had been like as a boy in the small Illinois town where they had grown up. He could have been nobody’s sweetheart, she was sure.
Her uneasiness about Princeton was not prompted by his inadequate memory of their childhood, but by the offer she knew he was about to make, which he had already referred to as something concrete and substantial.
When he realized what was wrong—her obvious distrust of him—for he was nothing if not sharp, he began to work on her, hard.
“There you’ve been for years,” she heard his voice as she sipped the incredibly frondescent mint julep he had insisted on selecting as her drink, “hiding your light under a bushel, nursemaid to a ne’er-do-well hypochondriac writer, a wet nurse, if the truth were told, when you could be one of the best editors in publishing. But now I’ve got you here, I’m not going to let you go. You know I have this offer to make to you, or you wouldn’t be sitting before me. We’ll forget the other little job you came here to do. A ghost can do that… Let me put it this way, Zoe dear, you can send Curt money, enough to let him study Hebrew the rest of his life, if you’ll see the light of reason here in New York.”
Without waiting for Mrs. Bickle to say no, he named the sum of money he would give her.
As it was an incredible amount of money, she expressed her surprise by total lack of expression. Princeton repeated his offer.
She could only sit there, perhaps stunned, but looking bored and dull.
“I’m offering Gladhart half as much,” he was clearly puzzled by her poker face.
“Just enough to put him on easy street,” she quipped, to his relief.
As he rattled on with his plans, he was careful
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