Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
It’s called Instant Gram.
Enough pastries will turn you half German.
Elaine has a whole army behind her.
When I climbed up the stairs to Mom’s days later after my shift, I didn’t think the first thing I’d see would be John Kater.
Mom had printed out the selfie I’d sent her and stuck it in a white porcelain frame adorned with kittens. It sat right between a picture of Dad and a so-hideous-it-was-almost-cute pink porcelain cat I’d gotten for her from a thrift store as an apology for forgetting his birthday.
Otis squealed when he spotted the framed picture. “Don’t they make a lovely pair?” he asked, stuffing his mouth with Black Forest gateau.
I bit back a snarky remark and instead refreshed my inbox under the kitchen bar for the hundredth time that morning. Once again, I was greeted with spam mail and a reminder of an open energy bill. The blurbs would be posted sometime later today.
When I looked up, my mother beamed. She had baked. I mean, she always baked. She was an I-can’t-sleep baker and an I’m-angry baker. But apparently, she was also a happy baker. And it hurt how new this side of her was to me.
Precisely the reason why I didn’t, nor ever would, tell her the truth about me and my imaginary celebrity boyfriend.
Also, this gateau was to die for.
“You’ll have to bring John for dinner soon,” Mom said, kneading the dough for a pastry that was the base for some sort of vegetable pie.
“I'll ask him. He’s quite busy at the moment.”
“Ah, yes, he’s in Europe, isn’t he? You should have gone with him. It’d be good for you to visit your birthplace sometime.” She pointed at me with a ladle.
Something about what she’d just said bugged me.
“How do you know he’s in Europe?” Otis asked the question I was trying to form.
Mom wrapped up the dough and put it onto the sun-drenched window ledge to rise. “My neighbor helped me install Instant Gram.”
A big blob of gateau fell off my fork and into my lap. “Crap.” I took a napkin to wipe the chocolate off my pale blue overalls, but the damage was done. I looked like a toddler who had just pooped her pants. “You have Instagram?”
My mom pointed her fine, arched nose to the ceiling. “I think it’s called Instant Gram.”
“Mom,” I said, a little too panicky.
“It’s so inspiring, isn’t it? All these people traveling. And, oh, did you know Martha Stewart has one of those photo pages too?”
Otis must have recognized that I was close to having an aneurysm. “Eva, do you… follow John?”
She untied her apron and hung it up on a paw-shaped hook on the flower-patterned wall. Finally, she took a spot opposite us on the kitchen bar.
“Yes, natürlich. Though I saw a lot of comments about this Verlobte of his, this Bond girl?” Mom watched me from underneath her mascara-coated lashes.
Otis choked on his coffee.
My stomach dropped. I straightened. I know I was supposed to keep it a secret, but— “It’s just gossip, Mama. They aren’t really together. Press, you know.” I hid my face in the mug of coffee my mother had covered in whipped cream.
My mother put her delicate hand on top of mine, patting twice. “I just want you to be happy, Liebling. You know that, right? Don’t settle for being the woman on the side.”
Instead of rolling my eyes, I squeezed her too-thin fingers. “I won’t.”
The timer on the microwave beeped. She stood.
Otis leaned over to me, whispering, “Is it really? Fake?”
“None of your business,” I hissed under my breath.
“Uh-uh,” Otis said, tilting the whipped cream up and spraying it straight into his mouth.
“You’re a pig,” I said.
I had updated Otis about the majority of the trip: the group sessions, how gorgeous the house was, and reminded him we don’t date the competition when his eyes had grown big at the sight of Jeremy in the group photo.
But all the moments with John—the weird tension, the sleeping huddled together on the floor, the shed…
I had left those out. Because, really, what was there to tell? Nothing.
“Aren’t you on a cleanse?” I asked.
He stood, stacking the empty plates and bringing them into the kitchen. “Luckily, the stage makeup is so thick you won’t see any pimples. Besides, how could I ever resist your mom’s baking?” Mom patted him on the head. “Judging by the number of pastries I’ve eaten, I’m probably half-German by now.”
