Chapter 8
Tyler
Katie showed up at my door at six a.m. on Monday, absolutely frazzled and wearing the shortest, most periwinkle skirt I’d
ever seen. There was also, for some reason, glitter in her hair.
“Katie?” I rubbed my eyes and closed the door behind me. It was four hours before we were supposed to meet at the café, and
my roommates were still sleeping. Which was a miracle, considering the amount of banging and buzzing Katie had just completed.
“What’s wrong? Why are—”
“I called you ten thousand times! Why didn’t you pick up!?”
“Uh, I’ve been trying to sleep? My ringer’s off, I—”
“Whatever! I don’t care. We have to go! Let’s go!”
“What? Go where?”
She spun around—the skirt, I decided, could stay—and flung an arm toward Fifty-Second Street. Beyond my rusting garden gate,
a shiny black SUV idled at the curb, hazards on.
“To Meredith’s! Selma called me, frantic, and said everything was fine, but that she was sending her driver for us, and I’ve
never even spoken to her—to Meredith, that is, and . . .”
Katie had stopped stammering and, instead, was looking me up and down. Perhaps for a blink longer than was necessary. I realized,
in that moment, I was wearing a pair of boxer briefs and nothing else.
“Go, um . . . go put some clothes on, please. Preferably something not black.”
I glared at her, then proceeded to brush my teeth, throw on a pair of jeans, and—two minutes later—stumble out the door, laptop tucked under my arm.
Katie rolled her eyes at my charcoal T-shirt and pointed me into the back seat of the car.
There were two steaming coffees in the cupholder.
One, already stained by the strawberry shimmer of whatever Katie had smeared across her lips.
“Maurice got them for us,” she said, tipping her head toward the silent, straight-faced driver. “It’s going to be a few hours.”
“We’re going all the way to . . . ?”
“Southampton.” She shoved a note into my hands. Thick ivory cardstock, rich navy ink.
I’d like to talk. Maurice will bring the both of you. Come hungry.
Yours,
M.B.
I read it twice and then, through a gulp, said, “Is that why you’re dressed like a piece of saltwater taffy?”
Katie buckled her seat belt, then reached for her coffee. Her knees were bouncing, and her face was flushed, but she managed
to look right at me and say, “No, Tyler. This, I wore for you.”
It is a truth universally acknowledged—yes, I’ve read Pride and Prejudice; it was fine—that Meredith Bradford didn’t write her own books and likely hadn’t in nearly two decades.
And while I’d spent the first twenty-seven years of my life blissfully unaware of any details about the so-called Stephen King of romance, I, in the past ten days, had done quite a bit of research about my new boss.
Here was what I knew so far: Meredith Bradford was born into a very rich family in a very rich place called the Hamptons.
She was fifty-two, had written (or “written”) almost eighty books, and was—for lack of a better term—a full-blown recluse.
Her husband, an art dealer, divorced her nearly twenty years ago when their only child, a daughter, was four. He received
full custody of the little girl and raised her in Paris and Montecito, as one does. Meredith, for over two decades, had done
no press, no interviews, no signings. All correspondence was handled through her Los Angeles–based public relations team,
and according to the state of New York, she’d never so much as registered to vote. Everything she published turned to absolute
gold.
And here, tucked away on the tip of Southampton, where the trees arched together like magic and the sun stretched on forever,
was Meredith Bradford’s fortress. According to property records and several now-defunct celebrity real estate blogs, the Bradford
family’s Fowler Street estate was a classic Hamptons-style manse on the most secluded beachfront lot on the sleepiest, southernmost
edge of the village. Accessible only by private drive, the home was a reported twelve-thousand square feet and surrounded
by sycamores so thick and privet so tall no beachcomber could ever sneak a peek at its grounds. The property, which featured
direct access to both the Atlantic Ocean and Jule Pond, was all Meredith had asked to retain in her divorce.
“Oh my god,” Katie said, her nose pushed against the window’s glass as we traveled deeper and deeper down the unmarked lane—all sprawling ponds and haylike grass and hedges and fences and sun-dappled shimmer—until the crackling gravel road came to a gentle end.
A crisp white gate swung open. “This is unbelievable.”
Katie, for once, was right. Meredith’s home was two massive stories of nearly symmetrical brown shingles, glossy white shutters,
periwinkle hydrangeas, and sky-high pitch pines. To the right, a hedge-lined tennis court. To the left, a glass-and-iron greenhouse.
