The House on Olive Street Read online

  Wasn’t that a lot of money?

  Not for all that had gone wrong. Or, rather, had not gone. She had a twenty-seven-year-old editor who had insisted she revise and rewrite her last proposal twice, taking her three months to get a final, twelve-page draft that they would accept and pay her the first half of a ten-thousand-dollar advance. She was averaging three paperbacks a year and the woman who was accepting or rejecting her work was an art major who’d worked her way up to editor nine months ago. In her nine years of writing, struggling in this business, Barbara Ann had watched several acquaintances shoot past her, personally knowing too many who’d signed million-dollar multi-book deals. Their writing was no better than hers! Their books were not that much different! And Barbara Ann was still toiling, writing her ass off at least forty hours a week, and begging for these ten-thousand-dollar advances.

  “You haven’t developed a strategy yet,” Sable had told her.

  “Great. Give me a strategy. Tell me how you did it.”

  “You’re missing the point, Barbara Ann. There are fifty reasons why the way I did it won’t work for you. Some of the things I did twelve years ago don’t work now. The trends change too fast for you to catch up with them. The people in the business are all different. It’s not as though you can write the same type of book I write and get rich and famous. There are already a million books like mine that aren’t doing much.”

  “Then how the hell do you expect me to develop a strategy?”

  Heavy sigh. “Everyone has a personal version of success, Barbara Ann. Are you sure you want the same kind I have? Maybe true success is a happy family?”

  “Don’t be patronizing, just tell me how. Please!”

  “Well, I’ll try, but it’s just not the same for everyone, you see. You have to uncover what it is you can do better than anyone else, that hasn’t already been done to death, and then you have to find the right people to help you do it and then you have to go about selling it in ways that haven’t already been tried by every other midlist author. It’s very cagey and creative and above all, individual. Plus, it is loaded with risks. You have to decide if you like where you are—which brings in dependable, if not incredible, money—or if you’re willing to risk it all by walking away and hunting the big cats. It’s a huge gamble. It doesn’t always work. At the very least, it doesn’t work fast.”

  Barbara Ann pushed Sable into going over all this again and again and she never quite followed it. It was too ambiguous. It might work for a certain type of author to fire five agents, change publishers, piss off a lot of people and stage a veritable raid on the publishers and finally get the money she wants. But another author could try it and find themselves disliked, avoided and basically out of work. One type of author with a certain type of book might be able to sell copies by developing a massive marketing campaign on her own while in another case it would only serve to bankrupt the author, annoy the marketing department and make the next book even harder to sell. It was all individual, Sable kept saying. Your strategy must exactly fit your ability, personality, type of work and potential.

  Why the hell wouldn’t Sable admit she’d just been lucky? And console Barbara Ann that she had not been?

  “Of course there’s luck involved in publishing, Barbara Ann,” Sable relented wearily. “Lots of luck. Bestselling authors are always lucky. But they’re not accidental.”

  Barbara Ann did not understand.

  And then there was Barbara Ann’s dirty little secret. She had conquered their group. She had pushed her way into Gabby’s life because Sable was there and she needed what they had. It hadn’t mattered to her whether or not she liked these women. She wanted Sable’s help and influence because she wanted her own phenomenal success to come to her. She had too many obligations to take all these risks Sable talked about even if she could figure out what they were.

  Nine years ago, in the very beginning of this writing endeavor, Barbara Ann had taken a short workshop course from Gabby because she heard that Gabby hung out with Sable Tennet. In fact, the little writers’ group she belonged to kept trying to get Gabby to get Sable to come and speak to them. Sable was not easily got. She was very particular about where and when she was seen. Sable was single-minded; there had to be something in it for her. She drew a fee—something not many writers’ groups willingly paid. They’d let you autograph books and they’d fuss over you. What more should you need? But Sable didn’t hang out with other writers, unless they were sensationally famous. Her only regular friends were Gabby and Elly.

