Read Girl on the Best Seller List for Free Online Page A

“Ah, but
you
don’t need anyone’s money any more, do you, honey! You’re rich and famous and still as cute as a bug! Look at you! Haven’t changed a bit! Still running around like a bobby-soxer, wearing Milo’s old shirts and — ”
    This time Gloria interrupted. As she spoke, she had to strain to discipline her eyes from wandering back to stare at Fern’s huge ears; at the crushed cigarette, too, put out in the saucer. Had Fern always put out cigarettes there? Had she ever before put one out there?
    Gloria said, “Poor Milo. He’s the one I feel sorry for.”
    She knew she should mean it, but she didn’t. She remembered Milo’s hang-dog look while he was doing the dishes last night, how it had repulsed her. Yet often she suspected she was too hard on him. It was her agent who had made her see that. She remembered one session with Pitts nearly a year ago, when the book was being rewritten. They had been talking about the way her main character (who was Milo, thinly disguised) told fairy tales to his wife when they made love.
    Pitts had insisted: “You’ve got to cut that, Gloria, that part about the fairy tales.”
    “Why?”
    “In the first place,” said Pitts, “you’ve made him into a shell of a man right through chapter twenty-three. Then suddenly you have him telling these enchanting fairy tales to his wife in bed, all about the great big Prince and the little bitsy Cinderella.”
    “Enchanting?” Gloria had guffawed at the idea.
    “Well, they are, dammit! You expect the readers to believe that a man as colorless as your hero has that much imagination?”
    “They were dull stories, Pitts.”
    “Not by a long shot. They were intriguing! I’m telling you, Gloria, you have to cut them out, or rewrite the book altogether. Cut them out and make him impotent.”
    Gloria had said, “Milo was never impotent, Pitts.”
    “I don’t care what he was or wasn’t. The way this book is now, he’s a very dull character up to chapter twenty-three, and then he’s suddenly transformed. Don’t you see, Gloria? A dull man who makes love by telling stories is no longer dull!”
    Gloria couldn’t see it.
    Pitts had said, “You know, your husband might very well be a much more fascinating person than you think he is. He reminds me of the fellow in the Viceroy ads. You know, the bank clerk who studies marine biology on the side. The man who thinks for himself.” Pitts chuckled.
    “Milo’s a drip.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t call him an average man, from all you’ve told me. He seems to have many facets to his personality.”
    “What
personality?” Gloria had scoffed.
    “Okay, have it your way. He’s a drip. But have it my way with regard to the novel, agreed? We’ll cut the fairy tales. If you want him to be dull and foolish, we’ve got to.”
    Gloria agreed to the cut. She said, “I bet you don’t tell any stories in bed, Pitts.”
    Her literary agent had answered: “I can’t think of any. That’s why I have to make my living selling other people’s.”
    That had been a year ago. Still, though Pitts had made her see, in some vague way, that she had painted Milo too blackly, he could never make her feel differently toward Milo. She could not even feel sorry for him, and she knew the moment she told Fern Fulton that she was sorry for Milo, her own voice belied her.
    Fern said, “Milo will hold up all right.”
    “You and Freddy must have seen a lot of him while I was away.”
    Fern lit another cigarette. “He was down the day before yesterday helping Freddy prune the hydrangea. He never acts as though anything’s bothering him. That’s one of the nice things about him.”
    “Every night he does the dishes,” said Gloria, “and every morning; and if he comes home for lunch, every noon!
I
can afford a maid now, whether he can or not. But you know Milo. ‘Oh, no,’ he says. ‘Your money is not going to finance this house. If you won’t clean up around here, then I will.’ It’s hilarious