This made my mom laugh. Which, in turn, warmed my insides too.
I added the three new envelopes of bills to the growing stack of mail on my desk.
A smart person would move back into her parents’ house, saving her meagre pennies, considering my teenage bedroom was still there, basically untouched.
But…I couldn’t. The thought of living above the shop, sidestepping Dad’s things, his toothbrush still on the sink, his patched suit jacket on the back of his desk chair…
I shuddered.
My eyes fell onto the duffel bag I hadn’t unpacked. I tossed my mostly black laundry into a hamper, ready to carry it down to the laundry room that was most definitely haunted, when something at the bottom of the bag caught my attention.
John’s book. I grimaced.
I’d forgotten to put it back and had ended up stealing from Lew Elliot’s house after all.
Shit.
And another one of John’s ugly poison-green books was now in my tiny flat. Which meant that possibly two percent of all my belongings were now John-related.
I was ready to toss the book in the trash when I spotted a name on the back cover that I must have missed when he handed me a signed copy at the convention.
“A great read.” — Lew Elliot.
I sat back on my bed, staring at the book. It shouldn’t have surprised me—not when you considered the tight, testosterone-heavy circle that made up the top ten percent of sci-fi writers.
But still. Seeing that Lew Elliot—a man my father practically worshipped—had blurbed John’s book? That hurt. Even if the praise was lukewarm at best. It still stung.
I wondered how well they knew each other.
If they’d look like old friends next week, when Haller & Mark announced the finalists at the Chicago Book Fair.
What was once a quiet conference call had now turned into a full-blown media event, thanks to the world discovering that the John Kater was in the running.
Lew Elliot would be there. Congratulating the top three. Maybe even shaking John’s hand.
I imagined what Dad would say if I made it.
Scratch that. When I made it.
I opened Haller & Mark’s social page. Five new posts had been uploaded since I last checked. One for each candidate.
My heart jolted.
The first was May—pictured behind a massive desk overflowing with yarn, books, and novelty mugs. Her blurb was short but clever, already at three thousand likes in under an hour.
Jeremy came next. Posed in a blazer, Oxford’s iconic stone archway behind him. Just under five thousand likes.
Elaine, of course, looked like she’d commissioned a full Vogue editorial. And maybe she had. Her glam headshot was paired with a dramatic blurb, and together they’d racked up nine thousand likes and comments—most from her TikTok cult. Elaine’s Army is what they called themselves.
I scrolled, holding my breath.
There was mine. A two-year-old black and white photo I’d chosen specifically because it only showed half my face. A futile attempt at privacy.
Beneath it, my blurb. And…nine thousand likes.
My heart leapt to my throat.
Nine thousand people. Nine— motherfucking—thousand.
I scrolled through the comments—so many. So many.
I recognized a few usernames from the fanfic forum:
Omg such a good idea to make the captain a woman. Sounds like a home run to me.
This one has my vote for sure.
Finally. We need more female rep in sci-fi!!!
Not all of them were positive. Some accused me of being "woke". Of being “different for attention.” I skimmed past those. I wouldn’t let them ruin this.
Not now.
Then I saw his post.
John.
Goddamn.
It was a black-and-white photo too—but crisp and intentional. Arms crossed, his watch catching the light just below a perfectly rolled sleeve. Even without color, his eyes were sharp and cutting. The whole thing looked like it belonged on the cover of GQ. Sexiest Man Alive: The Sci-Fi Edition.
And of course, he was leading.
Sixteen thousand likes. Eight thousand comments. Thousands of shares.
His blurb? Generic. Paint-by-numbers sci-fi. No heart. Just action and stakes and scale.
But numbers don’t lie. There were a whole lot of readers I needed to win over.
I swallowed hard, tossed my phone across the room, and flung myself onto the bed.