3. Vacate the premises
3
VACATE THE PREMISES
HAZEL
Zoey’s phone rang incessantly, but since she couldn’t find it—again—we focused on packing up. The signing was officially over, though there were still three or four authors with long lines of eager readers.
“I’ve never felt more like a has-been than I did today.”
Zoey nodded briskly. “Good.”
“Good?”
She blew a curl out of her face. “Yeah, because I know you, Hazel Freaking Hart. I’ve known you since the third grade. You’re always one ‘you can’t do that’ away from a full-blown ‘hold my beer’ training montage.”
My smile was on the pathetic side, but it was there. “You’re such a weirdo.”
“That’s why you love me. Now, listen carefully. All it takes is one good book to turn all those beautiful readers into Jennys and Andreas. You’re a kick-ass author with amazing stories to tell. And who knows, you might just find your own happily ever after.”
I blew out a breath through my teeth. That was the thing. I’d had my shot at HEA, and it had blown up in my face. If there was one thing I knew for sure, you weren’t given unlimited chances in love. That’s why they called it “the one.”
Zoey unzipped the front pocket of the suitcase and shoved my barely used pen collection inside. “Aha! There you are, you sneaky little electronic turd,” she said, fishing her phone out of the pocket.
I shook my head. “You’re a walking disaster.”
“But I’m your walking disaster. Now let’s go get a drink.”
“How about several?” I countered.
“Even better.”
We headed for the door, excusing ourselves as we cut through one of the long lines. I glanced up and caught the look of panic on the author’s pretty face as she scanned the sheer number of bodies.
Zoey’s phone rang again. “Ugh. It’s my boss. I need to take this.”
“Give me the bag or you’ll wander off and leave it somewhere,” I said, taking the suitcase from her.
“One time. Okay fine, four times.”
I shooed her away.
“Lawrence, to what do I owe the honor on a Saturday?” Zoey said into the phone as she strode toward the door.
I paused again and looked back at the author. She still had fifty people in line, and she looked exhausted. I debated for almost a full minute before rummaging through the suitcase until I found what I was looking for. I made my way up to the table, where an overwhelmed line attendant held up her palms. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait your turn with all the many, many other readers.”
“I’m an author, and I have something for”—I glanced at the signage—“Stormi Garza.”
“Make it quick. We’re already going to be here through happy hour unless my menopause takes me down with a hot flash,” she said, swiping her forearm over her brow.
“Here’s a little something for you.” I handed the woman a protein bar and a sports drink.
“Ugh! You’re a damn angel,” she whispered, then tore the bar wrapper open with desperate violence.
I apologized to the readers at the front of the line and slid in behind the table.
“Hi. I’m Hazel,” I said to Stormi. “I thought you might need a rehydration break.” I handed over another bottle of sports drink and set it on the table in front of her.
Stormi looked at it like she might cry. She was pretty, curvy, and oh so young with a cloud of wavy black hair. “Thank you,” she rasped.
“Drink up,” I ordered. “You’re doing great. You’re almost done, and everyone is so happy to see you.”
“My face hurts from smiling, and I think my hand is going to fall off,” she admitted.
“I’ve got something for that too,” I said, sliding the small zippered cooler over the pretty purple tablecloth emblazoned with her logo.
“Is it alcohol? Please tell me it’s alcohol,” Stormi begged.
“Even better,” I promised. “It’s an ice glove for after the signing. You just slide your signing hand into it, and it helps with the inflammation. Plus, it’ll keep your drink cold while you hold it.”
“You’re my hero,” she said.
I waved awkwardly and ducked out from behind the table, carting the suitcase.
It felt like a symbolic passing of the torch. The old creaky athlete turning over the captain armband to someone with younger, fresher muscles. I was glad to help. But there was a part of me that I barely recognized. One that didn’t feel ready to just gracefully give up.
I found Zoey in the atrium, leaning against the glass rail and staring down at the fountain in the lobby below, her phone still clutched in her hand.
“I need a drink. How about you?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically hoarse.
“What’s wrong? Did a pigeon get in here?” Zoey’s fear of birds was an endless source of entertainment for me.
She looked up at me finally, her green eyes watery. “No. I just got fired.”
“So apparently today was the day I volunteered to babysit Earl Wiggens,” Zoey said, staring morosely into her drink. She’d asked the bartender for whatever drink contained the most amount of alcohol, and he’d delivered what constituted a vat of Long Island iced tea.
“The vaguely misogynistic horror writer who always puts his foot in his mouth during live interviews?” I prompted, stirring my vodka soda with the lime wedge.
