Suess's Pieces

“If you were a color, what color would you be?” Dr. Carver sat behind Bethany in his leather executive’s chair twisting the gold band on his ring finger before curling his hands over his Mac keyboard, ready to type.

Bethany sat up and turned to look at him. “You people really ask questions like that?” After a short pause she added, “You’re doing that annoying psychiatrist thing — never responding, only listening.”

She looked at his shirt and tie, both were wrinkled and stained. “I’m pretty sure you wore that last Wednesday,” she accused, but the doctor wasn’t taking the bait. His coarse dark hair needed taming and his five o’clock shadow had turned to near-beard overnight. “And what’s with the glasses, Dr. C? Too hungover for contacts this morning?” It had certainly been a rough night for Jamie Carver.

“Chartreuse,” Bethany said after a dramatic sigh. Bethany twisted the drawstring of her hoodie around her index finger. “That’s lemon Pledge isn’t it?” she asked. “Didn’t you leave your cleaning staff that note for me? You know I can’t stand the smell of lemon Pledge.”

Dr. Carver looked at his watch and shifted his weight. Loosening his tie, he cleared his throat. Aside from a few detached questions, it was the only noise he’d made in the last forty-five minutes. Bethany faced forward again and the room was silent except for the faint ring of a telephone out in reception. Bethany took the Chapstick from her pocket. She covered her lips and then smacked them together loudly. “You know. Chartreuse. Because it’s difficult to spell. I’ve been told I am difficult. Would you believe?” she giggled. “But please don’t put that in your notes. I saw that Seinfeld episode. Elaine was pretty much ruined after that.”

“So, what do you do?” Marty asked.

“Oh, I write blurbs for book covers,” Ella replied. She swirled her spaghetti in marinara around her fork, but made no attempt to lift the food to her mouth. The lights in the restaurant dimmed and an elderly gentleman at the next table quipped predictably about the prices going up.

“You mean it’s actually someone’s job to write those? They aren’t really written by bestselling authors and professional reviewers?” He took a drink from his water glass without taking his eyes off Ella.

Ella was puzzled by his apparent interest. “Oh, well,” her fork clinked against the china plate as she set it down and looked Marty in the eye. She leaned closer and lowered her voice, because she was about to spill trade secrets. “The ones from magazines and stuff? Those are legit. Staffers are paid to read and review. But lots of real authors pay me to read other people’s books and say clever things about them, because they’re too busy with book signings and whatnot. You know, like, I got a call from Sara Thorpe’s people the other day. I read the book she was supposed to, wrote the blurb, got paid a pittance, and Sara Thorpe got her name in print yet again to plug her latest installment of wildly popular but poorly written drivel.”

“That’s fascinating,” Marty said, mostly to himself. “How does a person land a job like that?”

“Well,” said Ella, “it was just the next rung on the aspiring writer’s ladder. One step below ghostwriter, I guess.”

“The next rung? What did you do before?”

“I proofed the obits at The Daily Flyer.” She could no longer look Marty in the eye. “So cliché, I know.”

“No shit?” Marty asked loudly, drawing a stare from the elderly gentleman one table over. “Say, were you the one responsible for my great uncle Price McMahon’s thirty years of service as a Navel Officer?” He turned red with laughter and wiped a tear from his cheek, “Just the thought of Uncle Price giving orders to a belly button. If you could have met the man.”

“Check, please!” Ella waved a hand impatiently at their server.