Chapter 1 #2
I shake my head. I’m already three espressos deep and should cut myself off from the caffeine IV drip. “You should set your standards higher than free campus coffee and stale granola. Didn’t your publisher give you a per diem?”
“I think so, but if I don’t have to spend it—”
“You should,” I tell her as my phone buzzes.
I need to teach Daphne how to survive these long weekends, and it starts with DoorDashing overly expensive food to her room after a long day.
There’s something about hotel sheets, HGTV, and a burrito the size of your face that hits the spot after socializing for twelve hours.
The buzzing continues. “My publicist is calling.”
“Answer it. I’ll be inside stealing bagels.” Daphne walks back in the direction of the authors’ lounge as I answer my phone.
“Hey, Amina.”
“Mars! I’m so glad you picked up. Did you see my email?”
My anxiety radar goes off. “No. I just got to the festival.”
“I received an email from the director of the conference. You were copied on it, too. Did you see that one?”
My inbox is always out of control, and the closer we get to publication, the less likely I am to wander into its murky depths. “Not yet.”
“I didn’t think so,” she mutters, her tone hesitant in a way I’m not used to hearing.
When there’s bad news—like the time my third book got eviscerated by The New York Times Book Review—she sends an email, and I get to cry in peace.
(Which I did. For several days.) The part of me that hates crying in public more than writer’s block flares to life.
I duck between buildings and walk toward a quiet spot on campus.
At least I’ll be alone if this ends in disaster.
“What’s going on, Amina?” I prompt.
“There’s been a change to the general session on Sunday.”
My stomach drops, but I’m not surprised. I wonder if they’re rolling up the banner with my face on it as we speak. “Have I been cut?”
Daphne thinks my constant worry is unfounded, but after the shit show that’s been my career over the past several years, it’s hard not to feel like I’m one wrong move from losing my last chance.
“No! No, of course not, not anything like that.”
The vise around my throat loosens slightly. “Then why do you sound like you’d rather give yourself a paper cut than be on this call?”
She laughs—light and airy and fake as hell. “There’s been a change to the schedule—it’s really not something you should worry about.”
“What’s the change?”
“Wendell Tyler has the flu and had to drop out this morning.” I can practically hear her wince.
Wendell Tyler is one of the best YA sci-fi authors of the past decade, but it’s not like authors are in short supply this weekend. “I can hold down the fort on my own, but if they want a replacement, I’m sure Daphne would be happy to step in,” I say.
“Mmm.” Amina clears her throat. “Well, the thing is, you know how hectic it can be to schedule these things.”
I don’t, actually. I spend most of my days sitting alone at a computer while made-up characters talk in my head, but it doesn’t sound that complicated.
“The Sunday general session is the biggest event of the weekend. Finding a conference author who wants more attention should be as easy as finding a newly released James Patterson book.”
Amina laughs again, this time high-pitched and panicked. “It sounds like they’ve already found someone, but without Wendell, it doesn’t make sense to keep the theme around YA—”
“That’s fine. I can talk about anything.” I once spent an entire hour talking about how to write faithful retellings (which I’ve never done), because someone in charge of something thought my first novel, Torched, was a retelling of Dante’s Inferno. (It’s not.) “What’s the new topic?”
Amina is silent on the other end of the line as I walk farther from the busy festival, down a tree-lined path winding through brick buildings.
I hear a quick knock knock knock that matches the pounding of my heart, followed by muffled voices, like she’s covered the phone with her hand, and then she says, “Because you’re a University of Arizona graduate, they thought it’d be fun to invite another former Wildcat to the panel.
You two can talk about your journeys from students to authors. ”
Awareness prickles the back of my neck. “Who?”
The phone goes silent again until I hear a different voice. Amina has passed the phone to my editor. “Mars! How are you?” Whitney asks.
“Who is it?” I rasp, the words lodged in my throat.
It can’t be. They wouldn’t.
“West Emerson.”
I’m in free fall, my feet tracing steps from pure muscle memory. “They can’t.”
“I can get you out of it,” Whitney says quickly.
“Get him out of it,” I snap.
“I’ll see what I can do. Talk soon.” The line goes dead, and it’s just as well, because I’m speechless.
My brain is a swirling haze of anger, but my feet are still carrying me toward a shaded bench, down a path I walked a thousand times as an undergrad.
It’s my favorite place on campus, maybe my favorite spot in all of Tucson.
Half of Torched was written on this bench, and I need to get to it so I can fume in peace.
This is my first event in years, and I’ll light myself on fire before I bow out in favor of the guy who almost nuked my career.
I turn the corner behind the languages building and stop short.
A man is reading in the shade of a large palm tree. He looks up, and for the second time today, I’m staring directly into those multicolored Fox Caldwell eyes. Only this time, they belong to their inspiration and the person I hate most in this world.
West Emerson.