Chapter 6
“Now that’s the thing, Bryony. I did not trick you . Stop yelling that and get your head inside before I get pulled over. I did not kidnap you. I am just very casually, on this abysmally humid Friday in July, taking you out for dinner. You said you wanted to eat
out of the city . ”
“Referring to, oh, I don’t know ,” I cry out as Jack cruises us over the bridge, spitting hair from my mouth as the wind beats my face, “maybe somewhere like
Florence .”
“You said you were tired of eating at the regular spots. You said you were bored . So voilà”—he gestures at the fan vents—“air-conditioning enough to host an aurora of polar bears.”
He’s trying to distract me by using the interesting fact I learned during a research rabbit trail about a group of polar bears
being called an aurora. It’s not going to work. I will not be deterred.
“You asked me if I was ‘in the mood for tomato pie,’” I spit out. “You did not say the tomato pie would be in Philly .” I watch as the sign for Philadelphia whips by.
“We both know you know the best tomato pie is at Gaeta’s on Singapore Avenue, which happens to be in Philly.” He frowns at
something and adjusts the mirror. “Is that ketchup all down my shirt? Exactly how long have I had ketchup running down my shirt ?”
“But I didn’t know it was for this !” I exclaim, ignoring his question, to which the answer is roughly four hours, since we stopped at the hot dog stand this
afternoon—the stand I love that he hates.
“A mere two hours. It’ll fly by.” He grabs a wipe from his meticulously laid out console between us and begins wiping. I stare
at the stretch of interstate ahead of us.
Something is suspicious in all this.
Something I’m missing.
We always end up taking each other places we’d rather not be. That’s kind of a staple of our agent-writer-colleague-friend-but-not-too-close-friend-support-system
relationship. We are oil and water. City mouse and country mouse. A little too delicate and a little too cynical about life.
I made him join a bowling league he hates, and he takes me to the trendiest, stupidest, appetizer-for-birds restaurants he
wants to try out. It works.
But this?
This is something different.
There’s something here.
I frown.
“Amelia’s going to be there, isn’t she?”
And to this, to my incredulity, he gives a little shrug.
I’m already groaning before he can reply.
I’m a toddler, I know.
I’m throwing a temper tantrum, I know .
But really, my situation is much more legitimate when comparing it to a hostage situation.
I could swear I hear a click beneath my window as he surreptitiously relocks the door on the off chance I try to open, tuck, and roll.
I snap my fingers, remembering vaguely one of the millions of emails I end up CC’d on against my will. “She has some event
tonight. At the Pennsylvania Convention Center. ”
“Is that tonight? Ah, you’re right. So it is. Oh.” He raises his finger, as though this is a novel idea. “Well, it might be
nice to get together a group chat. Perhaps you two can even discuss the book you’re working on together—”
“Not together—”
“—right now. Maybe you could even brainstorm over that scene you’re stuck on.”
“ What? ” I screech, gritting my teeth together.
“What?” He shrugs. “You call me at all hours of the night to make me listen silently while you talk about whether the house
needs to be ‘representative of Beau’s childhood’ or whether Pete’s actions were so villainous readers will find him unredeemable
or whether the pomegranate juice should be on the table or beside it. Amelia has plenty of opinions—”
“Too many.”
I’m on the back end of a dozen ridiculous emails she sends per day. Ideas she just likes to throw out at random.
Just got back from Morocco. It’s stunning. We must make it there.
Look at this fantastic green juice mix I’ve been making. Put it in. In fact, she just has to be a fitness guru—it’s important
to encourage my fans to live better. To be better.
All when I’m thirty thousand words into a piece of work that has nothing to do with green juice and is three thousand miles away from Morocco.
Does anybody even know how hard it is to randomly throw Morocco into a book about a low-wage baker’s attempt to scrape together finances and move beyond a rough past to get back his daughter
lost to the foster care system, all enveloped in a hearty rom-com?
Very hard.
“Never. Ever. In my life would I ever ever ever seek to brainstorm with that woman. She already casually adds plagues into my life every time I have a conversation with her. Not to mention, the woman literally replied when asked if she uses a dog-ear or bookmark, ‘Oh, bookmark absolutely . I’m a vegetarian.’”
I give him a grim face.
Jack chuckles quietly at that one.
I will not be dissuaded.
I level my gaze. “If you recall, that was the same interview where she was asked, ‘You are so active in your tours! How on
earth do you have time to handle both writing and all of these visits around the country?’ And she said a breezy, ‘Writing is just so natural, if you really think of it. I just jot down a little problem and follow the trail to its natural conclusion. Honestly,
I think the real challenge is figuring out how to make it from Atlanta to Nashville in rush-hour traffic with your lipstick
in place. I mean, believe me. To get to all these beautiful events with you wonderful people is the real challenge. But’—cue high-pitched giggle—‘that’s the business of entertainment!’”
Jack chews his lower lip as he desperately tries not to smile at the idiocy of Amelia’s words and prove my point. And, I imagine,
he’s also trying pretty desperately to dig up some redeeming thing to say.
“Stop.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t even try to free her from that horrific interview. No. No no no no no. I don’t care how great
the pie is, I don’t want to meet her.” I slice my arms in the air. “I can’t take it. No more meetings.”
And then something occurs to me. I give him a suspicious squint. “What happened? What dumb thing did she do?”
What exactly has caused this disruption in my life?
It’s maddening. Maddening to live a life joined at the hip with someone who can manage to screw up so much. We’re conjoined
twins. Dependent on each other and yet I’m consistently feeling that I carry 90 percent of the weight.
Jack tilts his head, as though trying to pick his words carefully. At last he says, “Well. She didn’t have the best interview
this week.”
“And?”
I essentially gave her CliffsNotes for the talk on the book. Note cards detailing what precisely she should say in little snippets about the book. This is not my problem. She should read the books she continuously claims are her own.
“And... the team has come up with an idea.”
My voice lowers further. “And?”
“And... the reality is, we need to have a group conference and make some decisions. For better or worse, you two are stuck
together.”
“It’s worse. It’s definitely worse.”
“And it’s a good job—”
“That I do away from her in the safety of my cat pajamas—”
“And you like your job—”
“I like that my book is getting closer to contract with you as my agent—”
“And you have a contract saying you will show up on occasion when requested to be there.”
That’s it. I pop open his glove box, take hold of his obsessively organized pairs of sunglasses, and start dispensing them
in various spots around the car. “You should’ve told me.”
He commences picking up the sunglasses from the dash and gearshift. “And you would have found some excuse to hide in your
apartment and renege your contractual duties if I’d have told you about this meeting ahead of time. And then that would lead
to a broken contractual relationship. And that would lead you to lose your job. And your primary source of income—because
we both know you teach for next to nothing. And your precious opportunity to squirrel away money for the job from which you get paid next to nothing. The place where you actually pay them to teach. As in, indentured servitude.
