This was not a line I uttered with any frequency in my daily life. Most clothes, to me, were fairly interchangeable, as long as you put them on the part of the body they were meant to correspond with.
But an interview? With St. John Blakemore … aka SJB … aka one of the most high-powered literary editors in New York … aka (inexplicably) Gem’s friend “Blakey”? Gem came into my doorway.
“Goodness, you’re just like your father!” she exclaimed.
I flinched, and she must have seen it, because she immediately amended, “Your father when he was in high school. Before he became … what he is today.”
I had a hard time picturing my father in high school. My father never gave any indication that he’d once been young.
Gem, on the other hand, wore all of the ages she’d ever been at the same time. I could trust that.
“So what should I wear?” I asked her.
Gem smiled. “Whatever you think suits you. Don’t be too formal. Just be yourself. That’s what Blakey will want to see. Believe me, this interview will be about words, not clothes.”
I bypassed the finery Gem had benefacted me and went with one of my favorite sweaters instead.
I would get this or lose this as myself, not some pretend version I thought someone else might want to see.
I do believe that most of the times your life changes, you don’t realize in the moment that it’s on the cusp of being altered. I can’t remember the last family outing we had before my parents decided to split. I had no idea spotting a flash of red on the shelves of the Strand would lead me to Lily. It would have been impossible to figure that receiving a sweatshirt in the post would lead to my greatest academic miscalculation.
But sometimes, just sometimes, there are moments that feel like an appointment with the future. Fate stops being a wind and takes the shape of a flight path.
This was one of those moments: Standing outside the Blakemores’ town house, deciding whether to use the knocker or ring the bell.
I opted for the knocker.
The footsteps I heard behind the wood door were much slower than my heartbeat. Then the door opened, and I faced …
Sir Ian?
“Oh,” he said, equally surprised. “It’s you.” Then he gave me a camaraderie-tinged smile. “It makes perfect sense, in a way. Who better for Uncle SJB to interrupt our Christmas to see?”
He ushered me inside and offered to take my coat. As I passed it over to him, I asked, “You call him ‘Uncle SJB’?”
“Yes, Salinger,” Sir Ian replied. “But I’m the only one who does. I don’t suggest you call him that.”
Much to my horror, it was starting again. The walls of my skull pushing on my brain. Thoughts dizzying to a degree they threatened to lose their ability to speak.
Sir Ian touched me lightly on the shoulder.
“Breathe,” he said.
I nodded, breathed.
Sir Ian continued, “Don’t call him Uncle SJB … but think of him that way. I know you must envision him as a knight of the royal order of editors, but he also keeps a rubber ducky on the side of his tub in his bathroom here. He’s allergic to chocolate and tries to eat it anyway. He has published some of the greatest authors of our time, but he also rejected J. K. Rowling’s adult mystery when it was submitted to him under a pseudonym. He lost his first love when she fell in love with a zoologist. He has yogurt for breakfast every morning. On mornings when he really wants to treat himself, he might add berries.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“To remind you he’s human. And to make sure you don’t bring up zoology.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything to help a fellow Oxford escapee get to where he wants to be. Now come this way—I believe he’s in the parlor.”
It was only a few steps away, behind another old wooden door.
“Here we go,” Sir Ian said, opening it with a flourish.
Deep breath.
Appointment with the future.
I stepped inside, and for a moment I thought Sir Ian was going to follow. But instead he said, “Good luck,” and winked at me. Then he flourished again and left me in the parlor, where a man with salt-and-pepper hair was standing up from an armchair, grinning at me.
“So here he is!” the most famous literary editor in New York proclaimed in his high London accent. “The famous American grandson!”
And I was so flustered that I replied, “Uncle SJB!”
Before I could dissolve into a pool of mortification, he laughed and shook my hand.
“I feel closer to Gemma than I do to most of my family, so that makes a certain amount of sense. We like to joke that we swapped lives, so I could take Manhattan and she could be the toast of London Town. Here, sit.”
He gestured to a settee across from the armchair. I tried to set myself in the settee with maximum grace, but the settee was set against that and made me wobble when I would have preferred to casually recline.
SJB launched into our interview as soon as his arm hit the armrest of the armchair. “So here’s the thing,” he said. “Gemma explained where you are, and I am sympathetic to your situation. I’m not sure if you knew my wayward nephew in your Oxford months, but a case such as yours recently hit our family, and I was decidedly a defender, not a member of the prosecution. If ever asked, I am sure to say that I was wooed away from this country—when in reality, it was much more like a prison break. Nothing against the old Queen, but she and I were never a good fit. And as such, I must give the great caveat to you sitting here with me: I am not a fan of riding on your old family name. Gemma’s recommendation got you in the door, but it will not get you anywhere else on its own accord. I owe her many, many times over, but I don’t owe anyone enough to compromise my professionalism. Is that understood?”
I nodded.
“Good. So now tell me—why are you here?”
I could feel my heart racing, and couldn’t believe that he couldn’t feel it too. It was such a simple question. But there wasn’t a simple answer.
I just had to start at the center of it.
“I love books,” I said.
I couldn’t stop there. It wasn’t enough.
“I have always loved books,” I went on. “And I am sure with every ounce of my being that I will always love books. And I am in the rare and privileged position right now to be able to ask myself what I love, and to see if I can make a future that walks beside the things I love. I had thought, in going to Oxford, that what I wanted to do was study books, pin their pages to the bulletin board like a butterfly collector and analyze the patterns in their wings. But I realized—that wasn’t it. And while I feel extraordinarily satisfied when I find the right word for the right occasion, I don’t think my future lies in being an author. No. I don’t want to be the creator or the scientist. I want to be the shepherd, the person who knows books so well that he can help make books even better than they were when they came out of the author’s mind. Because, at heart, when I tell you I love books, what I am telling you is that I am a reader. Boil off all my pretensions, let my attempts at erudition rise away from me like steam, and what would be left would be a reader who is frequently amazed and educated by what words can do on a page. That’s why I’m here. Because I have never, ever met another person who felt the same way. And now, here you are, across from me. Which is, frankly, terrifying.”