Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“All right, so we’re down to Von Bingen, Hereafter, and Melody,” Maribel says, her voice floating out of Henry’s phone.
The dining room table looks like a wartime strategy conference. Henry’s been making notes as each bid came in, moving them around by order of importance, amount, and editorial vibe. Frannie’s got her own notes going on her laptop, but her fingers haven’t moved in about thirty minutes.
“Von Bingen is promising a massive book club push, targeted social media advertising, and a hardcover release,” Maribel summarizes.
“Don’t they all do social media?” Elsa whispers.
Frannie knocks her head back into Elsa’s chest, where she’s standing invisibly poised behind Frannie’s chair, her hands a welcome, grounding weight on Frannie’s shoulders.
“I’m not impressed by Von Bingen’s socials. Are you, Frannie?” Henry asks.
Frannie blows out a breath, trying to clear her head. Elsa squeezes her shoulders.
“Not particularly. But I did like … that’s Darla, right?” Frannie asks toward Henry’s phone, which sits on a stack of Jaundice paperbacks in the middle of the table.
“Yes,” Maribel says.
Darla’s editorial call was one of the funniest. “I liked her vision for the design, and her thoughts on tightening the midsection of the book. And her Broadway puns.”
“All of them can make Broadway puns,” Henry says, rolling his eyes.
“Not all of them,” Frannie says immediately. “Always didn’t get my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang reference.”
“Because that’s the most important part,” Elsa mutters. Frannie would swat at her if it wouldn’t make her look ridiculous.
“Hereafter has a much more comprehensive publicity schedule, would fly you to the London Book Fair next year, and I know for a fact that Beatriz Ramos would die to take you to any show you want,” Maribel says.
“Don’t encourage this. It’s a ridiculous barometer,” Henry scolds.
Elsa growls in her ear and Frannie has to bite back a laugh. God forbid she and Henry agree on something.
“She should like her editor!” Maribel gripes back.
“I liked Darla, and I liked Beatriz, and I liked Johnny, for that matter,” Frannie says, thinking about Melody’s editor, Johnny Rocquet. She’d like him for that name alone. “I don’t know how to choose.”
If one of them were offering a lot more money, or more services, it might be easier. But they’re all offering her $750,000 for a two-book deal. What’s the second book? Apparently, who cares!
“It’s a gut thing, at this point,” Maribel says.
“I don’t have a gut to go on,” Frannie exclaims, a little frantic.
She has to make this decision. It’s her career. But she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing. Rejection doesn’t teach you how to succeed. A thick skin doesn’t prepare you for this. Why didn’t anyone tell her she should be prepared for this?
Because it doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t.
But then, her ghost girlfriend is standing behind her, wrapping her arms around her chest to help her calm down. “It just doesn’t happen” isn’t really in her vocabulary anymore.
“Frannie,” Henry says, walking over to pull out the chair next to her.
Elsa’s arms slowly unwind from around her chest. Frannie wants to chase them, wants to hold her there. Instead, she meets Henry’s eyes, feeling like the world is closing in on her.
“There’s no wrong choice here. Anywhere you go, they’ll give you a massive push, and it’s life-changing money,” he says surprisingly gently.
His words ring in her ears. She knows it’s life-changing, which makes it incredibly difficult to think it’s not an important, life-altering decision.
“Right. The editor matters, and the vibe matters, but with this much money behind it, it’s all shades of the same treatment,” Maribel says from the cell phone.
“So I just, what, play rock, paper, scissors? Eenie, meenie, miny, mo? Flip a coin?” Frannie asks, her voice tight.
Henry rolls his eyes. “Which editor did you like the most? You’ll spend more time with them than anyone else in the process.”
Frannie sits there, letting her eyes trail across all the editorial call notes, over the table where she wrote so much of this book. She glances at Henry, and then blinks, withholding a laugh when Elsa appears across the table from her, smiling.
“Beatriz,” Frannie says, nodding at her own words. “We had the best rapport, and even though she wants a happy ending like everyone else, she was the most open to a little melancholy.”
“Excellent choice,” Henry says, grinning at her.
“Fabulous. So, we’re good for me to go to Hereafter and accept their offer?” Maribel asks.
Frannie takes a deep breath, glancing at Elsa’s beaming smile. “Yes.”
“You got it, Frannie. Better make sure you’ve got an up-to-date passport. I’ll email you when we’re provisionally closed.”
Nausea rolls in her stomach. “Okay,” she says tightly.
