Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
S aul Isaacson invited Valerie to his high-rise office building in downtown San Francisco at one thirty that Friday. Valerie was already packed for her early morning flight to the East Coast, over-caffeinated, and underfed. When she appeared in front of his receptionist in a red dress that hugged her thighs and waist, she felt a wave of unearned confidence. The exceedingly beautiful receptionist waved Valerie in and whispered, “He’s in a bad mood today. Be careful.”
Valerie didn’t let it deflate her. Maybe the receptionist always said things like that to throw people off. People in California could be cruel.
Saul Isaacson was seated on a leather chair he’d swiveled around to gaze across the city and to the blue haze of the Pacific Ocean. Valerie’s eyes stung at its beauty. Saul knew she was there; he’d heard the clips of her stilettos as she walked in. But he didn’t say hello. Valerie sat and crossed and uncrossed her ankles. She wanted to look formidable and gorgeous. She wanted to make up for the “big Negroni attack.” But she also wanted to convince Saul Isaacson not to publish her father’s memoir. She wanted to have power over him.
But nobody had power over Saul Isaacson.
“What do you think of when you see San Francisco from this height?” Saul asked the window.
Valerie knew he expected a strange answer. Something to invigorate him from the boredom of the people he paid to lick his boots.
“I think of pollution,” she said.
It worked. Saul snorted with laughter and spun around in his chair to drop his chin on his hands and gaze at her. Yet again, she suspected he found her beautiful, but this thought was followed by the knowledge that he made every woman feel that way to control them.
“You’re on time,” he noted.
“Is that a surprise?”
“Not at all. You’re a woman of tremendous professionalism when you don’t have a drink in your hand,” Saul said.
Valerie raised her eyebrows and took a moment to scan the room. Framed book covers and awards hung from walls on either side, as did photographs of Saul with Philip Roth and Joan Didion. More than that, Saul kept numerous books in the office, enough to fill a small corner shop. Valerie squeezed her fists so hard she stuck the nails into her palms. She couldn’t go over to the bookshelf and look at what he had. She couldn’t be whimsical and flirtatious, even if his handsomeness demanded it of her.
“You said you have an event in mind?”
Saul smiled. “The event is in less than a month,” he said.
Valerie’s stomach flipped over. It was fast. Far quicker than anything she’d ever arranged. But if planning it meant keeping her job and getting Saul on her side, she’d do anything.
“But that means the event is already planned,” Saul said. “It’s been planned for months.”
Valerie’s lips parted with surprise. “Then what am I doing here?”
Saul clasped his hands together. “Before we discuss this, I have to ask you to keep an open mind.”
“I live in San Francisco. My mind is about as open as it can be.”
Saul laughed. “I forgot just how witty you are. Yes. Keep up that energy.” He cleared his throat. “The other night when we met, I had an idea. It was probably one of my more brilliant ideas, which is saying something. I’ll explain. I’m the money guy behind the publishing house. It means I have this big office. It means it’s up to me what’s published and what isn’t—even if I let some of the other editors think they’re in charge sometimes. But now that I have so much responsibility, I must maintain a sturdy bottom line. Do you catch my drift?”
“You need to make money.” Just like every other business owner in the world. Why is he giving me this speech?
“That’s right.” Saul stood and clasped his hands behind his back. He walked to the corner easel, where two posters were covered with white sheets. Valerie couldn’t make out what they were hiding. “Victor and I agreed to a deal a little more than four months ago,” Saul said.
Just like I thought. Dad signed the deal before he fetched Rebecca from Maine. Dad signed the deal and gathered us around him to study and ruin us.
Saul removed one of the white sheets to reveal the book cover of Victor Sutton’s novel, A Second Chance. Something cold and hard fell into Valerie’s stomach. She was desperately thirsty, suddenly, and wondered why a place as affluent as Saul’s office hadn’t offered her a drink.
