Chapter 34
My heart dropped as I closed the rejection email and exited my inbox.
I’d been on the other side of this exchange for years.
Authors reaching out to Rob with offers on the table to motivate him to read their books faster.
It just hadn’t occurred to me until this moment that I was the negotiation piece now, not the goal.
I pulled up my texts and scrolled back to the one Rebecca had sent congratulating me about talking to Rob.
My only reply to her at the time had been that I quit.
She had been so kind to me and seemingly supportive and she was the only person I could think of at the moment to ask this question to.
Or at least the only person whose cell phone number I had.
Rebecca, how long did it take you to start earning money as an agent?
I was lucky to have a roommate to share expenses with, but my ever-dwindling bank account needed to know when it was going to start receiving life support.
I got my first commission check at six months. Following her text, Rebecca had sent a celebrate emoji, like this was a good piece of information she just shared.
My heart dropped to the floor.
Or did you mean a livable wage? was the follow-up text.
I did not want to know that right now. I was already reeling from the first answer. No, you answered the question. Thank you!
I stared at her name on my phone. I was so tempted to follow up my question with: FYI, Rob and I were sleeping together for two years off and on.
At this point, I didn’t even want to do it to get him in trouble, but more to save her if she was on the verge of ruining her life with him.
The problem was that I still wasn’t sure if I’d imagined something between them.
If it was all in my head or not. The more I thought about it, the more likely the scenario that I’d just imagined it became.
Behind me, someone knocked on the front door, and I jumped. I opened it to see the delivery driver standing with my tray of fruit. “You Margot?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you.” I took the tray from her but she continued to stand there, waiting.
“I tipped you on the app. I don’t have any cash.”
“Cheap,” she muttered as she walked away.
I shut and locked the door, then nearly tripped over my suitcase as I headed to the kitchen.
The fruit tray was sad. Small, watery pieces of fruit filled cheap plastic compartments. I couldn’t take this outside. Not with my sister’s offering already there, beautiful and fresh. I stuck the tray in her overly wide fridge and went back outside.
“Are you swimming with us, Aunt Margot?” Sammy called from the pool.
I nodded.
“Everyone, this is my sister,” Audrey announced as I joined them.
“Hi, nice to meet you all,” I said, making my way to the steps in the shallow end of the pool. My mom sat on a lounge chair nearby and I took off my shirt and threw it toward her. She caught it.
“Tell me about your weekend,” she said as Jack handed me a pool noodle and then used the one he was holding to hit my new weapon. I engaged, wading to my waist in the water.
To my mom, I said, “I did some research work for an author up near the Central Coast.”
“That sounds fun.”
“Yeah, it was.”
Now Sammy was hugging me from behind, trying to drag me under the water. “Get your hair wet,” he yelled.
I pried his little arms off me and flung him away while he laughed. This was our game.
“Dad said your car was out of commission?” Mom was saying.
“Yeah, a battery or something. I haven’t been home yet to get it checked out.”
A pool noodle hit me on the side of the head and I grabbed hold of it and tugged, pulling Sammy with it. I spun in a circle while he hung on squealing.
Another noodle hit me from the other side and soon I was surrounded by kids pummeling me with their not-so-soft weapons.
“Food!” my sister called, and all the kids in the pool went running, leaving me, now shoulder deep, alone.
I paddled over to the side, closer to my mom, and rested my arms on the warm cement and my chin on my arms. “I just got rejected,” I said with a sigh, the disappointment catching up with me.
“By who? He obviously doesn’t deserve you.”
“No, not by a man, by a potential client.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”
I swallowed. This was hard for me, but after Rebecca’s text, I knew I had to ask. “Do you think I could borrow some money? Just until I pick up a few clients.”
“You don’t have any money?” Mom asked.
“I have some savings but not nearly enough, I’m learning. I’ve just started my business and I think it will be amazing once I get my feet under me, but right now, I’m struggling.”
“You’ve always been a dreamer, that beautiful head of yours up in the clouds.
Have you jumped into this prematurely? Before you had a proper plan?
” she asked with a smile, like her words weren’t hurtful.
“Maybe you could get your old job back. I bet Robert would rehire you. Sloane says you’re amazing at your job. ”
“He won’t hire me back, Mom.”
“Why not? Did you leave on bad terms?”
