Chapter 9
As we pulled up to the café where the book launch party was being held, I prayed I wasn’t on the precipice of hell once again.
I reminded myself for the billionth time that I’d written a happily-ever-after romance.
Yet my body was frozen in place. Rebecca must have sensed my apprehension, because she reached behind her seat to pat my knee.
In the weeks leading up to my book’s publication, Rebecca and I had tiptoed around each other, but I was touched by all her support, despite her misgivings.
She’d called in a favor from a client to let my publisher host the launch party here after-hours, and had even hired a stylist to come over and do my makeup and battle my thick hair into submission.
But my hair was less of an issue than my nerves.
Because four hours from now it would be midnight on the East Coast and my new book would be launched into the wild.
As William held open the door and Lucy and I walked across the threshold hand in hand, I felt like Cinderella arriving at the ball, minus the glass slippers.
We’d opted for matching white sneakers and light-pink shift dresses similar to the one worn by the main character on the cover of the book as she gazed up at Mars in the night sky.
As I took in the beautifully decorated space, my mind traveled back to the launch event for my debut novel, which had been held at a swanky rooftop restaurant in New York.
I’d been so naive as I sipped champagne and my prepregnancy hair complied with my every wish.
With Sam by my side for that one night only, having stopped in on his way to a tournament, the nerves had melted away and I’d felt invincible as I took the makeshift stage for an interview with an author I had long admired.
When I spotted Sam in the audience, I’d gained a new appreciation for why it was so important to him to have me in the stands for his matches.
As we’d strolled back to our hotel on that humid July night, I vowed to remember every detail.
But what I thought had been one of the best nights of my life was actually the beginning of the end. I just hadn’t known it.
“Cupcakes, Mommy!” Lucy tugged me toward the round table in the center of the room. There had to be three dozen pink cupcakes decorated like my book cover.
As Lucy helped herself to one, Coco appeared at my side, looking glamorous with her jet-black pixie haircut and enormous green eyes. She was decked out in a white silk tank, black leather pants, and sky-high heels. “Thea!” she said and leaned in for a hug.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “I really need friendly faces tonight.” On our coffee breaks at work, Coco had been offering me tips on promoting my book through social media, which would have been super helpful had I actually wanted the book to be widely read.
“For sure!” Coco said. “Let me take a few photos of you against the exposed-brick wall over there that you can post.”
“I’ll be right back, Jellybean. Only one cupcake.
Got it?” Lucy nodded and kept her eyes on me until I turned to follow Coco across the room.
When I peeked over my shoulder, she was reaching for another cupcake.
I made a mental note to work on this new “selective listening” habit over the summer before she started kindergarten in September.
“Your dress totally pops and matches your cover perfectly,” Coco gushed, handing me a copy of my book.
“Thanks. Your bracelet is so pretty,” I said, returning the compliment with the first thing I noticed.
“I made it! Have I told you I’m starting my own jewelry line?” she asked.
I was about to respond, but Coco had already moved on.
“What are you doing later?” she asked. “I’m meeting up after with some friends at a bar down the street. You should totally come!”
“Sounds fun,” I said, humoring her, knowing full well I’d be going straight home to put Lucy to bed and await the official launch of my book.
“Excuse me, Thea?” I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Hi, it’s me. Bronwyn!”
Standing in front of me was a super-stylish, willowy blonde dressed in all black with a bright-red lip. “Oh my gosh, hi!” Up to this point, we’d been on several calls together and exchanged emails and texts, but I hadn’t realized my publicist was so young. Or tall.
Bronwyn fidgeted with her gold hoop earring. “It’s so great to meet you in person!”
I smiled. “Great job with the event. Everything looks beaut—”
“Theeeeeeeee,” I heard from behind my back.
Relief washed over me that Frannie had arrived.
Not that I was worried she wouldn’t show up, but nothing in my life felt complete without her by my side, even though she sometimes still questioned my commitment to the whole “moving forward with my life” plan.
At least on one count, I had made an effort.
Upon selling my manuscript, I’d finally given Frannie the green light to set up a date with Hot ER Doc, living up to our agreement.
