“Thank you.” I did a split-second mental debate on whether to sit or stand, then decided standing made more sense, since I could see the whole table that way and making connections with your coworkers is the first critical step to success in a new house.
I recapped my publishing history, all the while backhandedly thumbing for something else interesting to say—something that wouldn’t make it sound like my life was all about work. It was, and I liked it that way. When you love what you do, you don’t mind devoting yourself to it. At times like this, I did wish I had something more colorful to share. Kids, house, a classy hobby like antique rose gardening or something. A childhood tale about where my love of stories began. Something having to do with bedtime tales at night and that one treasured book received as a birthday present.
It was nice to imagine, but it didn’t solve the problem. When your past is a locked box, introductions are . . . complicated.
I finally settled for a quick recounting of a wild trip to a mountaintop in Colorado, to convince Tom Brandon to sign his celebrity memoir deal with Simmons during a bid-off between several publishing houses. It was one of the greatest coups of my career, but also the closest I had ever come to plummeting to my death.
“You haven’t really lived until you’ve slid off a mountain on a snowmobile and spent twenty-four hours huddled against a blizzard,” I finished, knowing that my new coworkers would assume I was desperately out of my element that night in the mountains, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. After that experience, Tom Brandon knew things about me no one else in my adult life had ever known, but to his credit, he never revealed any of it during all the interviews and hoopla surrounding the book. By mutual agreement, we’d kept each other’s secrets. Action hero Tom Brandon was a babe in the woods. And I was a backwoods girl in hiding. Neither of us wanted the rest of that story to be told.
“The search and rescue made for great publicity for the project, though, even if that was one seriously bone-cold night in the woods,” I finished, and my new coworkers laughed—all except Roger, who gave me a narrow-eyed sneer. I’d forgotten until now that he was working for a competitor during that bidding war. I’d beaten him out.
He leaned close again as the meeting broke up. “I’ve never quite forgiven you for that Tom Brandon deal. That was sheer brilliance.”
“Oh, come on, Roger. You know it’s not often I actually win one of our little battles.” It was the usual love-hate interplay. Roger and I had always been like siblings who couldn’t stand each other half the time and played nice the other half.
He pulled me into a momentary shoulder hug. “It all worked out. Losing that deal was what convinced me to start pursuing fiction.”
Quick little stab-stab there. Oh, that hurt. He knew I’d always had stories in my blood—that fiction was my real dream—but when you’re successful in one arena and you’ve got bills to pay, it’s hard to take a chance on foreign territory.
Roger grinned, his lips parting over a mouth of straight, white teeth. The man did have a million-dollar smile. A deal-maker’s smile.
He caught me looking at the slush pile before he turned away. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” His breath brushed across my ear, minty fresh. Too close for comfort.
“Yes, it is.”
“Stay away from Slush Mountain. It’s the old man’s masterpiece.” A quick warning, and then he was gone.
I considered waiting around for a chance to casually tell the boss how thrilled I was to be coming here, but he and Hollis were enwrapped in conversation at the end of the table, so I gathered my things and started toward the door.
“North Carolina,” George Vida said just before I reached the exit. I stopped short, turned around.
The boss had paused to look at me, but Hollis was still sifting through papers, seeming slightly frustrated by the delay.
A thick, stubby, old-man finger crooked in my direction. “That’s what I was hearing.” He tapped the side of his face. “Reporter’s ear. I can usually pick up accents. I remember now. You’re a Clemson grad. It was somewhere in the paperwork, or Hollis may have mentioned it.”
“Must have been in the paperwork,” Hollis contributed dryly.
The boss smiled at me, his round cheeks lifting into an expression that reminded me of Vito Corleone in The Godfather. “You North Carolina girls should find some time to catch up. There are no memories like those of the old homeplace.” Still smiling, he returned to his paperwork, not noticing that neither Hollis nor I jumped into the homeplace conversation.
Somehow I had a feeling we wouldn’t be sitting down for coffee and a sweet-tea-and-magnolia chat anytime soon.
***
From my first day in New York, when I’d arrived with a graduate-school fellowship and no place to live, I loved the feel of early morning. There’s something special about the city as the night people fade to their lairs and the streets wake to a new day. Shopkeepers open storefronts and breakfast bars roll to the sidewalks, smoothie stands offering cornucopias of fresh fruit, yogurt, and protein powders.
Jamie eyed me suspiciously as we walked together from the subway and emerged onto the street, then ducked into our favorite bagelry to grab the usual. Ramone had it ready and waiting, thanks to the magic of order-by-text.
“You look ridiculously happy,” Jamie assessed, taking a sip of the protein smoothie she would drink exactly one-fourth of before dropping it into a trash can—her form of calorie counting. As fashion editor for an upscale magazine, she had to look good. As usual, her mid-thigh dress, trendy boots, and swing coat formed a perfect “autumn in New York” ensemble. She looked like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and a Paris runway model.
“Sorry,” I said, but I wasn’t really. So far, other than the pub board cell phone gaffe, my first week at Vida House had gone fantastically well. I’d worked like a banshee, catching up on reading for next Monday’s meeting, and I had disseminated my new contact information to various literary agents who consistently brought good projects my way. New proposals were beginning to come in. George Vida might have been both an enigma and a dinosaur in the industry, but the house had a reputation for finding manuscripts that had been flying under the radar and making them the next big thing. My contacts were excited about the move.
“Well stop it, okay? You’re making me depressed about my own life.” Only a true friend can be that honest and get away with it. Jamie and I had been gal pals since the NYU years. I knew all about the disintegrating conditions at her workplace. With the rise of e-publishing and fashion blogging, her future at the magazine was uncertain.
“Sorry. I’ll try to look appropriately glum. But it is Friday.” I heard it in the last word of the sentence. The faintest stretching the i in Friday. The hint of a Blue Ridge twang I thought I’d expunged years ago.
I’d been listening since George Vida’s startling observation. It bothered me that he’d picked up on it so quickly. Had anyone else over the years? Maybe just not said anything?
I could’ve asked Jamie, but that would have opened the door between the two worlds that I had worked all my adult life to separate.
Between before and after.
Even Jamie didn’t know. The great thing about moving far from the place that began you is you can rewrite—wrinkle up and throw away entire pages and pretend that they never were. In a place like New York City, the possibilities are endless.
“I’m happy for you,” she promised as we stopped in front of her building and she tossed most of the smoothie into the trash can. “I am, really, Jen. You deserve it. You deserve to finally have credit for your own work. I can’t wait for you to discover the next book that goes crazy-wild and publish it at Vida House. When it debuts on the Times list, I’m going to buy a hundred copies of the newspaper and send them to your ex-boss. Along with a hundred copies of the book. Yes, I think I’ll send both. I will never forgive that witch for taking so much of the credit on the Tom Brandon thing after you brought it in.”
I hugged her, still clinging to my smoothie, which I intended to consume every drop of and then slurp the bottom dry. I’d learned early in life not to waste food. “You’re wicked, but I love you. Have a great day, okay?”
“Do my best. Catch a show this weekend?”