Totally Killer Read online

  Passing a gallery, Taylor remembered that the Museum of Modern Art was only a few blocks from her current location. So she headed downtown, thinking it was ironic that tourists come from half a world away to visit the museums and she would never even consider going to one unless the only other option was a four-hour lunch at a subterranean Sbarro.

  The MOMA was as dead as the rest of the city. A handful of SVA students, some aging trophy wives, a gaggle of geeks from some church in Minnesota—that was it. This pleased Taylor; she had little patience for crowds.

  In the ticket line, she remembered that she didn’t have that much money. A gander at the list of admission prices: adults, $9; students, $6; senior citizens, $4; children, $4; members, free. All of them but the last were more than she could afford, if she wanted to eat lunch.

  The kid behind the ticket counter couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Nephew of one of the donors, probably, padding his résumé. He sported a houndstooth jacket and one of those then-stylish skate-rat haircuts that made his head look like a circumcised penis. Sheepishly Taylor handed him three crumpled dollar bills. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll pay more next time.”

  “Next time?” He examined the offering with disgust, the penis haircut bobbing. “What next time? Nine dollars, please.”

  “Nine dollars?”

  “That’s what the sign says, doesn’t it?” For her benefit, he pointed to it.

  “I thought those were, you know, suggested admission prices.”

  “Well, they’re not. Nine dollars, please.”

  “Doesn’t the Met have suggested rates?”

  The force of his sigh almost blew her backward. “This isn’t the Met, miss.”

  This threw Taylor for a loop. It was her recollection that you paid whatever you wanted, so long as you paid something. “You’re saying there’s no reduced rate, that to get in I have to give you six dollars?”

  “Nine dollars,” the kid corrected. “Please, miss. There’s a lot of customers want to get in this afternoon.”

  Taylor checked behind her. A few people, but by no means the waiting-for-your-freshman-advisor-to-sign-your-course-schedule line. Whirling back to face him: “But I’m a student.”

  He looked her up and down. Grinned snidely. Crossed his arms.

  Taylor remembered that she was dressed up. “Just because I’m wearing a suit doesn’t mean I’m not a student.”

  “Yes. Of course. Well, I don’t see an ID. If you were a student, you’d have an ID. I need either an ID and six dollars, or nine dollars.”

  Taylor opened her handbag. Eight bucks and change. Which she needed for lunch. And no Wycliffe ID.

  “Look,” she pleaded, “can’t you…”

  “Nine dollars.”

  “Oh, just pay it, for God sake,” cried the woman behind her.

  Taylor turned around to face the speaker: a middle-aged bitch with eggplant-purple hair, taut face, retroussé nose, drawn-in eyebrows and lips—a triumph of knives and plastic.

  “I don’t have it,” Taylor roared. “I’m not being cheap, I’m…”

  “Hurry up, would you.”

  “Please step aside.” The kid tossed the crumpled bills at her like so much used toilet paper. “I suggest you browse in the gift shop. They have postcards of the exhibits you can peruse.” He then turned his attention to the offended lady, whereupon both of them ignored her.

  That Taylor did not have enough money did not break the proverbial straw. Neither did the snide tone of the kid with the cut-cock haircut, or the taunting tone of the plastic-faced bitch. But to be completely ignored by both of them, as if she were a ghost, as if she didn’t even exist—this snapped the camel’s spine. Tears welled up in her eyes. The assorted stresses of the last few weeks undammed.

  “I hope you fucking die,” she shouted. “Both of you. I hope you drop dead.”

  Which, in retrospect, was not a particularly clever thing to say, as both of them certainly would, someday. The Minnesotans and the SVA students, however, were amused enough to stop and stare. With a grunt of disgust Taylor stormed out, vowing never to return, and marched uptown. By the time she hit Central Park, her blood pressure was back to normal.

  “What a day this is turning out to be,” she muttered to a passing businessman, who did not slacken his barbarian-at-the-gate pace to comment, talking to yourself being in New York what whistling is anywhere else.

  After some searching, Taylor found a bench unoccupied by derelicts and unspoiled by bird shit. She sat, lunched on falafel and Tab, read The Firm, watched the people mill around. At two-thirty she packed up her things and headed to the Braithwaite Ross offices.

