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Then Lincoln sends another e-mail to Cheryl Romano. He warns that she would be making a colossal blunder by identifying him as Alice. He types, “Alice is a talented artist of some fragility and needs and deserves her privacy.” On reflection, he thinks, no, that will just encourage the frenzy, and he deletes the sentence. Instead, he types, “A mistake of that sort will attach to you and drag down your career, if not end it.”
Harsh, but possibly effective, since she is just starting out. Lincoln pushes SEND.
Then nothing. He waits with some anxiety until Wednesday evening, when the latest edition of The Reader gets posted on the Web. After Lincoln visits the site on and off for several hours, the issue finally appears, and he clicks through to Cheryl Romano’s column. An item about an upcoming show at the Museum of Contemporary Art and another short piece on a new jazz program on the Loyola University radio station. Nothing about The Ultimate Position.
Lincoln clicks off feeling slightly amused. Chicago. The reporters here are sheep.
29
A WEEK LATER, a Thursday, a ferocious pounding wakens Lincoln early. At first he thinks he’s dreaming, then he imagines a neighbor has started a construction project. There’s a pause in the commotion, and Lincoln glances at the clock: 6:22. Then the hammering erupts again. His door.
Lincoln rolls stiffly out of bed and lurches to the living room in his underwear. More pounding. He opens the door a crack. Amy stands on the landing, her face scarlet, her right arm cocked to pound some more. She waves a newspaper at Lincoln. “Have you seen this?” she demands.
“What?”
“The Reader. They’ve outed me.” She slaps the paper against his chest. “They’ve turned me into a porn star!”
Lincoln opens the door wide. He’s aware that he’s naked except for his boxers, that his eyes are pasted with sleep and his breath is sulfurous.
Amy stomps into the apartment. “Listen,” she orders and starts reading aloud. “No one ever accused the University of Chicago of being a hotbed of sexual adventure, but it turns out a young female English major has written a book that’s turning on male fantasies around the globe...”
“Wait!” says Lincol
n holding up his hand. “Wait. Let me read it.”
Amy slams the newspaper into his palm. “I’ve lost my job. My family thinks I’m a slut. The Tribune trashed my book. And now I’m a secret pornographer, and everybody knows it!”
“Just hold on,” pleads Lincoln.
“You’ve ruined my life,” she cries. “Is this what you wanted?” Her face is so red and pulsating that Lincoln can’t be sure whether her head is going to explode or just start gushing blood. “Are you happy now?”
The question echoes for Lincoln, hooking something, a memory.
When he remains blankly silent, she repeats, turning up the volume, “Are you happy now?”
She stands with her knees slightly bent, one leg in front of the other, her arms tensed at her sides. Amy never played sports seriously, but she’s assumed a classic athletic posture, poised for either offense or defense. Lincoln recalls the tautness of her body, the grace with which she romped across her bed that first night together. Afterward, she’d asked...the echo. We live in circles. “Sit down, take your coat off,” he tells her.
“I don’t want to take my coat off, and I can’t sit. I’m too upset.”
“Suit yourself,” he says soothingly. “But give me a minute to get dressed, and then I’ll read it.”
Lincoln goes to his bedroom and pulls on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. In the bathroom, he takes a pee, splashes water on his face, and brushes his teeth. When he returns to the living room, Amy is standing beside the door, as if she’s about to leave. Her hands are in her coat pockets. Her hair is uncombed, and of course she’s not wearing makeup. He looks to see if she’s been crying, but her eyes are clear and angrily focused on him.
“All right, let’s take a look,” he says in the tone of an examining physician. He picks up the copy of The Reader, this week’s edition, and sits in the easy chair. Cheryl Romano’s latest column carries the headline “Mystery Solved.”
No one ever accused the University of Chicago of being a hotbed of sexual adventure, but it turns out a young female English major has written a book that’s turning on male fantasies around the globe. At least the evidence points to that young literary grad, who has managed to keep her identity secret until now.
The mystery first unfolded two months ago when iAgatha.com, a local online publisher, released The Ultimate Position, a book in which two college girls “explore the outer edges of sexual pleasure,” as the promotional blurb put it. The purported author was named Alice Upshaw. No one seemed to pay much attention except some weirdo webbie types (as yet unknown), who built a porn site, JennifersUltimatePosition.com, based on the sexual journey of one of the book’s characters. The site allows viewers to upload their wildest fantasies. Why am I not surprised that all those viewers turn out to be men? Anyway, sales of The Ultimate Position suddenly rocketed, which raised the question, Who is this siren of sexual extremes, this pornographer’s muse, this mysterious “Alice Upshaw”? For weeks, Chicago’s literary community has been asking that question.
Now a source tells The Reader that a sexy novel titled The Ultimate Position was scheduled to be published by the Chicago house Pistakee Press this spring. It was written by an associate editor at Pistakee, Amy O’Malley. The book was suddenly withdrawn when the author abruptly left the company. The reasons are not known, but she left on the same day as a Pistakee editor, John Lincoln, who soon turned up as a writing coach at iAgatha.com. Hmmmm. The source said, “It’s the same book, word for word.” Lincoln was elusive with me in several e-mails, but my source said, “He was, like, Amy’s mentor.”
And who is Amy O’Malley? She graduated cum laude last year. A classmate recalls, “She was really obsessed by literature, but I don’t remember her being into sex at all. This is really weird.” O’Malley is apparently lying low—she could not be reached.
But, hey, Amy, don’t be shy. Porn is the money engine of the Web, and now you’re a star! All the guys want to get a good look at the temptress who’s stoked their fantasies. Come out and take a bow!
Lincoln is finished reading, but he doesn’t look up. The paper has found a photo of Amy, probably something from an old U of C yearbook. The picture is not much bigger than a postage stamp, but there she is—the mussy, layered hair, the unpainted face, the overserious frown of childish concentration. Lincoln can’t take his eyes away. The Ruffed Grouse.
“Well?” Amy demands. “Well?”