“ A Second Chance is everything we could hope for in a memoir,” Saul said. “Victor has incredible power over the United States, people who watch daytime television, people who think they’re emotionally damaged, etc. Most family psychologists working today look to him for advice. Right now, people are talking about him and paying attention to him because of the article that ‘ruined’ him a couple of months back. They want to hear his side.
“Victor already knew about the article when we discussed the book,” Saul said. “He didn’t admit it, but I sensed his desperation. He was terrified he would lose everything he’d worked for. That, and his wife was leaving him. It wasn’t a cozy time.
“I told him that we needed to pitch the book, in part, as the answer to what happens when men are canceled,” Saul explained. “Can they apologize and receive forgiveness? What do we do about their previous wisdoms? Can we uphold them at all anymore? Or do we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak? That, alongside a family memoir that goes into detail of how he stitched his family back together again?” Saul kissed his fingertips and said, “Chef’s kiss.”
“Victor Sutton abandoned my mother, my sisters, and me after my brother died,” Valerie said flatly. It was the only fact she needed. “I lived through that tremendous pain. It means that everything he’s done after was a lie.”
Saul’s eyes sparkled, and he snapped his fingers. “Bingo.”
Valerie snapped to her feet. She wanted to scream, What do you mean? Are you some kind of monster? But she kept her lips shut.
“The publishing event three weeks from today is a celebration of writers who exclusively work as memoirists,” Saul continued. “It will also serve as the announcement for Victor Sutton’s new release.”
Valerie’s heart sank. It meant that Victor wasn’t long for Nantucket. It meant that her mother and sisters were bound to be heartbroken by him yet again in three weeks flat.
“Why are you telling me this?” Valerie asked.
Saul’s eyes sparkled. “Because I want to announce another book, too. A counterattack. Proof that Victor Sutton isn’t everything he says he is.”
Valerie narrowed her eyes with alarm.
“I want that book to be from Valerie Sutton’s point of view,” Saul said darkly. “I figure it will double our sales. Readers will be curious about the rift between you. They’ll be dying to know what Victor said and what Valerie said in return. They’ll ask what’s real. What can they believe? And the best part? I already have most of Victor’s draft, so I can guide the Valerie memoir in the right direction. I can build a counterattack right here in this room.”
Saul looked incredibly proud of himself. Valerie’s heartbeat was as quick as a rabbit’s.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Saul assured. “You’re not a writer. But don’t worry!” He strode across the office and knocked on the door twice. A split second later, the receptionist opened it, and in walked a woman of about twenty-five with red hair to her shoulders and thick glasses. She carried a laptop that she promptly opened on Saul’s desk.
“Valerie, I want you to meet Amber. She’s one of our best ghostwriters here at the publishing house.”
Valerie gaped at Amber, whose fingers were spread across the keys as though she was prepared to write up the conversation she heard between Valerie and Saul today.
“A ghostwriter?” Valerie whispered.
“I can’t tell you some of the memoirs Amber has penned,” Saul said, “but I can tell you that they all were bestsellers. She’s sensational. She’ll take my notes—and yours—and compile a bestselling memoir.” Saul removed the second white sheet from the other poster to reveal the cover design. Lies My Father Told You. “What do you think? We initially considered calling it Lies My Father Told Me but decided to project the statement outward. The reader thinks, ‘What lies has Victor Sutton told me?’ And then they buy. What do you think?”
Valerie felt hot and sweaty and apt to faint. She wanted to run across the office, pick up the book cover, and hurl it out the window. At her computer, Amber clacked away as though she were picking up details of Valerie’s personality even without Valerie saying anything.
Valerie needed to be careful. She didn’t want to show Amber anything dark about herself.
“Listen,” she said delicately, “I understand where you’re coming from. And in a way, it is brilliant.”
“In every way,” Saul assured her. “It’s brilliant in thousands of different ways.”
“But I don’t understand why I can’t write it myself?” Valerie asked.