Unfortunately, I’d waited too long, as by that time he was already seeing someone else.
Since then, I’d gone on a handful of disappointing first dates with assists from a few preschool mom friends, but I wasn’t ready for the apps.
Though Frannie was pleased I was saying yes to the occasional date, she was annoyed that I was still living in Rebecca and William’s guesthouse, a situation she maintained would make an actual relationship impossible. She wasn’t wrong.
Anyway, within a few hours the book would be officially published, and nothing of consequence was likely to happen.
Then I might have the reassurance I needed to move forward in other aspects of my life.
But tonight was about my new book, which was no minor accomplishment.
Frannie would just have to wait a bit longer to celebrate my evolution.
“Happy birthday!” Frannie said, leaning in for a hug.
“Thanks so much,” I said, relishing the warmth of my best friend, which took some of the sting out of neither of my parents making the trip to LA for my launch.
This morning, my dad texted a happy birthday wish and apologized for not being able to be there.
Then he texted a photo of the reason he couldn’t come: his stepson, whom I’d met only a handful of times, holding a trophy from his latest baseball tournament.
My mom called a few hours later, during her lunch break, and left a voicemail: “Happy birthday, Thea. Session B started and I had a line out my office all morning. Wish I could be there to celebrate you and your book. Hope everything goes well!” It was hard not to feel abandoned sometimes, especially on days like this, when I could almost taste the joy I might have experienced in an alternate universe with Sam, my mom, my dad, and my sister all by my side on such a momentous night.
“Wait, it’s your birthday? How did I not know that?” Bronwyn exclaimed as she gave my arm a playful swat, confirming that she hadn’t read the publisher’s six-page author information form I’d labored over for days.
Coco saved me from an obnoxious retort by herding the three of us in front of the wall and snapping several photos, with a promise to post the best ones later.
After a few minutes, Frannie must have sensed that I’d tired of posing.
“Would you two excuse us?” she said to Coco and Bronwyn.
“I have to give Thea her birthday present.” She squired me over to the bar and ordered a hard cider.
Then she turned to me with a playful smile. “Are you ready for your present?”
“I don’t know. Am I?” I kidded.
“You definitely are.” She nodded solemnly, handing me an envelope.
I opened it and laughed at the birthday card that read Sixty and Sexy!
Ever since we were seniors in college and I’d mistakenly switched my mom’s fiftieth birthday card with Frannie’s twenty-first, it had become our tradition to give each other birthday cards meant for other ages.
We decided it would be good for big-picture perspective.
After all, there’s nothing like receiving a birthday card meant for an eight-year-old boy obsessed with potty humor when turning thirty as a reminder not to take life too seriously.
“Look in the envelope, there’s more,” Frannie said.
From the lumpy envelope, I pulled out a pair of lacy black crotchless panties. “Real subtle, thanks.” I crumpled the panties into my hand and prayed no one else saw them. “But this feels like a gift for someone who wouldn’t have to slip a dude past her in-laws’ security cameras to have sex.”
“Exactly!” Frannie smiled big.
My eyes narrowed.
“A friend in my building just told me she’s moving in with her boyfriend,” Frannie continued. “She has a two-bedroom apartment one floor below me. It’s perfect for you and Lucy. And she doesn’t have to tell the leasing manager for another week, so you can get the inside track. What do you think?”
“Um, thank you for thinking of us?” I said, darting my eyes to Lucy, who was still standing by the cupcake table but was now flanked by William and Rebecca.
Frannie frowned. “Will you at least come tour the apartment?”
Apparently the prospect of temporarily papering over the perpetual disappointment splashed across Frannie’s face was the motivation I needed. “Fine, I’ll come take a look—”
“Hey, gals, are we ready for a little book talk?” Bronwyn interrupted, swooping between us with a painful use of the royal “we.”
“No” probably wasn’t an acceptable answer, so I followed her to the back of the room, where two high-top chairs had been placed.
As I looked around for the author who was supposed to interview me, Bronwyn took the interviewer’s chair.