  So Barbara Ann put the rush on Gabby. She phoned her, invited her to lunch, asked her many questions, made herself available. Gabby, being the friendly, approachable woman she was, gave in to the prospect of friendship. Barbara Ann knew that success was imminent. Before long she met the famed Sable, and Sable impressed the hell out of her. She was chic, elegant, arrogant and sought after. Sable would get important business calls while she was hanging out with the girls at the Olive Street house. Barbara Ann would eavesdrop as Sable went through various stages of wheedling, throwing a tantrum, cajoling or threatening, and everyone would eventually come around, give Sable what she hankered for. The advance would be upped, the advertising promised, the cover changed, the tour accommodations improved or the special invitation provided. Sable was psychic. She knew when to suck up, when to whine, when to scream. She always got what she wanted. Barbara Ann wanted that.

  From the very beginning, Barbara Ann found the friendship between Gabby and Sable to be an odd one. Gabby was a very attractive, small woman who put more emphasis on her feelings and her intellect than on her wardrobe or lifestyle; Gabby valued things like friendship, honor, loyalty and sensitivity. Sable, you could tell after one meeting, mostly valued success and power. She was a classy, slender, gorgeously dressed blonde. She wore specially made suits and slacks and exactly the right amount of tasteful jewelry, all real. She drove a Mercedes, had a rich cache of famous acquaintances, and Barbara Ann met her at about the time she’d landed the biggest agent in New York and was beginning to sign contracts for a series of movies.

  Not that Sable was shallow or superficial. She was entirely earnest. And her devotion to Gabby was one of the things she was most serious about. But they did make an odd couple—Gabby in her oldish Chevy, Sable in her Mercedes. Gabby in her blue jeans and Birken-stocks, raising two kids alone in an average-size four-bedroom house; Sable hiring servants, secretaries and publicists from her Hidden Valley manse. Gabby going to PTA meetings, soccer games, orthodontists’ appointments and block meetings; Sable dashing off to New York for a book-release party, then on tour, starting with Good Morning America and The Today Show.

  If the two of them were not an odd enough combination, Barbara Ann was introduced to their closest crony, Eleanor. A professor. A critic. A dour, drab, intellectual spinster. The three of them together looked perfectly ridiculous, and yet they were clearly thick as thieves. After a while, Barbara Ann began to see how timeless their relationship to each other was. She found out that the connection went deeper and had lasted longer than it even appeared, but they were, all three, protective of the details. That was the only thing that made Barbara Ann continually feel like a newcomer, but it was a significant thing. Apparently Sable had been a college freshman when Gabby was starting her master’s program and Elly was teaching comparative literature when they met and became friends for the first time. They were aged nineteen, twenty-nine and thirty-six. (They must have looked even stranger then!) Sable moved to Los Angeles to finish studying and begin making her fortune while Gabby and Elly remained close and, of course, welcomed Sable home with open arms as a successful, bestselling writer. But there always seemed more to the story than they were telling, like they were all arrested for murder together or something.

  Barbara immediately recognized the understated power of this trio. Gabby seemed to know everyone in the writing industry—the agents, the editors, the romance writers, the mystery writers, the president of the authors’ gu
ild. She’d collected these acquaintances through years of traveling as a correspondent, teaching, conferences, publishing and various writers’ groups. Sable held the celebrity achievement award for fame and making money. And Elly provided the collegiate connection, the credibility, the brainpower. She had authored many little-known academic papers, but she also had written copious reviews of popular literature and articles for artsy-fartsy publications.

  These women were the movers and shakers.

  But they hadn’t helped her. She was not so far from where she’d started, actually. More books under her belt, sure, but she wasn’t exactly meteoring to fame and fortune. She was still a pudgy housewife who suffered under the constant stress of family obligations and found solace in Twinkies.

