Chapter 4
It’s ten after three when Evan calls again.
“I’m walking down the block, Ev,” I say, instead of hello. “I haven’t even made it home yet.”
“But you live, like, two seconds away. So, we’re fine. Anyway, I’ve got intel and it was a lot for me to wait even this long.”
I’m annoyed; still, I can’t help but chuckle.
He sounds like a little kid on Christmas morning.
On the one hand, it’s endearing, but on the other, it can really be disruptive when the subject of his attention just wants to curl up under the covers and be left alone.
“Well, then. Out with it,” I say, because this is the correct answer.
“Shelby called Jax,” he announces proudly.
“And?”
“She’s got a friend at People magazine—some woman who’s an editor there.”
My stomach drops. I swallow and look both ways, focusing my attention on not getting hit by a car as I cross 108th Street. “Uh huh,” I say.
“Long story short, they want to do a joint interview with you and Beckett. The pitch is called My Side of the Story: When Two Authors Write the Same Book.”
I inhale the humid air, listening to his words through my AirPods. Briefly, I consider the idea that perhaps getting hit by a car might not be so bad after all. “You’re kidding,” I say.
“I am not. This is it, Mel! Big time. A global stage. Sales will skyrocket!”
“And Shelby spoke to Beckett about this?”
“Sounded like it. Shelby told Jax, and Jax called me. So, I think so, yeah.”
I sigh. “Evan, this is…” My voice trails off. I walk around a puddle on the sidewalk.
“It’s excellent is what it is. This is your opportunity not only to set the record straight with readers but also to finally get closure on everything that happened with Beckett. It’s perfect.”
It is absolutely not perfect, but I don’t expect Evan to understand this.
After all, he only knows what happened through the lens of how I wrote it.
He doesn’t know how it really ended, because romance stories are weighty with the spring-loaded expectation of happily-ever-after, regardless of the truth.
“I’m all for the whole notion of setting the record straight.
That’s fine. But I don’t need closure, Ev. I’m good.”
“Then you’ll be fine with seeing him?”
“Seeing him? No. Uh uh. Why should I have to see him? It’s a print piece. I could talk to the reporter over the phone, no?”
“Oh, Melody,” he says, in a tone that drips with sympathy over my tragic self. “They want to do it as a feature article. A cover story. There would be a photo shoot, and you’d all sit down together for the interview.” He is met with silence. “Live,” he says, as if to clarify.
“No,” I repeat.
“Mel,” he replies. “Please. Look, she called in a favor for this. We’re all just looking out for your best interest. Nothing more, nothing less. Lord knows, Beckett doesn’t need the sales bump.”
I feel my insides shift from nervous and antsy to pissed off. “You should have asked me first,” I say.
“Maybe so, and if we crossed a line, mea culpa. That’s on me.
Still, as your agent and your friend, I have to tell you that this is a golden opportunity to set your career on fire in a good way.
This could propel you into New York Times bestseller status; everyone reads People magazine.
Think about it—with enough money, you could finally quit teaching and write full-time. ”
A convincing argument, to be fair. But worth it? No. Seeing Beckett again would be too humiliating. “I have a pension through the city. I can suck it up for another”—I count hastily—“22 years.”
“That’s life in prison,” Evan declares. “You don’t even like where you work.”
“It’s work. Work’s not supposed to be fun. And I like it just fine.”
The sound he emits is a cross between a heavy sigh and a grumble.
“My point is, you’ve tasked me with the role of protecting your career as an author.
And that’s what I’m doing. You’re lucky to have an editor who was even willing to give this idea the time of day.
Most editors would have cut their losses and moved on. ”
I know he’s right about that last part. “I’m still half expecting Cabaret to drop me, Ev.”
“That’s my point. They’re one hundred percent behind you.
Jax really feels bad about this, but nobody could have known.
All summer beach reads kind of sound the same after you’ve seen enough of them.
Only difference is, in this case, Hudson Yards had a lot of money on the line.
Beckett was a nobody until he got signed, and they had to do everything in their power to make sure he became huge. ”
“Correction,” I say, feeling through my purse for my keys with my free hand. “Beckett was nobody until he started dating Analise Renda. That propelled him into the public eye way more than his stupid book.”
“Yes. Agreed—that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t you know the story of how they met?”
“Nope. I don’t immerse myself in tabloid media the way you do.”
“The Hudson Yards execs started running him around the star circuit last fall. He was brought to an Untethered concert with his editor and the editor of their tell-all. They sat VIP and went to the after party and everything. Analise met Beckett there. She spilled a drink on him by accident.”
Of course she did. “A perfect meet-cute,” I say.
“Yup. They had a whirlwind romance, and he proposed four months later.”
“Which is insanely fast, in my humble opinion.”
“Agreed. But that’s show biz, y’know?”
“I actually don’t know. Allow me to remind you of my humble status as a modestly successful romance author.
The only people who recognize me in the street are my students.
” I fumble with my tiny mailbox key at the metal bank of boxes in the lobby of my apartment building.
Pulling out a circular, my electric bill, and a coupon for the new Chinese restaurant up the block, I stuff the mail under my arm and close up the box.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Beckett Nash went from nothing to complete stardom basically overnight, and we haven’t spoken in well over two years. I’m pretty sure he’s over it.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you over it?”
