Page 30 of Are You Happy Now?

Lincoln shrugs modestly. “I want the company to do well, too.”

“I want to do something for you,” the owner continues, bathing Lincoln in a patriarchal glow. “When this push finally slows down, take an extra week’s vacation. I’ve alerted Matt—you normally get two weeks; this year you get three.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Lincoln says, though he would rather have a raise, a title change, the authority to green light books on his own.

“Just think of it as R & R.”

“Thanks!”

With the benefaction out of the way, Lincoln watches the warmth slowly seep from his boss’s face. “Now, about this book of poetry,” Duddleston says.

“Yes?”

The owner winces and slides his tongue around his mouth, as if searching for the right word among his teeth. “Is this stuff really any good?”

Lincoln hops right to it and waxes for several minutes on the play of language in Buford’s work, the animating humor, the clever and often counterintuitive choice of subject. But, no, as much as he wants to avoid being accused in court of committing a racist attack, he can’t bring himself to say the poems are good.

Duddleston listens patiently and then poses another fraught question: “You said in the meeting that this would be a step for us in adding diversity to our list, but when I look these over”—he gestures at the manuscript without touching it—“I find nothing that even hints of the African-American experience. I mean, it’s entirely pale-faced, as we used to say.”

“See, that’s it,” Lincoln says. “It’s post-Obama.”

Duddleston frowns. “And that title—L—there’s nothing in here about the elevated train. What’s that about?”

“Good question. We might want to work on that.”

Duddleston takes a deep breath and looks away. He holds the moment (hoping that Lincoln will capitulate?). “Well, what the hell,” he says at last. “You deserve a shot. I assume we can get it cheap?”

“Of course.” Lincoln realizes he has no idea—he and Buford never discussed money.

“Well, offer him five hundred dollars. And a small printing—say, a thousand.”

“I’m sure that will work.”

Duddleston slides the manuscript toward Lincoln. “It’s all yours,” he says.

Closing the deal is a snap. “Five hundred dollars,” Lincoln tells Buford in a phone conversation later that afternoon.

“Excellent!”

“We’ll put it on our spring list.”

“Excellent!”

“Now, about that title—L. I’m confused. There’s nothing in the poems about the train.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Buford says with a laugh. “That’s the Roman numeral for fifty. There are fifty poems in the collection.”

“I didn’t realize. Nobody will realize.”

“It’s subtle, but it works. L is the most beautiful letter in the English alphabet—so elegant, so simple. Plus, it’s the beginning of life and love.”

“Also loser, ludicrous—”

“You’re thinking too hard. And just look at it—straight lines, stiff back, erect. The sexual component is just below the surface.”

“I tell you, no one will get it.”

“Well, I’ve written more poems. I suppose we could add ten and then call it LX—you know, sixty.”

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