13. Penelope
thirteen
penelope
“I just don’t understand the hesitancy, Pen.”
“Then you really, really haven’t been listening to me, Rafe.”
I sigh. My agent sighs. We’re getting nowhere.
From the Zoom call, I see him lean back in his plush leather desk chair in his Manhattan office. Posters of book covers are displayed behind him from other authors that he represents. I can see my own clear as day. My first NYT Bestseller— Second Wind —with the fresh cover that had been redone once I inked my name on the dotted line. It’s weird, seeing my pen name on a poster, let alone in Target every time I have to go on a grocery run.
What’s even weirder is the fact that Rafe and I are even having this conversation, when he knew my stipulations when I signed on with him in the first place. Still, I reiterate them for the hundredth time.
“I’m a teacher, Rafe. It’s part of the reason I write under a pen name. It’s also the main reason that I’m not doing a book tour.”
“And I get that, sugar. Believe me, I do. But at this point in the game, do you really need to rely on teaching anymore?”
His foxlike smile tempts me all the way from Manhattan. It’s a question I’ve asked myself before: Do I really need to keep teaching when my books are doing this well? When book reps are practically begging Rafe for tours and signings and meet-ups? He knows to simply decline them and send a crate of signed copies in their place, because PJ Layne doesn’t exist beyond the words inside her books. I am faceless and elusive, like the romance world’s version of Lady Whistledown. It's just a coincidence that I also happen to be named Penelope.
I sigh, and when I meet his gaze over the computer screen, he already knows my answer.
“Teaching is my stability, Rafe. I’m sorry.”
I shrug, and watch the dollar signs in his eyes fall to the floor. At the same time, I know he’s going to take care of me. He won’t dangle this over my head or make threats or guilt trip me. We have this conversation every time I’m presented with a new opportunity that could further my writing career.
He sighs, and rakes his hand through his almost shoulder length light brown hair.
“Had to try.”
“I know.”
“Alright, moving on then.” He shakes his head and clasps his hands together on the desk. “Did you submit the next award winner yet?”
My head lolls back so that I can stare up at the ceiling.
“I mean, it’s submitted …” I let him figure out the rest on his own.
“Still got a block of cement in your noggin?”
“You could say that.”
“See, and this is why I suggested taking a writer’s retreat. You need to get out of Boston and out of your head, kid. Some fresh air would do you good.”
“I literally start school next week,” I say, lifting my feet to my desk chair so that I can rest my chin on my knees.
“Again, so many of these problems would be solved if you just quit teaching.”
“Can’t. Love it too much.”
“Alright. Well…” Rafe clicks around on his computer and confirms that I’ve CC’d him on the email with my first twenty-thousand shitty words attached. “Maybe whatever advice Paula has will kick you into focus.”
I shiver, and he laughs. Paula, my editor, is my greatest blessing and my worst nightmare. She tears my books to shreds for the better.
“Hopefully she doesn’t send me into cardiac arrest first.”
We end the call, with a plan for me to actually meet with him in Manhattan during our next school break in October. With the new year beginning in a few short days, I didn’t want to eat up my last few days of freedom with a trip to New York. I click out of the video and see my Word Document staring at me, the cursor blinking where I’d left it in writing purgatory a few days ago. Despite the bit of inspiration I’d stolen from Anthony’s recent heartbreak, I only gave a little edge of dimension to my characters. Poor Finn and Delilah are going to be my worst book since my debut.
Luckily, the ring of the doorbell yanks me before my writer’s block spiral can even begin.
Claire, Juliet, and Lucy are all coming over for a girls’ day. With Nathan and Anthony neck deep in this hell-hole of a new school year, and Sam helping out with the cross-country team now that we’ve absorbed a ton of extra students, we’re all in need of a little detox time ourselves.
I close down my computer and let the girls in, immediately stealing baby Hope from Juliet.
“I cannot believe she is already this big,” I say, balancing the chunky toddler on my hip. Her dark ringlet curls and olive complexion make her look like a doll.
“Right? She’s pulling herself up and about to start walking. I want to slow time down, but I also want to start trying for another baby because mine is growing up before my eyes.”
“Oh?” Lucy says, her interest piqued. “Are the Fords looking to expand?”
Juliet blushes, trying to hide a smile.
“I mean, we’re not trying to prevent pregnancy…”
We all squeal as we settle into the living room where I set up snacks and drinks on the coffee table. But as soon as we all go to sit down, I find a pair of balled up socks on the couch.
“Ugh. Seriously? ” I groan, chucking them off the couch. Hope immediately wiggles out of my arms and goes after them. Juliet laughs, then pulls a toy out of the diaper bag to distract her.
“It’s fine. Sam does the same thing.”
“Aaron’s clothes somehow always make it next to the hamper,” Lucy smiles, rolling her eyes.
We all look to Claire, who just stuffed a queso-dipped chip into her mouth. She stares at us wide eyed.
