Free Just Friends by Robyn Sisman Page B

caught her crawling into my bed at five in the morning. I told her, ‘If you’re sober enough to get here from the couch, you’re sober enough to go home.’ I put her in a cab, quick, before she started getting ideas.”
    “Freya’s not like that.”
    “Come on, Jack, once they pass thirty they’re all like that. Hormones in overdrive, bodies in free fall, careers a little shaky. They put those soft pussycat paws on you and suddenly—ouch!—in go the claws.”
    Jack gave a weak laugh. Freya was probably moving her things into his apartment at this very moment.
    “Older women are so demanding! Talk to me. Listen to me. Not like that, like this. They feel they have some goddamn right to criticize how you look, your tastes, even what you do in bed.”
    “Freya’s just a friend.”
    “They’re the worst. They think they ‘understand’ you.” Leo grimaced. “They squirm their way in by making you dinner, or doing little favors like stocking your fridge or taking your stuff to the repair shop. One minute they’re telling you that they’ll always ‘be there’ for you; the next, they’re always there , period.”
    “Ha ha.” Jack wished Leo would order some more booze.
    “Secretly, of course, older women hate men. They know we can wait forever to get married and have children, whereas they have to do it by the time they’re forty—and they can’t stand it . It blows their equality theory to hell. I like to stick with the under twenty-fives, myself. All they want is fun.”
    “And they think we’re God, right?” Jack grinned, remembering Candace. “I’m seeing an adorable twenty-two-year-old at the moment.”
    “Way to go.” Leo reached across to give him an approving punch on the arm. “Now, what are you drinking?”
    A pretty waitress took their order and brought a bottle of wine. To Jack’s relief, Leo began talking about the publishing industry. Jack watched his sharp, clever face and emphatic hand gestures, half listening to an energetic commentary on takeovers, book fairs, trips to LA, six-figure deals, seven-figure deals. From time to time he gave an intelligent grunt. Relax, he told himself. Leo didn’t know that he was stuck on his novel. Leo didn’t know how he woke suddenly in the night, breathless with the fear that he might never write another word—that he was no good, had never been any good. Leo liked Big Sky ; he’d said it was “terrific.”
    “She’s got her nerve, coming in here.” Leo broke off from his lecture on Internet selling. “See that woman over there, the desperate-looking blonde? She’s been banned from Barnes and Noble because she went into her local store every morning and put piles of her book Susan’s Secret on top of Vanderbilt’s Thumb , hoping people would buy it instead.” He gave a malicious chuckle. “Last time I looked she was number ninety-five on the list.”
    “The book’s no good, then?”
    Leo found this question so amusing he choked on his focaccia. “It’s totally irrelevant whether the book is good.” He wiped the crumbs from his face. “The point is that it was never positioned . Nobody knew whether it was a girlie romp or a feminist rant or a plate of cupcakes. Nobody had been told that it was good.”
    Jack was puzzled. “But surely it would sell if—”
    “Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.” Leo shook his head sorrowfully. “People think that if you write a brilliant book the world will recognize it. Ain’t so. Nobody has time to read the actual book, so you sell the idea instead, preferably in under ten words. Let’s see . . . Abused woman finds love—and a psycho in the attic! Recognize that?”
    “Jane Eyre?”
    “You got it. Wealthy adulteress commits suicide on Moscow train track.”
    “Anna Karenina.”
    “Student’s dilemma: marry his girlfriend or avenge his father’s murder.”
    “Hamlet.”
    “See, it’s easy. You can do it with authors, too. Man in a white suit.”
    “Tom Wolfe.” Jack was enjoying this.