Read You or Someone Like You for Free Online

from Howard’s office just to checkin. No, I have everything. Oh—I tell her to keep Howard away for at least an hour, and she says she’s already arranged that. She’s very good.
    J.J. arrives first. We introduce ourselves. He stands, self-consciously deferential, in the entryway in his suit, pressing the book over his testicles like a sporran. “Oh, I’m first?”
    Quite all right.
    He frowns at his watch. “She said…”
    It’s quite all right, J.J., honestly.
    â€œWell. Terrific evening, huh.”
    Yes. We’ll be talking outside.
    â€œGreat!” he says enthusiastically. Then: “Oh! Should I…?” He makes a quizzical hand motion toward the back.
    Please. After you.
    â€œGreat!” He moves out, like a one-man platoon taking the garden.
    We hear two car engines die in immediate succession, and Consuela brings Melanie and Stacey. The candles are lit, we sort out the drinks. Are they hungry? Denise has made some things, so I hope we’ll all eat. It’s marvelous of you to do this, Anne, they say, to take the time, and so on. I say I’m happy to. Now, first of all, everyone finished, yes? Good, a well-thumbed copy there, nice to see.
    I slip into the role as if into warm salt water in some pleasant ocean. They’re watching me closely. I introduce myself very briefly, my literature degree, what this book means to me. It’s an odd sensation, but I like it. Usually I only talk to Howard. This is pleasant. I stop speaking for a moment, clear my throat. Then I say, Right, now you. Who enjoyed the book and who did not?
    But the conversation starts out painfully, haltingly. They are hesitant, their ideas cramped, and I don’t understand why, and I find myself suddenly disappointed. Three days later this will be explained to me when I get a phone call from Jeremy Zimmer. It’s the doctorate in literature, he will inform me decisively. How does he knowthis? Oh, he will say—Jeremy, like all talent agents, speaks with dead certain authority—he’d been to a dinner party last night, seated next to a woman J.J. knows. She talked about it all night. They’d loved it, by the way, the whole evening, really loved it. Oh, and the English accent, too, that also intimidates them.
    I will be struck by the fact that even in Southern California, every human being connects a knowledge of books with self-respect and self-worth. I will say to Jeremy, It certainly didn’t occur to me that I was intimidating them.
    They found you masterful, Jeremy will say.
    So (he adds smoothly) the reason he called, he was wondering, could my book club take another person.
    I will be slightly flustered but react by stipulating, It’s not a book club, Jeremy. I will give him the next title, which it turns out he already knows, and the date, which it turns out he also already knows. I will say we haven’t set the where yet but it might as well be at my house again. This, it turns out, he will have assumed. Right. In that case, I say, would he please take charge of logistics and coordination.
    â€œBronwyn”—his assistant—“pick up, please.”
    Click. “Hi, Ms. Rosenbaum,” says Bronwyn.
    Hello, Bronwyn.
    â€œOh, Bronwyn,” Jeremy will begin, “we’ll need you to get us a dessert. A really good one.”
    But in the garden on that first evening, it is not working, and I am feeling my way forward tentatively. I think, Why would they listen to me? but I am careful not to show this because in my experience showing doubt never serves any purpose.
    I tell them: Please understand. You won’t offend me if you do not like this book. I happen to love it, but a book is like a person, and one’s reaction to a person invariably has more to do with one’s own personality and life experience than with the actual person herself.
    I add, Unfortunately.
    After a moment I add, That always seems to be the case