Chapter 7 SIOBHAN
Chapter 7
S IOBHAN
The Saturday after signing the contract, Siobhan slipped into her favorite floral dress and ordered an Uber. Alex Shapiro had invited her to meet Marcel in an Upper East Side bistro for their first brainstorming session.
“My assistant has reserved a table for you,” he had told her on the phone a few days earlier. “It’s a discreet place but very expensive. Make sure you hang on to your receipts.”
“Don’t tell me you’re leaving me all alone with Shrek.”
Alex laughed knowingly.
“You’ll be fine. Believe me, this ogre isn’t as offensive as he looks.”
That remained to be seen.
The driver stopped in front of Café Boulud about ten minutes before the meeting was due to start. Siobhan gave her full name at reception, and a waiter led her to a small private room. It wasn’t hard to imagine the odious Mr. Black sitting there, sipping coffee from a tiny Limoges porcelain cup with his little finger sticking out. As she waited for Mr. Bestseller to appear, she ordered a cappuccino, which arrived almost immediately, accompanied by some macarons on an elegant rectangular slate. The arrangement was so absurdly charming that she couldn’t resist taking a photo and posting it on Twitter.
Click.
Siobhan Harris @siobhan_harris 1m
Which of these delicacies shall I sink my teeth into first? I’ll decide while I’m waiting for @InvisibleBlack in a super-secret location on the Upper East Side. Today is our first session together! Wish me luck #CrimePlusRomance
It had been a crazy week. Baxter Books had made the big announcement about the collaboration between the two authors. The sensation of the season was due to arrive this fall—this fall!—and the internet was talking about nothing else. If announcing the launch of a novel that wasn’t even written yet was meant to be a pressure tactic, it was working; for her, at least. The notifications on her account kept flooding in, with new followers by the dozen. Whether they were congratulating her or wishing her luck, Siobhan spent more than two hours a day responding to messages. And then there were her own readers, who grew apace with her popularity; even more so after Letitia Wright had publicly announced that With Fate on Our Side was the most beautiful romance novel she had read in a long time. It was overwhelming, but the least she could do was appear grateful. Marcel hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge it. It was clear that she would have to be the visible face of the project, which had its advantages and disadvantages. Who would the critics tear into, once the book was published? The highly respected crime author or the aspiring writer of love stories?
The balance could only swing one way.
This had also been the week of her first negative review. Although calling it negative when she could say painful as a paper shredder was being generous. Siobhan knew the theory all too well. Don’t let it affect you. It’s just an opinion. Your book isn’t Henry Cavill, not everyone is going to like it. Blah blah blah ... But theory was one thing, and practice was quite another. She had known this moment would come sooner or later—Bella had warned her about first negative review syndrome—but she still wasn’t ready for the reality of it. When Paige and Lena found out, they hotfooted it to her apartment with a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake and a bottle of vodka for damage control.
If that wasn’t friendship, she didn’t know what was.
“Whoever wrote that crap doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” said an affronted Paige. “Buckley might be a lot of things, but he’s not manipulative. He’s just a first-degree jerk with serious commitment issues.”
“You mean Damon,” Lena corrected her.
“Damon is based on her ex. Or don’t you remember? Anyway, in the hypothetical case of Shiv having created a dark male Hardin Scott–style protagonist, what would be the problem?”
“I guess dark is a euphemism for possessive and controlling.”
“Wake up, Lena. It’s fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. If all the characters behaved impeccably all the time, there would be no conflict.”
“Systematically reproducing certain behaviors, even if only fictitiously, merely serves to perpetuate said behavior. The message behind stories like After is that it’s okay for a man to control even the clothes you wear because that means he loves you.”
“Come off it! The message behind After is that there is no message. Two college students who spend more time partying than in class start screwing like rabbits. He’s off his frickin’ rocker and surprise! So is she. It turns out women can behave reprehensibly too. Have you seen My Best Friend’s Wedding ? Julia Roberts couldn’t be more toxic in that movie. Did she really have to ruin Dermot Mulroney and Cameron Diaz’s big day?”
“Spoiler: in the end she doesn’t ruin it.”
“Because she knows that her chances with him are precisely zero, not out of any sense of sisterhood. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Getting back to the point, the reading comprehension of whoever wrote this review is nil. How dare she say your style is boring?” She snorted. “We’ve read different books.”
“She’s just a hater,” said Lena. “I’ve looked at other ratings she’s given, and it’s a pattern. Maybe we could get her blocked.”
Siobhan disagreed. Much as it hurt, she had to be professional about it. And being professional involved swallowing her pride and accepting that not every story is right for every reader all the time. No drama. Unfortunately, that crappy comment had arrived just when her self-assurance was starting to wobble.
