With The Charming Young Woman From Rights and Permissions

With The Charming Young Woman From Rights and Permissions

The young woman said she worked in rights and permissions at Penguin. We were sitting on a bench last Thursday night across Prince Street from the former McNally-Robinson bookstore watching the line of people waiting to get in.

What, was there a new Harry Potter out, a line of people nearly clamoring to be let into a bookstore? Was Salman Rushdie or Philip Roth making a surprise appearance?

Not exactly, but there was literary star power on the block just up from Soho’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It must be awfully confusing for visitors that there even is a second St. Patrick’s, but the hubbub was for the name change party at the bookstore. For dull corporate reasons,  McNally Robinson was to become McNally Jackson. 

Before chatting with the charming young woman from rights and permissions, I’d waltzed up to the bookstore’s door expecting the usual McNally reading scene like the one I’d attended the night before. Usually there is nobody with a clipboard at the door. No sign on the door saying the store is closed for a private event.

But on Thursday night, the woman with the clipboard said it was a limited attendance event. You were supposed to have RSVP’ed, but still, she said, they didn’t want to keep anyone out. She said I could get in line and take my chances.

Just as our conversation was ending, a black-haired, guy with rosy checks came up to the clipboard lady and said, “I’m Nathan.”

She paused for a moment, looked at the list and let him in. I said, “that was Nathan Englander, right.” She said it was.  I said, “Oh, you should let me in, just cause I can guess names like that.” It really was just a lucky guess because I didn’t know what the author of “The Ministry of Special Cases”  looked like, nor was he among the advertised writers in the event’s publicity.

I crossed the street and sat down on the bench in front of a boutique. That was when I started to talk to the charming young woman from rights and permissions. 

I said I’d never seen a McNally Whatever reading so mobbed.

She said she didn’t think it was a reading, just a party to celebrate the name change. I asked her if she was a writer. She hesitated and said, she didn’t think so. I figured the hesitation said a lot so I tried to tell her that old joke about how if you want to write and you work in publishing, it’s like wanting to sleep with women and becoming a gynecologist. But I was worried about sounding like a perv and messed up the story. 

She said that a lot to times people ask for rights and permissions when they don’t need to. She also told me that e-books’ day was much closer than I thought. 

Then she said, “Excuse me,” and made a cellphone call to try to find the people she was supposed to meet up with to go to the non-reading. It was good she was polite enough to say “Excuse me.” 

We talked a while longer. I told her the story about the Mary McCarthy memorial. There was no way that story was going to make me seem like a perv. The hall was packed and I was among a few late arrivals the organizers were trying to squeeze in. There were about ten of us, and it sounded like there were only two or three seats left. Then Susan Sontag arrived, and, in effect, cut the line. 

But it was OK with me, after all, she was Susan Sontag. For that matter, though not so visually easy to identify, Englander is Englander. If I’d gotten right in, I wouldn’t have had such nice chat with the charming young woman from rights and permissions. Wouldn’t have learned that sometimes, people ask for rights and permissions, when they don’t really have to. Apparently, Penguin doesn’t have a goon squad to chase you down, if you don’t ask. 

The charming young woman from rights and permissions stood up and said she had to try and find the people she was supposed to meet. I’d said that since it wasn’t a reading, and it was crowded, I probably wasn’t going to go, even if I could get in. She said, “Well, have a good night, whatever you end up doing.”

 I said, “Oh, Ok, who knows, I’ll probably spill a glass of wine on you later on.”

 

A few minutes after she left, I got on the end of the line of people waiting to get in. The guy in front of me said that even though it might not be a reading, there was going to be some cool things. After waiting for about five minutes, I unlocked my bike and rode home.