  Just as Asher Krug had predicted, the interview began with a typing test. And then a spelling test. And then a proofreading test. Which would have driven Taylor bat-shit, except that her scores impressed the interviewer, an affable editor named Angela Del Giudice.

  Despite her tall-thin-and-flat-chested body, Angie was quite ungainly. Her natural stance resembled Carlton Fisk’s in the batter’s box: her heels almost touching, her toes ninety degrees apart. She wore her chestnut hair in braids, faded blue jeans, and a ribbed, formfitting, black tank top. Her face was pretty if you could ignore her left eye, which was not quite aligned with the right, and the Dukakisian eyebrows.

  From the get-go Angie did most of the talking, complimenting Taylor’s “impressive” résumé, her suit, her imitation-leather handbag, detailing the duties of the job, and apologizing for Braithwaite Ross. “I realize the space is cramped,” she would say, or “We’re getting new computers soon,” or “The AC is on the fritz.” As if any of these deficiencies would compel Taylor to snub an offer.

  The office was not so much cramped as cozy. The décor consisted of framed blowups of various BR book covers (Memoirs of a Headhunter, The Stockholm Détente, Murders in Alphabet City, The Kindergarten Killers) plus a gigantic poster of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep. The only principals over the age of thirty-five, Taylor learned, were the publisher and the editorial director. The age factor was a big selling point, in her mind; Jason Hanson and I were her only friends in the city, if we could even be called that. Taylor was depending on her job to jump-start her social life.

  Turned out Angie’s girlfriend from high school had gone to Wycliffe, so at least she didn’t confuse it with Wesleyan. And she was also from the Midwest—Ohio, in her case. The kicker, though, was a mutual fondness for true-crime books. Taylor loved that stuff. Even before Silence of the Lambs, she was big into serial killers. She knew more about the Black Dahlia than James Ellroy.

  “I have a positive feeling about this, Taylor,” Angela said. “I think this went well. I don’t have the final say, of course, but you’re definitely the best candidate I’ve seen. By far, actually.”

  “Thank you. I’m just as impressed with Braithwaite Ross. This seems like a great place to work.” Taylor wondered if and when she should broach the subject of salary, benefits, vacation time, that sort of thing. She was curious, of course, but she didn’t want to come off as presumptuous. And for some reason Angie didn’t seem the right person to ask.

  “We’d like you to meet with our editorial director. Do you have plans right now? I know it’s after four, but it’ll speed things along if you could see him today. He has to meet with all the candidates, and we’d like to make a decision as soon as possible.”

  “No, that’d be great.” A surge of adrenaline washed over Taylor. Which lasted two whole minutes, until she was introduced to said editorial director.

  Walter Bledsoe looked like he stepped out of an ad for Grecian Formula. His hair was the color of shoe polish, and didn’t quite match his bushy eyebrows. He reeked of tobacco and Aqua Velva and wore a glove-tight three-piece suit, gold cuff links, and the pained facial expression of a chronic hemorrhoid sufferer. He reminded Taylor of her high school guidance counselor. The one who got his suits secondhand from the funeral parlor.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Sc
hmidt. Please sit.” Bledsoe beamed, extending his paw. His teeth and fingertips both had the same yellowish tint.

  Bledsoe took Taylor’s hand, holding it a few seconds longer than she would have liked. Both sat.

  “Generally speaking,” he began, “we only look at Ivy Leaguers. Braithwaite Ross has a reputation to maintain, and Princeton and Yale haven’t steered us wrong yet.”

  Taylor struggled to maintain eye contact but found it impossible, as her interviewer was staring at her C-cups.

  “Wycliffe does enjoy a sterling reputation, to be sure, but let’s be candid. There’s a big difference between Wycliffe and Yale.”

  Taylor wanted to shoot back, About a hundred miles of I-91, but didn’t have the nerve. “Yeah. So I’ve read, anyway.”

  Interesting that Bledsoe had picked Yale. Taylor had, during the application process, set her heart on Yale, but Yale did not reciprocate her ardor. The rejection had haunted her ever since.

  Bledsoe laughed the same way the kid at MOMA had at her three dollars. Which meant something was going to get thrown back in her face. Her résumé, most likely.

