A Likely Story

Thursday, June 30th

It’s not that I’m a nervous traveler. It’s just that I’m all packed and ready, and we aren’t leaving until tomorrow.

June has gone by in a blur. All of a sudden The Christmas Book is a major issue in my life again, and I’ve spent most of the last two weeks in an empty office down at Craig, Harry & Bourke, going over the copy-edited manuscript, straightening out worldwide copyright problems with the rights department, arguing with production about the quality of the first trial color pages (we have thirty-two, done in some new process that doesn’t look quite as cheap as it is), and generally behaving like an executive. Also, Vickie and I have managed to perform a few natural and unnatural acts in there, keeping one eye on the door.

Time has suddenly become a major problem. Craig wants books in the stores by the end of October, which in publishing terms is yesterday. What with the urgency involved, plus the unwieldy size and shape of the manuscript itself, plus all the other details to be seen to, it just made more sense for Mohammed (me) to go to the mountain (the ms). Also, having an office full of Lance and a bedroom full of flung pantyhose didn’t help.

Because of the hurry, and because of the size of the book, they didn’t wait for the copy-editing phase to be finished before sending the manuscript off to the typesetter, but sent it on in batches, and the first batch of galleys should by returning any day for me to proofread. In the meantime, just yesterday I finished the Cosmo jewel piece and mailed it to my editor there and have been finishing a piece for Geo; but with this imminent move to Fire Island it just hasn’t been possible to think about the wonderful ancient Mayans of Belize. I’ll finish the piece next week, out there.

Lance has dated Vickie two or three times, but I haven’t been able to get a straight answer from either of them as to precisely what this means. I don’t think they’ve been to bed together, or Lance would certainly have told me. Lance hasn’t mentioned anything about Vickie to Ginger, which I guess is just as well; it’s probably better for Ginger to go on thinking of Vickie as a fag hag.

I am looking forward to comparative peace and quiet; not tomorrow, when we make the big move, but starting the day after. With Vickie here and me out there, editorial conferences will quite naturally be fewer, though The Christmas Book will of course require at least my occasional presence in New York. But even with Mary hanging around the first two weeks, I am anticipating a simpler and more comprehendable existence for the next month.

As for tomorrow, the simplest and almost the least expensive method for transporting all these people and luggage turns out to be a rented station wagon, with driver. He is due to arrive at 17th Street tomorrow morning at ten, to pick up Mary and Bryan and Jennifer and all their goods and chattels, then come uptown to get me, plus Joshua and Gretchen and this pile of baggage, which includes my typewriter and a liquor store carton filled with work necessities, such as pencils and a thesaurus. Also a carton full of sandwiches and apples and tomato juice and vodka. If the traffic on Long Island treats us decently, we’ll make the 1:00 ferry and have a picnic lunch in the rented house, and Ginger will leave work early and be on the 5:00 ferry. (She surprised me by very graciously accepting Mary’s offer to make dinner for everybody tomorrow night.) The weather is expected to be sunny and mild.

I can’t help wondering what will go wrong.

LATER

Good God. Vickie just called. The galleys for the first quarter of the book, exclusive of artwork, will arrive at Craig from the typesetter in Pennsylvania some time tomorrow afternoon. Vickie has volunteered — there was simply no way I could say no — to bring them out to Fire Island on Saturday.

I am to go over the galleys, according to this plan, while Vickie sunbathes the weekend away. On the afternoon of Monday, the Fourth of July, she will carry the corrected galleys back to New York; mission accomplished. I did explain that we were already pretty crowded out there, but she said that was okay, she didn’t mind, she’d bring a sleeping bag and just bunk on the living room floor.

This is insane. Where do you go to enlist in the Foreign Legion? I am going to be in that small rented house over the Fourth of July weekend with Mary and Ginger and VICKIE! What kind of Independence Day do you call that?