Chapter Two #2
“So don’t tell them,” says Eleanor bluntly.
“Let them think that Fletch died after he finished his opus. The news of his death is going to come out. But we can hold it off for a little while. Long enough to find a replacement and make sure the book is done, and ready to go to print by the time the in memoriams start rolling out. You know,” she adds, as if it’s an afterthought, “you could finish it yourself.”
Holden watches his boss consider. Briefly. Then shake her head again. “No, I don’t think I can.”
“Even with your job on the line?”
“Especially with my job on the line. There’s a reason I became an editor, and not an author.”
“The steady paycheck?”
Ava snorts. “Hardly. I haven’t written anything since college. You think Arthur was over his skis? I’d be tumbling down the mountain, straight into a tree.”
“Look,” says Eleanor, uncrossing her legs just so she can make a point of crossing them again. “We both know Arthur was difficult. Brilliant, but . . . difficult. Not to speak ill of the dead, of course.”
“Of course,” echoes Ava.
Holden thinks it’s funny, how once people are dead, you can’t say mean things about them, even if they are true. Last week Ava went on a full-blown rant about Fletch, calling him a Grade A asshole with a god complex and an ego the size of his backlist, who couldn’t get it up (literarily speaking).
“And,” continues Eleanor, “I think we both know that credit for the success of the Petrarch series goes to you as much as Arthur.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” says Ava, even though her expression says Obviously.
“You were the reason those books made the splash they did,” declares his agent. “And I know he didn’t make it easy.”
A muscle ticks in Ava’s cheek. “He was a man. They rarely do.”
Holden shifts on his stool, in case they’ve forgotten he’s here. But neither woman looks his way. After a long beat, Ava shakes her head more forcefully. “I can’t finish the book.”
“Come on. You could.”
“Not happening,” says Ava. “I’m good at my job. I’m a . . . shepherd.”
“In that case,” says Eleanor, “we need to find a sheep.”
“A ghostwriter.”
Holden smiles. He loves that term. He knows it doesn’t refer to an actual ghost, just a writer who does the work without the credit, but it always makes him think of a pen moving of its own accord, words appearing like magic on the page.
“Plenty of writers out there would quite literally kill for the chance. The midlist is full of them.”
Ava raps her pen on the desk, the way she does whenever she’s thinking through a plot hole.
“Most ghostwriters are mimics. They may be able to copy Fletch’s voice.
His style. But who’s to say they’ll be able to think of an ending worthy of the series?
Even he was running out of ideas. We need fresh blood.
Maybe even someone from another genre. Or at least, another generation.
Ideally, more than one, so we can see who’s best.”
“So, we audition them,” says Eleanor. “See who comes up with the best ending. Throw in a book deal to sweeten the pot. A way out of the midlist.”
They spend the next few minutes batting the idea back and forth, until they settle on its shape. A weekend-long contest (after all, time is of the essence). On Fletch’s private island. Four authors, to be agreed upon, all of whom have the chops but not the sales record.
“Five,” amends Eleanor. “I just signed a new client. Cate Newhouse. Very promising. Her writing has a flair that rather reminds me of Fletch.”
“Fine. Five.”
“We’ll have them sign nondisclosures, of course,” says Eleanor. “Secrets don’t stay secret for long in publishing. And we’ll judge it blind. Let the work speak for itself.”
Ava cocks her head, considering.
“What?” presses Eleanor.
“I agree. About the samples needing to stand on their own. But if we’re being honest, it’s not just about craft. I have to work with them, and I’m sick to death of hand-holding old white men and their egos.”
“So you go along. Spend the weekend on the island with the writers. Get to know them.”
Ava twirls the pen. “I’ve been to my share of conferences.
I’ve been bribed, and flirted with, and followed into bathrooms, had writing samples shoved under stalls.
Writers turn into different people when they get near someone who can change their lives.
I want to see who they really are. How they act around their fellow writers.
I can’t do that if they know I’m the editor. ”
“What are you thinking?”
Ava digs around in her desk, and finally comes up with a set of glasses.
