3
I was knee-deep in the seventh rewrite of my novel’s ending—the good one, the final-final “this-time-it’s-really-done” draft—when my phone started vibrating. One word flashed on the screen: Dad .
I hesitated.
I’d just survived Tess’s Greek tragedy, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for another.
Conversations with my parents always felt like five-act dramas—only with less pathos and more passive-aggressive judgment.
I sighed and answered.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Did you find a job yet?”
Delicate as ever.
I started pacing in circles around the room, like I was way too busy for this call. I was hoping the movement would help me improvise.
“Yes, I’m in talks with two companies. Final round of interviews. It’s competitive, but I’m playing my cards right.”
“Mmh.” His tone was that of a man who’d just realized his crypto portfolio was now worth exactly zero. “And what kind of companies are these?”
“Import-export.”
“Import-export?”
“Yes.”
“Both of them?”
“No. One imports. The other exports.”
“Ah.” Long, skeptical pause. “And what exactly do they import and export?”
“Consumer goods.”
“Like?”
“Well... the first one imports pasta, cheese, extra virgin olive oil. The other exports ketchup, Coke, barbecue chips... you know, the crème de la crème.”
I heard my mother’s voice in the background, a sharp whisper traveling down the line: “Tell her this is the last month.”
Silence.
My father hesitated. Then, a split second before he could say it out loud, I beat him to it.
“I heard.”
He surrendered with the grace of a man passing the baton in a war he already knew he’d lost. “I’ll put your mother on.”
“Bea?”
“Present.”
“The faucet on your finances shuts off in twenty- one days. Tick-tock.”
“I know, Mom.”
“You haven’t had a single interview, have you?”
“I’m close. Really close. I can feel it.”
“Mmh. You know how many times we’ve heard that before?”
“I know. But this time it’s actually true.”
“Just a couple more months. Give some poor literary agent enough time to read the manuscript and sign the deal. Then that’s it. I’ll disappear. You’ll be free. You can change your name and move to a different state, like people in witness protection.”
“Twenty-one days. After that, we’ll really forget about you. Not out of cruelty—it’ll help you become a functional member of society.”
“Mom, even Jack London used to sleep on the street. And look at him now! In every bookstore.”
“Twenty-one days. Three weeks. Tick-tock.”
Silence.
Then: “Okay, Mom.”
“Your father sends a big kiss. So do I.”
“Hugs to both of you.”
“Good luck, sweetheart.”
“Thanks.”
The moment I hung up, I threw myself across the desk like an action heroine diving onto a bomb to save the world.
Only instead of a bomb, it was my glorious typewriter.
That conversation— humiliating as it had been—had somehow cleared the fog in my brain.
My synapses lit up like clearance-sale Christmas lights.
I knew exactly what my novel’s protagonist had to do.
Because this was life, right? And life boiled down to one single, brutal, indisputable truth: money.
Forget love, justice, redemption. It had always been about that.
The key was greed. And it was perfect. The ideal ending for the Great American Novel: a choice not noble, but human. A decision driven by cash.
After pages and pages of life, death, love, hate, illness, redemption, and every twist in the book… what was waiting at the end of the existential tunnel? A suitcase full of money.
Perfect. Bitter, but right.
I felt every gear in the plot click into place like a safe unlocking. Subplots weaving together into a perfect spiderweb.
My fingers moved faster than my thoughts. My hands on the keys felt possessed. The typewriter clattered like an old-school machine gun. Clack clack clack clack. It was war. And I was winning.
I didn’t even need to read it back.
I knew: it was perfect.
Full stop. New line. Genius.
I looked at the stack of pages on my desk. There it was. My masterpiece.
So quiet… almost innocent. And yet inside that st ack was a hurricane’s fury, years of sweat, my soul wrapped in paper form.
I stood slowly, still staring at it like it might try to run away.
There was something deeply wrong about stuffing it into an envelope and mailing it across the country, hoping some underpaid intern would give it a glance.
It would be like capturing King Kong and packing him into a shipping crate labeled “Fragile.”
No. No, no, no. Whoever discovered King Kong didn’t stick him in a box. They went with him. Put a hand on his furry shoulder and brought him to New York in person—with a proper dramatic entrance.
