MONTREAL: December, 2007 (Part 6)

In 2008 William returned home to Los Angeles to continue his work. I again attended the writers' conference, read an excerpt from my novel and received a favorable audience reaction.

In New York City I met with my agent for a fortifying lunch. Susan was still optimistic about selling my memoir despite a stock market in freefall, rising unemployment rates and American car conglomerates on the brink of collapse. I was relieved to hear her speak both realistically and enthusiastically. It was a balm on my worries.

The Shakespeare Club performed a fine rendition of "Romeo and Juliet" in the spring and I was proud of the effort on all our parts. I continued to churn out pages of my novel and sent the first two hundred pages to Susan for her consideration. I was eager for her thoughts because it was the one thing I was feeling most positive about. Maybe the novel would sell before the memoir. Maybe....

I'd taken to learning as much about the publishing world as I could. I studied blogs and read books by editors. It was becoming increasingly clear that this staid and possibly archaic business of book publishing was about to kneel down and turn over like a great elephant rolling into a bath of warm mud — a morphing process similar to what we had witnessed in the worlds of music and movies. Important editors at major publishing houses were either being dropped or quitting at an alarming rate. We were about to hear of e-books, Kindles and iPads. With the economy in peril it became obvious how my professional life would be affected.

William and I celebrated Barack Obama's election and at the same time wondered if we were holding hope of this one person's abilities too high. Could he save us? Maybe....

After reading the beginning of my novel, Susan let me know I wrote fiction well and the writing was mesmerizing...but what would the market be for such a book? To whom could she sell it?

I sank. I had zero answers. It was becoming apparent that the highbrow literary world is not too different than Hollywood or any business, for that matter. The bottom line is about what sells. I wasn't writing for the market. I didn't know how to write for the market. Yet I still wanted an audience.

I stared out the window of my home office at green lawns and black crows hopping across the grass. I rubbed Scrabble's little ears and took Stinky on long walks. My neck continued to itch and it wasn't turtleneck weather. I suspected the publishing universe knew precisely what the hell was going on with my neck because neither of the dermatologists I consulted had a clue. My bathroom was filled with myriad creams and lotions that had little effect.

At least William was working, which we were grateful for every day, but by autumn my manuscript had been in the marketplace for a year with only one near bite.

MONTREAL: December, 2007 (Part 5)

A recession had been predicted and within months Lehman Brothers would collapse. AIG and others would follow and I continued to wonder, How will this affect us?

My agent had started submitting my memoir to publishers in October. By December, while I was in Montreal sucking down mussels and champagne, the rejections had started to come in. I read the letters with curiosity, not only because they were referencing my work and thus my high hopes, but also because I'd never been in this position before.

My experience with acceptance and rejection had been grounded in my experience as an actor, where in one swift phone call from my agent I would know:

1. if there was interest, and how much
2. no interest/didn't get it
3. got it

The responses to my book, though favorable enough to regard as good reviews, also disclosed that the material "wouldn't be a good fit with our trade market." Other phrases included "not sure how to position" and "not right for our list."

I read and reread: fit, fit, fit.

It seemed I'd built a shoe for the wrong size foot and the news churned inside of me like images from a bad dream. Was everything that had happened last summer an over-the-top exaltation I could never live up to? A fantasy? A delusion?

William said, Don't worry, it'll sell. I know it will.

I said, I have to go home now and I love you and thank you for saying that.

I rubbed my neck as I said this. William wrapped his arms around me and hugged. I would be going home to Los Angeles and he would follow in two weeks.

I scratched my neck. Scratch, scratch.

You know what I miss most when we're apart? I asked.

What?

Laughing. You make me laugh and back home, alone, I don't laugh much.

You're an easy audience, he said.

Maybe yes, maybe no...anyway.

Scratch, scratch.

What the hell is going on with my neck? And I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Cripes, look at this.

William came in and we both stared at my neck in the reflection. Great red welts cut across my throat as if I'd walked away from an attempted garroting in some murderous thriller.

Are you allergic to the fabric in your turtlenecks?

Yeah. Maybe. Allergic to turtlenecks, that's really common.

On my last morning in Montreal I made breakfast for William, kissed him goodbye and packed last-minute stuff into my suitcase before the taxi came. I took a quick look at the day's news online.

Official. Crisis. Recession.

How will this affect us?

MONTREAL: December, 2007 (Part 4)

One morning we set off to William's office so Michelle could see where he was working. He had asked us to pick up some treats for the people in his office so we stopped at a bakery, where I chose frosted cupcakes and had them boxed and tied in ribbon for easy carrying.

Then we made a stop at a liquor store for a few bottles of good wine. By this point in my visit I was feeling pretty cocky with my language skills and asked the friendly store manager if he had gift bags for the bottles. He helped me out and in a magnanimous tip of my language-hat I said, Merci beaucoup, Monsieur, vous êtes un bon homme.

He gave me gentle smile and nodded. I smiled back, picked up my bags and turned to locate Michelle, who had receded into a corner of the shop. Her shoulders were heaving. Her mittened hand covered her mouth.

I scurried over to discover her convulsed in laughter.

What is your problem?

Do you know what you just said?

I certainly do. I told him he was a good man and he is. He helped me with these wine bags.