She has five. Holden knows because he makes a note every time she wears a different pair (he really is very bored): There is leopard print, mint green, polka dot, a pair that is goldenrod and round, and another that is teal with gold tips.
But this pair is pink. It’s funny; in the six months he’s been working for her, he can’t remember ever seeing his boss wear pink.
But back at Yale, an acting teacher taught them that they could build whole characters around a single thing—an umbrella, for example, or a hat—and he wonders if Ava has ever taken an improv class, because when she sets the pink glasses on her nose, her whole face seems to change.
One eyebrow goes up, giving her a look of dry amusement, one he’s never cataloged.
He promptly makes a note of it on his legal pad, along with the new glasses, as she says, “Meet the sixth author vying for the job. Priscilla Renée Fox.”
Eleanor raises a single silver brow. “And what do you write?”
Ava considers and then declares, “Romance.” Eleanor gives her a look. “Not the most obvious choice, I know,” she goes on, “but that’s a plus, as far as I’m concerned. And chances are, they won’t see me as a threat.”
Holden raises his hand. Eleanor doesn’t see it, but Ava clears her throat.
“Yes, Holden?”
“Won’t they still recognize you?”
“That is a risk,” ventures Eleanor.
Ava snorts. “Please,” she says. “First of all, the only time anyone might have seen me and Arthur in the same place was at the Edgars, which I never got to attend because your uncle always insisted on being his plus one. And second, do you know how many Black female fiction editors there currently are in New York?” She doesn’t wait for either of them to answer. “Four.”
Holden frowns. “But that’s a small number.” He feels suddenly uncertain. “Isn’t it?”
“It is,” she says, her voice bone-dry. “And yet somehow I am always being mistaken for someone else. Last year, an agent confused me with Miranda Lester. Who is six inches shorter than me. And sixty-five.”
“Point taken,” says Eleanor. “But if you’re going as Priscilla, we’ll still need someone to pose as Fletch’s editor, for the purposes of the competition . . . What about him?”
Holden is surprised to find Eleanor pointing his way.
“Me?” he asks at the same time Ava says, “Him?”
Eleanor gives him a once-over. “He certainly looks the part.”
Holden glances down at his Tuesday outfit—a blue cashmere sweater vest over a pinstripe shirt, tan slacks, and a gold watch, a gift from Uncle Ellis last Christmas—and smiles, glad that someone’s noticed. His glasses have begun slipping down his nose, so he pushes them up again.
“He looks ridiculous,” says Ava, which honestly stings. He got two compliments on the way into work that morning, both from very professional-looking men.
“You know what I mean,” says Eleanor with a flick of her wrist. “He looks like central casting’s idea of an editor.”
“You mean he looks like a white man.”
“Exactly.”
Holden frowns. He doesn’t like when they talk about him as if he’s not there.
“It’s not my fault,” he starts to say, but halfway through, both women shoot him a look and he swallows the retort.
Eleanor Vandenberg steeples her fingers. “What do you think, young Mr. Merriweather? Are you up for pretending to be Arthur Fletch’s new editor in order to save his legacy and, by extension, your own?”
Holden brightens. “Yes!” he says, delighted by the prospect of doing more, and seeing Scotland in the process. And he is even qualified. “You know,” he explains, “I almost became an actor.”
“Of course you did,” drawls Eleanor.
“Oh, oh, can I pick my name? I was thinking . . . Rufus. Oh, Rufus Beaumont! That’s got some gravitas, and—”
“Holden,” says Ava sternly. “This is very important. If we go through with this, you make your appearance, and then you stay out of the way. You don’t engage with the authors, or with me. There’s a guest cottage on the island. You will stay there until the weekend’s over. Can you do that?”
To be honest, it sounds a little less exciting when she puts it that way, but it is still better than book reports.
Holden straightens. “Absolutely.”
Eleanor smiles. Ava blows out a shaky breath. “Okay. Fine.” She nods at the door. “Give us a minute.”
He rises cheerfully and doffs an imaginary cap, already wondering what Rufus will wear.