Exactly. I’d do the same. I would deliver the manuscript myself. Put it in front of the right eyes. And this time? No photocopies, no letterheads, no “emerging agents looking for fresh voices.” I was done swimming laps in the kiddie pool. Time for the ocean. The big fish. The editorial megalodons.
I shoved the manuscript into my bag just as it was—bare, unbound, no frills. Kind of like me. I grabbed my jacket, my lucky scarf (which had brought me luck exactly once, but hey, that time I’d found a free parking spot right in front of my building), and ran out the door.
On the train, I stared out at the horizon as the Manhattan skyline came into view, steel giants rising against the sky. I wasn’t afraid.
I’d been mailing my manuscripts down there for years, tucked into padded envelopes with stamps licked more with hope than saliva. But I’d never dared knock on the door of the biggest fish of them all.
Every writing blog said the same thing: “Aim for a young agent. One who’s hungry.
One who hasn’t made it big yet and is still willing to take a chance on you.
” I pictured these guys with rolled-up sleeves and messy hair, sitting in cubicles on the lower floors, surrounded by manuscript towers like paper castles.
But here’s the thing: if they were still stuck down there.
.. maybe there was a reason. Maybe they just didn’t have the eye.
The ones upstairs—the ones repping The Big Names—those were the ones who could smell success before the ink was dry. They didn’t guess. They knew. They’d done it before. And like they say: if you’ve done it once, you can do it again.
Besides, what do they know on those writer forums? It’s not like I’ve seen Salman Rushdie or Donna Tartt chiming in on posts like, “How do I know if my novel’s too long?” Those tips always came from fellow strugglers, people worse off than me, firing off blind advice and praying they hit something.
When I got off at Downtown, the city hit me all at once—light, noise, footsteps, voices, hot dog grease, honking horns, and the heavy scent of ambition.
I immediately looked up. The skyscrapers gleamed like glass swords in the sun, and the city moved fast, rushing past me like a flood of asphalt that didn’t wait for anyone.
I slipped into the crowd, clutching my manuscript tight in my bag. It was rolled up inside like a secret scroll.
“We’ve got this,” I whispered to it silently. “Just stay quiet and lay low. Like King Kong. He seemed tame at first, caged. But then—
Then the whole world watched as he climbed the Empire State Building.”
I walked with purpose down Lexington Avenue, slicing through the thick afternoon air like a samurai with a manuscript instead of a katana. I knew exactly where I was going.
For years, I’d avoided elite agents. Not just the legends with waitlists longer than a federal case, but even the mid-tier ones—thanks to those writing blogs preaching humility: “Find an agent as hungry as you are! Grow together! Fail together!” Well, enough of that.
No more tortured-artist romanticism. I was aiming straight for the top.
The best. The Meryl Streep of literary agents.
I didn’t even know if he’d be in the office that day. He could’ve been in Cannes, in St. Barts, or at a Nantucket villa doing yoga with Stephen King. Hell, he could’ve been dead for all I knew. But I was so fired up, so possessed, I knew he was there. And I knew I was going to find him .
I stepped into the skyscraper like a woman on a mission, crossed the marble lobby, and headed straight for the elevators, not even glancing at the security guard whose eyes followed me the whole way.
Taking the elevator all the way to the top was a statement in itself—no serious agent worked on the third floor.
I hit the button for the top level and studied myself in the elevator mirror as the doors slid shut: messy hair, determined eyes, the look of a female lead in a pivotal scene of a mid-budget film.
Perfect.
When the doors slid open, the hallway was quiet and bright, lined with pale wood and frosted glass.
I weaved past a couple of fake plants and a giant framed photo of a Pulitzer Prize–winning author smiling next to a tower of his own books.
The door I was looking for was at the end of the hall: a tasteful, elegant plaque etched in gold:
brONSON & ASSOCIATES – Literary Representation
I stepped inside. The air smelled of expensive paper and publishing success. Behind the reception desk sat a flawlessly dressed woman in a cream blazer, her smile pure professionalism.
“Good morning, how can I help you?”
“Mr. Bronson, please,” I said firmly, dropping my bag onto the desk like I was delivering a federal warrant.
She looked up, that professional smile still frozen in place. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Mr. Bronson sees clients by appointment only.”
Of course. I’d known she’d say that. But I hadn’t come all the way from Brooklyn with a manuscript in my bag to be stopped by a secretary with a tailored suit and perfect lipstick.