She built me up for a big letdown. It pissed me off. But I didn’t know what to say to her. I mean she came so damn close on her first try, and then screwed it up at the end. The ending just left me hanging. But naturally she flew into a big flurry of typing and typed it all up, didn’t change a word, and sent it off to Random House. Excellent choice. One of the biggest publishing houses in the world. And guess what? It came back with a note. Somebody had scribbled in at the bottom of the rejection slip, suggest you send this to a paperback house. She freaked out. She ran around showing that damn note to people and calling everybody. And then she sent it off to seven other places and they all rejected it. I think it cost us about forty-seven dollars in stamps. And then she gave up on it.

“Give up on it?” I said. “What the hell for? After you spent all that time on it?”

“It’s not any good,” she said.

“Well, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever read. I think you just need to fix up the ending a little, maybe cut it some, work on the dialogue.”

She just sat there with her arms crossed and her legs crossed and looked at me. I could tell what she was thinking. There I was, the non-writer, trying to tell the writer how to write.

“I used to think it was good. Now I don’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “The more I write, and the more I read, the more I see how bad I am.”

“Well hell. What’s the use of keeping on, then?”

“Because. The more I write, the better I’ll get.”

“When?”

“In a few years.”

“Years? How many years?” I wasn’t sure how much more radiation my system could stand.

“I don’t know. Nobody does. But I’ll know it when I get there. Now run along, hon. I’m working on a new story.”

“What?” I said, and I couldn’t help it. “‘Cinderella and the Four Flashers’?”

I didn’t look at her face before I slammed the door.

I didn’t mean to be mean to her, hell. But my sex life was practically nil. Oh, sometimes we’d have a quickie, just before she went to sleep, but most of the time she was just too tired. She worked like a dog, and I started working more overtime just so I wouldn’t have to sit around the house by myself. When I got home I’d smoke a joint and watch TV. I’d watch Buck Rogers, anything. I couldn’t play the stereo because she said it bothered her.