Chapter 3 SIOBHAN
Chapter 3
S IOBHAN
She had been picking out and discarding clothes for fifteen minutes. Ripped jeans and sneakers? Too informal. Short dress and heels? Too provocative. Nothing was quite right. I should have borrowed something from Paige, she thought. She sighed in defeat and flopped backward onto the bed. In less than five hours, she was scheduled to appear at McNally Jackson, the legendary Nolita bookstore, to celebrate the publication of With Fate on Our Side . She was more nervous than she had ever been in her life; even the night of her prom, when she almost lost her virginity to Jimmy Steelballs, the most popular player on the school team, on the back seat of his pickup truck.
Bella, her agent, had tried to calm her down over the phone. “It’s perfectly normal to get stage fright, but you’ll be great.”
“What if no one comes?” Siobhan had asked her brother the night before.
Of all the disastrous scenarios she had contemplated, this was the one that terrified her most.
“That won’t happen, Cheerios,” replied her brother.
“How many people in Mount Vernon have you bribed to be so sure?”
“Oh, I didn’t have to go that far. Believe me: talent and free food can be very persuasive. Let me give you a bit of brotherly advice: go to that bookstore tomorrow and have a bit of faith in yourself. It’ll be a walk in the park, you’ll see.”
“Okay. And how do I do that?”
“Pretend you’re the one in charge. That’s what being an adult is all about, Shiv. Constantly pretending. Until one day you wake up and realize you don’t need to pretend anymore because you’ve become the person you wanted to be.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Hardly. I got that from a fortune cookie in some joint in Chinatown.”
Wise words. It was just a pity that she tended toward self-sabotage. Imposter syndrome had set in as soon as people started referring to her as “the writer of the moment.” Everyone was calling her that now, even her boss—albeit with a hint of sarcasm. Was she? Wasn’t she just another girl with a bit of luck and a certain talent for storytelling? The week since the release of her novel had been dizzying. Reviews, comments, and mentions circulated daily on social media and literary blogs, and a fan group had even created the hashtag #Passiobhan. It wasn’t the greatest play on words, but how many brand-new authors could claim to have their own hashtag?
Lesson one: the best kind of marketing campaign for a book is word of mouth.
Siobhan received so many messages from readers excited about the story that she felt happy and overwhelmed at the same time. All this recognition implied a great responsibility unlike anything she had experienced before. She was playing in another league now, and she had to live up to it. She didn’t want to disappoint anyone.
And it’s easy to feel deflated when imposter syndrome strikes.
Lesson two: a moment of glory can simultaneously become an internal ordeal because the line separating the two is finer than we think.
And lesson three: doing all this thinking makes you ravenous.
Her growling stomach brought her back to reality. She decided to leave her fretting for another time, jumped off the bed, and went to the kitchen to make a peanut butter sandwich. As she carefully cut off the crusts, an alert lit up the screen of her cell phone. She wiped the traces of peanut butter from her fingers and swiped to check her notifications.
What she saw left her speechless.
Or nearly.
Letitia Wright has just tagged me in a photo? It can’t be true. I must be hallucinating.
Letitia Wright was not just known for being the charming wife of Rufus Wright, the Democratic senator from Washington, but also because any book she liked automatically became a hit. In fact, a recent HBO series starring Nicole Kidman was the adaptation of a drama that Letitia had found profoundly moving. She was a literary influencer of the highest order, with millions of Twitter followers. Not as many as Bill Gates, but more than J.Lo or even NASA.
AND SHE HAD TAGGED SIOBHAN.
Letitia Wright @letitia_wright 2m
Deciding what to read next. Which of these two should I start with? Suggestions welcome. #CrimeOrRomance
The tweet was accompanied by an image showing Letitia herself, stunning as ever—how did she manage to keep her skin so smooth after fifty?—in the garden of her house in Bellevue, Washington, with a book in each hand. In the right, she held The End of Days , by Marcel Black; in the left, With Fate on Our Side , by Siobhan Harris.
“What? Letitia Wright wants to read my novel? Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” she exclaimed. And possessed by a sudden euphoria, she started dancing and skipping around the kitchen as though she had just won forty million dollars in the Powerball.
It didn’t take long for doubts to start creeping in and then kill her festive mood. What if Letitia didn’t like the book? What if she found the story superficial? Or if she hated her writing style? How could a debut author like Siobhan stand a chance against an author of the stature of Marcel Black? For god’s sake, Marcel Black himself! The most famous writer without a face in America.
Easy: she couldn’t.
Letitia Wright’s tweet was starting to go viral; she had to reply. She thought about calling Bella to ask for advice, but she had already abused her agent’s patience enough that day. And what the hell. Wasn’t she an adult woman capable of writing her own tweets? She took a deep breath to calm herself and pondered her words.
“Pretend you’re the one in the driver’s seat,” she told herself.
Siobhan Harris @siobhan_harris 1s
What a wonderful surprise, Mrs. Wright! I’m so honored that you would take an interest in my book. And since you’re open to suggestions, I would say start with Marcel Black. Sweets are best saved for last. #CrimeAndRomance
She searched for the least tasteless GIF of thanks she could find and inserted it. “Sweets are best saved for last,” she reread. Didn’t it sound a bit presumptuous, bearing in mind who Marcel Black was? Possibly. Even so, she wasn’t about to beat herself up in public just because she was a debut writer. She deserved a chance too. And, anyway, Black had no social media profiles, so he wouldn’t even see it. She clicked “Tweet.” Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait for long.
Letitia Wright @letitia_wright 1m
I like your philosophy. And call me Letitia. Good luck with the launch this evening! 3 #CrimeAndRomance
Five seconds later, another notification popped up:
Letitia Wright has just followed you.