It was a maddening fact of life that a single negative opinion could drown out dozens of positive voices.
She checked the time with a sigh. That prize imbecile was late. She was about to pop a macaron in her mouth but changed her mind. As tempting as the colorful treats were, she wasn’t about to risk her colleague—could she call him a colleague?—appearing and catching her off guard. She could almost hear Lena’s voice: “Why do you straight women feel vulnerable about a man seeing you eat? It’s ridiculous.” And it was. The problem: Marcel was just too intimidating. And not just because he was attractive, but also because of that kind of avenging angel’s halo that surrounded him and which he was somehow able to convey in his writing. After devouring An Ordinary Man and impulse-buying the next three in the series, Siobhan felt even more daunted, intrigued, and attracted than she had been on seeing him for the first time. She still hated him, of course. She sipped her cappuccino and tucked her hair behind her ears. As she did, she noticed her palms were sweaty. Calm down already! she berated herself. This isn’t a date, it’s a work meeting. And he’s nothing more than a man with his ego in his underpants. You can handle it.
Okay, perhaps thinking about his underpants hadn’t been the best idea.
Then her cell phone rang. Unknown number.
“Are you crazy or what?” a voice shouted the moment she answered.
Siobhan immediately recognized the unmistakable Southern drawl.
“Good morning to you too. Don’t worry about being late, I have all the time in the world.”
“Quit the crap. Why the hell did you post that tweet?”
A thin veil of sweat broke out on Siobhan’s upper lip. She didn’t know how to answer and hesitated for a moment.
“Which tweet?”
“I think you know.”
“Ah, you mean that tweet,” she bluffed. “Don’t tell me you’re pissed about that.”
“The term pissed doesn’t even come close to it at this precise moment. It would be more accurate to say livid, furious, or completely and utterly apeshit.”
“Gosh, your lexical range is surprisingly broad.”
Marcel exhaled indignantly.
“You think you’re so clever, don’t you, princess? Well, let’s see if you still want to joke about it when you realize you’ve infringed on the confidentiality agreement.”
Siobhan frowned.
“Hey, stop right there. And don’t call me princess! What do you mean, I’ve infringed on the confidentiality agreement? I don’t see the problem,” she said, defending herself. “The only thing the tweet says is that I’m waiting for you somewhere on the Upper East Side.”
“Exactly. Somewhere whose name can be clearly seen in the photo you posted.”
Something exploded in her brain. Her eyes swiveled to look at the wall. Only then did she realize that right next to the door of the small private room was a huge sign with the bistro’s logo. “Café Boulud” was spelled out in black lettering against a white background. She squeezed her eyes shut.
This was a fuckup of epic proportions.
She swallowed before murmuring:
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh .” Marcel let out a sigh that seemed to go on forever. “I knew this would be a mistake. It makes no sense for us to write a novel together; we’re too different. This is just a game to you.”
This statement lit a fire inside her; even so, she was too ashamed to deny it.
“I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t even realize the sign was there. If I had ... Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now. I’ll delete the tweet right away.”
“Don’t bother on my account. I’m not coming anyway.”
“What do you mean, you’re not coming?”
“It’s too risky. And I’m not in the mood. The meeting will have to wait. Alex will call you.”
“But—”
Too late, he had hung up. Suddenly, Siobhan felt very selfish. Okay, so Marcel was paranoid, and it would be quite a coincidence for anyone to find him right here, at this precise moment, just because of her tweet. But life was full of coincidences. She shouldn’t have posted it. Whatever the reason, his secret identity was fundamental to him. Siobhan didn’t understand why, nor did she need to; all she had to do was respect his wishes and stick to the contract. The conversation still reverberated in her eardrums. Something halfway between a sigh and a groan escaped from her throat. She hated to admit it, but Marcel was entirely right. It made no sense for them to write a novel together. She thought about the events of the morning, about what would crop up next, about the terrible summer she was about to spend with him. She took a breath and decided to call Alex to see if he could help salvage the situation. Whatever happened, time was not on their side; they couldn’t afford to waste another day. And contrary to what that ogre thought, this wasn’t a game to Siobhan.
Ding.
A text message popped up on her phone.
212-500-0303
Can I trust you to be the responsible adult you claim to be? M.
Siobhan’s eyes widened and she read it again. Did this mean all was not lost? It certainly seemed so.
Siobhan
Absolutely
And a moment later.
212-500-0303
1010 5th Ave. Tell my concierge when you get here. And please, try not to publish my address on Twitter.