Crockett Doob
Girlfriend, Book Deal
Consider this an exorcism. Or a call to action. No, the latter would be bad. No sales. Let’s stick with exorcism.
Okay. Here’s what I know.
In 2019, I finished my first novel – or my first in ten years – and I was sending it out and it was getting rejected and I was working with kids for the first time which was really good for me – like what a foreign concept, to be happy at work – I was a para by day then running an after-school and babysitting weekends while working on my next novel and I was in a state of approximate happiness when the thought crystallized:
I want a girlfriend and a book deal.
That might sound obnoxious but, to me, it was a relief. I knew what I wanted! Finally! Probably because of an alcoholic childhood, I never did. But I knew what you wanted. I was good at that. I’d drum in your band. I’d edit your videos. And as much as I thought I wasn’t doing that pattern anymore by working with kids, I was like their attentive jokey butler, so it was quite possible I was doing the same thing all over again.
But my point is, as soon as the thought arrived (girlfriend, book deal), two of the kids in my after-school – both age 6 – started dating. Or whatever 6-year-olds call it. I became their chaperone, stopping them from kissing behind the bookshelf.
As for the book deal, there was a steady trickle of rejections from literary agents. I’d gotten one ‘good rejection’ that summer, two typo-filled paragraphs saying, ‘yeah it’s good but no.’ I was thrilled. I was sure another ‘good rejection’ was coming, or even better, a yes. Instead, I got a rejection from Venmo; one of the moms from the after-school, declining my payment request.
Enter a love interest in the new year. 2020. A volunteer at the school; studying to be a child psychologist. Great, I thought, I can tell her about my alcoholic childhood. Well, I got exactly what I wanted. When the pandemic hit, there she was, on Zoom, taking her shirt off during a staff meeting – she had another shirt on underneath, but still. She told me later: “I was hoping you’d notice that.” Yes, of course, I noticed that. Within a month, she said she wanted to be my girlfriend. And then...? I got what I wanted, so... I remember thinking, what do I have to look forward to? She got a job outside of New York (at a psych ward of all places) and I thought, why not? I was willing to elope with her, even if she was already annoying me. But the eloping freaked her out; she ended it. Then she came back and told me she wanted to try again. In our hiatus, however, I’d both gotten hired at that school, and I’d been going on dates with an “avoidant, emotionally unavailable” – her words – woman with whom I was smitten. This obviously – though it wasn’t obvious to me – didn’t work out. After her, I pursued another emotionally unavailable woman. Then another. It was a difficult time. I was teaching kindergarten in a pandemic, outdoors. And in the spring of 2021, my ex texted, said she wanted to say hi to the kids. She came on a Friday, Zoom day, and guess who joined her? Her new boyfriend! He gave her a back massage while I read the kids a book.
Back when I was playing in a band and on tour, I thought, someday, I want to settle down in Queens (where I was born) and be a writer. Goal accomplished. Now that I’m here, I wish I’d been more specific. Like I didn’t say a happy writer. Or settling down in Queens in a big apartment. It certainly didn’t occur to me to say ‘a published writer.’ But I am, technically, living my dream of ten – no, wow – twenty years ago. The adage, “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.” I didn’t dream big enough! And now I’m doing it all over again.
So I don’t know what to say about the girlfriend part. Not unavailable? But when they’re available, I run. Which, I’m told, makes me unavailable.
But as for the other, I can safely say book dealssssssssssssss. Many, many. Why not? I’ve written a bunch of books, with more cooking. And lucrative deals, too. Though my cousin, who’s in publishing, told me, “Writers never get paid to write.” Meaning they either get paid an advance or paid for a book they already wrote. There’s no punching the clock. And when I complained about how teaching was eating up all my writing-time and I wanted to quit, she said, “But you’re so good with kids!” Not a ringing endorsement. But book deals – plural (with money involved) – is the new, more specific dream. Or would money spook the horse? It could. No, I’ll risk it. My ex from 2018, a penniless genius, she bought me books via Amazon – I’d try to stop her, because I’m not exaggerating that she was penniless, nor that she was a genius, but she wouldn’t stop buying me books she couldn’t afford – and one of them was this famous Christian book all about money. The concept was: ‘Ask God and you shall receive.’ Except my ex remained penniless and I lost $10K in a year selling life insurance.
This ex had two other men in the picture, besides me. All jazz musicians, besides me. I can’t play jazz. Not my point. My point is, yes, book deals plural, why not girlfriends plural? Because no. Because no, no. Because I’ve tried that.
