Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Wes
The best days as an agent were days where Wes got to call a client and tell them that their book had an offer from a publishing house.
An editor at a major imprint had offered mid-five-figures for a client’s debut novel-in-verse, and they still had four submissions outstanding.
The client was understandably freaking out in the best possible way.
“I’ll be in touch soon with more,” Wes promised.
Wes sent nudge emails to each of the remaining editors, and he posted the news to Slack while his colleagues all celebrated remotely.
They could talk shop in Slack, make bets about what editors might want to offer based on recent projects they had seen announced on Publishers Marketplace.
Usually, even with a ticking clock for other editors to respond within the week, he wouldn’t hear things for days.
Midmorning, he finally calmed his nerves enough to get back to work, but then his phone rang.
It was one of the remaining editors in the running, Elena Evans.
They made small talk for a minute or two, then she asked if Wes was free for lunch today.
He was—even if he hadn’t been, he would have made time to be.
They made plans to meet at a restaurant halfway between their places.
Wes posted the development to Slack, and his colleagues were atwitter about it.
Elena had been promoted to senior editor at Wildman, an imprint specialized in emerging voices in literary fiction.
It was a connection that, whether for this project or another, Wes was desperate to foster into a good relationship.
These kinds of editorial chats could be an X-ray into the industry.
Yes, the agency had contacts at every publishing house, but an editor who would sit down for fifty minutes to give insight into recent acquisition meetings? Priceless.
Wes arrived early at the restaurant, a Thai place he’d been to many times when in Midtown.
Despite being early, Elena had already snagged them a table.
As Wes got closer, it became more and more obvious that Elena was pregnant.
Her stomach was rounded enough to bump up against the table, even with her scooted half a foot back from it.
He sat across from her and kept his gaze level with her face.
But she had obviously noticed his glance. “Ha, elephant in the room: I am basically an elephant now.”
“Congrats, Elena. When are you due?”
“End of August. It’s my second—he’ll be my second baby—so I’m showing a lot earlier this time.” She sighed and laid a hand across her belly. “I’ve been craving Thai, so thanks for agreeing to this spot.”
They ordered, then found their way to the business of the meeting.
Over spring rolls, they discussed the client’s book, and she revealed that she’d been prepared to make an offer identical to the one Wes had already received.
“I don’t know if we’re prepared to go higher.
I’ll certainly be taking it back to the team, but as you can see, I wouldn’t be the one primarily involved in its editing and production. The timing’s kind of off on this.”
“I understand,” Wes said.
“But I wanted to meet today because the last four projects you’ve submitted to me have all been exactly to my taste. I’ll be honest, it’s only that we’ve been outbid and no one else was as passionate about the project as me that I haven’t already bought one of your books.”
“That’s great to hear.”
“And now that I’ve been promoted, well …” She brushed her long, wavy hair over her shoulder, then picked up her fork. After swallowing a bite of pad see ew, she smiled. “I’m hungry. Let’s say that. So, what else do you have?”
The emphasis on you made Wes stop momentarily.
He did have a book, a book that, honestly, she would be the perfect editor for.
His book. And they had a certain back-and-forth, a budding friendship.
What would it be like to dip his toe in the water for something that would be cautiously proceeding in a few months anyway?
He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself.
He put down his fork and leaned across the table.
“I could let you in on the ground floor of something, but it’s still very hush-hush. ”
“I feel like you’re about to offer me Bitcoin or drugs, and I’m not interested in either.”
“What if I told you that I used to be the agency representative for the E. J. Morgan estate, and what if I could say with surety that the estate is vetting projects to adapt The Proud and the Lost ?”
She almost spit out her lunch. “ Are you telling me that? Is that a sure thing?”
Wes nodded. “It’s not common knowledge, but I’m sure it will be in the next month or so. I’m giving you a heads-up, not because”—he gestured at her pregnant belly—“but also because I remember the piece you wrote about P Jacob didn’t know in how short a time that run would begin.
Before traveling to the Hill, Wes had given the portfolio over to Jacob to manage without explaining why.
“Too much else on my plate right now,” he’d said.
Wes hadn’t told him about his book being considered for adaptation.
He wasn’t ready to share the details until everything was perfect.
