Young at Heart
I don’t have enough time to wind my way through the hotel to the author green room, outfitted with the requisite La Croix,
Kind bars, and most critically at this moment, a private bathroom. My own room all the way up on the twentieth floor is out
of the question. I slip into the restroom nearest my event space, grateful that the other panels are underway. I wouldn’t
want to have to use my status to cut the line. (Well, wouldn’t is a strong word.)
My appearance shocks me. It lacks the mascara runoff of Hartley’s (thank you, kind Sephora clerk), but the bags under my eyes
wouldn’t fit as carry-ons. I swear there’s a new streak of gray on the left side of my part. I even think the hair’s grown
back on my freshly waxed upper lip.
I wet a paper towel and pat my blotchy skin before slipping Hartley’s purse off my shoulder and tugging off the red volunteer shirt. Stray threads and red lint stick to my white blouse. My scarf. It’s still in the crate. My chest constricts. I’ve worn a scarf matching the color of my latest release as far back as book one. I was setting up a persona even then. It’s my signature. It’s what people expect. And somehow, maybe, what I needed to slip into this role I wasn’t actually born to have. A girl who would rather throw up than give a book report before the whole class doesn’t scream “entertainer.”
For years, I thought it was hereditary, skipping a generation with my mom. My parents are the most sociable people I know.
Still. That I welcome disappearing into a story world instead of ungluing my feet from a tacky dive bar floor or inhaling
the hot alcoholic fumes of a crowd belting out “Auld Lang Syne” on New Year’s remains unfathomable to them. I’ll never forget
the avalanche on my father’s face when I told him I couldn’t come to my mother’s sixty-fifth birthday party because I had
a deadline. He’d already checked my schedule with Blaire. He had never caught me in a lie before. Or at least admitted that
he had.
My grandmother was more like me. She couldn’t even call for her own haircuts. My grandfather did everything for her, which
was sweet when I was eleven. But the older I got, the more I saw. “Everything” included telling her how to cut her hair. How
to roast a chicken. How to water down her wine so as not to embarrass him at firm dinners. How to look the other way when
he brought one of his mistresses to the guest room in the home they shared for sixty years and then sat reading the newspaper
while she cooked the young woman steak and eggs the next morning.
The day my grandmother showed me her engagement ring and explained she was leaving it to me when she died was the day I realized she wasn’t like me—a shy, self-conscious girl convinced everyone was laughing at her behind her back. My grandmother had simply married an asshole and was too stubborn to admit her parents were right. She wouldn’t leave him. Unless it got “really bad.” Fortunately and unfortunately she died before I ever found out what might meet that definition.
If it had gotten “really bad,” the ring was her way out, a way to fund a new life. My grandmother routinely skimmed off the
top of the allowance my grandfather gave her for groceries and household supplies. Each time she amassed enough, she’d take
the ring to get reset, changing out the diamond for one with more carats and clarity. By the time she died, it was as clear
as a summer day and weighed down her small hand. He never even noticed.
She had wanted me to have the ring so I’d have the same security she had. But it also gave me something she hadn’t intended.
I loved her, I admired her will, but I vowed I’d never be like her. I’d never let anyone or anything hold me back from what
I wanted—including myself. So I faced my fears. I broke out of my shell and no longer care if anyone is laughing at me. A
crocodile’s skin is thick enough to stop a bullet. Mine too. You can’t self-publish half a dozen books and search for a literary
agent otherwise. Or you can, but it’ll break your heart.
I drop the red shirt next to the sink and dust off my chest. A spot of pink peeks out from beneath my arms. Plural, both of
them. The dye ran. Christ. I can’t sign books like this. But I can’t not sign books.
It feels like I’ve stepped into some writing prompt gone astray: here I am, pink armpits and all, about to sign hundreds of
copies of the culmination of my life’s work while Hartley West is being held hostage in a booth beside a cardboard gangster,
a flapper, and a newsboy.
A text lights up my phone.
Lacey: Tell me you have a Sharpie in hand.
Shit.
Me: Tell you when I have one in hand?
Lacey: Sofie, WTF? I’m expending all my capital on you, and you can’t even sit at the goddamn table? You live for this.
Which is why my armpits are Barbie pink. Think this defense would stand up in court?
Lacey: Don’t let the keynote get in your head. Blaire’s being too diplomatic. I’m handling it.
My fingertips hover over the keyboard. Max Donner and Lacey would be unstoppable together. Lacey’s been my publicist since
the beginning, but her relationship with Blaire predates mine. Blaire said she’s working on it. Maybe she’s right. Maybe a
little positive energy is truly all we need. Especially with Hartley locked in the basement.
I whip off my button-down and put the Romance US T-shirt back on. When I get home, after making history by receiving the longest
standing ovation this convention has ever seen, I’m resizing my grandmother’s ring. Because this goiter on my finger can go
fuck itself.
The restroom door opens with a squeak. I snatch up Hartley’s purse and duck into the stall behind me. For some bizarrely unsanitary
reason, fans who are also writers see toilets as the perfect setting in which to pitch their story idea. I have three minutes
to get back to my event before Lacey sends a search party for me. Carrying pitchforks. This goddamned kidnapping will not
ruin this convention for me.
“Tara Kara are hilarious! They literally finish—”
“Each other’s sentences. Ha!” The woman’s voice is slightly nasal, like she has a cold. “Told you. Their Insta feed is just like that. Tips for WIPs is awesome.”
“Whips? Kinky.”
