Chapter 37
Before arranging to meet with Oliver, Aurelia had decided not to tell Vronsky. She wanted to wait until she could tell him she’d found a publisher, rather than get his hopes up for nothing if she had to pitch his story to a few different ones.
But in the nights that followed her lunch with Oliver, it was difficult to keep it from Vronsky.
Her mood shifted constantly as she thought about Oliver’s questions, how he’d challenged her about her subject matter, and the possibility that he might decide he didn’t want to work with her at all.
A few times, Vronsky asked if she was alright but instead of answering she just asked what he wanted to happen next in his story.
And in the days that followed her lunch with Oliver, Aurelia found it almost impossible not to wonder what he’d have to say about what she’d written.
The exception was a Monday visit from Mark that led to a new discovery about Aunt Marigold and the shop.
The visit started as his visits always did: Aurelia had tea waiting for him, they said their hellos, and then Mark began his wander.
But this time, when he passed the Recommended Reads table, Mark stopped to look at the books on display.
“You’ve had these out since before Christmas, haven’t you?” he asked.
Aurelia had been looking out the window, wondering if Oliver would call that day to discuss the book, and Mark’s voice brought her back to the shop.
“Hmm?”
“These books, they’ve been here for a few months?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose they have.”
She’d planned to swap them once a month, just as Marigold had, but after discovering that the table could release each book’s characters, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She liked everyone too much to change their books, and still worried that if she took away or added books to the table something might go wrong—so that she might not be able to see any characters at all.
Besides, they were all looking forward to finding out whether the experiment with Vronsky’s sequel would work.
“She sometimes kept books out for a few months too,” Mark said, smiling. “I once asked her why and she said, ‘The characters feel like family. I couldn’t bear to put them back on the shelves.’ I always thought that was rather fanciful for Marigold. It stuck with me.”
“I can see why.”
Aurelia smiled as yet another piece of evidence slipped into place to confirm that her aunt knew what the table could do, even if she’d never mentioned it.
“Although Marigold still has you beat. She had The Three Musketeers on the table for the longest time. I lost count after about two years.”
“Two years? Really?”
“Mm-hmm. She said it was a favorite, but one day it was gone. I asked her why, but she wouldn’t talk about it for the longest time. Eventually she told me, ‘It just doesn’t do to live in fiction.’ She sounded so sad…” He trailed off, apparently lost in the memory.
Aurelia gaped at Mark. What could have happened? Had Marigold gotten into an argument with a character?
He was looking expectantly at her but the only thing she could think to say was, “That must have been before I started working here.”
“Oh, it was ages ago—not long after she took over the shop. After that she sometimes left books out for a few months, but never as long as The Three Musketeers.”
Mark had given Aurelia a solid distraction from waiting for Oliver’s call, but it left her with questions she was afraid she’d never get answers to.
She decided to ask Marmee or Sergeant Cuff about it that night since they’d both visited the shop during Marigold’s time and might know what had happened.
But her preoccupation with Marigold and the Musketeers mystery was cut short when Oliver called just before she closed the shop at five o’clock that evening.
“You’ve got to show me this typewriter the next time I’m in the shop,” he said instead of ‘hello.’ “I haven’t had an author submit typewritten pages to me since… well, I think ever.”
Aurelia was confused for a second before she realized it was Oliver on the line.
“Oh! So… you’ve read it?”
“I have. Should we meet to go over my notes? It might be better to do it in person.”
Better in person—like a breakup? Was he going to tell her it was unpublishable?
“Yes, okay. Um, should I come to your office?”
“No, I’ve been stuck here all day. Why don’t I come to you at the shop. Are you free now?”
She couldn’t tell him that she needed to nap so she could be alert at midnight to meet with a cast of characters, so she choked out a ‘yes’ and he promised to meet her in half an hour.
The minutes passed in an anxious silence as Aurelia paced around the shop, inventing various good and bad messages Oliver might be coming to deliver.
When he arrived, she noticed that he was more upbeat than she’d ever seen him. He stripped off his coat and dropped his messenger bag onto her desk. Aurelia eyed the bag warily, thinking her manuscript was likely inside. She offered him coffee or tea, but he said was ready to get right to it.
Aurelia cleared a space on her desk and watched as Oliver sat in Vronsky’s chair and then pulled her manuscript out of his bag. It was covered with flags, dog-ears, and red pen marks, and her jaw was ready to drop at the sight of it.
“I’ve read through it a few times, and I think it has promise.
I’ve made some initial notes here and we can talk through those later,” he said, placing his hand on the manuscript.
“But there are some bigger issues we should focus on at this stage. I’d like to see what you do with my notes—some authors think they want to be published until they realize they’ll have to edit their work.
But if you’re open to making these changes—which will make it a better piece—then I think we’ll be on the road to something worth publishing. ”
There were compliments in there but her mind had filtered them out so that all she really heard was that, without his edits, her book would be unpublishable. She ground her teeth and bit down her ire.
