One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [78]
“We certainly couldn’t,” James agreed.
“’Course not,” Redmon said. “But what I’m saying is…Well, you’ve written a great book, James, an actual novel, but I don’t want you to be disappointed. We’ll definitely get on the list, right away, I hope. But as to how long we’ll stay on the list…”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” James said. “I didn’t write the book to sell copies. I wrote it because it’s a story I needed to tell.” And I won’t be corrupted by Redmon’s cynicism, he thought. “I still believe in the public. The public knows the difference. And they’ll buy what’s good,” he added stubbornly.
“I don’t want you to have your heart broken,” Redmon said.
“I’m forty-eight years old,” James said. “My heart’s been broken for about forty years.”
“There is good news,” Redmon said. “Very good news. Your agent and I agreed that I should be the one to tell you. I can offer you a million-dollar advance on your next book. Corporations are bad, but they’re also good. They have money, and I intend to spend it.”
James was so shocked, he couldn’t move. Had he heard correctly?
“You’ll get a third on signing,” Redmon continued, as if he gave away million-dollar advances all the time. “With that and the money we’ll get from the iStores’ placement, I think you can expect to have a very good year.”
“Great,” James said. He still wasn’t sure how to react. Should he jump out of his chair and do the watusi?
But Redmon was being calm about it. “What will you do with the money?” he asked.
“Save it. For Sam’s college education,” James said.
“That will about use it up,” Redmon agreed. “Six, seven hundred thousand dollars—what does it get you these days? After taxes…Christ. And with those guys on Wall Street buying Picassos for fifty million.” He put up his hands as if to push away this reality. “It’s our new world order, I suppose.”
“I suppose,” James agreed. “But one could always pursue the teenage fantasy. Buy a little sailboat in the Caribbean and disappear for a few years.”
“Not me,” Redmon said. “I’d be bored in two days. I can hardly stand to take a vacation. I like cities.”
“Right,” James said. He looked at Redmon. How lucky to know one’s own mind. Redmon was always pleased with himself, James thought. While James did not, he realized, know his own mind at all.
“I’ll walk you out,” Redmon said. Standing, he made a face and put his hand to his jaw. “Damn tooth,” he said. “Probably needs another root canal. How are your teeth? It’s extraordinary, getting old. It is as hard as people say.” Exiting the office, they came out into a maze of cubicles. “But there are advantages,” Redmon continued, his overweening confidence firmly back in place. “For instance, we know everything now. We’ve seen it all before. We know there’s nothing new. Have you noticed that? The only thing that changes is the technology.”
“Except we can’t understand the technology,” James said.
“Bullshit,” Redmon said. “It’s still a bunch of buttons. It’s only a matter of knowing which ones to press.”
“Like the panic button that blows up the world.”
“Wasn’t that disabled?” Redmon said. “Why can’t we have another cold war? It was so much more sensible than a real war.” He pushed the button for the elevator.
“Mankind is going backward,” James said. The elevator came, and he got on.
“Say hi to your family for me,” Redmon called out with genuine urgency as the doors were closing.
Redmon’s admonishment struck James as extraordinary. Family concerns were something Redmon never would have considered ten years ago, when he was out bedding a different woman in publishing every night and drinking and doing cocaine until dawn. For years, people had postulated that something terrible would happen to Redmon—he appeared to deserve it, although what the terrible thing was, no one could say—rehab, maybe? Or some kind of death? But nothing terrible ever did happen to him. Instead, he slid into his new life as a married father and corporate man with the agility of a skier. James had never understood it, but he thought perhaps Redmon, instead of being