You called him a snowman!

As she said this I remembered the cardboard cutouts of Bonhomme hanging all over Montreal. He's a giant snowman and the mascot of the winter carnivals held in the province.

Merde.

We crashed out of the store and stumbled down the snowy street nearly peeing our pants with laughter. Friendship at its best in a winter in Montreal.

I missed Michelle after her five-day visit and spent my remaining days in the city working on my novel, meeting William for lunches and on his days off taking him to the city's must-sees.

On a Sunday afternoon we took a bus to Schwartz's Delicatessen for world-famous smoked-meat sandwiches. We bit into tender meat slathered in yellow mustard and overflowing from slices of fresh-baked rye bread. We nodded up and down in agreement with the glowing reviews pasted up in the steamy windowpane.

We window-shopped Rue St. Catherine and wandered through the Musee des Beaux-Arts. We strolled the riverfront and ate sweetbreads and fresh fish at a table covered in white linens set with candles and tucked against a wall of unfinished red brick. We slept late on his days off while fat snowflakes fell quietly outside our windows.

As we shuffled in bliss through snow, content that William was working on a big project and I was working on a big book, the big world was spinning on its axis into other realities. While writing fictional paragraphs I took breaks and browsed news sites. The real estate bubble was popping, fast, and I wondered, What does this mean for us? How will this affect us?

MONTREAL: December, 2007 (Part 3)

The one-bedroom apartment was luxuriously furnished in dark brown leather couches and chairs. The two bathrooms featured marble and glass, the kitchen stainless-steel and shine. In the dining room a long panel of windows looked across to the offices of La Presse, a Montreal newspaper. In the mornings I could watch journalists and staff hard at work while on the street below cars swished their tires through slushy snow. After breakfast I'd walk William to his office then go off to explore the city.

Michelle arrived to spend five nights with us. I'd asked the building manager if setting up a cot would be possible and Oui, madam was his response. However, housekeeping did not appear to be in on this plan and suddenly it was the day of Michelle's arrival and no cot was in our apartment. On my way to the train station I stopped in to see my new friend, the building manager, and he offered a better idea.

When I saw the top of Michelle's head bobbing up the stairs from the train platform I jumped and she cheered. We are both fans of Montreal and to be in it together promised adventure. I flagged a taxi and got us to Old Montreal in my perfectly adequate high-school French. I had learned the language in this country. What clearly would stymie Parisians and Moroccans was a cinch for me. I rattled off directions and we successfully pulled up in front of the correct address.

Once inside, I gave Michelle the quick tour of the apartment. She oohed and aahed but wondered where she would sleep.

Come with me, I said.

She followed me out the door and down the hall where I stopped in front of another door. I opened it with a flourish and announced: Your own apartment! The manager says he likes William so much, we could have this for you, for free!

Michelle and I jumped up and down like teenagers. Montreal was reaching her French-Canadian arms out to us in a welcoming embrace and we could do naught but snuggle in tight. So began five days of museums, art galleries, bags of hot bagels, lunches and dinners with delicious wines and hours of trudging in snow.

Michelle and I enjoy a shorthand when it comes to sightseeing. One of us will grab the other's arm, squeeze and stare until we both silently agree that the fold of that silk fabric, the arm of that chintz chair, the cut of that neckline, the blue of those shoes, the intricacy of that floral arrangement, the bending of that sculpture, the perfection of that berry pastry, the sadness of that old man and the glow of that child's red cheeks...was intended for us to see and share in that exact moment.

Friendship at its best in a Montreal winter. We sped our way to various neighborhoods on the Metro or on city buses. We strolled through a farmer's market scented with the pine of fresh-cut Christmas trees. We studied the unmoving river, its edges frozen like a photograph. We settled in, after a long day, into a restaurant as cozy as an eighteenth-century house because, for crying out loud, it was an eighteenth-century house. A fire crackled, heavy drapes kept in the warmth and we ordered soups and steaks and roasted potatoes.

MONTREAL: December, 2007 (Part 2)

William settled into his apartment in Vieux-Montréal, the city's charming historic district that featured cobblestone streets, art galleries and restaurants near the Old Port, which overlooked the St. Lawrence River. He emailed me digital photos of the city in autumn colors.

The company had given him a car but he mostly walked to avoid driving in snow. To hear William tell it, his daily walks came with more than just aerobic benefits.

I love this city, he exclaimed. The women here are gorgeous and friendly and usually happy to talk in English.

Good. I'm pleased you're getting a workout on the way to work.

I arrived on an early December evening and not a moment too soon. In the taxi from the airport I smiled at the city lit in twinkling pre-Christmas glitter. The car slowed near Notre Dame Cathedral, the snowy square aglow with tiny blue lights spun into every bare tree branch. The luminosity created an ethereal effect.

Our apartment building was around the corner from the church. The taxi pulled to a stop, I opened the door and promptly stepped into a snowdrift. I struggled to get one foot out, stuck the other one in deep and nearly toppled flat on my face as the driver placed my luggage on the sidewalk.

I glanced up to see William tromping through the fluffy stuff to get to me. Two months apart was two months too long but here we were in a winter landscape, inept and bumbling and laughing.