Chapter 17
Seventeen
From: Muffin Evans
To: Colby Jackson
Subject: Armchair Detective
Have you heard from the Armchair Detective woman since I emailed her last week to inform her that Border isn’t going to publish her depressing piece of nonfiction?
I’d like you to get in touch with her. I think she was named after a president.
Carter or Kennedy? I’ve been spending time at the St. Regis and Four Seasons pool decks and all these vacationers are carrying around archaic romantic comedies and outdated book club bestsellers.
The women’s fiction space needs a new, fresh, beach-read author.
That girl is a strong writer. Get her to come up with something.
I’m boarding the Bora Bora Lagoon cruise, please don’t clog my inbox with trivial questions or thoughts.
—M.E.
Colby slunk down in his chair, calmly wheeled himself closer to the workstation, opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the twelve-inch cotton Dammit Doll customized to look like Muffin Evans that his office Secret Santa gifted him when he was M.E.
’s assistant. He started whispering the poem that was embroidered on the doll’s midsection.
“Whenever things don’t go so well and you want to hit the wall and yell, here’s a little Dammit Doll that you can’t do without. Just grasp it firmly by the legs and find a place to slam it. And as you whack the stuffing out, yell ‘Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”
By the time Colby reached the last line of the rhyme he was in an all-out tirade, shouting other choice words throughout the G-rated poem and pounding the doll so hard against the corner of his cube that the seams on the mini–Muffin Evan’s doll burst, and her insides were flying everywhere.
A small group gathered to witness the meltdown that was grandiose, even for Colby.
“I thought the Manuscript Eater was fasting until Friday. I thought she didn’t have service in her fancy South Pacific bungalow and wasn’t going to be able to destroy anyone until she was stateside.
It’s amazing to me that someone can be halfway around the world and still chew people up and spit them out before lunch.
Before breakfast! Bora Bora is five hours behind New York.
She probably didn’t even have her kale and berry smoothie, yet!
” Colby maniacally shouted as he paced back and forth in his cube.
“Colby, take a breath man,” said Ed, Colby’s cube mate and one of Border Books’ longtime contract managers.
“How many times do we have to go through this, we’re not saving lives.
I know we like to project that image, but I promise you, this author M.E.
just shot in the foot will be welcomed with open arms when they wobble into one of those boutique self-publishing houses down in The Village. ”
“No, this time you’re wrong, Ed. This time it is life or death,” Colby rebutted.
“We’re not talking about ‘some author.’ We’re talking about Kenny.
She didn’t know that I had been assigned to lead the review team.
I was going to tell her over drinks last Wednesday that Border made the decision to pass on Armchair Detective, but she was already down after losing the big Clinton White interview to NBC, so I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
That and M.E. said she was holding rejection letters until this Friday. I thought I had time.”
Ed had a major crush on Kenny since the time he first saw a photo of her on Colby’s desk and was elated when Kenny eventually agreed to go on a blind date with him a few months after she broke off her engagement to George.
Ed knew Kenny enjoyed cycling so he rented two Citi Bikes, and the pair rode along the Hudson River to the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge.
On the way back down, they dropped the bikes at the station on West Eighty-Second Street and Riverside Drive and walked down three more blocks to the Boat Basin for a burger and a beer.
Kenny had zero interest in dating, but she did enjoy the afternoon.
A large part of her producing career was building relationships with perfect strangers in the hopes that someday, after many meetings, they would sit down and tell their deepest, darkest secrets on national television.
She treated this date and countless others like a casual, no strings attached “booking meeting.” It was just another afternoon learning all about someone else’s life while carefully constructing and concealing the internal wall that protected her own thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
She didn’t need or want anything to come out of the afternoon with Ed, other than to get Colby off her back, so she put on a smile and a pair of Hoka’s and literally went along for the ride with the book nerd. Ed, on the other hand, said it was the best date he ever had and pined for her since.
The chemistry was undeniable, he told Colby.
“Oh shit, she’s going to be crushed,” Ed replied, flashing a crooked smile that screamed with sympathy. “You better pick up that phone right now.”
“I’m a dead man, Ed. Kenny left the bar when I went to the bathroom last Wednesday and ignored my calls the rest of the night.
I thought the day had gotten to her. Then she sent the message that she was deployed on one of those last-minute assignments, and she’d be unreachable.
But now it sounds like M.E. emailed her last week!
So, she’s known. And I haven’t heard from her.
I’m sure it’s all been festering inside her like a time bomb. I really screwed this one up.”
“Is Armchair Detective completely off the table? Or is M.E. just playing one of those mind games where she rips apart the draft, comes back a week later with a minor edit and then ships it off for publication? Kenny told me the concept of the book and it seemed catchy. Given her background, I’m sure she’s a brilliant writer,” Ed questioned.
“Armchair Detective is dead in the water. M.E. conveyed that in no uncertain terms. But after spending a week’s worth of happy hours at the five-star resorts of Bora Bora, she’s decided she wants Kenny to be the next breakout beach-read author.
” Colby laughed with sarcasm. “Maybe it was one too many Mai Tais or M.E. losing her knack for reading an audience, but my best friend is hopeless at love, not a hopeless romantic. Fictitious worlds of happily ever after are not in her wheelhouse. You know! You were planning a proposal after a three-mile bike ride with the girl, and she couldn’t even commit to a second date. ”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Ed rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, but you know what I mean. It would never work. Even if I thought that Kenny could put on her best ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ hat and come up with the next book club best-seller, she’d first have to hear me out. Right now, we’re about five years away from that.”
Colby picked up the polyester innards of the M.E.
Dammit Doll that were scattered across the floor and tossed them and the gutted cloth doll body into the trash can under his desk.
He shooed away Ed and the two other onlookers that continued to loiter as if to let them know his one-man performance was over.
“I’m going to Starbucks to wallow over a lemon loaf and a Red Eye. I’ll be back later,” Colby said as he dragged himself down the hall toward the elevator.