  And now Gabby was dead. Gone. Gabby was the one she had truly grown to love and depend on. Of the three of them, only Gabby really consoled her, tried to encourage her, kept her going. Barbara Ann wept as much for Gabby as she wept for the fact that their group would now surely fall apart. Though she had lost patience with the way every goddamn thing had gone Sable’s way, though she felt simpleminded in the face of Elly’s brilliance, though Beth seemed more a child in need of nurturing than an equal, she loved them. She needed them.

  I love them and need them, but do they need me? Of course not! What could I possibly give any one of them?

  It would be too much to say that Barbara Ann was going to give up or live in a vacuum. No, she was going to keep writing, keep in touch with Elly, Sable and Beth, and maintain her memberships in the writing groups where she had friends and acquaintances—and was pathetically most famous for being a close friend to Sable Tennet. But she was so unhappy. And tired. Frustrated by the mess and the noise and the blustering men who took her completely for granted while they trashed the house and made plans for how they’d spend the next royalty check.

  “I need a new engine.”

  “Tough shit, artichoke brain, I’m going to electrician’s school—that takes tuition money, y’know.”

  “What about the ski gear I been promised since graduation?”

  “I thought we were all going to take a family vacation. Hunting.”

  “Hey! Does Mom have anything to say about this? Mom, what’s more important, ski gear or electrician’s school?”

  Take it easy, honey, Mike would say. They’re just boys and we won’t have them forever. They are animals, Barbara Ann would reply. And I think they’ll pick my bones clean.

  The message publishing was giving her was that she’d better resign herself to remaining one of those reliable, average romance writers, take her money (which was good money if you compared it to what she could make as a secretary, stinko money if you compared it to what she could make as a bestselling romance writer!), and accept the fact that she didn’t have it. What she had was some. The skyrocket had left without her.

  She felt she had failed. She felt doomed to stay right where she was. And it just wasn’t enough.

  FOUR

  The autopsy revealed that a subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurism had taken Gabby quickly, probably causing her only brief pain. The aspirin bottle on the sofa table suggested she may have had a headache, but the fact that she hadn’t attempted to call anyone indicated the pain had not been severe or protracted. Although Gabby hadn’t had any religious affiliation for years, the memorial service was held in the First Presbyterian Church because of its size. The front of the church was covered in such an array of flowers it became gaudy. No one, not the family nor Eleanor, had had the presence of mind to come up with an alternate way for people to show their sympathy, such as a trust or benefit. They simply hadn’t been prepared for this outpouring. They should have been—Gabby had many friends and admirers—but they weren’t.

  Writers tend to have more long-distance friends—brought together by their books, conferences, guilds and necessary networking—and fewer local friends, because they work in isolation. Even so, Gabby had exceeded the norm. There were cards, flowers and calls from hundreds of people in publishing. Writers and editors had traveled from far away to attend the memorial and the subsequent reception. It was not just that she was loved and admired. She had impacted the lives of those she knew.

  Sable had been the first to realize the gathering to memorialize Gabby was going to include authors and publishing people from out of town. Sable’s secretary, Virginia, was flooded with calls requesting information about the time and place of the service.

  Barbara Ann, who had called names from various writers’ groups’ rosters, found the same response. Her phone rang for two days. Then, something that often takes place in anticipation of conferences and conventions began to surround Gabby’s memorial. Writers, editors, agents and booksellers planned to add a day or two and made plans for dinners and lunches. They had set themselves up in little enclaves all over Fair Oaks and Sacramento. Something had to be done with them.

  Opening up Gabby’s house was out of the question. Her personal effects had not been sorted through and it would not be appropriate to attempt to entertain over a hundred mourners there. Even though Don and Gabby had remained amicable, he couldn’t manage the after-memorial reception in his condo. Her kids, Sarah and David, hadn’t the time, energy or room. Elly’s, Beth’s or Barbara Ann’s homes—not even worth considering. Sable was the only person capable, and capability was Sable’s middle name. She would host the mourners in her Hidden Valley manse.

