Ape House

mother’s assumption about who was responsible for either the slide toward squalor or the lack of babies without risking an epic maternal sulk, and if the Thigpen males were united on any one front, it was the absolute necessity of Not Upsetting Mother. (John’s brothers, Luke and Matthew, didn’t realize how fortunate they were to live on other continents. Or perhaps they did.)

Now, with ice in his veins and a hand on the door frame, John sniffed again. In addition to Pine-Sol, he identified scented candles, seared beef, and the lingering odor of pomegranate bath bubbles. He steeled himself, entered the house, and pulled the door shut behind him.

Amanda was leaning over the coffee table in the living room, arranging shucked oysters on a bed of crushed ice. Two bottles of Perrier-Jouet and crystal flutes sat off to the side, along with a tiny, perfect mound of Osetra caviar in the center of a small piece of their wedding china. Amanda stood barefoot on fresh vacuum tracks, wearing the silk nightgown John had given her for Christmas. It was a hopeful, desperate gift, a clumsy attempt to address her increasing reluctance to get out of bed. As far as John knew, this was the first time she’d worn it. He felt suddenly light-headed. The last time he’d come home to such a scene, she’d just sold The River Wars. Had she found another agent? Had someone bought her second book, Recipe for Disaster?

“Wow,” he said.

She swung around, beaming. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She grabbed a bottle and came to him. Her hair, a mass of unruly spirals in a shade he referred to as Botticelli gold and she as Ronald McDonald orange, was arranged in a disheveled knot at the nape of her neck. She was wearing lip gloss. Her toenails were painted an opalescent shade that matched the pink silk. Something glittered on her eyelids.

“You look amazing,” he said.

“There’s a beef Wellington in the oven,” she replied, kissing him and handing him the bottle of champagne.

As John fumbled with the foil, tiny silver flecks drifted down to the carpet. He balled the rest up in his palm and loosened the wire cage. “What’s up?”

She smiled coyly. “You first. How was the trip?”

A bolt of joy displaced his apprehension. He tucked the cold bottle under his arm and dug his cell phone from his pocket. “Actually,” he said, fumbling with the touch screen, “it was kind of exciting…” He held the photograph triumphantly forth. “Ta-dah!”

Amanda squinted. She leaned closer and cocked her head. “What is that?”

“Hang on,” he said, taking the phone back. He zoomed in on the image of a real live stranger reading The River Wars. “Here.”

When Amanda realized what she was looking at, she snatched the phone.

“A sighting in the wild!” John popped the champagne. He watched Amanda with an expectant smile.

She held the phone with both hands and stared at the screen without a hint of jubilance. John’s smile faded. “Are you okay?”

She sniffed, wiped the corner of one eye, and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am,” she said in a tight voice. “Actually, I have something to tell you. Come sit.”

John followed her to the couch, where she sat with a straight back and clasped hands. His eyes moved nervously from her profile to the spread. There was no mistaking this for anything other than a celebration dinner, yet she appeared to be on the verge of tears. Was she pregnant? Probably not, as there were two glasses set out for the champagne. He tried to ignore the metallic tang of fear that blossomed in the back of his throat, and leaned forward to pour the champagne. He left the glasses on the table and reached for her hand, interlacing their fingers. Her fingertips were cold, her palm moist. She stared at the table’s edge.

“Honey?” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I found a job,” she said quietly.

John winced. He couldn’t help it. He forced his features to relax and breathed deeply, steeling himself. He did not know whether to pretend to be happy about the job or to try to talk her out of it. All she’d ever wanted to do was write novels, and he knew she’d recently completed Recipe for Disaster. Surely this was the worst time to give up. Then again, perhaps a reason to get up in the morning would be a good thing. Contact with the outside world, an opportunity to make new friends, to not be pummeled relentlessly with rejection letters-

Amanda blinked at him, awaiting his response.

“Where? Doing what?” he finally said.

“Well, that’s the complicated part.” She looked back into her lap. “It’s in L.A.”

“It’s what?” John said, unsure if he’d heard correctly.

She shifted to face him and clutched his hands in a death grip. “I know this is going to sound crazy. I know that. And I know you’re going to want to say no at first, so please don’t answer right away. Maybe even sleep on it. Okay?”

John paused for the space of several beats. “Okay.”

Her eyes lifted and stared earnestly into his. She took a deep breath. “Sean and I wrote a treatment for a show, and he had a pitch meeting with NBC last week. Today we got the green light. They’re producing four episodes. And then, we’ll see.”

The room came unmoored. The ceiling swirled like toilet water. John dug his heels into the carpet to remind himself that he was anchored. Sean the who-what? And what was a treatment?

Amanda explained: she had connected with someone in an online chat room for writers, she said. His name was Sean, and they’d been corresponding for weeks. John didn’t need to worry-she knew all about the dangers of online chat rooms and had set up a Hotmail account with a fake name. They had exchanged real information only after she was sure he was legitimate. Sean had worked with the major networks for years, matching scriptwriters with various television projects. This time, the project was his, and he wanted Amanda onboard-he’d read The River Wars and was a huge fan, thought it criminal that it hadn’t gotten the review attention it deserved, because if it had, she would have been picked up by another publisher the second she was cut loose. She had the perfect voice for this project, which involved forty-something single women and a good deal of bed-hopping and was sure to hit the pulse of an enormous audience (apparently the boomer generation preferred to think of itself as in its forties rather than in its sixties). They’d collaborated on the treatment-a five-page description of the project-and Amanda stood to earn fifteen thousand an episode if NBC decided to keep it going after the initial four episodes. She hadn’t mentioned anything to John before this because she didn’t want to get his hopes up.

John realized she’d stopped talking. Her eyes bored into his, seeking a reaction.

“You don’t want me to do it,” she finally said.

He struggled to form an answer, trying to give his mind enough lead time to race through the implications. “I didn’t say that. It’s a surprise, that’s all.”

She waited for him to continue.

“What about Recipe for Disaster?”

“I’ve been rejected by a hundred and twenty-nine agents.”

“But that was to letters asking for permission to send the book, right? Nobody’s actually read the thing.”

“It doesn’t matter. No one’s going to. Apparently.”

“Tell me why you want to be involved in this series.”

“I want to write. It’s a way of writing.”

“Books. You want to write books.”

“And I’ve been rejected by every legitimate agent in the business. It’s over.”

He stood abruptly and began pacing. What if she was right? He hated the idea of her giving up, but there was some point at which persistence became masochism.

“Let’s think this through. What would I do in L.A.?” he said. “No newspapers are hiring. I’d never find another job. I’m lucky I still have this one.”

“Well, that’s the thing.” She paused long enough that he knew he wasn’t going to like whatever came next. “You wouldn’t have to right away. You can keep working here. You know, until we know for sure they’re going to continue the series.”

John’s lips moved for a full three seconds before he managed to form words. “You want to move to L.A. without