Page 25 of Bad Words

I forwarded through fifteen minutes of chitchat about Parker’s background before Steve Elgin’s mellow voice said, “So, considering some other literary feuds, I’m hoping this won’t end in a Proust-Lorrain scenario, with shots literally fired—”

Parker’s easy laugh echoed in my ear. “Yeah, let’s hope it doesn’t go that far.”

Steve laughed too. “No! No. But I am curious how you view this battle between yourself and Selina Chan. Would you say the stakes are personal? Financial? More broadly cultural?”

“Oh, interesting. I think it has to be all of the above, right? Critical anxiety is always financial anxiety. But with a really punishing review, like…”

“Like Selina’s,” said Steve.

“Yes. Like Selina’s.”

“You can say her name. We don’t have her hidden in the supply closet.”

They laughed. Hilarious.

“Sorry,” said Parker. “It’s just…”

“She’s an intimidating woman.”

“Yeah. The way she looks at you, it’s like facing down a bull shark.” More laughter. I increased the speed of the treadmill. “Anyway, reviews like hers are different. Writing and reading and reviewing are—are supposed to be personal relationships, right? And they’re supposed to be, like, undergirded by this foundation of communication and connection.”

“Right,” said Steve.

“Right. So, getting told that you’ve failed to communicate and humiliated yourself trying, and then when thousands of people pile on … to get that response feels like, not only have you failed in, you know, crafting the artistic object, it feels like you’re also separate from other people. Like other people can’t understand you, or maybe you’ll never understand them.”

Navarro hesitated. I was thinking that this was a surprisingly cogent point when he went on, “And I feel like, with this feud, I’m now in the position to say I don’t think authors should be expected to—like—suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism totally voiceless, I guess.”

“Oh—my God—shut up,” I panted. The woman on the adjacent treadmill gave me a scandalized look.

“So,” Steve said, “on the topic of your second book … I have a copy of High and Dry here. The rumors are true, it’s six hundred pages, but I tore through it.”

“Wow, Steve, that’s so gratifying after these past few weeks. Really appreciate it, man.”

“I’m not just saying that. It has a whimsical air that I found exceptionally charming.”

Parker paused for a split second. “Oh. Whims—really? Interesting.”

“Absolutely! These forays into the fantastical, the sentient alligator, the partially submerged bus … the book takes on the feeling of a dark fairy tale. Like Dave is an elemental archetype.”

“Oh! Um, yeah, I can see that! Yeah. I love hearing people’s different interpretations. Thanks again for reading it, thank you.”

“You bet, and I want to dive deeper after the break … Everybody, this is Parker Navarro, the author of the upcoming High and Dry, and—if you’re here after seeing his starring turn on video, rest assured—one of the nicest people I’ve met in a while. We’ll be back soon for more.”

I hit Pause. As the treads slowed, as I broke out of my run and scrubbed the towel across my forehead, Navarro’s voice echoed in my ear. I love hearing people’s different interpretations.

I scoffed. He loved getting fellated, was what he loved. Steve Elgin couldn’t have been further from the mark in terms of what Parker Navarro was trying to do with High and Dry. Whimsical? Fantastical? That book had been about as whimsical as a documentary about workplace injuries.

But instead of setting the record straight, Navarro ate up the praise. Why bother clarifying the point of his book when he could pat himself on the back for somebody liking him?

I stalked into the gym showers and ran the water scalding. One of the nicest people I’ve met in a while, said Steve’s enthusiastic voice in my mind while I scrubbed myself pink. Niceness. The world was drowning in it.

I closed my eyes and listened to the water’s drumbeat on my skull, massaging an aching muscle in my forearm. Maybe Parker Navarro was right. Maybe I did look at people the way a shark looked at its prey. Fine. I’d rather do that than gaze at every person I met with a desperation for them to like me.

At my locker, I considered the earbuds sitting atop my wallet. I didn’t have to do this to myself. I didn’t have to listen to seventeen more minutes of Parker Navarro palling around with Podcast Steve. He was so good at this. Eager. Generous, even. He responded immediately, attentively to Steve’s every side note; he made socializing seem effortless, the way a figure skater cuts cleanly across the ice. He’d even been born with an appealing speaking voice, a low, warm tenor, like the hum of a guitar string.

Here, I thought, was somebody who had never been disliked, somebody who could walk into a crowded room and expect everyone to turn toward him with a smile. And all it had cost him was his backbone.

Yet here I was, hitting Play and plugging that smiling tenor back into my ears. Apparently the joke was on me.