Jim was staring at him in horror. “I can’t do that!” he cried, the words erupting as if they didn’t belong together. “I can’t leave my work for half a month, let alone a month! Not at this stage! I figured I’d have to drive down to New York City for one or two interviews, not traipse around the nation — Jeez!”
“Vina said it would come as a shock, but none of us believed her,” said Max, flustered. “She insisted we bring in Pamela Devane to support you through it as well as make you see why you have to do it. I thought she was over-reacting, but Chauce was out on a limb — he’s too new in the job to understand something as unusual as the potential of A Helical God. But sometimes my wife can be uncanny, she just seemed to know how you’d react.” Max put out a hand. “Jim, be reasonable! A publicity tour is vital.”
“Spend a month saying the same things over and over to a bunch of tiros?” The eyes were incredulous. “Waste my time on something so stupid? No!”
Max sighed. “Go home and talk to Millie,” he said.
But a visit to the Burke found no Millie — she was at the apartment? In the middle of the afternoon? What was the matter? What?
He drove out on State Street to Caterby Street, burst through the door as if pursued.
“Don’t tell me you came home to help,” she said, kissing him.
There were boxes everywhere; she must have looted every shop’s trash to have collected so many. And books. Piles and piles of books, journals, photocopies.
“Dad found us a house on Barker Street in East Holloman, and we’re moving. Imagine it, Jim! Moving out of this dump into a great house — and it’s a great deal as well! The Tucci realtors own some houses for rent as well as for sale. Our house is one of them, and if we find a down-payment on it within a year, the rent we’ve paid in the meantime will be contributed toward the purchase price — isn’t that wonderful? It has three bedrooms, a room that will make an ideal study for you, a decent kitchen, a huge family room, a laundry, a backyard, a two-car garage — oh, Jim, I’m so happy!”
Millie happy took his breath away; Jim kissed her to limp ecstasy, then, lifting her as if she weighed a feather, carried her to the bedroom to kiss her back to frenzied, tumultuous, exalted response. With each other in the most secret and sacred of ways, they forgot publicity tours, books and boxes.
“You still turn me on,” she said, head on his chest, feeling as much as hearing that massive heart beat, beat, beat …
“Ditto,” he said, a laugh in his voice.
“Can you help me pack?”
“Sure. Walter can deal with the lab.” He slid out from under her and headed for the bathroom.
It was over, but it had been a wonderful gift. He was usually so tired, so desperate for sleep, so tormented when he did get to sleep. Who knows? she thought as she left the bed, this hour of afternoon delight might have set me on my way. I’ve calmed down; even though the canker of Davina will continue to gnaw, a pregnancy is far more mine than Jim’s. The baby will belong to me.
“Why did you come home?” she asked, back with the books.
Distressed, he told her of his talk with Max. “People are taking over my life, Millie,” he said. “How come you never told me about the down side of a bestseller?”
“It never occurred to me,” she confessed. “I mean, writers of bestsellers don’t talk about publicity tours, you just see them or hear them or read about them, and the pieces of the puzzle are just that, pieces. Like you, I thought it would be a few interviews done in New York City.”
“I can’t afford the time, and I don’t suffer fools gladly.”
“I know.” She gave him a brilliant smile, eyes filled with love. “I guess just this once, Jim, we’re hoist on your petard. The tour will have to be done, which means you’ll have to hang on to your temper and suffer the fools gladly.”
“They’re going to make capital out of our marriage.”
“Yes, I inferred that.” She blinked, her breath caught. “Oh, Jim! Best feet forward, all that garbage. We’ll survive.”
“We always have, no matter what the odds.”
“We’ve had some narrow escapes.”
“And some victories.”
“Why did you listen to that snake of a woman?” she asked.
“Davina?” He looked blank for a moment, then, apparently drawn by something on a wall bare of its books, turned his gaze there. “Like I told you already, I respect her opinions. She has the guts to say what other people only think, and she’s worldly. You and I are babes in the woods, she says. Heads buried in our work, no experience of living.”