“I am so sorry. Nathan is the cleanest man I’ve ever met in my life. His shirts are color coded in the closet. But if it makes you feel any better, he can’t cook for shit.”
Lucy and Juliet laugh, but I’m still stuck on the domesticity of this. They’re trading the silly little flaws of their men, while I’m trying to wrap my head around living with the one that got away.
“How is living with your little vacation fling?” Juliet asks. I groan and toss my head back against the back of the couch.
“I wish I could say it was horrible, but he has gotten a lot better since I kind of yelled at him about cleanliness—save for the sock thing.”
It’s the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I had a reason to be angry with him. I toe the balled-up sock that sits feet away from me on the floor. When I glance up at my friends, I realize that no one has said a word. They’re all staring at me like they want to stage an intervention. I groan.
“Just say what you want to say.”
“Babes, we are just looking out for you,” Juliet starts.
“We’re on your side,” Lucy nods.
Claire takes a breath, and as the person who knows the most about this situation, I fear her words might weigh the heaviest.
“We’re not at all saying you have to marry the guy—he broke your heart, and you have every reason to keep him at an arm’s length. But maybe making peace with him would at least give you some closure on the situation—not to mention make working and living with him easier. What’s stopping you from just airing everything out?”
I sigh all the way down to my toes. I haven’t said this aloud to anyone yet, but here with my people feels like a good place to start.
“I thought he was the one.”
I am not quiet by nature. I am loud and opinionated and when I enter a room, people know. But this declaration comes out like an embarrassed ghost. I curl up into a ball, wrapping my arms around my tented knees to shield myself from their advice and their pity. I’m about to start feeling the torrent of my dejection when two tiny hands bat at my shins.
“Told you she was starting to pull herself up,” Juliet says, breaking the tension. Hope is standing at the edge of the couch with a board book, batting it against my legs. I pull her up into my lap and let her flip through it while I talk.
“I told him everything,” I start, distracting myself by running my fingers through Hope’s soft curls. “About the guys in my past who have messed me up. The reasons I don’t trust easily. I told him that the next man to find a place in my life would have to treat me with care and honesty. And when he…”
I hesitate at the crossroads I’ve brought myself to. My heart aches so heavily with this story, and I’ve decided it hurts enough to need a distraction. Claire already knows about my secret authorship. It’s time I let my other friends in as well.
“When he asked me, that night on the beach, if I was going to write us into one of my books, I told him, ‘I only write the men who have wronged me into my books.’ He said, ‘Good thing I won’t be one of them.’”
My little plan works. Juliet and Lucy hold up hands like stop signs and begin babbling half questions. When Claire eyes me with a look that says both, You’re crazy and I know exactly what you’re doing , I stand and usher the group into my office. Much like the day that Claire had discovered the secret of my author status, I give Lucy and Juliet time to get out their squeals and their fangirling before I give them the story of PJ Layne.
“I got an idea for a story one day, and when it turned from a passion project at night into a full-fledged, one-hundred-twenty-thousand word beast, I figured I might as well try to publish it myself. I didn’t anticipate it spiraling into what it has become, but the stories keep coming, so I keep writing them. I got an agent after my third went viral, and here we are.”
I shrug. It’s the CliffsNotes version, but it will do for now. The girls stand slack jawed, gaping at the back-stock of books that are half-unpacked and half-sitting-in-boxes.
“I just… I’m so proud of you, Pen,” Lucy says.
“This is amazing ,” Juliet echoes. “And to balance this with teaching?”
I shrug as blush warms my cheeks. I don’t take well to praise—which is kind of hard when you’re an author. The DMs I receive of people praising my work are a Catch-22 of loving what I do, and loving the fact that I can hide behind my anonymity.
“Thanks, guys. Sorry for keeping it a secret for so long.”
“Absolutely none of that,” Juliet says, lifting Hope off the floor before she can put one of my books against her teething gums. “You have your reasons.”
I nod, and before I can even field a question about why, Lucy brings my day full circle.
“You don’t have to answer this question at all, but do you make enough to sustain yourself without teaching? I mean, I have these books on my shelf. I’ve seen them everywhere. Like, why not write full-time?”
“If you wrote full-time, would I get Spencer’s book faster?” Claire—self-proclaimed PJ Layne superfan—cuts in.
I laugh, thankful for the break in the tension.
“I do.” I lift a copy of the nearest book—my first bestseller—and flip aimlessly through the pages. “But I think I’d go stir-crazy if I worked from home writing all day, you know?”
It comes out shaky because I know I’m not telling the truth.
“I need interaction with people, a routine, not to mention health insurance.”
Rafe has given you the answers to all of this multiple times, you little liar .
“And what if the words stop coming, you know?”
My friends all nod, seeming to buy my half-truths.
“And besides. I can’t give up teaching. I love it too much.”
Here is the saddest lie of all.
Echoing what I said to Rafe earlier, my chest tightens.
Even I don’t know if I believe that anymore.