Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Wes
Wes took a picture but considered whether he should send it to Gary or not.
He had no idea what the manners guides would say about sharing a picture of Estelle, who had been hospitalized until very recently, in a painting surrounded by children’s television characters from the nineties.
It wasn’t that Estelle was portrayed in an unflattering way—the opposite, in fact.
She was a superhero. In Ajay’s painting, she wore a pink Power Rangers costume, and her wheelchair was painted in the same cheery pink with black stripes.
Though her money had originally come from her mother, she was famous in her own right as a woman in the finance industry and an advocate for many causes.
She was portrayed near one of the playgrounds that she had paid for, one of the first barrier-free playgrounds in the city.
Wes decided that Estelle might at least find it funny, and at most see it as the compliment it was.
He thought he would probably send it, but not before he got Mo’s opinion. Only because they had a similar frame of reference on the issue. And because he trusted her judgment. And because he wanted to see how she reacted. Not because they were a couple or something.
He checked his phone on impulse, but she hadn’t replied since she sent the eggplant emoji.
He hadn’t been trying to imagine which dark corner he could sneak her into to kiss her.
Not at all. He definitely hadn’t noted that the corner with the burned-out lightbulb near the fire exit was perfect.
He turned to Ulla. “I’ll be back. Need to get a drink. ”
“Tell the drink I said hi,” Ulla said, not buying his excuse.
He walked down the ramp back to the lower gallery space, his eyes casting left and right to catch Mo in that floral dress.
It wasn’t hard to find her; she looked like she was standing as still as a mannequin near the wall, and Yuri was hugging her.
Wes felt his shoulders tighten in preparation to make more awkward small talk, but Yuri had left by the time he reached Mo.
During his one-minute walk, he tried to assemble a cogent way to explain the secrets he had kept from her.
None of it was damning, exactly, but it was awkward.
It was messy, and he didn’t do well with showing other people his mess.
He should have figured the truth would out before he had a chance to out it.
The book world, encompassing many huge conglomerates and small presses and genres, acted as a small town, and gossip traveled accordingly.
Sensing his approach, Mo turned, her mouth set in a straight, pink line. “Have your ears been burning?”
He stared above her head and said, “So, yes. You might have learned that I used to work with Yuri, back when I was first starting out.”
“She couldn’t tell me much. Something about an NDA your mother made her sign.”
Wes puffed out a breath. “Yeah, well—”
“She did warn me that you are ambitious.”
“You knew that.” You are too he wanted to add, but didn’t.
“And Loris told me that you have trouble telling the truth.”
Wes felt like he’d been slapped. “Loris said that?”
Mo’s expression softened by half. “He didn’t say it in so many words. He said you have a hard time when you’re not in control of the narrative. And I’m honestly a little confused about the narrative at this point. Can you set me straight?”
Wes took a deep breath. The ambient noise of the gallery—its conversations and footfalls and laughter—was throwing him off. “Could we get out of here?”
They set off down Warren Street in the general direction of River Terrace.
In Wes’s head, he could keep her talking and walking long enough to get to the river, to look at it together.
In his head, he could keep her from turning up Chambers to get onto the subway.
The air was temperate outside, calm and still, and the sidewalks were somewhat empty.
This was the closest thing to privacy he was going to get.
“I worked with Yuri for about a year. This was my first internship, the one I didn’t use my name to get.”
“Lying hasn’t ever been hard for you,” she said, not breaking stride. Before he could respond, she continued. “Why did you leave?”
“Uh, I was asked to leave. This is where the NDA comes into play, if you’ll bear with me.”
“I always picture an actual bear when someone says that,” Mo mused. “Like Paddington getting in on the conversation.”
“Pooh with a hookah,” he said, grateful for a topic deflection.
She wasn’t so easily, or permanently, diverted. “Fill me in more about the reason you left Yuri.”
The gentle slope of the road pulled them toward the river.
Wes took a breath before beginning. “There was an author represented by Yuri’s agency.
I’m not naming names, but he’s the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.