So,” Jack says, turning up the air coolers on my seat. “Amazing tomato pie .”
I give him the death stare. Partly because it’s very cruel what he’s doing, and partly because I know he’s right. I would
have found an excuse, any excuse, not to be within yelling distance of Amelia. Not because I yell, exactly, but because she does.
“And don’t worry. I’m going to do my best to make this a pleasant conversation for everyone. I am on your side. ” He gives me what is supposed to be a meaningful look.
I frown. “Don’t give me that look. You also give her that look.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.” I throw my hands over my eyes. “Don’t give me any look right now that you give all your other clients to woo
them into trusting you with all their heart and soul.”
“Believe me, Bryony. You’re the only one getting this look.”
I wait for several seconds, my feet on the dash, eyes squeezed shut. Then I venture a peek at him.
He’s there, looking at me with that same expression. The kind of look in his eyes that says, “ Let’s just jump off this cliff together. It’ll be okay .”
And then you do. Jump off an entire stupid cliff like an idiot and smack flat onto the ground three hundred feet down.
We stare off, minus the flicks back to watch the interstate, for some time.
He with his “ Trust me, I’m harmless ” gaze, me with my “ I hate everything about this moment and possibly you too ” glare.
At last, he caves.
“You know what I think?” He shifts gears rapidly. “I think we need to get you that standing desk you were moaning about the
other day for your neck pain. Let’s throw in the ergonomic keyboard too. A business expense covered by the agency. We need
to keep your health a top priority.”
“Jack.”
But he’s already calling up Siri to call up his PA on the phone. She’s answered and he’s telling her to run down the internet
and find the best standing desk company cards can buy. She says they have one in black and one in mahogany.
I jump in asking CJ about a whitewash option, and ta-da.
He manages to successfully distract me until we are, in fact, in Philly. Once inside the small restaurant, we are directed
to a giant booth in the corner. The one tiny sliver of light in this is that Jack was honest about one thing, and we actually
ended up at Gaeta’s after all.
Just to throw more stale basil onto the evening, four pinched smiles greet us as I sit down and slide the Gaeta’s menu out of the way. Bright side: The tomato pie is truly the best and only thing worth getting here—as Jack and I discovered last year around the Fourth of July. The rest of the menu is just made up of filler words. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even know how to make—my eyes flicker down to the menu and read a random line—sautéed shrimp.
Jack motions for me to scooch over, closer to the four figures, as he scoots in beside me.
I’m stranded here now.
Locked in.
Mona from publicity sits directly opposite me. Midthirties. Diehard publishing type. Always up with the latest trends. Always
trying to get her authors to partake in unorthodox methods to keep them on the leading edge, like setting that one eighty-year-old
up in a desk and chair on a floating sheet of ice to do a “fascinating” news video interview detailing his new fiction book—written
in tandem with a real, live PhD—of which the main character is a scientist studying the effects of climate change on the Antarctic
glaciers. And oh, by the way, please be careful not to slip, Richard. That kind of thing. She’s got a new hairstyle today.
Actually, she always has new hair. This time it’s razor cut at the jaw, no doubt symbolizing her cutting-edge approach to
life.
Susanna, Amelia’s/my editor, gives me a sheepish, apologetic smile. Early forties. Two young kids who scribble adorably on
her papers sometimes and leave her perennially, nervously on edge. Her hair is done up in what looks like yesterday’s bun.
Her big round glasses are adorable on her rounded chipmunk cheeks per usual. She looks at me wearily, but friendly lines bracket
her smile as though she, too, was dragged here somewhat against her will.
Amelia’s young lapdog, Penny, sits beside her in head-to-toe yellow, poised already with pen in hand. Amelia takes Penny everywhere, because apparently Amelia doesn’t understand how to use her phone for note-taking and consequently treats Penny like a living Siri. She seems nice enough, not that I know her very well, considering Amelia trades out the Pennys like she trades out her cars—which, for the record, is roughly every three months.
And then directly beside me is Amelia, looking faintly confused as to why we have ended up in a place with entrée items below
forty dollars. Her spine juts straighter than a fishing rod toward the ceiling. She looks like she is trying very hard to
touch the faded red vinyl booth she’s sitting on as little as possible. A vibrant pink stretch of pearls matching a vibrant
pink silk blouse rests on Amelia’s perfectly sculpted neck, all framed by perfectly bouncy bottle-blonde curls. Even her vibrantly
pink and impossibly thin stiletto heels look like they are hovering just above the sticky floor. And really, would it surprise
me? To discover Amelia is a witch?
“Ah, the dream team all together,” Jack says with a grin as exaggeratedly big as his voice. He raises a finger for the waiter
beside him. “This calls for celebration. Two bottles of your finest champagne for the table, please.”
I clear my throat. Jack adds begrudgingly, “And a sweet tea.”
Amelia’s glossy lips do a little pucker my way, and I’m already beginning to ball my hands into fists in my lap, readying
for whatever nonsense she brings. But a little ding rings out from her phone. And then she’s gone. Gone into the little words on her screen, scrolling and tapping like her life
depends on it.
She does this, for the record, a lot.
I take a deep, already-exhausted-by-this-experience breath.
The rest of the restaurant is crowded, as all the restaurants lining Singapore Avenue are at this hour. The walls are covered
in yellowing vintage posters of bottles of olive oil for twenty-five cents and bunches of tomatoes on the vine for five pennies.
Little fingerprints smudge the glass, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t had a spray bottle on them in years. But
whatever the atmosphere lacks, it makes up for in the air.
The room is one big perfume bottle of basil and garlic and freshly baked bread and, of course, roasted tomatoes. And given the number of tomato pies I see around the room, all propped up on pizza racks on tables, I imagine they go through hundreds of tomatoes a week. Acres worth.
Music plays loudly over the speakers, something indiscernibly old-fashioned and Italian and cheery—the kind of music that
puts people in the kind of mood to spend money and eat tomato pie. And the loudness and the smudges and the general stickiness
of the floor and ceiling and menus are forgivable. It’s always forgivable because the food is that good . The environment of it all mixed together is that good . Everyone understands and accepts this, even cherishes it, because this is Gaeta’s way.
Much like a sun-dried tomato taken straight out of the jar is inedible but becomes indefinably delicious when used within
the secret sauce, so the smudges and stickiness and loudness all combine to create an extremely memorable kind of place.
Magical, if you will.
When you go to Gaeta’s, you are guaranteed to leave like everyone else, arm in arm with your friends and a to-go bag in your
hand as you sing “Que Será Será!” with a smile on your face.