“Sure,” I say, convincing exactly no one.
“Then you’ll do the interview?” Evan asks.
My throat feels like it might close up at the sound of his question. I press the button on the elevator and try to swallow. The door opens and I step inside. “I just don’t think I can, Ev.”
He groans. “Seriously, Mel? We need this.”
“I appreciate you, Evan. You know that. But I just…” I sigh. “Have you ever considered that maybe being an author isn’t in the cards for me?”
“That’s crazy talk. Don’t say that. I’m serious. That’s not even funny.”
“I mean it. Maybe I’m just out of stories to tell.”
“No. You’re wrong. You wouldn’t know success if it smacked you in the face. Your numbers are strong. Your follower count is always growing. The imprint is happy with you, Mel. Why do you think they would bother to go to all this trouble?”
“Because they feel bad? Because they got called out on Goodreads in a slew of one-star reviews where I was referred to as a cheap knockoff of Beckett Nash’s debut masterpiece?”
“It doesn’t work like that in this business. You know as well as I do that publishing is ruthless. But what’s happened here is a real injustice, and you’re a good author with a solid track record. Fuck Goodreads. I need you to get out of your own way and let us help you.”
“Listen,” I say. “This is all just a lot. It’s been a lot, these past few weeks, you know?
” Past few years, if we’re being honest. “Maybe I just need to take a step back. The Goodreads thing has hurt me, for sure, but the idea of doing some big spread in a magazine with so much reach—it’s too much right now. Please just tell them no.”
“How about this? I’m going to tell them you’ll think about it. Then I’m begging you—take a few days and do exactly that. Think about it. I’ll leave you be. You let me know what you want to do by next Monday. But don’t shut down on me because you’re overwhelmed. Deal?”
“Deal,” I agree, if for no other reason than the fact that I need to be done with this conversation right now. I open the door to my apartment and kick my shoes off onto the mat in the foyer.
“I’m sorry, Melody,” Evan says. “I really didn’t know how tough you were taking all of this. I feel like I’ve been a bad friend.”
“It’s okay. It’s not you.” I set my work bag down on the floor next to the shoe pile. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long month.”
“I genuinely care about you. All client-agent stuff aside. I want you to be okay.”
“I know, Evan. You’ve always been more to me than just a literary agent. And I’ll be fine. I just need to clear my head.”
“Yes. Do that. Think it through. That’s all I’m asking. I’m here if you need me.”
“I will. I promise.”
With that, I hang up the phone.
I look out over the empty apartment. Everything is untouched, as if she’s still here.
I’ve managed to change a few small things—I’ve added a picture here, a piece of furniture there, and I eventually put the Christmas tree away, but the essence of the place is the same as I’ve always remembered.
The apartment is long and fairly narrow, with windows that face north and west, since it’s a corner unit.
Upon entry, the formal living room is to the left and the dining room is to the right, and straight ahead past the dining room is a galley kitchen with a breakfast nook that ends with a window leading to a fire escape.
Our low-budget terrace, Mom used to call it, although we never once sat out there.
From the kitchen entry, an S-shaped hallway leads me first to my bedroom, then to the guest bathroom, then to the master bedroom with a tiny en suite bath.
Funny to call it that, as if this is fancy living, instead of the once rent-stabilized, solidly middle-class co-op it is.
I can’t sleep in the master bedroom. I think there are some things you just never move on from, and for me, that’s one of them.
That room is Mom’s. When I moved back in with her after the diagnosis, she joked that one day I’d get to have her room, but I didn’t think it was funny then, and even now I still don’t.
I wouldn’t call it a shrine, because a shrine can only exist with visitors, right?
I’m not sure. It’s just a space that I don’t go into.
The door stays closed and I live in the rest of the apartment, and that’s that.
I live on the fifth floor. Apartment 5-H. H like in Harry, she used to say.
I work two and a half blocks away, at Forest Hills High School.
Mom was a music teacher there, and she got me the interview as an English teacher ten years ago.
In many ways, we lived a parallel life for a little while.
When I took the job, I was living in Brooklyn so I had to commute to and from Queens every day, but once she got sick, it didn’t make sense to do that anymore, so I moved home.
We did everything together. We went to work together every morning.
Walked home together after school. Had dinner together.
She used to chastise me. “You’re young!” she’d proclaim.
“Your twenties and thirties are the best years of your life. You should get out there and live them to the fullest.” But we both knew it was a load of shit.
Mom grew more exhausted by the day, and me putting my life on hold to take care of her was a temporary thing.
She finished out the school year and then succumbed to retirement, despite desperately wanting to continue working.
Her days became marked by naps, and in the afternoons after I got home from teaching summer school that July, and later, when the new school year began, we’d have tea together and I’d spill all the faculty lounge gossip as I prepared an evening meal for the two of us.
Now that she’s gone, I sometimes feel like I live the life she carved out for herself.
Only instead of being a music person, I’m a book person.
Sure, it’s not the life I hoped for. But it is comfortable. And I don’t see any reason to mess with that.
Let Beckett Nash have the starry-eyed dreamworld.
I’m doing just fine right here.