He’d been with the agency for years and had a habit of coming into the office and throwing his weight around.
So one day, while I was there, he said some horrible things to Yuri’s other intern.
She was a Black woman. Is a Black woman.
She’s still with Yuri’s agency, I think.
Anyway, I won’t repeat what he said, but it was the kind of stuff that people like him get away with all the time in those private spaces where they have too much power. ”
“You have power too,” she said.
“I mean, I was only an intern, but yes. Social capital. White, cis, male privilege. And yes, I should have probably considered how to better use my power rather than punching the guy in the middle of the office.”
She halted in the middle off the sidewalk. “Really? You punched someone?”
He stopped too, unable to meet her eyes.
He stared directly into a streetlamp and let the light burst behind his eyelids when he closed them.
“Yeah, I did. I knew better. It was stupid, but I couldn’t control my reaction and I snapped.
I boxed all the way through college, though you couldn’t tell to look at me now.
” He knew he was softer than he used to be, but his broadness had always helped in the ring.
“Did you seriously hurt him?”
It was his turn to snort, and he started walking again.
She kept pace beside him, not trying to overtake him for once.
“No, no. One good thing about boxing is that it teaches you how to punch purposefully. I didn’t cause internal bleeding or anything, just a broken nose.
” He considered, then added, “I mean, not just —he filed a report against me, deservedly. I shouldn’t have done it.
And of course the agency had to let me go after that.
Loris heard that someone was sniffing around the story and let us know.
My mother’s clout was enough to hush-hush the whole thing by buying off the story from the tabloids and paying for the ‘emotional distress’ and medical bills of the guy.
Not that he needed my money. Well, Ulla’s money. ”
“You realize how weird that is, right? To have the ability to pay someone to rewind a bad decision?” They had reached the park and changed their course as other couples meandered on the paths ahead of them.
Her question, which wasn’t really a question, needled him. “I was lucky to have access to Ulla’s money,” he said.
“No, you were privileged to have access to Ulla’s money.” Her voice didn’t sound angry so much as tired. Green trees waved slightly in the darkness, their branches made into waving arms off the shadowy boulevard. “You know I’m dying to know who it is. Would I recognize the name?”
Oh, she would. “Yes. I don’t think he’s Yuri’s client anymore, and I know that agencies aren’t the moral gatekeepers of the opinions of the clients.”
“Still.”
“Yeah, I don’t regret punching him. And when I moved on to my current agency, I fessed up, even with the NDA. They thought it was a good story and said I wasn’t a danger, since I was in the New York area and the main office is in LA. It’s unlikely I’ll be breaking bones long-distance.”
He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. In the dark, it was hard to read her expression.
“But the other thing, the thing I didn’t know if Yuri mentioned …
” He paused to see if she would give any indication that she knew.
He didn’t know if he preferred her to already know or not.
When she looked blankly at him, he realized that yes, he would have preferred if Yuri had said something, because now he would be forced to see the full weirdness of it all settle onto her for the first time. “Can we sit?”
They sat on a bench, Maureen a hand’s width away from him.
“The period when I worked with Yuri, well, it was while you were querying At the Counter .” He knew mentioning the name of her old book would signal that this wasn’t a coincidental topic switch.
Her spine stiffened. “And I actually was the one reading her slush pile—her queries and submissions—when it came through.”
“And you hated it.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Oh, absolutely not. Uh, in fact, I fought for it. It was the first project I advocated hard for to Yuri. It stuck with me, the messiness of the relationship of the servers. The ambivalence to buying in to what society was trying to sell to the main character, to—” Here he scrambled for the name.
“June,” she supplied, sounding tentative.
“Right, June. So, yes. I was there for Yuri signing you as a client, but I left shortly after that. Because of the punching thing.”
“You read At the Counter . You—you helped me get to Yuri.” She truly seemed to not know how to digest this information. “I mean, do you expect me to thank you, or …”
Everything was going wrong. “Maureen, no. Not at all. I believe you would have landed with Yuri, with or without me. Or an agent of similar caliber. If anyone didn’t see the potential in that project, then that’s their fault.”