“Okay.” Aurelia was preparing to add to this, but Oliver took it as an invitation to dive into his notes.
“Let’s not waste time on little things like moving paragraphs around or deleting them outright. I’ve noted those changes on the manuscript itself and you can work on those on your own.”
Aurelia’s eyes widened.
“I want to focus on the bigger picture. First, this is plodding. It takes you almost a hundred pages to get him to France and that’s where the real story is.”
“But it took him a few years to get there—”
“But you don’t need to spend years getting him there. Just summarize, something like: ‘His time in Russia was occupied with tying up loose ends and checking in on his men. It wasn’t long before he was on a train for Italy.’ You get the idea.”
Her cheeks started burning with the effort of holding in her anger. She knew it was well out of proportion to the situation, but she couldn’t help it.
“Yes, I get the idea,” she said, her voice a simmering warning that Oliver clearly didn’t recognize.
“Then there’s his time in Italy. Frankly, it’s a little boring. He’s sitting around painting and thinking through his plans for the future. I’m yawning just talking about it, let alone reading pages and pages about it.”
Aurelia was barely processing his words; she was too focused on whether she should reach over and flick his ear with her finger or kick him in the shin. He was ripping her manuscript to shreds with no regard for the fact that she’d worked so hard on it.
“But I think the biggest issue for me is the lack of any love interest.”
The rising color instantly drained from her face.
“Love interest,” she repeated flatly.
Aurelia was in shock. The thought of a love interest honestly hadn’t occurred to her.
Vronsky had never mentioned it, nor had the other characters—everyone knew how devoted he’d been to Anna.
It seemed completely heartless to think of suggesting that he write himself into a new love affair when he was still in mourning.
Her silence finally seemed to register with Oliver.
“It might seem like a lot to tackle, but these are all minor changes in the grand scheme. These changes are going to give this”—he gestured to the manuscript—“muscle.”
He sounded excited and energized by his notes and the project, the complete opposite of Aurelia’s feelings of disappointment and frustration.
All her hard work, all these months of writing with Vronsky, and she still had so much further to go before they’d actually be able to publish it.
Maybe she wasn’t the right person to write this book.
Maybe she was too close to Vronsky, to Anna Karenina, to write something that anyone other than her would want to read.
Maybe it was too soon and she needed more time to process all that had happened in the past year.
And Vronsky—she’d have to tell him about Oliver now.
But would he want her to find another publisher after hearing Oliver’s notes?
She’d had her work critiqued and edited plenty of times before, but this felt so much more personal.
“Aurelia? You look stricken.”
He was leaning toward her, eyebrows furrowed as his eyes ran over her face and caught sight of her hands, which were clenched around the arms of her chair.
“I feel stricken,” she said with a hint of a laugh as she repeated his old-fashioned expression.
“I know editing’s a rough process, but you’ll weather it, I’m sure.”
“And if I don’t make these edits, you won’t publish it?”
“If you want to push back, you should. Though there may be a point where I don’t feel confident about moving forward without certain changes.”
Aurelia nodded.
“You should take some time to think about my notes—the ones we’ve discussed and the ones I’ve marked on the draft. What do you need, a few days?”
She nodded again.
“Today’s Monday…” he said thoughtfully. “My week’s a bit crazy with meetings and a production deadline. I might be able to do lunch on Friday, but it would be tight. Maybe dinner then?”
“Dinner,” she said vaguely, trying to keep up with the conversation while her mind was still on his edits.
Oliver seemed to take that as an answer, so he continued. “Great, we can talk through what you do and don’t want to change, then see where we are. In the meantime, I’ll have my office send over a contract. We’re a small outfit, so the advance will be small. Is that an issue for you?”
Aurelia’s mind was spinning as she tried to process making revisions, talking to Vronsky about Oliver’s notes, reviewing a contract, and having dinner with Oliver.
How wonderful—they’d have the span of an entire meal to discuss what he didn’t like about her book.
But, she reminded herself, as of right now, he was her only option.
“No, that’s fine. I just want to get it published.”
Oliver stood and walked himself to the door.
“I’ll give you a call with a place and time. See you Friday.”
Aurelia followed him. She watched absentmindedly as he walked out of the shop, crossed the street, and turned to wave at her before continuing through the square.
It’s possible she waved back, but she couldn’t be sure.
She locked the door and walked back to her desk, eyeing the battered manuscript before piling a few papers and books on top.
It was still under there, but somehow, she felt better having it out of sight.
Walking toward the spiral staircase to head upstairs for her nap, she paused with her foot on the first step before looking back at her desk with a sigh.
There was no way she’d be able to sleep without seeing the full extent of his notes.
She turned back and excavated the manuscript, then went upstairs to start sorting through them.