After the 1-2-3 of unavailable women, enter another flirty childcare professional (this one married) who tried to sell me on polyamory. This was the winter of 2022. My body gave me all the signals it could: night sweats, tingling back of the neck, pulsing neon zigzags in the eyes. DON’T DO THIS! I didn’t listen. And wouldn’t probably, even if I could, as Cher says, “turn back time,” and have a stern talk with myself. “Listen. I’m speaking from experience. This will not end well.” Still would’ve done it. I really wanted what this poly-person was purporting to be able to give me: love. And there was love – I think that’s what made it all so painful – but in terms of trauma, and this concept of recreating your past in an effort to fix it, this was like trying to fix a headache with a sledgehammer.
Let’s talk about therapy.
My therapist thinks I want a savior. Or a saviour, since she’s Canadian. I think I just want to feel good for the rest of my life. Both thoughts lead to the same thing: Cinderella. “Someday, my prince will come.” Back in the band days, circa 2005, we were on tour and we stopped at a gas station in the Midwest and there was a triptych of cassettes about Disney princesses. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. I knew my bandmates would’ve put up with me listening to these tapes in the van – although I knew, too, it would’ve been inherently creepy: three unshaven dudes in a white van listening to princess books on tape. But that wasn’t what stopped me. I remember telling them, “I don’t want to believe ‘someday my prince will come.’” I knew it back then! And now I’ve forgotten what I knew. I’ve regressed. Now I think a girlfriend and book deal(s) will save me. From what? From pain, from unhappiness, from feeling like shit about myself and so tired all the time. But when my prince comes, the curtain will go down in the carriage and he’ll kiss me and I can finally have no problems, feel no pain, not have to be alive. It’s death, really, that I’m hoping for, once the curtain drops. To finally turn off. My therapist knows I have a suicide attempt in my history. She knows, too, about the suicidal ideation still. But when I told her my happily-ever-after-equals-death theory, she wisely focused on logistics. “But you know that life goes on for Cinderella after the curtain goes down.”
“I do know that, logically,” I said. “I do. And I also know there’s a Cinderella sequel.” (Though I’d rather die than see it.) “But in my mind, after the curtain’s down, she gets to be done.”
Done. That’s what I want. What does done mean? Okay. (As in the adjective ‘okay,’ not the stalling kind of ‘okay.’) I want to be okay and not have to do anything to prove to you that I am, in fact, okay.
“So you want to relax,” my therapist said. Or maybe I said it. Either way, the idea was: I can relax anytime. Like Cinderella does when she’s cleaning. She sings. And I should clean more. Maybe it would help me relax. But when I clean, I don’t sing or go into a trance. I do it frantically. The same way I do everything. And when I had a mouse, we didn’t become friends; I killed it. Maybe I don’t really like to relax. I live near the beach and fine, I enjoy visiting the ocean and should go more often. (Like when I do make it there, I always think, you should do this more often. And then I have to think back, but you’re here right now.) The ocean is relaxing. Even if it has its own turmoil: choked by plastic, overheating corral, and, of course, the poor tuna fish.
The most relaxing moment I can remember with a girlfriend type of person was cuddling in her bed during a very harsh winter, someone I knew I was not in love with, even then, but we were so warm and laughing so easily while watching the movie – wait for it – Help! The movie was terrible but the moment was sublime. I was so relaxed! When I’m in love with the person, however, it’s the opposite. I’m terrified. I have to be perfect or else they’re going to leave me. Childhood.
Okay. We’re out of the therapy section.
I got a call from one of the poly-lovers – not the teacher. The summer before, when we were together, she had two boyfriends and wanted me to be the third, but I couldn’t hack it. I was a leaf in the wind compared to those guys. Except not, because she and I became good friends, which I’m honestly much better at. Case in point, we’ve been friends for a hell of a lot longer than we were lovers.
“Okay,” she said, “so you know the boy I have a big crush on? And I’ve been following him around to strip clubs?” Yes, I knew about him. “So the other night, I met his brother who’s recently become a literary agent and he said he’s looking for writers. What do you think? Should I tell him about you?”
Of course, I green-lit this plan. I loved the idea that my literary fate hung in the balance of my poly-friend’s love life. Even if I hate strip clubs.
But that whole process took months to materialize.
In this beach town where I, apparently, live now, I have one and a half friends. One’s a poet. The half friend is a man of the sea. He’s not around much. But over the summer, he and I got together and were having a rather lofty conversation, which felt like, what are we avoiding here? Maybe we’re in love. Who knows. Anyway, the conversation was about the death of the ego. Which I know is the source of my problems. I mean it’s not the writing that’s the problem. It’s the thinking about the writing that’s the problem. And now I’m writing about the thinking about it, which may be a problem, too. Which is why this is an exorcism. Or am I secretly looking for the savior(s)? Either way, we walked to the boardwalk and were looking out at the sea – which ebbs and flows, just like people; we’re mostly water, too – and the weather was perfect, if that exists anymore; late summer at the beach.
“The goal is not happiness,” my half friend said. “The goal is acceptance. To be where you are. Now.”