“Can you turn it down?”
My head snaps to Amelia.
The waiter, standing beside me with the wine cork in his hand, snaps his head to Amelia.
Everyone in the room, it seems, has snapped their head to Amelia.
She looks at me, then Mona, the waiter, and finally Jack, who, to his credit, looks just as personally assaulted as everyone
else within earshot.
“It’s just... a little loud.” Amelia shrugs as if to say, “ This is absolutely no big deal. ” As if walking into a perfectly imperfect place and immediately demanding change is no big deal .
After a few seconds with no response, she adds, “It’s just”—her eyes bounce around to each of us—“I have to speak in two hours for an event. And I am just trying to be careful not to lose my voice.”
“Then simply stop talking, Amelia.”
A pause ensues as everyone’s eyes swivel to the last person on earth to say this to Amelia. Jack.
If there’s one thing about Jack, it’s that Jack does not offend his clients. I believe, in fact, one of Jack’s main career responsibilities is to keep his clients puffed up at all
times. This, he takes as his personal responsibility. Your books don’t sell (not that I’ve personally experienced this part,
but I’ve heard him plenty of times on phone calls), Jack is there to tell you it’s simply the market’s fault. Shame on the
market. Shame on the whole economy. Never fear, your next book will pick up and race along like a two-year-old stallion.
You’re struggling to write and voice that you are a failure? Jack is there to tell you that it’s the weather. It’s unseasonably
cold, and with the cold front, nobody on earth has been able to get any work done and haven’t you even read the latest news? (Cue him conjuring up some obscure article with whatever he wants to
prove.) Work ethic is down 18 percent with these rains, and the best thing you can do right now is book a cruise. Yes. A cruise.
A cruise will solve all your writing problems.
Half of Jack’s job seems to be swiveling you, the author, around enough times that you’re dizzy and then halting and pointing
the blame on anything and everything aside from yourself or him. It’s the economy. The weather. The ridiculous publisher and
their ridiculous demands (though this one typically comes right before he decides to push you off the cliff toward another
publisher).
Jack does not ever, now that I think of it, encourage personal responsibility. I believe he thinks of us authors more as show
dogs. Lavish us with bubble baths and put bows on our ears so we can prance around performing our best.
It’s why I hardly ever take his words to heart.
And why precisely at this moment, his words are incredibly jolting.
“The team has a lot to say in the next hour regarding ideas and plans,” Jack continues, “and you have your voice to protect, so just relax and let everyone else do the speaking as much as possible, mmm?”
Amelia, ever the victim of flattery, releases the tension in her eyes and sits back.
Her pupils are actually undilating before our very eyes. Like Dracula. It’s downright creepy.
She seems to recall exactly where she is and sits up again.
Jack slides her a drink and motions for one of the women to begin.
“Soooo,” Susanna begins in a singsong voice, the least offensive one among them. Her smile is frozen on her heart-shaped face
and her cheeks hold a rosy glow. She swipes at her phone. “Shall I start us off?”
Amelia’s phone dings and then rings. “I’m listening. I have to do some work while you talk, but I’m here.” Amelia does not
even so much as look Susanna in the eye as she swipes her phone. “Yeah.” She pulls the phone to her ear, all while pointing
at Penny.
Penny snaps her pen on her paper and begins scribbling.
“Of course,” Susanna says sheepishly. “Terrrrific.”
I drag my sweet tea toward me and plunge my straw in.
“Everything,” Susanna says, “I should say to begin, is great. It’s great . We have been thrilled overall with this system over the past two years and how your partnership has turned out. Your books—”
“ My books,” Amelia interjects, cocking her head with her phone glued to her ear.
“Yes,” Susanna says with a smile at the reminder Amelia has given, yet again, that I have no ownership. “The second person,
single you ,” she continues, and I stifle a smile at this oh-so-tiny bookish comment and Susanna’s oh-so-tiny pinched eyes. “And the
Brooks Publishing team in general cannot be more excited to see what’s in store for us over the course of this next year.
We have no doubt Babies over Bayou and the next two releases will be even bigger blockbuster events.”
“Two?” I cast a look (i.e., glare) at Jack.
He grabs my balled-up fist beneath the table. Gives a little shake of his head as if to say, “ No, they’ve definitely got that wrong, but it’s of such little significance let’s not bring it up now. ”
I dig my nails into his palm, just enough to see him wince.
“But?” I say. Might as well get to the massively bad news before the pie comes. Don’t want the taste of massively bad news
to ruin the one highlight of tonight.
“But.” Susanna pulls a little oh dear face. “At the event last night—and that really was a wonderful event. Nice job as always, Amelia”—she flashes a huge smile
at the top of Amelia’s head just in case she decides to look up—“but there was that one teeny tiny, uh... episode...
during the Q&A that set us all thinking about our upcoming book launch.”
Susanna pauses. Takes a breath.
So this swing’s going to come Amelia’s way then. This is a free show for me.
I lean forward, taking a suck of my tea.
“Episode?” Amelia’s head snaps up.
“Not episode .” Mona jumps in with her low, efficient tone. “More like a moment of truth. We just realized something after the Q&A that
let us know we need to redirect the ship here. All to keep it running smoothly.”
Amelia’s eyes squint so much that those extremely long false lashes she wears for events overlap each other, looking ready
to get tangled and blindfold her. It must be a big event tonight at the conference center, because the bigger the event, the
longer the lashes are. And tonight they’re long enough to block her from reaching her wineglass with her lips. She blinks
a few times until they let go of one another.
“Which is?” Amelia prompts suspiciously, dropping the phone from her ear and giving Susanna and Mona her direct attention.
Just daring them to criticize her “rigorous art of entertainment.”
“Bottles over Books went off with a bang. We had such a line out the door the police got involved. They thought it was a rage party .”
“The event was extremely productive ,” Mona reaffirms.
Susanna clutches her wine and commences to take tiny, sheepish sips.
“ You were great,” Mona continues, when Amelia doesn’t show any sign of calming down. “You have a very specific”—she pauses, finding
the word—“ warmth that draws people to you at these gatherings. We’re always using footage of you at your events to show our other authors,
demonstrating how to perfectly capture your audience.”
Amelia sniffs. Looks to Jack.
“You do have a gift,” Jack says.
Amelia bypasses me and looks to Susanna, who is nodding on repeat silently.
“But,” Mona continues, when several seconds have passed and it has been made sufficiently clear that everyone (minus me) at
the table has properly stroked her ego, “when you referred to a character as ‘my sweet spot, Sam’—”
“That? That is your concern?” Amelia interjects with a laugh. “So his name is Nate,” she says, flapping a hand. “I have so many books. Authors forget their characters’ names all the time.”
