2 #2
“And you’re one hundred percent sure it’s us?” she said.
“I don’t think you need me to review the names.”
“What does she call Explorations ?”
“ Discoveries. ”
“Green Hills?”
“White Springs.” Joe leaned back. “But the book isn’t the story here. It’s Nora. And if there’s anyone who can tell Nora’s story, it’s you.”
He’d already made this suggestion, back at the office. She’d already swiftly shut it down.
“I know this feels weird as hell,” he said. “But it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Everyone wants to know who S. K. Smith is. What she looks like, what she cares about, what she cooks for dinner.”
“I have no idea what Nora cooks for dinner. And I’m not outing her.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s totally immoral.”
“What’re you going to say if Gabby or Conrad actually do read it?”
“I don’t know. That it’s made up?”
“They’re not going to believe you.”
“Because something with a cartoon on the cover is so incredibly realistic?”
“No, because it makes so much sense.”
MC stared.
“Maybe you weren’t cheerleading captain or valedictorian, but everyone really liked you.” He smirked. “Even the grumpy girls in black.”
“Joe,” she groaned.
“Then you graduated and disappeared.”
“I still visit.”
“For, like, three hours on Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
“You don’t go back either.” But that was because Joe’s parents didn’t live there anymore.
“I’m just saying, to Conrad and Gabby—and probably a bunch of other people—there’s missing context about why you’ve kept your distance. This provides it.”
“Appears to provide it.” She sucked down her drink.
She didn’t like to think about how the chilliness between her and her brother was rooted in a moment of teenage jealousy.
But she and Joe both knew there were other reasons she’d let things go by the wayside over the years, and they were more complicated than her best friend seemed to want to acknowledge just then.
“Even if I’m not happy about this book, I’m not going to write an exposé in revenge. ”
“Don’t think of it as an exposé. Think of it as a multilayered meta mindfuck.”
She gave him a sour look. “Is that how you pitched it to Seth Flanagan?”
He had the grace to blush. “I mean, the idea wasn’t exactly formed when I spoke to him.”
“Then why’d you speak to him at all? Why didn’t you come to me first?”
He shifted in his seat a little. “That was my original plan.”
“But?”
“Our editorial meeting was already on the books for this morning. And I had nothing to throw out there, so...” He played with his napkin. “I should’ve talked to you. But I’ve been getting a lot of heat lately.”
“What kind of heat?”
“Clicks are down. Everyone’s nervous. We need a big story.” He cleared his throat. “I need a big story.”
MC sighed.
“Look, this morning I woke up with an insane hangover at this guy’s house, freaking out about the meeting.
And when I went to take an anxiety poop, I started flipping through this book next to the toilet, which I assume was left there by his lesbian lioness of a roommate, and it just felt like. .. godsend.”
“You could’ve at least texted me.”
“I know. But I wanted to figure out how to sell you on it.”
“Sell me?”
“I knew this would freak you out. It would freak anyone out. And of course you’d feel disoriented.”
“Disturbed.” MC took a sip of Joe’s drink. “Deeply.”
“But also, it’s a major opportunity for both of us—”
“For you.”
“—and I think it’d be a big mistake to dismiss it before we’ve looked into its potential.”
“New idea.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “What if you just told Nora you figured her out, and you want to do a profile on her?”
He shook his head. “This is Jawbreaker. The second we let it slip that we’ve figured her out, her team goes to the New York Times or The Cut. Our opportunity is killed. And then I am killed, by Seth Flanagan.”
“What exactly did you promise him?”
Joe took a breath. “An official pitch to the A-team. Me and you. On Monday.”
MC closed her eyes.
“Everyone is going to be so excited, MC! We can pull this off.”
“I haven’t spoken to Nora since high school.”
“So?”
“Conrad and Gabby invited her to their wedding, and she didn’t come, even though it happened in our yard, which is literally outside her kitchen window. What makes you think she’ll so much as pick up the phone if I call?”
“I don’t expect you to call.”
She frowned. Then it dawned on her.
Joe expected her to engage with the multilayered meta mindfuck by entering it.
She had to laugh. “No.”
“Text your brother. Tell him you want to get in some quality time together this weekend, it’s been too long, blah blah. Perfect position to lay a sneak attack.”
“Nope, nope, nope.”
“Nora will open up to you.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Oh yes we do.”
“I’m not going to be your secret agent on this.” Her chest was burning. She’d drank her whiskey too fast. “Sorry, there’s just no way.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s wrong! And weird.” And the last thing she wanted to do was to spend quality time with Conrad.
“This isn’t her diary. It’s a novel she submitted to an agent, then sold to a publisher, then got paid for.”
“I gave you my answer.” She took a gulp of water. “If you want to break the scoop or whatever, you’ll have to do it yourself.”
“Except I have no story. Just a name.”
“Maybe that’s a sign to find a different story.”
“But this book is about you. That’s why you have to do it.”
A long pause stretched between them. MC started to feel guilty, the way she always did when someone expected something of her.
She wanted to figure out a solution of some kind, a compromise at the very least—this was her best friend, the person who’d been by her side through everything.
He’d even been her first kiss, an impulsive, experimental, and truly awkward meeting of the mouths.
But what he was asking for was too much.
When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Also, word on the street is I’m getting fired.”
She almost choked on her water. “What?”
“Not right now. At the end of the year.” He managed to keep his tone light. “Jerome’s girlfriend went to grad school with Seth’s. She let it slip that there’s a restructuring coming.”
MC didn’t know whether she was more stunned at the news or the fact that Joe had kept it from her for what sounded like weeks. They’d been friends for long enough that she knew he’d always have some secrets, as she’d have hers.
But this was big.
“Technically it’s only a rumor,” he said, sounding so cavalier she almost believed he was okay. “But I guess I’m feeling like I need to do something major.”
“I’m sorry, Joe. That sounds incredibly stressful.”
He shrugged. “It’s the business. I just wanted you to know I wouldn’t be asking you to chase this otherwise.”
She stared at him, the boy who’d walked out in the middle of his British Lit final freshman year of college when she’d texted him, hands shaking, that her dad had died of a sudden heart attack.
She hadn’t even figured out her summer plans yet.
But when she’d confessed that she couldn’t handle being back home for three months, where her mom and Conrad would be obsessing over logistics with their usual stoicism, he’d insisted she stay with him in his student housing as long as she needed.
Even with an internship at The New Yorker , he still found time to cook for her in the dorm kitchen or watch an old movie to pass a Friday night.
“I won’t write the article,” she said slowly. “But I’ll try to get in touch with Nora. See if there’s anything there.”
Joe crumpled to the table, staring up at her through his curls. “For real?”
“One visit,” she warned. “That’s it.”
He looked like he was about to clap, then sat on his hands and wiggled.