If anyone is going to tell the story of my life, it has to be me. I have to be the one to set the record straight. Saul is giving me that chance.
Saul’s face brightened. “You’re willing to do this for me?”
Amber looked deflated. She removed her fingers from the laptop and scowled at Valerie.
“Why not?” Valerie said. “I used to write in college.”
“Did you!” Saul waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter what you give me. We have editors. We have proofreaders. We have everyone on the back end making sure the product is sound. Just give me your heart, Valerie. Make us feel the pain your father caused you, your sisters, and your mother. And write about your brother, too! I know you were his closest friend. You were one of the last people who spoke to him, weren’t you?”
Valerie felt the words like a knife through her gut. “I was.”
Saul clapped his hands together. “This has certainly taken a turn. I didn’t imagine you’d write it for us. How exciting! Straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Are you okay with signing the paperwork today?” He showed all of his bright white teeth until Valerie felt herself flinch into a nod. “Wonderful.” He removed a stack of papers from his desk and flicked his fingers at Amber, indicating that she needed to go. Amber glowered at Valerie until she disappeared on the other side of the door.
“You broke our little ghostwriter’s heart,” Saul said. “Good thing she doesn’t have a soul, right?”
Valerie blinked and sat back down in front of a publishing contract that immediately sold the rights of Lies My Father Told You to Saul’s company. Her heart ballooned. Was this it? The moment she would regret for the rest of her life. Oh, but that was laughable. Valerie already had hundreds of regrettable moments. They’d all led her to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show her father what was what. To tell the world and Victor Sutton just how awful he was.
Valerie raised her pen and signed the publishing contract. She thought, I hope I really remember how to write.
Saul threw up his hands. “Fantastic. Let’s go out, shall we? I could do with a lunch cocktail. And you look pale. Let’s get you a steak.”
Valerie didn’t feel equipped to refuse Saul’s offer. She’d just signed her creative rights over to him and was as hungry as he said she looked. She felt wistful as she walked to the elevator behind him with her heartbeat in her throat. Tomorrow afternoon, she would already be in Nantucket. Tomorrow, she would write her thesis on why her sisters and mother couldn’t trust Victor. But today, she was still in California. Today, she could still enjoy herself.
Saul took Valerie to a restaurant called Alexander’s Steakhouse, where each cut of meat was at least one hundred and fifty dollars, and a bowl of macaroni and cheese cost sixty-five. It was three in the afternoon, but the place was filled with wall-to-wall patrons, so much so that a server had to bully the least important people in the room to leave their table so Saul and Valerie could be seated. Valerie had the sensation that she was trapped inside a romance novel with an arrogant and handsome hero. But she didn’t fit the bill of the heroine. She was sad and overwhelmed with very few friends. She’d already seen enough of life to recognize she wasn’t winning whatever game they were all playing.
But Saul wanted to order cocktails. He leaned over the table and said, “Tell me. Why event planning? You should be the main focus. You should be the star of every party. The center of the room.”
Valerie shifted uncomfortably on her chair and thought about her ex-husband for the thousandth time that week. Another rich benefactor, not unlike Saul, had taken an interest in her ex-husband three years ago. Her ex-husband had said, “He believes in my work. He gets it.” And then their lives had fallen apart.
“Maybe you’ll be my date to the memoirist event,” Saul said, raising his cocktail so it glinted beneath the chandeliers. “Mark my words, everyone’s eyes will be on you. This book will change your life. But I hope you’re prepared to break ties forever with your father?”
“They’re already broken,” Valerie said. “There’s nothing left to fix.”
“It’s the same with my father and me,” Saul said. “Nothing left. I burned it all down years ago. And it’s a pleasure, isn’t it? To start over? To have your own agency?”
Valerie wasn’t sure she liked Saul. She certainly didn’t trust him. But he seemed to understand this one facet of her life and personality—and that was enough.