Free Moo by Jane Smiley Page B

his palm, and looked at Cecelia, who had seated herself beside Joy Pfisterer. The problem, he was tempted to think (but thinking this way was always a temptation), was that his fame didn’t penetrate here, and so couldn’t work in his favor, for example with Cecelia, the way it did out East. The stories in
Granta
and
The Paris Review
, the pieces in 7
Days
, even the reviews he’d done for the
Times
meant nothing here. They didn’t speak nearly as much for him as the bad review he’d gotten (with picture) in
People
magazine spoke against him. After that appearance, eleven of his students had mentioned that their mothers had wondered if that Timothy Monahan were him? With such a review,you were tempted to say no, the short answer, or to explain the difference in America between high culture and low culture, the long answer. At any rate, just to use the scientific method, this summer, his triumphal progress from writers’ conference to writers’ conference had proved sexual as well as professional, and there they knew his name beforehand and here he had to explain to every new acquaintance that he was in the English department and what he did there, often to be greeted by polite “Hmms” as if even an explanation weren’t enough to establish his identity. Apparently Cecelia had been so immersed in her courses and dissertation that her ignorance of his work was as total as anyone’s. In this flirtation he was conducting, he had had to rely entirely on his personality, never a good idea.
    Margaret sat down beside him and took a sip of his brandy. He said, “Hey, kiddo.”
    She said, “I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to you tonight. Did you put together your review materials?”
    “I turned them in Thursday. But you aren’t going to see them for months, right?”
    “I’m not going to see them. As a member of your department, I have no input at all.”
    “Well, that’s probably for the best, eh, Dr. Bell?”
    “Oh, I don’t know.” She smiled, possibly with some affection—Tim couldn’t tell. His affair with Margaret, three years in the past now, had been firmly grounded in his understanding that she had never read any of his work. Then, one Sunday over breakfast and the
Times
, she had made a little noise, one little noise, at a review of the third novel by a writer he knew and detested, a total fraud whose whole approach to the novel was unserious in the extreme, whose style was second-rate and had been since Tim had known him at Columbia. It was an appreciative noise, so Tim had looked up, said, “What?” and Margaret had pointed out the review, and Tim had snorted, and then Margaret had said she was including a paper about this joker in her book, and Tim had said, “Well, in that case, you really OUGHT to read my work,” and she had said, “I have, you know that,” and they had looked at one another and he had never felt an iota of desire for her afterward; try as he might, all the unspoken opinions that had changed hands in those few minutes still shrivelled him right up, it wasn’t even vengeful. He smiled and said, “Well, there is a conflict of interest.”
    She nodded, and said, “Did you sell your new book yet?”
    “It’s at Little, Brown, now.”
    “A sale would make a big difference. With three, you’d be in there absolutely. No amount of ignorance or perplexity on their part would matter at all.”
    Tim shrugged. “A sale would make a big difference” was his life’s watchword right now.
    “I’ll be back.” Margaret stood up and headed toward the bathroom.
    Cecelia stretched and yawned, touched her hair to see if the pins were falling out. The gesture lifted her breasts, which were large, and marvelously concentrated his attention on the loose white cotton of her blouse. He heard her say, “Actually, I walked. My duplex is only a few blocks.”
    Before Joy could say a word, he was in there. “Say, I walked, too. I’d be glad to walk you home.” Fleeting amusement