21 Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

HarperCollins all but promising to buy my latest. All of this happening within a two week period. When I had gotten the call from the editor at HarperCollins last week, I left work and went straight to McGinty’s and bought drinks all around. There was no way I could’ve stayed at work after that. I was on just too big a high. For fourteen years I’d been trying to make it as a writer and it finally looked like it was going to happen. All those years of squeezing in whatever time I could to write my books, all the rejections, one publisher after the next telling me my writing was better than good, but just too dark for them. Waiting year after year for that one break. For that one crack so I could squeeze through. And then three deals all but done. One right after the next. Floating on Cloud Nine? Fuck no, not even close. Stratospheres higher than that. Way up in that rarified air.
    After McGinty’s, I went home to pick up Susie so I could continue the celebration, and of course, Barb had to be there. Come on, Honey, Barb’s depressed about Tom, couldn’t she join us? I was in too good a mood to turn Susie down so we all went out for Chinese food.
    During dinner I was mostly in a good mood. Barb has a way bringing me down, but not that night – at least not for most of it. After we ate and the plates were cleared away, the waiter dropped off fortune cookies in front of each of us. Before I could move, Barb had snatched my cookie and replaced it with her own.
    “Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me,” she said.
    I sat there annoyed, but forcing a smile.
    She cracked open her cookie, and laughing that grating horse laugh of hers, read the fortune. “ Years of hard work will soon lead to fame and fortune .” Turning to me, she snickered, “Ha! Jeeze, sorry Dan, it looks like I stole your fortune.”
    I opened the fortune cookie she had left me. Humility is a valued teacher . I didn’t even understand what the fuck that was supposed to mean, but then again, why should I? That fortune was meant for her, not me.
    Two days later I got an email from the Italian publisher that he was going to have to pass on my books. It seemed that he had a falling out with the translator he had lined up and had no one else to work on them. Then the next day another email from the midlevel publisher. He was cutting back on his crime fiction list and would have to pass on my book. That afternoon I got a call from the editor at HarperCollins. The book I had sent him was a crime caper with outsourcing as an integral theme. The editor was having second thoughts whether the subject of outsourcing would still be topical by the time the book came out. I sat and listened as he convinced himself to kill the deal. At some gut level I knew there was nothing I could do about it, no way to talk him out of it, and I knew why …
    Joe interrupted my thoughts, asking if I’d like another black and tan. I was about to tell him sure, but instead changed my order to a pint of Guiness. My indecision was gone. With a clarity of thought I knew what I had to do.
    The next few days were rough ones. I couldn’t help feeling antsy. Susie sensed my uneasiness, but misunderstood the reason for it. Still she tried her best to be supportive, telling me over and over again that I’d find new book deals to replace the ones that had fallen apart. I played along. I knew what she was saying was shit, but it wouldn’t have done any good to let her in on what I was thinking.
    Finally Thursday came. Somehow I made it through the day at work without jumping completely out of my skin and got home a little after six. The next three hours were murder as I waited for Barb to call Susie. She always called Susie after her Thursday’s Men Are Bastard’s support group meeting, usually with half a bottle of wine already in her.
    The phone rang a little after nine. I let Susie pick up, but could tell quickly from her end of the conversation who she was talking to. I then