Page 176 of Jackie

“Jimmy, do you remember how you told me once there have been so many of you in the course of your life, so many Jimmy Breslins, because you kept turning into the people you wrote about and they turned into you? You said that at a certain point it became impossible to pin down any one Jimmy Breslin.”

“So this is a serious conversation?” he asks.

“I’m thinking about going back to work.”

He stops walking. “You?”

“Yes, but which me?”

He laughs. “Do you really think you’re just going to attend openings for the rest of your life?”

—

The morning Tom Guinzburg is coming over, I dress carefully, and when I can’t choose between two tops, I realize I’m nervous. Silly. I’ve known Tom for a long time. He’s too kind to laugh at me, even if he thinks it’s absurd that I’d just show up at his office, dragging the circus behind me.

Whatever I do, the world will say what it says. I can’t live fighting or running or hiding from that. I can’t spend the rest of my life watching raindrops sliding down the windowpane.

Black top, I finally decide. White pants. Straightforward. Low-key. I put on my earrings in the mirror.

—

“There will be a fair amount of learning the ropes at first,” Tom Guinzburg tells me.

“I don’t have to convince you?”

He laughs. “If things don’t work out, I’ll just fire you.”

“That would be a story. Though I’ve been through worse.”

“There’s no glamour in publishing, Jackie.”

“I want to learn.”

“There will be plenty of that.”

“And I want to start where anyone else would start. Agreed?”

“You can take notes for a while. You don’t have the background, really, to be an editor. It’s not that you don’t have the talent or skill. You just don’t have the training. But you can sit in on meetings, and eventually we can work toward acquisitions.”

“Perfect.”

“How are the children?” he asks.

“Caroline’s going to work in London this fall.”

“Exciting.”

“I wish it wasn’t so far.”

Silence then. The quiet rush of sunlight down the curtains into layered maps across the floor.

“Listen, Tom. You’re not doing this just as a favor, a handout?”

“Not at all. You must realize this has advantages for me.”

“I don’t want to be anyone’s pity case.”

He starts to smile.

---