“But he is also a serial killer.” Mona cuts to the point. “And you said he was inspired by your real-life childhood crush.”
Amelia pauses and looks up. Blinks several times. “Nate is a murderer ? The dog-loving love interest?” She shoots me an accusing glare.
“He isn’t a love interest.” I feel the rising need to defend myself. “He’s the neighbor.”
“How can he not be a love interest?” Amelia says. “I have pages of emails from fans telling me they love Nate.”
“Sounds like there’s something wrong with your fans,” I reply, and Jack’s knee jabs mine beneath the table.
“I think what everyone’s trying to get at here,” Mona jumps in, “is that you are right.”
She lets that sink in for a moment, because we all know Amelia likes to hear that phrase.
“You do have a lot of books coming out each year, and because of that it’s just becoming easier and easier to make a misstep. We need to change
something about our setup because, unfortunately, some of your answers to the questions about the book just didn’t line up
with the content inside it. And if you weren’t able to go over the PowerPoint that was sent over—”
“I was traveling last week,” Amelia snaps defensively, as though this is a logical excuse to dismiss the fact that I created
and sent the PowerPoint over four weeks ago and it was a sum total of ten slides. Ten. She’s not even asked to read my books anymore. They asked me at the last minute to whittle down my eighty-thousand-word novel into a mere ten slides that would
take a total of ten minutes to go over, and she couldn’t even manage that.
“Traveling makes it tough,” Amelia says.
Susanna is nodding like a bobblehead in the face of this comment, despite the fact she herself has told me she sometimes reads
over three hundred pages a day for work. Three hundred. A day.
Mona looks to Jack, and Jack takes the lead. “And what that tells us is that you are just far too busy and need some help.
Your work is extremely demanding, Amelia.”
Flagrant lie.
“You are busy.”
Another flagrant lie.
“And frankly, we just can’t afford any more near misses. The world is watching you”—Amelia smiles at this little reminder—“and
recording every second of it. And right now, the worst thing that can happen is if people start puzzling bits and pieces from
every second of your life and drawing conclusions we’d rather them not draw. If we don’t take this more seriously, this whole
thing could slam to a stop. It’s hard enough to get every question right at these interviews even when you are the writer of the book. And we’re starting to deal with obsessed-level fans, the kind who annotate every other line with color-coded pens and Post-its and form diagrams on their walls to discuss on fan accounts. These people are getting their PhD in Amelia Benedict books. And soon enough, we’ll have one misstep too many, and no offer of free signed bookplates can cover it up.”
He finishes, and a tingle goes down my spine.
This is the closest he’s ever come to giving any of his clients a true critique, which can mean only one thing: He means it.
Whatever happened at that event last night was truly so close a call that he was willing to put his neck on the line for this.
Amelia, with a firm exhale of breath, flips her phone over and puts it on the table face down. There’s a finality to the movement.
A symbolic seriousness to her motions. “Fine. What do I do?”
“You can cancel the tour—” Mona begins.
“Absolutely not ,” Amelia snaps.
But of course she won’t.
We are all entirely convinced the motivation for Amelia isn’t so much the money (given her being a Benedict heiress, she’ll
never lack for anything) as the fame. It’s the need to talk to people. To be seen by people doing important things at important
places. Sitting in prominent seats at said important places with her lovely, bouncing, shining hair.
Amelia Benedict, in her very own shiny spotlight, just like her mother.
To take that away is to take away her reason for life.
“Or,” Mona says pointedly, “we have another, potentially better, plan in mind. And it’s Bryony we have a couple requests for.”
Oh no.
“Bryony.” She shifts her attention to me. “We’re going to try to reel in as much interview time as possible from now on. Take
out the spontaneity factor. Of course there are always going to be those spontaneous questions that come in during the signing
portion or Q&A, but at least for the first portion, we can try to control the situation.
“I’ll email the venues a list of ten preplanned questions we can all agree upon here , tonight , so we can all feel confident knowing we are reaching the public in a more contained atmosphere. Sometimes venues are particular about their events, sometimes the panels and the structure of the event just won’t allow it, but overall, we think this is a good plan. We have a second step to the plan we want to initiate to try to cover any problems that arise from those open Q&A sessions, but right now, can you help us by answering these specific questions?”
I’m sucking in tea from my straw and nodding at the same time. So I was kidnapped for the purpose of providing answers for
the discussion questions tonight. Easy peasy.
In fact, aside from inhaling Amelia’s overly pungent beachy perfume (she also tends to follow the rule of “the bigger the
event, the more dousing in perfume”), this is even a bit of a treat.
Tomato pie. Sweet tea. Gaeta’s glorious atmosphere. If I’m painfully honest with myself, I even like talking books with Susanna
and Mona—so long as Amelia falls into doomscrolling the internet for paparazzi photos of herself under the veil of “work”
and doesn’t interfere. Actually, being personally asked about the books I wrote makes me feel in the tiniest way special.
A little interview of my own. About the book I hugged so closely for hours and weeks and months.
“Terrific.” Susanna claps her hands as she snaps open her laptop. “Does this sound good to you, Amelia? Shall we start this
new plan tonight?”
“Yeah. Fine,” Amelia says with a little shrug, her eyes starting to droop toward her phone.
“And so you can listen here to what Bryony says so you’re ready, okay?” Susanna says, with the softest little nudge that screams, “ For the love, please listen so you don’t try to crash all of our careers, okay?! ”
Which is the tricky thing about Amelia, as a matter of fact. Her math skills aren’t the brightest, and so despite the fact that the one book she wrote a handful of years ago garnered ten thousand sales, only roughly fifty times less than what her books sell now in the first year, she was and forever claims she is the original author. The real writer. Hence why Susanna and Mona can’t convince her to worry much about her little ghostwriter secret. Because to her, she is the writer. Sometimes she throws out a little line suggesting a setting or occupation to me and somehow thinks that equals
her actually playing a major role in the writing portion. I’m just a Penny to her—the person jotting down those eighty-thousand-word little
details surrounding her brilliant concept of “make her a yoga instructor.”
“Okay,” she says, but she’s already sucked into her phone.
I exchange glances with Susanna and Mona and, for a moment, do feel for them. It’s like trying to convince a toddler to eat
her peas. The best you can do is put the plate in front of her and sit there, desperately hoping she picks one up and ingests it.
The tomato pie comes to the table and we dig in—while Amelia picks here and there at the iceberg in her salad. Penny scribbles
furiously through the questions. Should I buy her a stenograph machine like Gloria has for court reporting as a Christmas-in-July
present? Help with the inevitable carpal tunnel she is getting as we eat?
The questions are typical.
“What was your inspiration for The Seven-Year Holiday ?”
