him, fine as freckles, just thinking about easing off a little.
There followed one of those patented Harold Oblowski silences, which were meant to convey that you were being a terrific asshole, but because Harold liked you so much, he was trying to think of the gentlest possible way of telling you so. This is a wonderful trick, but one I saw through about six years ago. Actually, it was Jo who saw through it. âHeâs only pretending compassion,â she said. âActually, heâs like a cop in one of those old film noir movies, keeping his mouth shut so youâll blunder ahead and end up confessing to everything.â
This time I kept my mouth shutâjust switched the phone from my right ear to my left, and rocked back a little further in my office chair. When I did, my eye fell on the framed photograph over my computerâSara Laughs, our place on Dark Score Lake. I hadnât been there in eons, and for a moment I consciously wondered why.
Then Haroldâs voiceâcautious, comforting, the voice of a sane man trying to talk a lunatic out of what he hopes will be no more than a passing delusionâwas back in my ear. âThat might not be a good idea, Mikeânot at this stage of your career.â
âThis isnât a stage,â I said. âI peaked in 1991âsince then, my sales havenât really gone up or down. This is a plateau, Harold.â
âYes,â he said, âand writers whoâve reached that steady state really only have two choices in terms of salesâthey can continue as they are, or they can go down.â
So I go down, I thought of saying . . . but didnât. I didnât want Harold to know exactly how deep this went, or how shaky the ground under me was. I didnât want him to know that I was now having heart palpitationsâyes, I mean this literallyâalmost every time I opened the Word Six program on my computer and looked at the blank screen and flashing cursor.
âYeah,â I said. âOkay. Message received.â
âYouâre sure youâre all right?â
âDoes the book read like Iâm wrong, Harold?â
âHell, noâitâs a helluva yarn. Your personal best, I told you. A great read but also fucking serious shit. If Saul Bellow wrote romantic suspense fiction, this iswhat heâd write. But . . . youâre not having any trouble with the next one, are you? I know youâre still missing Jo, hell, we all areââ
âNo,â I said. âNo trouble at all.â
Another of those long silences ensued. I endured it. At last Harold said, âGrisham could afford to take a year off. Clancy could. Thomas Harris, the long silences are a part of his mystique. But where you are, life is even tougher than at the very top, Mike. There are five writers for every one of those spots down on the list, and you know who they areâhell, theyâre your neighbors three months a year. Some are going up, the way Patricia Cornwell went up with her last two books, some are going down, and some are staying steady, like you. If Tom Clancy were to go on hiatus for five years and then bring Jack Ryan back, heâd come back strong, no argument. If you go on hiatus for five years, maybe you donât come back at all. My advice isââ
âMake hay while the sun shines.â
âTook the words right out of my mouth.â
We talked a little more, then said our goodbyes. I leaned back further in my office chairânot all the way to the tipover point but closeâand looked at the photo of our western Maine retreat. Sara Laughs, sort of like the title of that hoary old Hall and Oates ballad. Jo had loved it more, true enough, but only by a little, so why had I been staying away? Bill Dean, the caretaker, took down the storm shutters every spring and put them back up every fall, drained the pipes in the fall and made sure the pump was running in