And at the French front doors—easily twice my height and that same shade of blindingly bright white—was a blond woman in linen
trousers and a matching top, a fat white cat in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
Maurice unlocked the car. We climbed out of the back seat, jaws open. Meredith walked toward us, smiling.
“Hi, you two. Thank you so much for coming out.” She waved Maurice off and then studied us, head to toe. “You must be Tyler.
And you, Katie. My Katie—you’re such a natural. I cannot thank you enough. Selma told me she knew you had it in you the minute
she met you. Come on, brunch is waiting. Let’s eat.”
She gestured toward a stone-paved path on the east side of the house’s exterior. Katie smiled, waving her hands around a bit.
Perhaps thinking she’d shake Meredith’s, or, knowing Katie—which I did, or at least I used to, I really used to—hoping she’d
accept a giant hug. But Meredith’s arms were full of wine and cat, so instead, we walked silently through a sprawling garden,
past an endless woods and an ivy-drenched terrace, and toward driftwood stairs that ran over the dunes and straight onto the
sand. There, a small round table had been set for three only ten yards from the shimmering sea.
Meredith took a seat.
“I so wish Selma could have joined us,” she said between long sips of her wine. There were a few bottles on the table. For brunch. For Monday brunch. “But, alas, she’s chosen to live in California. And we all know what that means.”
Katie and I, very quickly, exchanged glances. Quite obviously, we did not.
“It’s so amazing to meet you,” Katie said. “Thank you for having us. This is incredible.”
I nodded. I realized, then, that my hands were shaking. “Yeah, I’m really excited to write. I—”
“I understand you’ve read exactly none of my books, Tyler. Is that correct?”
“That’s, uh, not completely true. I read A Little Lost Without You last week, and—”
“Let me guess. Not a fan of romance?”
“It’s not that. It’s mostly—”
“They’re not your kind of stories?”
“I’m learning. I’m reading a ton. I studied English at Brown. I teach at this private school on the Upper East Side now, middle
school, and Katie—Katie’s been great. I can definitely do this. I’m really grateful for the opportunity.”
Meredith made a hmm sound, then selected a sesame bagel and passed Katie the breadbasket. I touched nothing. There was an entire salmon in front
of me, eyeballs and all. I wondered who’d roasted it.
“So,” Meredith said, “what kinds of books do you read, then? If not mine?”
“Mostly, like, literary fiction?”
Katie swallowed a smirk. She loved this, didn’t she? That, suddenly, I was ashamed to read art and not smut. I wanted to smother
her with a linen napkin.
Meredith didn’t bother to hide her chuckle. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re one of those men who thinks a book doesn’t matter if it doesn’t teach you something new about the world?”
I was quiet. Clearly, this was a trap.
“That’s exactly what he thinks,” Katie said.
I glared at her and then said, “No.” It just came out. I couldn’t help myself. I was an idiot. “It’s not that.”
“No?” Meredith said. “What is it, then?”
“I just . . . I don’t think I believe in love. Not that kind, anyway. The kind they write books about.”
“Well,” Meredith said, still smiling. She reached for the whitefish salad, then scooped a helping onto my empty plate. Out
of nowhere, the cat appeared, purring as it landed by Meredith’s glass. “That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Once Meredith and Katie had spent a good thirty minutes talking about skincare, bagels, and Danielle Steel, Meredith picked
up a knife, cut into a lemony-looking loaf cake, and passed us each a heaping slice.
Katie had downed two glasses of wine and was getting the tiniest bit silly. Meredith—who I was pretty sure hadn’t consumed
any actual food yet—had gulped twice that amount but seemed to remain at the same level of perma-lush. I, of course, was stone-cold
sober.
“I brought you two out here today to discuss the manuscript,” Meredith said.
“I know I’ve been, well, detached from my writing for quite a while.
But I feel very strongly about this project you’re beginning.
I had this vision, this calling. You see, I’m crafting a novel of my own right now, and I believe, in my heart of hearts, that this work will be my most significant.
And that, in many ways, my project and yours must be written together.
And I, well . . . I need us to get these stories right the first time.
Before . . .” She took another sip of wine.
“I’m afraid we don’t have very long. Just the summer, and your manuscript must be finished. ”
Katie and I both nodded, even though nothing Meredith had said made any sense. Her books wrote themselves, sold themselves.
I had, by this point, read the synopses for half of them. They were all, more or less, exactly the same. How could one book—a
book she was not even going to write, a book she’d hired two twentysomethings to bang out over the course of a single season—have