“In chapter 5, we see Nate returning to his elementary school as they open up a time capsule from thirty years prior. Why
does he find the compass? What’s the meaning behind the compass?”
“What was it like writing the scene where Nate is given the contents of his former best friend’s capsule addition? Why is
the baseball card poignant?”
At one point Amelia lifts her head to interrupt my lengthy answer to “What is the most difficult part of writing a book?”
with “Picking the cover,” followed with a syrupy laugh that forces laughs from everyone else, after which she points to Susanna
and says, “Write that down.”
The cadence of the rest of the hour goes pretty smoothly, though. Mona asks a question, I answer, Susanna types and coughs every once in a while to grab Amelia’s attention. Mona asks a question, I answer, Susanna types and coughs with a poignant, hopeful stare in Amelia’s direction.
It’s all pretty cut-and-dried until the last question, when Amelia pulls away from her social media stupor and fixes her attention
on us. “What was that last question?”
“What are you working on next?” Susanna says. “And Bryony said”—Susanna looks at her computer screen—“‘I don’t want to give
too much away, but I’m thirty thousand words into this heartwarming story set in one of my favorite places on earth: deep
in the heart of the marshlands of Beaufort, South Carolina. A single parent of nine-year-old James moves in next door to a
third-generation farmer and her own nine-year-old, and when the children become fast friends, they spark something and ultimately
teach their parents about how life is miraculous when people, against all odds, sacrifice for the well-being of one another.’”
Amelia frowns. “Where’s the romance?”
“It’s with the parents,” I say.
“Where’s the comedy?”
“There’s humor. It’s woven throughout.”
“I don’t know how it can when it sounds like you’re so busy dealing with ‘sacrificing’ and ‘miraculous living.’”
“Amazingly enough,” I say with a snap in my tone, “books can be romantic comedies and use more descriptors than saying the guy was ‘a billionaire and, like, super hot.’”
“Bryony has managed to make room for it all. That’s what makes all these books so special,” Susanna adds quickly, nodding
fervently between us.
Amelia squints. Opens her mouth.
We wait for her to speak for ten seconds.
Then wait again as she tilts her head, screwing up her forehead in thought. She presses her lips together with a faraway look,
as if this is all really important and it is vital that she be the one to figure it all out.
At last, she comes to “Change it to the Keys.”
“What? No—”
“Nobody goes to Beaufort. Key West is the place to go. Key West is the destination where people want to plop down in their beach chairs and read something fun. Beach reads are for beachy places with white sand and dolphins and sunshine, not slimy seaweed and alligators. It’s a marketing thing,” Amelia says with
a wave of her hand, as if I would never get it.
I bite my bottom lip. This is why I try not to tell her anything about the book for as long as humanly possible. Preferably until it has already gone to print.
I can’t just “change” it to Key West. Key West is pretty, but Beaufort has the vibrant Gullah culture sitting side by side with modernized Simple Living –style farmhouses. Beaufort has the low country. Beaufort has the culture of a little Charleston in its downtown bayside living without giving up the history of generations of people
who still live there. Beaufort has Spanish moss draped over live oak trees. Beaufort , more specifically St. Helena Island, has the kind of quiet the boys need from my story.
Uh-oh. I’ve done it again.
I can feel the rising mother bear inside me longing to throw myself over my story, protect it feverishly from anyone who dares
to take my cub from me.
I love my story.
I love the vibrant green of the black gum trees outside James’s window and the symbolism of their color drifting to wildfire orange
in fall.
I love the sound of the gravel as Theo’s mom’s truck crunches down the long residential driveway leading to their pristine white,
newly constructed Plan A103 farmhouse from page 39 of Simple Living magazine, directly beside the russet-colored single-wide resting on cinder blocks with the loose hinge on the swinging front
door.
I love the spit of gravel and kick of the boys’ legs as they race side by side for the school bus, their parents watching from the
front porches with coffee clutched in hand.
I love the message I plan to bring to the story.
And I know I’m not supposed to, I know it only causes heartache for me, but I can’t help it. I’m a surrogate mother and eventually
I have to give this baby away and it drives me insane .
“And drop the kids,” Amelia says.
I feel it. It feels like she just slashed the two little boys in half.
Their history, gone. The world never to see what beautiful things they did together.
Their whole lives, gone.
My face must be draining of color because Jack steps in. “Amelia, I’ve heard all about this story. It’s going to be great—”
“Kids out ,” she says more firmly. “I hate books with kids in them. People hate kids enough in real life . Nobody wants to hear more about other people’s children when they’re trying to read and escape their own .”
How? How is this the same woman who wins over millions of people through her television interviews? There really could be
twins here: one evil, the other the angel the evil one lets out temporarily to do interviews.
Susanna, who just five minutes prior had showed everyone a picture of her daughter getting third place at a gymnastics competition,
stares down painfully at her laptop with inflamed cheeks.
Meanwhile, I’m a teakettle. My head is suddenly aching. Spinning. There are so many consequences to just changing the setting
to Key West and dropping the main characters (whom, again, I love ). A sick and unsettling feeling persists in the dizziness. A growing shock. A mourning. A weight of a hundred bricks dropped
on my head. Thoughts whizzing in and out.
The deadline is in three months. I’m struggling as it is.
A thought forms: Maybe I could just write them into a different story. Tuck the boys away safe and sound and write them out
on my own later.
But when?
When would I ever have the time?
I’d have to completely change everything to do that. The parents need to be different. The message, different. Their jobs
different. Houses. Lifestyles. Names. Hobbies. Motivations. Longings. Backstories.
To keep this book as my own and give it any hope of meeting the world one day, I’ll have to shelve the whole story now. Drop
it into the proverbial file cabinet and write fresh.
Can I do that?
Could I ever have time to bring my own story to life?
And who would even publish it?
And why is it so congested in this tiny booth? I can’t breathe!
My breathing is shallow and small.
The feeling of Jack to one side and Amelia’s silky, smelly blouse on the other is making me painfully claustrophobic. My knees
knock against the bottom of the table. I have no space to work.
To live.
“Amelia.” Jack’s voice is calm but firm. Steady. “Let’s not consider asking her to rewrite the book thirty thousand words
in. It’s July. This book will be not just completed but flying off the shelves in nine months. There’s a firm publishing schedule,
and it would be highly unadvisable to break it. And for what? Let’s keep the kids. Bryony has her pulse on what her readers—your readers—want. Let’s
give it to them with all we’ve got. High sales. A win for everyone .”
A pause follows and he raises his hand for the waiter. “Look, we finished the Q&A. I think we should take a beat, take a breath,
get some coffee. Amelia, it’ll be good for your speaking.”
Amelia, who often downs a double shot of espresso to keep herself sprightly and to warm up her vocals, backs down a little at the suggestion, and for the moment the topic is dropped.
