Happy New Year, Herbie and other stories

“There are many people,” Wainwright said with that same air of caution, “who feel that success is often predetermined by the choice of a title.”

“Well, all I got to say to those people is they’re wrong,” Epman answered, “Look at Anatomy of a Murder. That’s a cockamamie title if ever I heard one, and they stick on the book a dust jacket it could make you puke. So what happens? It’s a best seller for more than a year. You want to talk about titles, I could quote you titles don’t even make sense and they were attached to some of the biggest properties ever came down the pike. What is Gone with the Wind? An inspiration? It makes you cry? It makes you laugh? Me, it makes me want to go out and buy an overcoat. What’s Lolita all about? It sounds like the story of a Mexican flamenco dancer instead of a guy he leches for twelve-year-olds. Titles, don’t start with titles. You want to know the secret of a title? I’ll tell you. The best title in the world, it means absolutely nothing. It means a reader, an audience, they look at it and decide for themselves what it means. That’s a title that says something. To say something it has to say absolutely nothing. And S.P.Q.R. doesn’t say a goddamn thing.” He paused. “Which is exactly why it says everything.”

Epman blew out a wreath of smoke and then asked, “Am I right or am I right?” He seemed to be directing the question at me, but I was spared an answer by the sudden opening of the outer door to the suite. We all turned to face the door. Epman stroked his mustache.

“Sam, darling, would you help me with these packages, please?” a voice said, and I recognized the voice instantly as belonging to Flora Epman, the producer’s wife. The voice emanated from a petite redhead in her fifties who, despite a barely noticeable thickening about the waist, was a living testament to what the slick magazines often called The American Way of Life. Wearing a black corduroy raincoat over a tan linen suit, beige pumps, frilly white blouse showing at the throat of the suit jacket, long red hair carefully rolled into a bun at the nape of the neck, face and throat preserved through the magic of countless applications of queen bee jelly, Flora struggled into the room with her packages, and Epman hurried to unburden her.

“Thank you, darling,” she said, and one meticulously manicured hand reached up to touch the bun at the back of her neck, tidying it, the hand glistening with a diamond the size of Quemoy. “Oh, gentlemen, I didn’t realize you were here. I hope I’m not interrupting anything. Oh, but I am, aren’t I? Forgive me. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”

“We were almost finished, Flora,” Epman said. “You’ve met both Mr. Cohen and Mr. Wainwright, haven’t you?”

“Yes. You must forgive me, gentlemen. I know how Sam is about his conferences. He can’t even stand the telephone intruding.”

“Why, you’ve brought the sunshine with you, Mrs. Epman,” Wainwright said, smiling, and I glanced through the window and noticed that the sun had indeed broken through the clouds at last.

“Only to match your golden tongue,” Flora answered quickly with a look that seemed unconsciously flirtatious, but only in a regal way, the smile a queen allows a sentry. The look was curious because Flora Epman was not beautiful, I realized, and yet she seemed to believe she was beautiful, and her belief was contagious. “I must change out of these wet clothes,” she said.

“I was just telling them about the title, Flora,” Epman said. “S.P.Q.R.”

“Yes, it’s a good title, don’t you think?” She took off the wet black raincoat, pulled a hanger from the closet, and stopped on her way to the bathroom to face me.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “It takes a while for a title to grow on me.”

Flora went into the bathroom, apparently to hang the raincoat over the tub. She returned as Epman said, “It’ll grow on you, don’t worry. Even if it don’t grow, it’s a great title. On the common man, to use Mr. Wainwright’s terminology, the only thing that grows on him is his toenails and his hair.”

“But Mr. Cohen is not the common man,” Flora said, smoothing the short suit jacket over her hips. “If he were, he wouldn’t be working on this picture.”

“Thank you,” I said, and then wondered if I’d been complimented.

“I must change,” Flora said. “I’m soaked through to my underwear.” She smiled briefly and maternally, as if she hoped this inadvertent reference to her lacy unmentionables would not erect a lust-arousing image of herself. “Will you be long, Sam? I’d like to go downstairs for a cocktail.”