Henry laughs and reaches for his phone. “I’ve got a couple low-priority questions for Maribel about Typeset, since she’s finally finished reading it.”
Maribel scoffs over the phone.
“Sit here and think about what we’re getting for dinner when I’m back from my coffee,” Henry instructs.
He stands up, clicks the phone off speaker, and wanders back through the living room. Frannie watches him go, trying valiantly to breathe.
It’s not going so well.
“Frannie.” She looks up and finds Elsa at her side again.
Frannie opens her mouth, but her throat feels tight, her chest heaving.
Elsa tuts and reaches out to cup Frannie’s jaw, her thumb smoothing across her cheek.
Frannie tries to focus on the sensation, tries to ground herself back into reality, but it feels overwhelmingly like she’s floating outside her body.
“It’s going to be incredible,” Elsa promises.
Frannie wets her lips, feeling parched and queasy simultaneously.
Elsa laughs softly and glances toward the living room before gently tugging Frannie from her chair. Frannie falls into her, tucking her face into her neck.
“I’m so proud of you,” Elsa whispers into her ear, arms tight around her shoulders.
“Thanks,” Frannie mumbles. “M’excited.”
Elsa laughs louder and Frannie feels herself smile. “Yes, you seem like it.”
“Just … fuck, Elsa. It’s so much money.”
“Money you deserve,” Elsa says, pulling back. Frannie must make a face, because Elsa shakes her head and leans in to press her lips gently to Frannie’s. “You do. Still mad at me?”
Frannie huffs and kisses her again. Elsa laughs against her mouth and Frannie focuses on her, instead of the enormity of what’s happening in Maribel’s office right now.
She’s accepting a $750,000 publishing deal.
It seems much safer to kiss her ghost girlfriend in her boss’s dining room than focus on that.
“You gonna come with me?” Frannie asks when they pull apart a minute later.
Elsa sighs at her and pushes her gently away. “You should call your parents.”
“No,” Frannie says, hanging on to Elsa’s forearms even as she tries to step back. “Not yet, and not here. I’ll—tonight, I’ll call them.”
“It’ll be real whether you call them or not,” Elsa chides.
Frannie purses her lips. “I can make it real by looking at apartments,” she says with a little bite.
Elsa rolls her eyes. “You can do that this weekend. Tonight, you should celebrate.”
Frannie would press, but she still feels a little faint. “No way I’m getting out of here early enough for anything fun. And I’d rather hang with you anyway,” she says.
Elsa’s face softens and she steps forward, just in time for Henry’s obnoxiously heavy footfalls to echo through the living room. And then Frannie’s standing next to the table alone, hands empty, lips still warm with the phantom press of Elsa’s kiss.
“So,” Henry says.
Frannie revolves, stumbling a little.
“I have to get downtown. Take an hour or two, celebrate, and then we’ll have dinner. Order whatever you want for six, all right?”
“Sounds great,” she says, her voice still tight and a little squeaky.
Henry laughs and comes over to pat her on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Frannie,” he says as he pulls back. “Always said you had it in you, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Frannie agrees.
“I have a nose for talent. Transcription’s on the desk if you can focus, but otherwise it can wait until after dinner.”
Frannie nods and watches him leave the apartment. The door closes behind him and she stands in Henry L. Olsen’s living room, with a publishing deal. The sound that bursts out of her mouth is halfway between a hysterical cackle and a sob.
Frannie blows out a breath then spins to tidy the dining room table, just for something to do with her hands. She stacks up the edit letters, leaving Beatriz Ramos’s on top. She has an editor. For her debut novel. Her massive debut novel.
Which still needs a happy ending.
She’s sitting down at the table before she can really think about it, pulling up her manuscript and copying the final chapter to start a new document with it.
She knows it’s not exactly healthy to skip entirely over celebrating this monumental achievement to start editing, but it’ll keep her from spiraling out.
When she wrote the original ending, she thought it was the only way for the story to end. The only way for her life to end. But now she has a $750,000 book deal, and she needs to convince her ghost girlfriend to believe in their future.
The door opens with a soft snick. Charlie holds her breath and steps across the threshold, listening.
She pushes the door shut behind her and stands for a moment in the narrow hallway, waiting.
She can’t see anything beyond the fresh white walls, the doorway to the kitchen, and a sliver of the living room up ahead.
She should call out. She should announce herself. But she can’t make the words leave her throat.
An hour later, Frannie sits back, staring at the blinking cursor behind the words, Charlie takes a deep breath full of the smell of lightning and the start of their happily ever afterlife. “Welcome home,” she whispers.