The conversation proceeds to shift, at Jack’s subtle direction, to any topic besides that of writing (and, poor Susanna, kids), which with Amelia here naturally means it lands on what makes her happiest. Her. And for the next twenty minutes, everyone pretends to care an extreme amount about her latest flight to Sarasota and nods sympathetically at her latest crisis of losing her luggage for a sum total of four hours after her first-class flight.
Everyone, of course, has their personal reasons for drumming up puppy eyes while she drones on, and normally I’d make it my
personal goal in life to ask targeted questions about her luggage situation, where her responses would be so egocentric she’d
have to realize how self-centered she is and backtrack just a bit. But after the near loss of Theo and James, I don’t have any
fire in me.
These are the moments I’m grateful to have Jack at my side. He has never quite understood why I care so much for the content
of my work, or how message always trumps money for me, at least any money not supporting The Bridge, but he respects my priorities.
He respects me. And for that reason I’m ever grateful he is in my corner.
I’m just settling back down nerve-wise when Amelia turns to me. “So where specifically is the comedic aspect to this”—she
waves her hand airily, then adds with some disdain—“ Beaufort story?”
“Oh,” I say, pushing my teacup around. “It’s around. It’s in there. In the nuances.”
It hasn’t been overt for some time, not that she’s noticed.
Her forehead creases, and she narrows her eyes as if suspecting I’m lying about this fact. She could discover it if she read
her books. “But my books are rom-coms.”
“Yes. And they still can have their happy endings and laughable moments while centering around meaningful topics.”
“My first book was Party Girls in the USA .”
“Yes,” I say. “And we’re progressing.”
“Which readers are loving,” Susanna chimes in, but Amelia puts up a finger to silence her.
She frowns deeply.
“But the book covers are so colorful. They’re stocked on the shelves under ‘Rom-Com.’”
I nod. “Right. Well, I’d chalk that up to misdirection in the design department, except for the fact I did bring it up with them, once, and they said it was necessary for the sales trend.”
“There are literally cartoon people on the covers,” Amelia says, no less suspicious. As if I must have it wrong.
“I’m aware,” I reply. “Apparently illustrated covers are ‘on trend,’ whether or not the initial main love interest dies brutally
in a fishing accident during a family reunion.”
“Kenneth died in Smuggler’s Paradise ?” Amelia stammers. And one point to her credit for recognizing the title by the fishing reference, although that point immediately
must be retracted given his name was Gene.
“Brutally,” I reply.
“I told everyone I wished my father could’ve had the same experiences Kenneth did at our reunions! Are you telling me I told
everyone I wished my father was killed?”
“Brutally killed,” I correct.
“Amelia, listen,” Mona says. “Nobody caught that reference that time. You’re so bewitching onstage, most people just assume
you’re giving an enlightened joke. Everybody throws their hands up when it comes to knowing writers all live in their heads.
It’s the universal excuse for all of you.”
Cute. Lumping Amelia and me together.
“The point is you’re doing great ,” Mona says.
“Incredibly well.” Susanna snaps the laptop shut and slips it into her bag beneath the table.
“But this is what we are talking about. This is why we say we need to tighten up our responses to make sure, in the extreme event people start paying attention, they don’t
start questioning you as the writer.”
“And I’d say we got a lot done tonight,” Susanna adds, still nodding. “I just emailed you the interview, Mona.”
“No more deaths,” Amelia blurts out. She’s directing her attention to me now. Looking me straight in the eye. “No more...
negativity .”
I purse my lips together.
“So what? You want to go back to the great saga of chipping your tooth at a party in LA?” I can’t help spitting out.
Unlike her, I’ve read her book.
“Bryony’s novels always end well.” Susanna breaks in to defend me. “She brings witty and insightfully written, relatable trials to the table that
people love. They laugh over each trial. And they live for every struggle. People feel it.”
“I don’t care ,” Amelia snaps, pushing her elbows out to force some room for herself and jabbing Penny and me in the ribs. “I don’t want
people feeling it. I want my books to be an escape. Move. I have to go.”
I glance to Susanna and Mona.
The eyes of both women have changed. Susanna’s eyes are large and round with an oh no, we woke the beast! expression. Mona’s squinting, making to grab her purse and edge herself out the other side of the booth before it all breaks
loose.
We did wake the beast. And now we have to be exceedingly careful to step around her while trying to spring out.
I hear an intake of breath beside me while simultaneously feeling Jack squeeze my knee beneath the table as if to say, “ I’ve got this. ”
“Amelia, the content that Bryony is writing is working . Sales are up—”
“I don’t care—”
“Way up—”
She shakes her head.
“So far up you can’t see the peak for the clouds blocking the view. Bryony has taken what worked and turned it into something
irresistible . You don’t want to lose that. And with you two working together—you doing the hard work of all the publicity, you being the
face behind her brains—you two are a mighty force to be reckoned with in the publishing industry. Bryony has an eye for writing things that work for her. Let her keep on writing
with full creative authority and don’t squelch her spirit. It’s what the people want.”
It was a nice speech.
It’s not often I get a direct compliment. Oh sure, there’s the “Nice work!” and “She’s done it again!” emails when I send in this or that.
Whereas 90 percent of the time Amelia is getting praised and 10 percent of the time she’s doing any work, I’m the opposite.
It’s fine. At least, I tell myself it’s fine. I tell myself I write what I write because I actually like it. It actually means
something to me. It is an opportunity to help people learn and feel something too. Lessons that I’m learning are organically
woven in there, and I feel honored to share them around the world. Most importantly, it’s a way to earn the money that allows
The Bridge to carry on, but still. You never know how much you need an honest compliment until it has suddenly presented itself.
My cheeks flame.
And I’m almost entirely comforted, but for the fact that when I look from Jack to Amelia, I see in her expression that she
has most certainly not taken his words to heart, cherished them in the palms of her hands, and taken to nodding with humility and grace. She is not looking at me now like one who has had an epiphany and realized, “We can do it, so long as we do it together!”
Amelia’s looking at me as though I’m the villain .
The waiter walks up to the table, and wordlessly she raises a finger to dismiss him.
She presses her lips together. Takes her phone and slides it into Airplane Mode. Drops it face down on the table.
“Let me make this absolutely clear. Penny, put the pen down.”
Penny drops it like it’s made of fire.
Amelia resumes. “I have heard my fill tonight of what I should be doing differently. I’ve heard my fill tonight of all the ways that I am doing things wrong. And here I am, taking time out of my busy schedule to end up here ”—she casts her eyes around disdainfully—“eating limp lettuce and tomato pie , two hours before I’m supposed to be onstage for over three thousand fans. Hand selling, if you will, my stories. That have my name on them. And began with me.