It was time for Wes to find his own representation, though.
He didn’t want to ask someone in his agency to rep him.
A move like that would undermine his bargaining ability if they got to the bidding stage.
He didn’t want to query anyone at Yuri’s agency either—he imagined how awkward that would be and shivered.
He did know another agent from the time they’d both worked there who had moved on from that agency and respected the deals he had made lately.
He glanced over the query he had typed up months ago with the barest hope of Estelle agreeing to consider his book and sent it before he could overthink it.
How the tables have turned, Wes thought. He spent the good part of the rest of the day refreshing his personal email and his professional email at the same time.
By the end of the day, two more editors had told Wes they would get in touch soon with a counteroffer for his client.
Looks like we’re going to set up an auction , Wes said on Slack.
Confetti emojis from his colleagues. He couldn’t imagine working as hard as he did with people he didn’t like as much.
His colleagues worked second jobs and late hours to be able to do the work of representing books they loved.
This business rewarded you if you were already successful or powerful in some other way.
He was preparing to FedEx his manuscript over to Elena, nestling it into the comfortable big brown envelope, when he stopped.
He was keeping the project in hard copy to avoid having it on the record for now.
She’d asked to have a sneak peek before she went on leave.
Project FOMO was a real thing. There was always the next thing in this business.
Someday he might be the next thing, and that thought thrummed through him.
But the specter of being called out at the gallery hung over him.
Coming clean to Mo had been one of the hardest conversations he’d ever had.
It was physically painful to show her the behind-the-scenes of his last few years.
It reminded him of looking at the flip side of a tapestry and the mess of threads compared to the art on the front.
No one bought a tapestry for the process, but for the final, front-facing product.
No matter what happened with the estate, it would be one of their projects, and giving Elena time to have a look before she went on maternity leave felt like such a small stitch in the overall artwork unfolding now.
Still, he imagined how it would look, how it would feel, to tell Maureen about passing only his manuscript along to an editor.
He paused in the act of stuffing his manuscript in the envelope and looked around.
There, on the table, was Mo’s old novel draft, the one that had gotten caught in the rain on the day she slept over for the first time.
The pages were warped, accordioned in on themselves like ocean waves, but it was readable.
Missing her this weekend, he had reread that first-kiss scene in the first chapter, thinking of her lips.
He had mentioned Mo to Elena during their lunch, but he hadn’t said he had a copy of her draft.
He shouldn’t send it over, since he wasn’t Mo’s agent.
But also, he could imagine the betrayal if his project was selected and Elena bought it.
Maureen said that there was no future for them, whatever they were, if things weren’t fair. Fair it would be.
Without thinking twice, he shoved Mo’s manuscript in the same FedEx envelope.
He printed a shipping label. His stomach was in knots, but that was probably because he was hungry, right?
Wes made a quick salad and refreshed his emails again—personal and business—with a news podcast running in the background.
He could multitask, and in fact, sometimes he only multitasked.
He worried that he couldn’t ever sit and focus on one thing.
When he saw that the agent he’d emailed had responded, he single-tasked to free the salad from his throat.
Choking required lots of concentration. The agent asked for a full copy of his manuscript.
In the body of the email, he said, Okay, I need the full story of how this magic might actually happen, but your sample pages were great.
Not going to ask what magic lamp you rubbed or what HomeGoods you bought it from, but if the rest of the manuscript zings like the first fifty, you’re signed.
Wes smiled, attaching the manuscript to the reply with the note, Here’s hoping it zings. And no promises on its placement, but let’s say it’s got a 50/50 chance.
The FedEx driver knocked on the door, and Wes handed him the package containing his and Mo’s books.
It was hard enough to imagine a future with Mo, and he hadn’t allowed himself to think that far ahead.
Feelings got hurt in relationships every day, but even bigger feelings got trampled on in publication.
Comparison was the thief of joy, right? So how could they keep any amount of joy in their relationship when they had only met because they were in direct, constant comparison with each other’s work?
The only thing he could do was level the playing field as much as possible, even if that meant keeping the fact that he was doing so to himself for the time being.
Who knew what Estelle would even say? Maybe, ultimately, no one would get the go-ahead, and he would never have to mention this happened.