“Obviously, a lot of people didn’t see potential in that project, because it didn’t sell.”
“Yet. It didn’t sell yet ,” he said, then cringed. It was hard to sell a project that had already made the rounds to editors, but who knew? Maybe if she had a book out already—but if that happened, he knew what that would mean for his book.
“I don’t really know how to feel about all of this,” she said. “This is—a lot. This is a lot to take in.” Her voice had the same carefulness as walking on a frozen-over lake, afraid that one wrong step will crack everything.
But it was Wes who felt like he was cracking apart.
Too many tangled threads. Too much honesty.
He should have guessed. He could have shared that he knew her work earlier.
He could have tried to disclose the Yuri connection somehow.
The fact that she was sitting with him at all after round after round of complicating revelations was a miracle.
She was here. Even after Loris unloaded what seemed like a dumpster full of his faults in front of her, she was here.
She was here, sitting and talking through stuff that would have had any person he had dated in the past four years scrambling for an exit and realizing whatever connections this guy has, he’s not worth the baggage .
Yes, all his baggage might be Gucci, but it was still battered as hell.
And maybe that was what was going on in her head, but if he didn’t say something now, he would regret it forever.
“Those things happened before I met you,” he said carefully.
“I didn’t know how to tell you about them, especially about knowing your first book.
How could I have told you I was a fan of your work when … ”
“I barely have work to be a fan of,” she finished. The corner of her mouth tipped up. “I haven’t read your book yet.”
“I didn’t want to ask.”
She rubbed her hands on her legs and stared at the starless sky above them. “I think I should head home.”
He nodded. “Right. Okay. One more thing, all right? I know that was a lot, but I was serious when I said that I want even footing with what we have. Fair.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t bitter. “Wes, there is no such thing as even footing, but okay. I believe you. I just need a little time, okay?”
“Want me to walk you back to the subway?” he asked, after the silence had stretched on between them.
He wasn’t going to ask her back to his place.
Not after this. He’d fucked it up from the very beginning.
From before he let her open the car door and take the long drive to Greenwich, he’d ruined it.
“Sure,” she said. “Early flight tomorrow.” They walked in silence back up the hill to the subway entrance.
They didn’t hug as they went their separate ways, but Mo turned as she went down the stairs.
She moved to the side to allow a woman to pass her.
He called out to her before she could get too far down.
“I know you need space, but maybe I’ll see you when you get back?” The sound of an approaching train traveled up the staircase, muffling his words.
She glanced over her shoulder, then back to him. “Maybe. I do have to tell you what I thought of your work when I finish it.”
“I barely have enough work to be a fan of,” he said.
The smile that appeared on her perfect lips felt like aloe on a burn.
She lifted a hand in farewell, and the floral dress disappeared into the concrete and metal below the city streets.
She was already out of sight by the time he remembered she hadn’t seen Estelle as a Power Ranger.
He added the image to a text and sent it, hoping that by the time she came back into cell signal, she would be glad to see his name pop up on her screen.
He went back to the gallery, holding his breath, and was relieved when twenty-five minutes later he got a text back. She should buy that for The Hill.
He typed back. Make all the rooms Power Ranger themed. None of this fox and flower bullshit.
She lol -ed, and then the phone went silent. When he glanced back up, Loris and Ajay were giving him knowing looks.
“What?”
“You really like that girl,” Ajay said.
“Well, she hates me, so thank you very much, Loris,” Wes said.
Loris held up his hands in front of him. “Hey, if telling the truth is a crime, then arrest me.”
Wes shook his head, which hurt. His heart hurt too. He didn’t know if Mo would forgive him. “Are you familiar with the If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all school of journalism?”
“I missed that day of lecture,” Loris said. He pressed a reassuring hand to Wes’s back. “Most of it was nice. You are a wonderful man, but no one is perfect. Listen, she is digesting information. Let her digest. Give her some space.”
Wes tried to scowl, but his heart was beating too fast, his brain already zooming forward to next week and maybe seeing Mo again.