Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Wes
The day the Publishers Marketplace announcement appeared, Mo Denton gained four thousand Instagram followers.
She was so overwhelmed that she had to hand her laptop to Wes, who promptly handled the comment responses of Thank you!
with grace and a passable attempt at her social media diction.
Proud by Mo Denton would come out in time for the hundredth anniversary of the original book.
The winning editorial bid, it turned out, was Elena’s.
Wes hadn’t been involved in the negotiation for the deal, but watching from the sidelines, he knew it was the kind of epic literary alignment of the stars that only happens every fifty years.
At first, Yuri had been furious to hear that an editor had had an exclusive sneak peak of Mo’s book, but when Elena was able to put in an offer during the first week the book was on submission, it set off a bidding war.
Ultimately, Elena’s offer had been the best. Not the highest—though it was close—but Elena had a vision for the book that Mo agreed with and Elena’s imprint wanted two more books from Mo, including At the Counter .
“I just want to say that I always knew your first book was genius,” Wes said when Mo finally stopped screaming and jumping up and down to tell him the full details of the deal.
“I just want to say that I love you,” Mo said, pressing into him.
He believed in her—in everything she had made and in everything she could make.
She had been able to quit her job, something Wes always warned his clients against. Most authors couldn’t make a living from their books, but with Mo’s advance and the promise of more books to come, having the space and time to create meant more to her than continuing working for the catering company.
As a send-off, Amy and Rebekka had held a little celebration at their space.
Everyone bussed their own plates and served themselves so that no one had to work.
Ulla came, carrying appetizers made for a shoot at her magazine’s test kitchen, and Mo’s roommates brought boxes of wine.
They had laughed and toasted late into the evening.
When Mo and Wes took an Uber back to his brownstone, it was three AM before they stumbled into bed.
Most mornings, they were up together a few hours after that.
Sunrise was Wes’s new favorite hour. For the past few months, they’d agreed to wake up at five AM to write together before the day really began.
Morning pages for two. This promise held true even on mornings when she woke up in her own apartment. Good morning, babe , he would text her.
Good morning, honey , she would text back. They were completely, disgustingly in love, and so happy to be that way.
Writing in the mornings had been the only way he’d finished his adaptation of The Proud and The Lost , and it would be how he finished this new romance novel.
He’d found that after exploring Clive and Perkins’s tragedy of a love story, he wanted to write the happy ending he wanted to see for queer characters.
Logically, he knew that being in a heterosexual relationship didn’t diminish his bisexuality, and the energy he had for this project had only confirmed that fact.
Mo was equally driven to work, mostly because the contract she was ironing out was a three-book deal.
He liked mornings like this one, where they woke up in the same bed, bleary eyed and partially clothed, her hair rumpled from whatever they’d done the night before.
She would slip on his robe, and he would turn on the fireplace in the living room, and they worked in the early stillness.
He believed in her when the words weren’t coming, like this morning.
She stared at the computer, and he freshened her cup of coffee wordlessly, not wanting to break her concentration.
At six, they would make breakfast together, and by seven, he was checking emails and she was sitting down with her laptop again. In their coworking space, coffee breaks were sometimes forgone for quickies, and Wes had never been so grateful to be working from home.
On the day of her first editorial meeting after Elena’s maternity leave ended, Jacob had invited Wes to sit in on the call as a former member of the estate’s representation.
Yuri would be there, and so would some other members of Elena’s imprint.
Mo wore the dress she had bought in Greenwich, the one that she had written a check to Ulla for to stubbornly reimburse her.
This Mo, the one he deemed the meet-the-parents version of her, looked ready for her literary headshot.
Still, despite the makeup, he noticed her hands shaking before the call began.
He snagged her fingers and kissed those hands—first the right, then the left—and looked at her. “You already know they love you. You already know they love the book. This is the day you get to start making it real for the world.”
She took a deep breath and smiled at him. She seemed steadier. “Will it be weird if they notice we have the same Zoom background?”
“No, but we should probably save telling our love story until we get a film rights offer for it.”
She smacked him with a pillow, laughing, then logged on to the meeting.
To Mo and Wes,
This letter was a difficult one to write, not only because I am not able to write it by hand, as is my wont, but because reading your books has been the ultimate lovely distraction for me these past few months—for me and for Gary both.
As my health has suffered, he’s taken to reading them aloud, continuing the tradition you began while you were here.
He may say differently, but I think he’s even come to appreciate the original book through reading your work.
By the time you get this letter, I will be unable to answer your questions anymore, and I’m sure you have many of them.
I could say, “Add those to the long list that my children have.” I have left them a much longer letter, that one written by my own hand last year when my health began to fail.
I wouldn’t make Gary write his own praises, like that letter is rife with.
What I’ve learned in my life is that love can drive our work, but it can change it, too.
Many people asked me how it was to be born to a famous mother.
I often responded, tongue in cheek, I didn’t know what it was like to be born otherwise.
What I knew they were really asking was, “Do you think your mother regretted having you, and did becoming your mother stifle her career?” In short, the answer to these questions is “no” and “I don’t think so.
” My mother’s love and care for me may have been the reason she didn’t write a second full-length novel, but she might have said what she needed to say with The Proud and the Lost .
More than motherhood, I think fame changed her.
It made her feel watched, too observed. She told me once that she liked being my mother because children are the ones who watch their parents least carefully, forgiving them most faults and forgetting most errors.
When I started reading your projects, my heart wasn’t set on selecting either one for publication.
By the end of reading both, I knew both must see the world someday, and I hope that this comes to pass.
Maureen, I ultimately went with your work because of your tender dedication to dismantling the power structures which have always divided society—now, as much as then, these barriers exist. I also think that my mother would have liked your spirit and sense of humor.
She had a way of taking women writers under her wing.
While I never inherited her talent, I did inherit her passion for mentorship, and I hope this is something that you, too, carry into your no-doubt long future career in writing.
To Wes, thank you for bringing me your book, your passion, and your perspective. Thank you for taking the trust I placed in you seriously during your work for the Estate. Know that I’m proud of you, whatever comes next.
Be gentle to one another. Gary told me you are friends now, and I’m glad. God only gives us few equals in this life, and rivals which we respect—even fewer.
Yours,
Estelle Morgan