Chapter 20
The Lead Tomorrow conference is held at the public library in Bryant Park, aka the most magical location in all of New York.
They’ve rented one of the bigger event spaces this year, since their attendance is much higher than it was the last time I was invited.
So high that I can’t pick out faces in the crowd.
The spotlight shining in my eyes doesn’t help.
Still, I can’t help scanning the silhouetted heads in the glorious salon, hoping but failing to see one specific one.
I guess he changed his mind after all. Which is fine. He has every right, doesn’t owe me anything. It would be weird for him to show up here. Right?
Intermittently, my eyes land on their true north: Maral. Seated at a table near the front and to the left of the stage, a sweating glass of water standing untouched beside her conference packet. Her dark eyes as grounding as the hardwood floor beneath our feet.
Shanthi’s not here—I gave her a few days off in exchange for being on 24/7 for almost two full weeks, plus the overtime she racked up fielding notifications during Kissgate.
Girl has earned a vacation. (And she’ll get one: I booked her a spa day tomorrow, the gift card tucked into a delivery of a case of her favorite red wine.)
When I wrap up my keynote and step down from the stage amid a chorus of applause, people rush the small staircase before I even descend, questions and kind words and entreaties for selfies and endorsements ricocheting off me like pellets.
They speak over each other with no regard for others doing the same. Ah, New York. It’s good to be home.
After the crowd thins, I inch toward Maral, who’s chatting with someone with brilliant red hair pulled into an artful chignon who gestures animatedly as she speaks.
Meredith!
I gallop at them and practically knock her down with the force of my embrace, her puff of laughter blowing back strands of my hair.
“It’s you, it’s really you!” I pull back and hold her by the shoulders. “What are you doing here?”
“As if I would miss the one event I could actually make it to!” she gushes.
“But you’re not my publicist anymore,” I say. “You’re not even at Woodsworth anymore as of this week.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I’m still your number one fan.”
I crush her to me in another hug, Mar beaming at us over Meredith’s shoulder.
“How’s the new job?” I ask.
“Great so far—thank you for the flowers, by the way. That was so sweet of you.”
I wave her off. “Those were a Trojan horse. Keep your enemies closer and all that.”
She laughs, her blue eyes sparkling. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”
Her arms give under my squeeze. “Tell us everything.”
“Well,” she says, “today was only my second day, but the people are really nice, I inherited some exciting projects, and I have an office. With a window!”
I gasp, knowing what a coup this is. The cubicle farm that was the PR department at Woodsworth left much to be desired.
“Coming off a fresh New York Times placement didn’t hurt,” she says with a wink. “Speaking of which, bestselling author, how was the tour?”
“Not as good without you there.”
“I know, I wish I could have gone. But seems like Ryan did a great job?”
There is not a hint of solicitousness in her tone, even though she would obviously have seen the photo and knows things weren’t strictly professional between Ryan and me on the trip.
“He was excellent,” Mar puts in, saving me from having to navigate any potential awkwardness. “Except for the last-minute reorg in Chicago, every event went off without a hitch. If you couldn’t be there, he really was the next best thing.”
“Oh yay,” Meredith says. “I mean, I knew he’d kill it—he’s a friggin’ rock star. Woodsworth will be sorry to lose him.”
My eyes shoot wide. “What do you mean, lose him?”
She looks from me to Maral, then back to me. “Shit. My big mouth. Sorry, I thought he would have told you. Don’t worry—your book is still in good hands. Alison knows the whole campaign, and some excellent candidates are interviewing for my position—”
I shake my head. “Meredith, relax, that’s the last thing I’m thinking about. I trust the team.”
She’s visibly relieved. “Oh. Phew.”
“But,” I say, my stomach hollow, “I thought his job was safe. That…what happened…didn’t endanger it.”
Her hand darts out. “Oh my god, he didn’t get fired.
From what I heard, they were willing to forgive the transgression because, well…
they were told there wasn’t any coercion,” she says, confirming that my email had something to do with their assessment, “and SPOY was going to be reassigned to my replacement after the tour anyway.”
“If he didn’t get fired, why are they losing him?” Maral asks.
Meredith’s head swivels between my cousin and me. “He resigned.”
A boulder, heavy and cragged, lands in my stomach. “What?”
“Yesterday,” she says. “Alison told me.”
So when he texted me that all is well yesterday, he didn’t mean he was still employed, but that he resigned?
“But…why?” I ask, completely dumbfounded.
She shrugs. “That I don’t know.”
I aced advanced calculus, yet my mind grasps at the pieces of this equation like so many wet eels, slipping and sliding out of its grasp.
Why would Ryan leave Woodsworth? He was in the end zone—his position safe. At a company that matches Celine’s sizable tuition fees and would save them from years and years of debt. Why would he walk away from that?
The photo. He must have resigned because of that.
I consider the scandal of it and a cringe creeps up in me like a weed through cracked paving stones.
Even though Woodsworth didn’t fire him over it, the very fact that he was caught kissing an author would scar his reputation.
How can he face his colleagues if they know what he’s done?
How can he work alongside them when a twelve-thousand-pound elephant is trampling everything in the room?
A hurricane brews in my gut. He didn’t want to put me in an uncomfortable position, but turns out I put him in one. I crossed his professional boundaries, and Ryan, a man of immeasurable honor, had to step down from his post. Fuck. Fuck.
My pulse roars in my ears, my legs suddenly weak. I steady myself against a chair, clutching it as though it’s a lifesaving device in a swirling ocean storm.
Meredith gathers her bag from where she perched it on the banquet table. She and Maral are wrapping up their conversation, and I shake myself back to the moment.
“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” I say to Meredith. “Let’s grab lunch soon.”
“I’d love that,” she says. “And drinks too! We need to celebrate this one’s big news.” She pinches Mar’s arm.
My cousin freezes, pure petrification overtaking her face.
“Big news?” I ask. I’m still reeling from the Ryan news—have I been so distracted by my own shit that I’ve somehow missed something? Or is this related to Maral’s mysterious recent caginess? No, there’s no chance Meredith would know whatever it is that Maral is not even willing to tell me.
Still, Mar’s expression tells me that Meredith has let slip yet another juicy piece of gossip. One that she specifically does not want me to know about.
Meredith looks caught out, appropriately sheepish. “Shit,” she says. “I thought you knew…”
Maral glares at her, like, Are you fucking kidding me? Shut! Up! Knowing that she’s stuck, that I won’t let her get away with an excuse this time, she turns to me. “I was going to tell you. I was just working up the nerve.”
Oh god. Is her secret boyfriend really a secret fiancé? Secret baby daddy? She has been looking extra glowy lately—
“I’ve been offered a job as a consultant at the Metropolitan Planning Agency. In Boston,” she says quickly. Ripping off a Band-Aid. “And I’ve accepted.”