“These books would be nothing without me. And as such, I think you would all do well to remember that I could hire anyone in the field to be the backer behind my books while I’m too busy running around selling them. I could swap Bryony out this second for some high school kid on Fiverr tonight if I wanted to, and that book would sell. I could generate AI ,” she snaps, “at this point to create my stories. So when I say I want perky , I mean, I WANT PERKY .
“ I am the author of my books and I am the one with final say over my stories! And to be completely honest with you all, I hope you realize that each and every
one of you is equally disposable, and I am the only one sitting here tonight who is not . Is that abundantly clear?”
Amelia did it.
Amelia is the one person I’ve ever met who is so exceptionally arrogant, she will actually say her arrogant thoughts out loud without care. It’s like she needs to make it absolutely clear that she cares so very, very
little for the thoughts and opinions and general well-being of those around her that she has no problem informing them they are disposable. She is “nice” as a general rule merely because presenting herself that way in the public eye is most advantageous to her . But when the tiniest opportunity presents itself to be otherwise, the gloves come off. Amelia is the textbook definition
of a civilized sociopath, lipstick and all.
Susanna, the most sensitive of the group, looks like she might cry.
Penny, at Amelia’s rant, resumes her nonsensical note-taking like her literal life depends upon it.
I, however, am pushed to my limit.
People flee, freeze, or fight in the face of certain dangers.
And there are just some moments, particularly when targeted by angry people, when I find myself wanting to fight.
I’ve learned to do a lot of things in the past two years, ever since that fateful day I pushed open the conference doors and
walked back inside that pitch room.
One being: taking my own opinions a little more seriously and those of others a lot less.
And with the look on poor Susanna’s face, I’m just about to open my mouth and go to town in her defense.
Jack practically jumps out of his seat to be the first to speak. “Amelia, clearly we have gotten off on the wrong foot here and jumped ahead without listening to you. I thought we were all in agreement that the goal was sales, and we would be willing to pivot however necessary to ensure that goal was met. Given our previous conversations, I thought your ultimate goal was to skyrocket to the top of the bestseller list and beat your previous sales numbers. How long has Anne Sanderworth been at the number-one slot on the Times list, Susanna?” Jack glances over.
“Thirty-two weeks, I believe,” she says quietly.
“Right,” he says. “And Amelia’s longest running at the number-one slot has been...?”
Susanna’s eyes swing wildly to Jack.
She purses her lips.
Jack waits.
“Never,” Susanna puts in at last. “But she’s been on the list at the number two slot for plenty of weeks—”
Jack shrugs. “Yes. So that’s all that’s going on here, Amelia.” He swivels his attention back to her. “We just want what’s
best for you, for the publishers, for everyone. But if you want perky, even at the expense of that top slot, believe me, Bryony
can do perky.” He pushes down on my shoe to keep my temper abated. “In fact, Bryony would be happy to do perky. There’s a lot less research for her, a lot less to do. In many ways, you would be doing her a favor.”
I grit my teeth. Absolutely claw his hand with my nails.
“I can sit with Bryony tomorrow over her book, and we can come up with a plan to make it...” He pauses, then says, “Pure
fun.”
I’m pretty sure I’m drawing blood on his hand now.
Steam coming out my ears.
If this goes at all the other way from Jack’s plan, I am going to throw a riot.
Never, not once in my two years of doing this, have I hated this job so much. I’m sitting here fighting for the life of a work I don’t even get credit for but still can’t keep myself from emotionally clinging to. I’m sitting here being told casually to scrap an entire novel, an entire method of my writing, and just become a different person.
I can’t help what I write. I can’t help threading in the art of forgiveness or the sappiness of a mother sweeping her gaze over the ocean while holding on to her
son’s pudgy hand or walking with my characters through the pain of witnessing loss and having to rebuild their hearts and
homes again.
The world is huge and multifaceted and fascinating and terrifying all at once, and the world collectively sits in my classroom
every day telling me about it. And I, like a teakettle, have this need to let out the steam, to share the worldview-changing
tidbits I learn every day. And yes, I can envelop stories with love and humor, big enough that the Brooks graphic designers
get away with packaging them with cartoon covers and marketing them as rom-coms.
But the fact is, these books are meaningful to me. They’re meaningful to readers. And I sit by my computer, day in and day out, living on crumbs of news about my own story. When on earth will
it be my turn to write under my name? When on earth will I get the chance to reach readers with words only influenced by my mind and not dampened by Amelia’s input?
Jack takes my clenched fist beneath the table and squeezes it, wrapping his hand around my balled-up fist tightly enough to
break me out of my angry stupor. I look up from my boxed tomato pie. Look at Amelia. See what Jack has done.
It worked.
The name he dropped worked: Anne Sanderworth.
Mona, Susanna, Jack—even Penny has paused with her pen pressed to the paper, waiting for Amelia to respond.
The waiter seems to sense the tension, because he stands a few feet off, hesitating with the check in hand.
It was dangerous, using a bomb to defuse a bomb. Amelia is unreliable and easily provoked. She’s happy one second, but if
you say the wrong thing in the wrong moment, bam .
Throwing out the fact that Anne is twice as successful as Amelia and reminding her that she is second to the one who is sitting on some virtual throne called the “number one slot” will either make Amelia blow up entirely and flip some tables or, if Jack knew what he was doing—
“Fine.”
Amelia has smoothed her hair.
Amelia is snapping open the little pink purse at her side and pulling out a metallic gold tube of lipstick.
“Keep the depressing book,” Amelia says. “Keep Beaufort. Keep whatever guarantees this book will be a hit —except the kids.”
I feel that hit. It feels like a punch in the gut, and yet no one around me notices the pain those three little words cause.
They don’t write, I suppose. They don’t understand that she’s choking me right here, right in public.
Well, fine.
The kids are too good anyway. She doesn’t deserve to have them beneath her name.
I silently make a vow to write them into my next story—one that will see the light of day under my name.
“But if this one doesn’t do it”—she waggles her tube of lipstick, its pointy red tip directed at me like a target—“if this
one isn’t going to get us to the top , then I’m going in and we’re doing it my way . I’m done playing games here,” she says, as if all of us have been absolutely incompetent while she, the sheer genius, has
been waiting for us to step up. “I want the perfect rom-com this time around. I want it to be perfect .”
I cannot help but hope, for the zillionth time in one thousand days, that I get my own contract soon. Get out.
“Is there anything else you want from me?” Amelia says, the sound of quiet disdain tinting her voice.
“Nope,” Mona says, a tight smile on her face. “Susanna will tighten up the Q&A answers from tonight, and we’ll shoot it off
to you sometime this week. But there is one more thing.” To my surprise, she turns to me. “One more thing we need from you,
Bryony.”