Nasal voice laughs. “Works in progress. Super generous to spend time giving us newbies advice.”
Cleverly disguised self-promotion. Tara Kara have a really good coach.
“That’s why I’m psyched they’re going to be on the Beautiful on the Inside panel. The two of them and Riley Moore together
will be a-ma-zing !” A zipper opens and there’s a clatter of various items hitting the counter. “Here, mascara. Let me borrow your lipstick.”
“Don’t forget Sofie Wilde is on it too,” says the first woman in an excited (rightly so) voice.
“Did you hear—”
“No! Lalalalala, not listening. I know something’s up, but I do not want spoilers. Whoever leaked whatever it is they leaked
should be tried for high treason.”
Hear, hear!
The excited woman adds, “I do so love her.”
The nasal one says, “But that video...”
“She only said the truth. Unlike Hartley West. And, like, why isn’t she in jail? Isn’t what she did stealing?”
“But technically it wasn’t her. AI wrote the book.”
“Which it wouldn’t have been able to do without Sofie’s body of work. I don’t care what lawsuits have said or will say, Sofie
should, like, get every cent of what Hartley West makes.”
I should be recording this. This is what should go viral.
“Hmm,” says nasal voice. “I don’t know. Hartley did have to edit it. It’s not like it came out perfect. It sounds like she actually did a ton of work. And by herself. Without an editor. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m curious to hear more from Hartley herself.”
Water rushes from the faucet and I can hear the sound of a bag being zipped closed.
“Whoa,” the woman with the nasal voice says. “Anika, you’ve got to see this.”
“I said no spoilers, Liz.”
“It’s not a spoiler. It’s worse. For you. And probably for Sofie Wilde.”
I halt my tapping foot.
“I thought her having the flu was just a rumor?” Anika says. “They’re hashtagging the crap out of her appearance on the Beautiful
panel. I can’t miss her! If only we could have afforded those launch party tickets!”
“One, my eardrums,” the nasal one her friend called Liz says. “Two, seems like she’s going to be there. But it’s Hartley who
has the flu. She’s pulled out.”
“Of the panel?”
“Of everything,” Liz says.
“Karma.”
“Maybe... or...”
“What?” says Anika, her excitement morphing into frustration.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Is it a spoiler?”
Liz says, “Not of the books, but maybe of Sofie.”
“This is bananas,” Anika says, and I make a mental note of her quite good use of the code word. “Just say it.”
“See for yourself.” The sound of something, presumably a phone, being set on the counter. “According to Twitter, Hartley West
isn’t sick. Sofie gave the convention an ultimatum: either Hartley West goes or she does. Hashtag #WildeWestShowdown.”
Seriously? How do these rumors even start?
Goth vampires. Can’t be trusted.
Liz adds, “No surprise who Romance US chose. It’s all about the bottom line.”
“ Or ,” Anika says, “about supporting the better author—the actual author. Maybe what Sofie said about this not being a meritocracy is starting to change things. Still, even I can say, it’s
not exactly the high ground. If it’s true.”
“True or not, they’re calling her a bully. And jealous. #SourSofie is starting to trend.”
“How is her agent letting this happen? Remember what Tara Kara said about their agent? He’d never let them be so disrespected.”
He being Max Donner.
I retrieve my phone to text Blaire but can’t stop myself from rereading the last text from Max: Stay the course, Wilde Woman. Hold tight.
I write to Blaire: Any progress?
Three little dots appear, then disappear. Then nothing.
But a message comes in from Lacey.
#SourSofie? You’re killing me. Full on, ice pick in the heart, machete to my neck, arsenic in my matcha latte. Now get to
your goddamned launch party.
I suck in a breath. #SourSofie will only bolster the worries of the bookstores on my tour. I cannot lose them or the chance
to plant seeds with my fans for the next version of me. Hartley has to be on that panel. I push open the stall door. The two
women see me in the mirror and gasp.
“So awful about Ms. West, isn’t it?” I say with such sincerity I almost fool myself. I begin washing my hands at the sink. “I’d have been bawling on the bathroom floor if I had to miss my first Romance US featured panel. Fortunately, technology truly is a lifesaver. Where would we be without Zoom?”
“She’s joining remotely?” says Liz, who’s borrowed her friend’s coral lipstick (which totally clashes with her skin tone,
by the way).
Anika bounces. “So she’s actually sick? I knew she was! You’re not sour at all, Sofie. I mean, Ms. Wilde.”
“No, it’s Sofie. Please.”
“Sofie.” Anika beams. She then nods at my red shirt. “Love it. Your scarves rock, obviously. But supporting the convention?
You’re a fan at heart, like us.”
“Exactly like you,” I lie. I’m taking control of this. Social media is not going to win. “I don’t mean to overstep, but I’m
on my way back to my sold-out launch party. Would you two care to join, on me? Front of the line?”
The two of them exchange a look of awe.
Liz wiggles her phone. “Photo?”
“Perfect.” I point to the stalls that would be our background and likely incite some “Sewer Sofie” hashtag. “Maybe the other
direction?”
We swivel around, and they flank me.
Just as the photo clicks, Anika says, “Ooh, Liz, why don’t you tell Sofie about your book! You’ve got to hear this. It’s incredible.
You should read it!”
I fight through the gritting of my teeth. “Why I’d love to.”
Red flames up Liz’s neck and she gives an embarrassed, “Uh, wow, thanks.” Then she clutches her phone and starts tapping.
“Photo uploaded. Hashtag #SweetSofie.”