“Sort of. But, Mom, that’s not what I want anyway. This business is going to give me so much more freedom and success in the future.”
“Big dreams,” she reiterated.
One of Audrey’s friends, plate full of food, sat on the lounge chair next to my mom’s. “Margot, did you say?”
“Yes, hi. Sorry, I didn’t catch everyone’s names.” Swallowing down the hurt of the conversation with my mom and trying to be cordial was harder than I anticipated. My throat sounded scratchy and raw. I slowly kicked my feet, letting the water flow between my toes and legs.
“I’m Felicity. I went to UCLA with your sister. We all did, in fact.” She pointed to the other two women in the food line with their husbands.
“Oh, is this, like, a college reunion party?” I asked.
“I guess you could call it that, but we get together quite a bit.”
My sister had friends. Good friends that she got together with regularly. She really did tick off all the boxes on her optimal living checklist. “That’s nice that you’ve stayed in touch.”
“Did you go to UCLA too? You look so familiar,” she said.
“No, I didn’t. But I am Audrey’s sister. Some people say we look alike.”
She pulled a face. “Really? I wouldn’t even have thought you were related if she didn’t say.”
“Yeah, some people say that too,” I said.
She laughed, picked up a perfectly squared piece of watermelon, and stuck it in her mouth. “Maybe I’ve just seen you on her channel before.”
“No, I haven’t been on that.”
“Huh. It will come to me. Oh! Did you work with Gray at the Lancaster? I feel like we were there all the time when he and Audrey were together.”
“No,” Audrey chimed in. She’d obviously been following the conversation from a distance. She joined us now. “She never went to the Lancaster. But you met Gray, right, Maggie?”
“I don’t think so. I remember you talking about him.”
“That’s because we were friends for a while before we got together. All of us were.”
“How is Ollie these days, anyway?” the other UCLA woman asked. She sat on the edge of the pool and put her feet in. “Has anyone seen him at all in the last eight years?”
“I saw him about five years ago,” Felicity said. “He’s still as nice as ever and such a cutie.”
“Ollie?” I asked. It’s like my body knew what was coming before she said it. My skin felt cold and prickly.
“Gray was his last name,” Audrey said. “Oliver was his first. Oliver Gray.”
“Oliver Gray,” I repeated, because I needed her to say it again.
“Yes,” Audrey said. “Do you know him or something?” She asked that question like it was a rhetorical one. Like the last thing I could say was yes.
Maybe now was not the time, but her reaction prompted me to say, “I matched with him on a dating app.”
Her mouth fell open, but before she could say anything else, a booming voice rang out from the side of the house. “Margot! Are you back here?” And then Rob rounded the corner of the house and scanned the group of people.
I wanted to melt off the edge of the pool and disappear under the water.
“Is that Mr. Bishop?” Dad asked from behind me.
“Did you invite him?” Audrey asked.
“No,” was all I could manage to say.
“You look pale,” Felicity said. “And who’s Mr. Bishop?”
“Her boss,” Audrey said.
“You mean Hot Boss,” Felicity said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“It’s her ex-boss,” Mom added unhelpfully.
This couldn’t happen, whatever was about to happen, in my sister’s backyard in front of my sister’s friends and their kids, with my family watching on.
That thought propelled me up and out of the water and onto shaky legs.
I walked as fast as I could without running, straight toward him.
He was walking my way as well, but instead of stopping in front of him, I passed and continued straight out the side gate, praying he’d follow.
He did.
I used the walk to summon up all the anger I could, so by the time he joined me I was fuming. “What the actual hell?” Water dripped down my body and legs and onto the grass around my bare feet.
“You’ve been ignoring me, dodging my calls all weekend, and then hung up on me today.”
“This is completely inappropriate and you know it.” I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly very aware that I was standing there in a two-piece soaking wet.
“Kind of like stealing someone’s client. I can sue you and I’m seriously considering it.” I had no idea why he was convinced he was losing Kari, but it had nothing to do with me. Maybe she was taking her business somewhere else because he didn’t support her latest book.
My teeth started chattering from the cold or shock or embarrassment. “Rob, she approached me, hired me for research. And you won’t sue me. Because if you do, I will tell everyone that we had a sexual relationship for years and you will lose a lot more than just one client.”