  “So, tell me, Miss Schmidt—the book industry is moribund. Why publishing?”

  Somehow she was able to check her vexation enough to answer the question, supplying the usual reasons: she had a degree in English, she liked to read, she liked to write, she had a critical mind, she wanted to work with other creative people. Throughout, Bledsoe’s lecherous eyes did not stray from her chest.

  “And the salary doesn’t daunt you?”

  “I’d rather it be six figures, sure. But if I have to pay my dues, I have no objection to paying my dues.”

  By now, the old man had stopped blinking. There was no pretense; he was hypnotized by her heaving bosom (not that I can blame him). She crossed her arms. He raised a bushy eyebrow.

  “Good, good. So, tell me. What is the most important thing you learned in your undergraduate career at Wesleyan?”

  “Wycliffe.”

  “Sorry. At Wycliffe.”

  “The most important thing I learned…”

  At first, she could only think of joke responses: Fake an ID. Mix a mean martini. Get through a full day on two hours’ sleep with a raging hangover. Give head without gagging. All of which were more important in the context of everyday life than the answer she finally arrived at: “Well…that’s hard to say. I learned a lot at Wycliffe, met a lot of great people, took some great classes. I’d have to say…how to, like, put my ideas into words. How to, you know, express myself. Eloquence. I learned eloquence.”

  Bledsoe inspected his yellowed fingernails. “Well, Miss Schmidt, there’s not much I can do for you at this time, I’m sorry to say.” He stood and walked around the desk. “There are few openings to begin with, and most of them have to go to the minorities, the blacks and the Chicanos and these Orientals. Perhaps…”

  “But I’m a woman,” Taylor protested. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Miss Schmidt,” shaking his head, “half the people in the world are women. More than half. I’d hardly call that a minority. If you were black, or Chippewa or something, then I could help you. But you’re as lily-white as I am.”

  Now he was perched in front of the desk, his crotch three feet away from her face and bulging perceptibly.

  “But…”

  “What can I do? My hands are tied. These damned quota laws and so forth. Believe you me, if I had my druthers I’d hire you over any of the candidates I’ve seen.” His eyes darted up and down her body. “With legs like yours, I’d hire you just to walk to the water-cooler and back. But it’s a small house, and we have a reputation to maintain.”

  Taylor abruptly stood up, shifting so that the chair was between them, lion-tamer-style. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Bledsoe. It was really swell meeting you.”

  “Please,” he said, inching closer, “call me Walter.”

  Guys hit on Taylor a lot. Maybe it was the way she dressed. Maybe it was the way she looked at them. Maybe it was her body language. Maybe it was because, on some subconscious and involuntary level, she wanted them to hit on her. What was the key to her sexual magnetism? Taylor couldn’t say for sure. But to be hit on by a tattooed bartender at Continental, or a frat boy in the lobby of an employment agency, was not the same as being hit on by an older man, an Ivy League–educated man, a married man, during a job interview. That was more than just a harmless nuisance. That was a violation. That was…

  “Sexual harassment,” Taylor told the mailbox, in front of which she was now standing. She opened it, looked inside, found nothing, shook her head, closed the box, and headed up the stairs.

  On the first landing Taylor bumped into one of the last people she wanted to see just then: our downstairs neighbor, Trey Parrish. Trey Parrish was a nominee, along with Kirk Gibson, Rock Hudson, Rhett Butler, Conrad Hilton, and Charles “The Hammer” Martel, for Coolest Man’s Name of All Time, but his name, alas, was the only cool thing about him—although nobody ever broke the news to Trey. He sported a Steve Miller Band T-shirt tucked into madras-print J. Crew shorts (the lone brick-and-mortar store where they were available had opened two years before at South Street Seaport), a black weave belt, Polo Sport cologne, Bass docksiders, and, on his ankle, a tattoo of some or other fraternity. Wisps of blond hair peaked out from the sides of his white Delaware Lacrosse cap.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  Trey worked for a financial consulting firm, whose name was a series of desultory capital letters, as either a consultant or analyst; Taylor wasn’t sure which. The only reason she knew that much was because he accosted her every time he heard her on the steps (which was often, as he was in the habit of leaving his door slightly ajar for just that reason) and initiated a conversation. Although conversation implies that Taylor also spoke—soliloquy is a more accurate word. Trey was under the delusion that the mundane events of each day were some sort of chain letter that he had to meticulously share with as many people as possible. He was also under the delusion that these events were of considerable interest to the members of his audience, whom he regarded as biographers.