“That’s the one. He’s one of the agency’s biggest clients. He had an interview scheduled with the New Yorker , but his agent is at a book fair in Germany. I thought it was next weekend. I put it in my calendar wrong.”
“Oh, Zo.” The woman’s failures with calendars were legendary.
“So he went to the interview alone and said something stupid,” she continued.
“They can’t fire you for something someone else’s author did,” I said, indignant.
Zoey folded her arms on the bar and rested her chin on them. “They can and they did. Lawrence said it was the last straw.”
I reached over and affectionately ruffled her curls. “What are you going to do?”
“Drink. A lot,” she said to the bar.
“Allow me to support you in your time of need.” I signaled the bartender for another round.
“I work so damn hard, but I just keep screwing up. Every other adult on the planet can use a calendar app. Not me. Now the agency is doing damage control and—oh my God! I have a noncompete,” she wailed. “I can’t take any of my clients with me, even if they were willing to overlook my gross negligence.”
Well, hell.
I’d known she’d taken some heat from work during the divorce. But I’d been mired in my own lengthy pity party and hadn’t thought much about anyone else. Zoey was the only one who had been pulling for me and pushing me. Now she’d lost her job because she’d shown up for me when I needed her.
I took her hand. “I know this doesn’t mean anything right now, but you have me. And just because I haven’t written a book in forever doesn’t mean I’m ready to be put out to pasture or whatever they do with old horses.”
“Glue factory.”
“Gross. I’m not going to the glue factory without a fight. Neither are you. We’ll get through this together. And then we’re going to rub our success in their stupid, smug faces.”
Zoey gave me a watery smile that wasn’t even remotely convincing. She didn’t believe me. Hell, I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t sure I believed me.
“Thanks, Haze. I appreciate you,” she said before finding her straw with her mouth and guzzling until the ice rattled in the glass.
I slumped against the wall of my building’s elevator. It wasn’t the four vodka sodas careening through my system that had robbed me of the will to stand up. It was reality.
It was barely 6 p.m. on a Saturday, and I was ready to crawl into bed for the next twenty hours. My limbs felt heavy, my head fuzzy. Why did life have to be so hard, require so much energy?
I stabbed the button for my floor and pulled out my phone, needing a numbing distraction from the spectacular defeat that was my career and the guilt I felt over Zoey’s blowing up.
Where were the videos of middle-aged men being surprised by puppies when you needed them?
The red notifications of missed calls and messages drew my attention, and I blew a duck-lipped raspberry of a sigh. It wasn’t like my day could get any worse.
I pushed play on the latest message.
“Ms. Hart, this is Rachel Larson, attorney at Brown and Hardwick. I’m reaching out to discuss the terms of your divorce settlement. Specifically your agreement to vacate my client’s apartment. My records indicate you were served papers last month. I must speak with you?—”
The very proper voice of Rachel Larson, attorney-at-law, cut off abruptly as I paused the message, not sure I could survive the rest of her sentence.
The elevator doors opened to my floor, and I stepped out in a fog into the once bougie, now mostly dated hallway. I vaguely recalled accepting some kind of package that I had to sign for. But it had been one bottle of wine into a binge-watch of Cougar Town .
Music and laughter came from two doors down. I couldn’t remember their names, but it was a couple in their fifties who hosted a monthly dinner party. I’d lived here three years before I realized their guests were other neighbors on the floor. We had never been invited.
Jim said it was because they were plebeian sports fans who wouldn’t know an aged cabernet if it punched them in their palate.
I’d hazarded a guess that it was sentiments like that that had kept us on the uninvited list.
After wrestling my keys from my bag, I shouldered my apartment door open and hurried inside. I dumped my things on the living room floor and performed a quick, messy search of the paperwork on the coffee table. I found the envelope with the Brown and Hardwick logo on it and ripped it open.
“Shit.” I skimmed the top page of the fat legal document. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten that in the ultimate act of conflict avoidance, I’d promised to move out twelve months after the ink dried on the divorce decree. It was more that I’d chosen to ignore that fact, temporarily confident that I’d pull myself out of the downward spiral in plenty of time to deal with the mess before it was too late.
…must vacate the premises by August 15.
“August fifteenth? As in five days from now? No, no, no. This can’t be happening!”
I pounced on my bag and dug out my phone again, hitting the Call button. “Yes, sorry to bother you on a weekend, but I need to speak with Rachel…somebody. This is Hazel Hart,” I said, doing my best not to spew my panic and frustration all over the weekend answering service.
