Serial Monogamy Read Free Page B

subscription lapse after he moved out and we had never got around to renewing it. We were debating whether Alice Munro might be overrated. It was the literary crowd behaving as though it was still the 1990s, as though nobody had invented the Kindle, as though nobody need remember the name of that woman who self-published a book about vampires and got it on
The New York Times
best-seller list, as though every citizen in the land still had half a pound of newsprint landing on the doorstep with a satisfying thud every morning. I was trying to think of something knowing to say when a big, square man with a flattened face that made him look a bit like a bull terrier approached the group.
    “Sharon…Great to see you.”
    I hadn’t a clue who he was, but Frank now appeared helpfully at my elbow.
    “Sharon, you remember Bob Stanek, our publisher.”
    “And a huge admirer of your work…”
    I couldn’t imagine
The Telegram
’s publisher ever reading my work; usually men like him are more honest and tell me their wives are fans.
    But he persisted and was surprisingly convincing. We had a discussion of the plot of my last book—he seemed to remember it a lot more clearly than I did—before he eventually came around to the subject of Dickens. Turned out he was an aficionado. He had read every one of thenovels. Even the ones nobody reads, like
Barnaby Rudge
and
Our Mutual Friend
. He was one of those hard-nosed businessmen intent on proving to you they have a literary side or artistic sensibilities. The type who are Sunday painters and wish to discuss Tolstoy. I kept trying to shake him off, saying, “You must talk to my husband; I think he’s in the kitchen,” and looking about for Al, who had not reappeared since he’d gone off to refill his wineglass. Frankly, I hear quite enough about Dickens at home, but Stanek wasn’t taking the hint and burbled away until he came up with a brain wave—or made his pitch, depending on how suspicious I want to be. The next year would be 2012. The bicentenary of the novelist’s birth. Dickens wrote serials. All of the novels originally appeared as serials. His genius was in somehow maintaining narrative integrity in something written in instalments. Newspapers need new ideas. So, a popular novelist, the Dickens of her day—I tried hard to compose my face into the correct expression of outraged modesty at this bit of sycophancy—writes a serial for the newspaper. A few thousand words a week, say twenty or thirty weeks’ worth of instalments. Am I up to the challenge?
    “Um, I’ll think about it,” I mumbled, intrigued but not sure what to make of the proposal. And just then Al came into sight, raising a “Do you want to go home now?” eyebrow at me from across the room, and we left soon after.
    We didn’t talk much in the car. I told Al I had met
The Telegram
’s publisher, and he repeated the kitchen’sassessment of the newspaper’s chances of surviving beyond 2020. He was right: standing was tiring; talking was tiring. We hadn’t stayed much more than an hour and I was exhausted. But it was a good tired; I was pleased with myself and just a little bit excited. I had gone to a party, and someone wanted me to write something.
    When we got home, the girls were still up, an hour past their bedtime, but I sympathized with the babysitter, a teenager from across the street. Their young memories of our six-month separation might be fading, but their father had been back in the house less than a year and I had been sick through most of that. We tried hard, shelving our differences to get our fragile family through the days, but there must have been an undercurrent of instability all the time; they weren’t going to nod off to sleep unless both parents were safely accounted for.
    I kissed them and Al sat with them while I got ready for bed but I found I was now too stimulated to sleep. It was work I knew I could do. Immediate. Contained. When Al came to bed, I told him about