She clocked my confusion and leaned in to explain, “Isabella Valentina came down with the flu, so I’m filling in. ”
A little stab of panic made my heart race.
Last month, Harper and Bronwyn had settled on the rules for interviewers to steer clear of sensitive topics.
Basically anything that would connect this new book, and the woman who wrote it, to my past life.
But Bronwyn had an intangible “loose cannon” quality to her.
What if she’d sent the rules to Isabella Valentina without bothering to internalize them herself?
I wanted to remind Bronwyn of the publisher’s promise, but there wasn’t time. She was already introducing me.
For the next fifteen minutes, Bronwyn expertly focused on my “debut” as a romance writer and maneuvered our conversation around the verboten topics.
Our back-and-forth was breezy, and I relaxed into the banter once I understood my worries were unwarranted.
The modest crowd laughed and seemed engaged.
Afterward, Bronwyn stood over me, beaming and handing me books as I signed them with my pink Sharpie.
I wasn’t sure of much, but of this I was certain: The act of signing a book I had written would never get old.
The adrenaline was still pumping as William drove us home.
The car clock read 8:32 p.m. when we pulled into the driveway.
Twenty-eight minutes until my book launched on the East Coast. Lucy was out cold, so William carried her into the guesthouse.
Rebecca whispered to meet them on the patio for my birthday present after Lucy was tucked in.
A few minutes later, I joined them by the pool.
I didn’t want to appear rude as they were about to give me a gift, but I was really hoping to be at my desk when the clock struck 9:00 p.m. and I turned back into a published author.
I resisted the urge to flop onto the open lounge chair next to William and instead perched on the edge of Rebecca’s near her feet.
“It’s no secret we had some misgivings about this book, but we hope you know our worries came from a place of love,” Rebecca said as she sat up a little and touched my arm.
“Now, we have a fun birthday surprise for you. Since you’re already taking the next two weeks off from work, we thought we’d give you the gift of even more time.
” She paused for dramatic effect. “We’d love to take Lucy on a two-week adventure to Florida.
With your blessing, of course. We would leave tomorrow.
” She quietly clapped her hands and beamed at me.
“You can do your book stuff, sleep in, recharge. Karla will be here to cook for you. What do you think?”
My mouth went dry. I had never spent so much as a night apart from Lucy, and now they were proposing taking her across the country for two full weeks with no advance notice? I eked out, “Oh wow, I, um, thank you. What would you do in Florida for that long?”
“Well”—William glanced at Rebecca—“we’re going to spend a couple of days at Disney.”
Rebecca jumped in. “I know Lucy’s princess obsession has cooled, but she seems to be enjoying Star Wars lately, especially with all the talk around here about Mars and space. And you’re reading Harry Potter to her, so we’ll go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal.”
“And then she’ll go to IMG for a week,” William said, revealing the primary motivation for the trip.
IMG was the premier tennis academy, where families from around the world sent their kids to chase their tennis dreams. I remembered Sam talking about going there, but I didn’t think he’d been as young as Lucy.
“Wow, what an opportunity for Lucy,” I said, hoping I sounded sufficiently grateful even though William and Rebecca were putting me on notice that they were operating several moves ahead of me when it came to Lucy’s budding tennis career.
William said, “So is that a yes?”
While I would miss Lucy desperately, the truth was that some time to myself did feel like an incredible gift.
I thought about quibbling with the length of the trip or the departure date, but that would only give me more time to worry about missing Lucy.
My mind was aswirl. Then I glanced at my watch. It was 8:56 p.m. Four more minutes.
“That’s a yes!” I stood up. “Lucy will love it, and you’re right that I could use some time to focus on the book launch. I can’t thank you enough for such a generous gift. You’re the best.”
After giving each of them a hug, I dashed back to the guesthouse and managed to get to my desk just in time to see the tiny clock in the upper-right corner of my monitor flip to 9:00 p.m. Breathless, I refreshed the page for Love You to Mars and Back.
The Preorder banner disappeared and was replaced with the Buy Now banner. My new book had entered the world.
God help me.