“I’ve got instructions here to forward you straight to Ms. Larson. Also, my mother is a huge fan, Ms. Hart. She used to read your books all the time,” he said chirpily, as if his firm weren’t actively trying to make me homeless.
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
I paced and nibbled on my thumbnail to the jazzy hold music.
“Ms. Hart, so good of you to return my calls.” It sounded like Rachel “The Home Stealer” Larson was in the middle of some kind of indoor athletic event.
“Do you get paid extra for sarcasm?” I demanded.
“Ms. Hart,” she said with an “I deal with weirdos like you with my infinite well of expensive patience” tone. “I understand that these are trying times for you, but my client and my firm have given you ample time to make arrangements.”
“Arrangements for what? You booting me out of my home?”
“Technically it’s your ex-husband’s home.”
I shook my head violently. “No. No! He put my name on the deed when we got married.”
“Once again, Ms. Hart, according to our paperwork, he put your name on the mortgage, not the deed.”
“What difference does that make?” I demanded, tripping over a stack of overdue library books.
“It gives you half ownership of the debt instead of the asset.”
“Why? Why? I mean, why would someone who claims to love someone do that?”
“It’s not my job to question client motives.” There was a distinct whistle on her end of the call and the groan of a crowd.
“I’ve watched Suits three times the whole way through, and they make it seem like motive is kind of important,” I argued.
“Ms. Hart, the time to fight this is over. You are welcome to discuss this with your attorney, but at this point, you’re going to have to do that from a different apartment.”
“For the love of my last iota of sanity, call me Hazel. What if I buy it?”
“Hazel,” she said, “that’s certainly one possible option, though I’m not familiar with your financial situation. I’d advise you to consult your own attorney. But even if this is the path you choose, you still need to vacate the apartment by end of day Thursday.”
“And go where?” I squeaked.
“I’m sure you have friends or relatives who would be happy to host you until you decide on a course of action. Or maybe now is the time for a fresh start somewhere else,” Rachel said with just a whiff of the condescension a very important person with very important things to do could deliver.
My scoff could have leveled one of the houses of the three little pigs.
A fresh start? Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? I was a New Yorker, born and bred. I’d never lived anywhere else. Not even Long Island. I was the Manhattanite who rolled her eyes whenever a peer announced they were moving out of the city for a house with a yard. Who wanted to mow grass when you could walk a block in either direction and enjoy high-end shopping or Michelin-starred Ethiopian food?
New York was my home. The only one I’d ever known. I was born here, and up until seven minutes ago, I’d kind of assumed I’d die here.
“I’m glad we were finally able to connect. I look forward to a peaceful resolution. Please don’t hesitate to call the office if you have any more questions concerning your settlement,” Rachel said before disconnecting the call.
“Hello? Hello?” I demanded dramatically to the dead line.
I tossed the phone down on top of the paperwork and began to pace. I had a contract lawyer. But her area of expertise was more publishing deals and less cleaning up personal life messes. And my divorce lawyer had been so appalled at my pathological desire to give up, I doubted she would willingly speak to me again. I should have listened to her. I should have fought harder. What had I been thinking? Always the nice girl. Always afraid to make waves. At the very least, I should have swallowed my pride, called my mother, and begged for her expertise. Instead I’d rolled over and played dead, and it had cost me dearly.
“You were supposed to be the one,” I muttered out loud in case the spirit of ex-husbands past was lurking around. Scrubbing my hands over my face, I continued to pace. None of my heroes would have ever done this to my heroines. But Jim was no hero, and I was no plucky heroine. I was a depressed, divorced, middle-aged mess, and I needed a solution.
It had been a long time since I’d had to brainstorm any creative solutions to a problem—fictional or otherwise. I felt like I was mentally wading through Elmer’s glue.
Oh, God. Was Elmer’s made from old horses? Was the first horse they turned to glue named Elmer?
I shook the thought out of my head. “Focus, Hazel. Think. What solves all problems?”
Wine? No. Family? Definitely not. My feet stopped in their tracks. “Money.”
I unearthed my laptop and took it to the kitchen counter, too keyed up to sit down. It took me three tries, but I finally remembered the password to my brokerage account and logged in.
“Okay. Not awful, but not ‘purchase an apartment in Manhattan,’” I noted, eyeing the balance. Thanks to automatic bill pay, irregular paychecks, and my complex bout of grief, shame, and lethargy, I’d been lax about everything…including checking in on my financial situation. There hadn’t been any new book advances thanks to me blowing fart noises at my deadlines. And from the looks of things, royalties were down. Way down.
Good thing I had experience raising fictional characters from rock bottom. I just needed to think like a heroine.