“Me?” Surprise quickly flares into frustration.
I’m already plotting the books. I’m already spending my nights and weekends painfully pulling the words out of my head, forcing myself to add layer upon layer of depth to these novels. I’m already shredding old
scenes I spend weeks on for rewrites. I’m already giving it 110 percent and then watching it come out into the world to bring
acclaim to somebody else . Not to mention most of the money. All for the hope of seeing my own little manuscript get its day.
I have already gone above and beyond in every way imaginable. I’m even writing out PowerPoints for the woman too lazy to read the book she’s getting praised for!
“I am stretched to my limit, Mona.” There’s a firmness in my voice. A tight pinch because they know this . They know how hard all of this has been for me. “I can’t work on any more PowerPoints.”
“And we don’t want you to. We just... need you to consider going on... a vacation.”
“Of sorts,” Susanna adds.
“What?”
Amelia and I speak simultaneously.
It may be the first thing we’ve ever agreed on.
“I have been talking to the rest of the team, and we just think,” Mona says, her eyes shifting from Amelia to me, “it may
be best if Bryony joins you on tour.”
“ What?! ” we both say more urgently now.
“You want her on tour with me?” Amelia screeches. “What kind of game is this?” Her eyes shoot accusingly to Jack as if to scream, “ Fix this. Fix this NOW. ”
“Not to talk, ” Susanna jumps in with a shrill laugh. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Not as the author.”
“What is going on tonight?” Amelia cries, rolling her head backward.
“We just believe it’s critical that you are prepared at all times for the myriad of questions you are going to face at these events over the next two weeks,” Mona says. “Statistically speaking, we believe it would be more detrimental to your career at this point to accidentally reveal the situation going on behind the scenes than to cancel this tour altogether. We are open to you canceling—”
“ No ,” Amelia spits out.
“In which case, we need to find a creative way to try to keep our ends covered. This is that plan. Bryony by your side for the tour—hearing the questions. You being fed answers to those questions that could
trip you up. Maybe she’ll look like she’s your personal assistant. Nobody will notice. A win-win for everyone really. Bryony
will assist you.”
Why does it sound like I’m being kidnapped here?
“She will be there to help you however she can.”
I cut my eyes to Jack. “You want me to just drop teaching for two weeks to be Amelia’s lapdog? Jack, did you know about this?”
He shakes his head. “No, I know we discussed some changes and going over the Q&A tonight—”
“Consider it more like a luxury paid vacation with a sprinkle of work,” Mona interjects.
“There are some lovely stops,” Susanna chimes in softly with an eager smile.
I’ve seen Amelia’s RV bus. The one wrapped in a giant picture of Amelia with her skinny arms crossed over her chest in a bright
pantsuit, book titles sprawled over the windows, a three-foot-wide smile on her lips. I wouldn’t step inside that thing for
the world.
I stifle a cynical laugh. They’ve got to be kidding. “And how exactly does having me standing beside Amelia, giving her answers
to questions about her book, prove to the world she doesn’t have a ghostwriter?”
“Ugh, I hate that word.” Amelia pinches both temples. “Don’t use that word.”
I press my lips together. I have had it up to here tonight. “What word?”
Her eyes become slits. “You know the word.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. You’ve just said a lot of words. To which word specifically are you referring?”
“The G-word ,” she says forcefully.
“Which G-word?” I snap back. “Ghostwriter?”
“I need to get out of here,” Amelia hisses, eyes roving around for the door. “I have to speak in twenty minutes.”
It’s simple, really. I’m just not going to do this.
I can’t stand forty-two minutes with her, much less two weeks. We’d kill each other.
I shrug again, forcing myself to release my pent-up energy. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m contracted to write the books, nothing
more. You will simply have to come up with another idea.”
There. It kills me to be the one to kill their plans, but I have to do it. For my own sanity. And believe me, were it anybody else, I probably would have said yes. The idea of jumping on a bus and getting away for two weeks sounds nice. The adventure,
appealing.
I yelp as Amelia sprays yet another shot of her beachy perfume onto her neck and nails me in one eye.
But for her .
Mona gives a little cough, and with my one good, uncovered eye, I watch her shoot a message telepathically to Jack.
He rubs the back of his neck.
Gets up from the booth.
Motions for me to move out after him.
Ticks his tongue. Thinking.
“Well, that’s the thing, Bryony. There’s the whole part about publicity in your contract.”
My brows shoot up.
“I’ll have to double-check on it, but...”
To my absolute shock, he trails off .
I practically dive into the booth seat for my phone.
I’m just pulling up the old email with my contract when Mona jumps in. “It has just become abundantly clear that you are essential to our promotional services and the continued success of our partnership, Bryony. But rest assured, we want to make sure you see this as an opportunity for yourself as well. The higher the book sales, the more royalties you make as well.” Mona flashes a bright, professional, and obviously rehearsed smile. “And needless to say, we will make this
tour as fun and relaxing for everyone as possible. There will be great meals. Great hotels. We’ll only need you to step in
for a couple hours at a time. And even then, we’re hopeful you won’t even need to talk unless Amelia runs into a problem.”
“All right,” Amelia cuts in. Her phone drops into her purse, and it clatters loudly against other tubes of lipstick and metal
objects as she snaps it shut. “I’m done hearing everyone cater to this woman. Stop trying to woo her with the promise of two
weeks at beaches and hotels . Stop trying to help her get over her woes of getting the best job of her life selling books to the masses that she couldn’t sell a hundred copies of by herself. It’s two weeks , Bryony. If it’s helpful to the cause, you’re coming. And yes, there’s food. And there are hotels.” She directly spears me
with a glare. “Just do your job , okay? It’s Not . That . Hard .”
Silence cuts around the table.
I look down at my phone, my thumb scrolled down to section 3b.
Writer will perform Promotional Services, if any, at the times provided in Part 1 or, subject to Writer’s prior professional
commitments and reasonable availability, at such other times as Publisher may reasonably request and, if requested, as part
of the Promotional Services, will sit for video- and audio-recorded interviews, which Publisher may reproduce, distribute,
display, perform, and adapt for promotional purposes. All reasonable expenses incurred by Writer in performing Promotional
Services will be paid by Publisher.
It seems I’m going on a book tour. With the most delusional woman alive. As her unwilling and unwanted ghostwriter. Who, apparently,
is not supposed to call herself a ghostwriter but something more tasteful like, oh, I don’t know, indentured servant.
My phone dings and I slide it open to see an email header from Gran.
I just found out. We need to talk.
Margaret Page
President, The Bridge Refugee Services
3395 White Spring Road
Florence, NY 13316
And isn’t that just the icing on the cake?
After two solid years of anonymity, Gran knows.