  Sable and Elly met at the church at one forty-five. Beth came in alone, and after saying one or two hellos, she gravitated to her friends. Barbara Ann arrived with her entire family. She looked like the grieving widow in her navy blue dress and dark glasses, flanked by her five huge men. She saw Beth, Elly and Sable standing in the aisle beside their pew and hesitated. Sable lifted an arm to her, a gesture welcoming her to the remains of the group, and Barbara’s handsome husband leaned close and softly mouthed, “Go ahead.” Barbara Ann tearfully joined them, unable to express her relief that they wanted her still, unable to admit the fear that it was only for today. Mike and the boys took their places behind the four women who had taken their places behind Gabby’s ex-husband, mother and grown children.

  And then Eleanor spoke, her voice mostly strong, her words more carefully chosen than at any other time in her life.

  “I’ve known Gabrielle Seton Marshall for over twenty years, but I think there’s another reason I’m before you today. I tend to draw assignments like this because I have worked so hard to establish a reputation as one who is absent of sentiment, as one who cannot be broken by anything of this world. Well, Gabby is no longer of this world. And I am no longer unbreakable.”

  Elly faced a gathering of over two hundred, five days after Gabby’s death. As per Gabby’s wishes, she had been cremated and her remains scattered over her beloved Sierra Nevadas, mountains she’d gazed upon from her deck or writing loft.

  Elly spoke of Gabby’s greatest life project, the mothering of Sarah and David, and her great pride in having raised “people of high standard.” She described the years before Gabby’s career as a novelist began, when she was traveling the world as a correspondent, from Bangkok to Africa to Belfast, in search of human rights stories of women and children that she witnessed firsthand, from infanticide to female mutilation to the agony of mothers who watched their eight-year-old sons bear arms. Eleanor described Gabby’s work during that period as “largely overlooked and desperately good.” She told of Gabby’s near brush with death nineteen years ago when meningitis struck her, when she emerged from that nightmare stronger and more determined than ever. Gabby had given so much of herself, she reminded them, when she taught or supported or mentored other writers. And, of course, her heart and her home were always open to countless friends.

  “Oddly, I thought until today that Gabby belonged to me,” Eleanor said. “But that was her way, to make each one of us feel, on some level, that we were the only ones. Not one of us, I suppose, was more important than another
…but then, neither were we ever less. I wish at this moment there was one stranger here, someone I could approach and convince, with my vast training in literary criticism and my extensive experience in debate, that I have not idealized this woman in her death.

  “But, it is apparently unnecessary. If you were ever left in need of encouragement, you didn’t know Gabby Marshall. If you ever felt forgotten, if you’ve longed for loyal friendship or a steady hand or compassion or understanding, you didn’t know Gabby. If you ever found yourself trying to overcome a character flaw while you were Gabby’s friend, she was utterly useless to you. She had an uncanny ability to accept the worst attributes in people as though they were charms. She saw us all in good light, rest assured.

  “And if you ever thought you were alone, you never met Gabby.”

  Eleanor’s voice croaked then, but she recovered herself instantly and admirably.

  “Gabby’s life was not easy, but you’d never know it. For as many years as I’ve known her—twenty-two now—whether she was on top of the world or had just suffered some magnificent defeat, she believed that her life was good and her future glowing. That, more than anything, is the tribute we can give our friend. To have a glass half-full and occasionally lift it to her continued success. Because wherever she is, she is making friends and making waves.

  “Here’s to you, Gabby,” Eleanor said, lifting a mock glass in the air. “Good journey, my friend. Godspeed.”

  When Sable looked around her house at what her swift, efficient hand had wrought, she was pleased. She had made maps of the route to her Hidden Valley home and gave five small stacks to key people, asking them to pass them out with discretion. This reception was limited to those who were legitimate friends of the departed. Even making that firm assertion, she was still prepared to deal with curious tagalongs or, worse, opportunistic deal-makers. She’d be goddamned if she’d have someone make a book deal at her best friend’s memorial service.