Then it clicked. That name.
I had to get to work and I was frantically texting my poly-friend while running to the bus stop: “Is your crush’s last name _______?”
She wrote back, “Yes. Why?”
Okay. So there was an email in 2021 that got me non-suicidal for two days, which was about a book of mine that is now three books ago – damn – and that agent, still, to this day, has not rejected it. She just requested it in fall 2021, then... nothing. She even rejected my next book a year later, but said of the other one: “I’m still considering...” But mostly, I dealt with her assistant. He’d respond to me. And then I realized... it’s the same guy! The brother of my friend’s crush who loves strip clubs!
But any possible optimism from these coincidences ends up feeling worse. Like if there’s a chance, that’s the hardest of all. That thighs-on-fire feeling when you’re in the last twenty minutes of an all-day drive. I don’t know if or when I’m getting out of the car.
This agent said he remembered me from his assistant days and so we began texting and emailing informally. Which was new for me. I was used to sending job interview type emails to agents, and then my books sound like I just woke up. And this guy asked me the question I always want people to ask. “How many books have you written?”
I gave him the litany.
“You’re so prolific!” he wrote back, which I took to mean, “You’re so pathetic!”
I sent him, upon his request, my first and last book. Then I waited. I wrote him polite reminder emails, which he didn’t respond to. And then he did, when he rejected me. But his rejection was the longest I’ve ever received, to date. This felt like major progress. Usually when I get a personalized rejection, they’re much shorter. And even more often, when it’s a ‘good rejection,’ it’s still only a form letter. Then there’s the plain old form letter regular rejection letter, and then the most common – though the hardest to keep track of – is no response at all.
My poly-friend was throwing a New Year’s party. “You’re coming. Everyone says so.” Flattering but also not a choice. But what else was I going to do? Watch PBS Newshour and eat cereal and I don’t even know what I was reading at the time. I went to the party. There was a lot of tinsel and colorful lights and her living room has an arch and they even made a glittery curtain. How apropos. Someone took a picture of me, which my poly-friend sent me days later with the caption: “Abject terror.” It was true. I looked terrified. And that was before the night began.
A woman showed up who I was informed was single, and I could not, for the life of me, flirt with her. Seemingly she was flirting with me. Prolonged eye contact. The touching of the arm. Making comments about my poly-friend’s ceiling which felt like lobbing me a ball I couldn’t catch. I didn’t know what to say about ceilings! I felt like a pathetic bump on a log at this glitzy, happy party.
My poly-friend grabbed my arm and said, “Do you want to talk to me while I pee?” Of course I did. She was being a good host.
I faced the door while she told me, “I don’t know if you want to meet him but _____ is here.” The agent! The long rejection one. She pointed him out when we came out of the bathroom. I did nothing. I went back to trying to flirt this woman on the other side of the curtain and did nothing there, too. At midnight, when all the couples were kissing, this woman, still brushing her arm against mine, said softly in my ear, “It’s 2024...”
And all I could think to say back was, “Yeah...”
On the subway, half an hour later, surrounded by the other long faces, I told myself, you know, it would’ve been kind of spooky if you’d nailed it. Like I’d been so depressed all through the holidays, that failing to be fun and charming with this woman was completely acceptable. Or, not that I could see this then, was it possible that maybe I did not enjoy her company?
“She was horrible!” my poly-friend told me days later. “After you left, she was making out with everyone! She was saying things like, ‘I snap my fingers and sex comes to me.’ Who says that?!” Okay, so I dodged a bullet. But I also knew if I’d been on her list, I probably would’ve pined for her for months, rationalizing that it would all somehow work out. Which is depressing. Even if it didn’t happen.
But before I left the party, I decided, like in the old life insurance days, do something scary and you’ll feel better. Which rarely resulted in a sale, but was very good for my self-esteem. So after midnight, I decided to walk through the glittery curtain, introduce myself to the agent, and then you can leave.
Well, it was a mess. He was on drugs, first of all. Grinding his teeth, apologizing profusely for being high – he kept telling me, “Don’t listen to what I’m saying!” – but he kept talking and I kept listening. He was perched atop a steep staircase leading to the basement which seemed like a dangerous place to stand for someone on drugs. But I didn’t want to do anything to change anything. He was trying to give me the time of day, trying to be nice, shouting into my ear about my book in great detail, and with the all tinsel around us and how I vaguely feared for his life, I thought, this is the farthest you’ve ever gotten.
Like that soft voice said moments before, “It’s 2024...”
Closer.
Crockett Doob has been published in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Newtown Literary, HiLoBrow, Free Flash Fiction, Airplane Reading, Literally Stories (forthcoming), and featured on the podcast, Queens Memory. He is also a film editor who has worked on the Oscar nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild and the critically acclaimed Ghostbox Cowboy.