  “How’s it hangin’, Schmitty?”

  Plus he called everyone by nicknames. Even people who didn’t have nicknames.

  “Uh…hi, Trey.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Not much.” Taylor wondered what would have to be up for her not to answer the question by rote. “How are you?”

  “Pretty good, actually. Pretty good.” Trey’s head bobbed as he spoke. “Had a great weekend. Went down to Manasquan. Friends of mine have a place down there for the summer. You should come sometime.”

  Trey interpreted Taylor’s polite nod as a green light to detail his entire weekend—the traffic on the Parkway, the “babes” on the beach, the level of sunscreen used, the number of beers consumed, and how fun Manasquan, New Jersey, was (as if places were inherently fun) because “the Hoboken crowd” summered there. Taylor groaned inwardly. It was a hell of a response to a perfunctory question, the answer to which interested her not in the least.

  “How goes the job search?” Trey wanted to know. Or maybe he was just asking to be nice.

  “It’s still going,” she said. “So not so good, I guess.”

  “I bet you have a job offer by the end of the week.” There was a twinkle in his eye. “I’m serious. You wanna bet?”

  “Not really.”

  “Doesn’t have to be for money. I’m flexible. Sexual favors work for me just as well. Better, actually.”

  “Really, it’s okay.”

  “Suit yourself.” Trey was holding on to the doorknob, half inside, half outside, affording a view of the pizza boxes, beer cans, and dirty clothes that passed as decorations in his dorm-like studio apartment. Other than the spunk-stained futon mattress that served as a bed, the only other furnishings in the room were a poster of Pamela Anderson, three clothes baskets, an old stereo, and an older TV set
which, to the best of her knowledge, had never been shut off. Trey was watching a ballgame, Pirates at Mets. “So…are you and Todd, like, an item?”

  “Todd?” Taylor smiled at the ridiculousness of the concept. “No. We’re just friends.”

  O, my wounded heart! The kiss of death!

  “Friends. That’s cool, that’s cool. He’s a good man, Hot Toddie.”

  “He is.”

  “Not! Just kidding.”

  Taylor flashed the duplicitous smile best supporting actress nominees give one another—the same one desirable women unleash on undesirable male neighbors—and moved to go upstairs.

  But Trey wouldn’t let her escape that easily. “Yeah, work’s going well for me, too. They’re sending me down to Orlando next month. Big conference. Been working like sixteen, eighteen hour days. It’s nuts.”

  If he could read the disinterest in her eyes—and Taylor was trying her best to write it in flashing neon letters—Trey ignored it. Instead, he spun an Algeresque tale of how The Orlando Conference (it practically demanded capital letters) would make his career. Every time he paused to take a breath Taylor would climb one step higher, but then he would begin another chapter, and she would have to stop. Finally, the sound of a crowd cheering from the TV set diverted his attention. One of the Pirates had hit a home run. Trey glanced at the television, scowled, and turned back around—only to find her gone.

  Taylor could hear him call her name (or rather, his nickname for her), but she didn’t stop running until she was safely in her apartment. Once the door was bolted she fixed herself a rum-and-Coke, pounded it, then fixed herself another. A wave of nausea came over her; she clutched her stomach and groaned.

  The more removed Taylor was from the Walter Bledsoe incident, the more violated she felt. In need of venting, she called me, her resident shoulder-to-cry-on, but I was in a fucking staff meeting at that precise moment, and thus unable to take the call. Had I called in sick that day—I was so hungover when I woke up that I’d seriously entertained the idea—I would have been there to comfort her. I could have taken her to dinner, or to the movies—Barton Fink was playing at the Angelica, or we could have opted for Boyz N the Hood, Point Break, Thelma and Louise—hell, even Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey would have done the trick. Maybe we would have just stayed home, cooked some mac and cheese, watched TV. Whatever. The point is, if I’d burned a sick day, Taylor might still be alive right now.