The Sequel

Malone laughed. “I always wondered what passages she preferred.”

It was nearly time for their dinner reservation. Before they rose to depart, though, Malone lifted his glass. “Let’s drink to Edward Goodwin.”

But Lowell said, “He’s been toasted plenty. I’d drink to someone else.”

“Who?”

“Edward’s muse.

“His muse?” Malone asked, frowning. “Why her? She deserted him.”

“I disagree,” Lowell said.

The biographer asked, “How do you mean?”

“What if Anderson’s Hope had been decent?”

The man lifted a palm. “Well, it would have been published around the world. Been reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review and in hundreds of papers around the country. Sold millions of copies.”

The lawyer’s eyes glinted as he smiled. “Ah, that’s exactly the problem.”

Malone shook his head, not knowing where his friend was going.

Lowell continued, “Cedar Hills Road was one of those books that hit at just the right time and it spoke in just the right voice. It became an icon of an era, a touchstone of literature. One of a kind. A sequel, any sequel, however good, couldn’t hope to live up to it. And everyone would come to look at the original differently. It would have been redefined, changed, just by the sequel’s existence. It would have been,” he summarized, “diminished.”

Malone nodded again. He lifted his glass: “All right, then. So here’s to Edward Goodwin’s muse.”

“To his muse,” Lowell echoed, “who had the genius to visit once. And never again.”

Their glasses touched and rang.