Then, in June, he called, anxious to speak to Phyllis. My stomach lurched a little when I realized that it was Salinger, for real, on the other end of the phone, speaking rather too loudly and seeming a bit confused by my voice, though I tried to speak brightly and enunciate. He was, alas, somewhat deaf and refused to use the amplified phone his wife, a nurse, had installed for him.
It turned out something momentous was afoot in Salingerland: Eight years earlier, a small publisher in Alexandria, Va., had written to him, asking whether they might put out a book consisting solely of Salinger’s novella “Hapworth 16, 1929,” which had appeared in The New Yorker in 1965. To the shock of Phyllis—and everyone else at Ober—Salinger had, after years of thought, decided that this “fellow in Virginia” could publish “Hapworth.” Suddenly, he was calling all the time, anxious about the details of this new deal, which seemed like it might mark a tentative re-entry into the world he’d abandoned 30 years earlier. Ober, just as suddenly, seemed charged with a frenetic energy. Phyllis bustled around the office and had long, loud conversations with Salinger, going over the details of the new book, from the cloth of the binding to the font to the paper stock. She asked him about the publisher, a retired professor, whom Salinger seemed to like very much, to Phyllis’ surprise. It was not often, I supposed, that Salinger took a shine to someone new. In a way, I realized, the Virginia publisher was simply one of the fans whose letters I fielded, one who had managed to break through the wall of Ober’s protectorate and prove to Salinger that, yes, they really were kindred spirits.
One day, as I transcribed a round of letters for Phyllis, a tall man with dark eyes and thinning gray hair arrived in the little antechamber in which I sat. He glanced in my direction, seemed confused, then gave me a small yet warm smile. Before I could ask if he needed help, Phyllis came running out of her office, shouting, “Jerry! There you are!” A moment later, I was standing in front of my desk, just below the wall of Salinger’s books, shaking his large, dry hand. “Hello,” he said. “Nice to meet you. We’ve spoken on the phone many times.”
“We have,” I said, smiling stupidly.
“OK, we have a lot to talk about,” Phyllis said, guiding Salinger into her office. “This is a big year.”
The Hapworth book never materialized. The publisher gave an interview to a local magazine, and Salinger decided his new friend was a phony after all.
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