Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell Read Free Book Online Page A

right.”
    â€œOh,” I said softly, my stomach still a bit uneasy from the surprise of it. Knee-jerk decorum compelled me to say
thank you
but I was having trouble getting the words to come out. “Oh, I see,” was all I could seem to muster. I stared down at the envelopes in my hands.
    â€œNow, if you take one of those letters—maybe the one written in the name of ‘Collins’ would be better in this instance—over to Torchon and Lyle, where I used to be a senior editor, well, then my name should open some doors for you,” Mr. Hightower instructed. “Got that? Torchon and Lyle—they’re in the book, of course. And be sure to ask if you can see Miss Everett, on the fifth floor. She’s in charge of hiring all the secretaries and the readers, and she’s liable to look out for anyone I’d recommend.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    A s it turned out, graduation day was the last time I saw Mr. Hightower. Once my parents had joined our conversation, he shook their hands andcomplimented them for having raised such a studious, hardworking daughter with such lofty ambitions. “Let me assure you, you’ve done a wonderful job, Mr. and Mrs. Katz.” He didn’t say another word about the two letters of introduction and I was nearly convinced I’d hallucinated the whole conversation until I got home later that evening and pulled both envelopes out of my purse.
    I won’t bore you with the details of the summer I spent working as a clerk at the five-and-dime to save up for the Greyhound ticket that eventually took me the distance from Fort Wayne to New York. A few months after graduation, I found myself sitting in Miss Everett’s office at Torchon & Lyle. I watched as she lit a cigarette, unfolded a sheaf of typewritten paper and held it away from her face, almost at arm’s length, and proceeded to move her eyes over it with a careful, clinical sort of interest. I’d handed her my résumé, and one of the letters. Despite Mr. Hightower’s enigmatic admonishments, I’d decided I would only use one of them.
    â€œ
Eden Katz.
How exotic.
Katz
 . . . that’s not German, is it?”
    â€œOh. Well . . . my grandparents came over from Vienna.” There was a long pause. “Before both wars,” I added. “I suppose it was sometime around 1910.”
    â€œI see. And you say Horatio is a . . . friend? . . . mentor? . . . of yours?” she asked. There was a cool lilt in everything Miss Everett said, a lilt that in my mind seemed somehow linked to the ash-blond tint of her poodle-cut hair. I later found out the tint came from a bottle and the lilt had been achieved by indirectly memorizing lines from Ingrid Bergman pictures.
    â€œHoratio?” I repeated, peering around the office. I was having trouble concentrating. My head was still spinning with the euphoric realization that I had finally made it through the doors of a publishing house, and my knees were still quivering from the elevator ride up to the fifth floor.
    Her lips moved to form a thin, stabbing sort of smile. “Horatio Hightower? The man who was kind enough to write this letter for you?”
    I began to put two and two together as I recalled the name stenciled onMr. Hightower’s briefcase in gold lettering. Mr. H. I. Hightower.
Aha! So that’s what the first
H
stood for.
“Oh!” I said aloud. “Oh yes, of course—Mr. Hightower! He taught a seminar on popular literature at my college, you see, and he has been very encouraging ever since I told him about my interest in publishing. He’s a wonderful professor.” Miss Everett gave me a look. There was something vaguely dubious in it, something that puzzled me.
    â€œCan you type?”
    â€œWhy, yes . . . I think I was up to eighty words per minute the last time someone timed me.”
    â€œTake