I skim the subject lines. There was a flurry of activity yesterday—apparently Between Two Worlds jumped to number one on the New York Times bestseller list for children’s series. Even Martin Davis has e-mailed me personally with his congratulations. I should feel happy about it. Ecstatic. I should feel something at least, but I don’t. If this were any other week, our whole life would have revolved around this news, but now it just feels empty. I click through the thread, the long lines of exclamation points and celebratory emojis. They must think it’s bizarre that neither of us has replied yet, almost twenty-four hours since the news broke.
I keep scrolling down my in-box, stopping when I see Oliver’s name smashed between the various #1!!!!!!!!!!! subject lines. I open his e-mail.
Hey, Thistle—Thanks again for coming by to meet Em. You rock. Also, I am a man of my word and have just finished Between Two Worlds. Read Girl in the Afterworld last week. Almost considered faking a couple of sick days to read them straight through. Don’t tell anyone I said that though, okay? (No offense.) Seriously, best YA I’ve read. (Technically the only YA I’ve read, unless Catcher in the Rye for school counts, but still. The best.) Emma and I discussed, and we are willing to pay you fifty bucks for a sneak peek of the last book. I mean that’s almost the value of two and a half books, so total steal for you, right? Anyway, let me know if we have a deal.—O
I think about Oliver and Emma, who I’m not planning to ever see again. But I’ll definitely never see them again if the truth comes out. And I picture it then, because I can’t stop myself: Emma discovering that her idol is a fraud, her faith in humanity crumbling. Oliver hating me for deceiving his sister, hating me for wasting the time it took him to read two books—YA books at that, nothing fitting his normal sophisticated literary tastes.
No. They can’t find out. No one can.
A ping goes off. A new message from Susan.
Her subject line: **VERY CONCERNED, PLEASE CALL ASAP, THANKS**
My whole body tenses as I open the message. It’s short and to the point—she’s distressed that she’s heard nothing in over a week, especially given yesterday’s bestseller news. She’s also worried that she won’t have the final manuscript tomorrow as promised. Elliot and I absolutely cannot wait to read it!
Yes, Susan and Elliot, I understand. Trust me, I can’t wait to read it either.
But I won’t be reading it anytime soon. No one will.
I take a deep breath as I click Reply. If anyone can fix this, it’s Susan. Everything can be solved as long as we have more time.
Dear Susan, I begin. I’m afraid I have awful news…
nine
Marigold’s dad stopped monitoring her soon enough—it was easier for him to think she was fine, and it left more time for his own sadness.
It had been over a month since her last visit to the Afterworld. She waited to slip out until she heard snores from her dad’s room, and when she reached the porch, she practically jumped into the rocking chair. And just like that she was there—in her yellow-skied world.
Marigold raced to the tall golden doors. Colton was always easy to find, on the lower floors in an area that seemed to be just for teenagers. But there had to be other people, other ages, on the higher floors. People like her mom.
She spotted Colton on his favorite window seat in the atrium. He stood when he saw her, his expression so serious that he reminded her of Jonah, and said, “I thought you’d never come back.”
Marigold did it then without thinking—she wrapped her arms around him, holding on tight.
—EXCERPT FROM LEMONADE SKIES, BOOK 1: GIRL IN THE AFTERWORLD
I wait until after breakfast the next morning to talk to Dad about it.
I gave him a night to settle into his new room, a night to adapt to the strange new routines, Mia helping him eat and bathe and relieve himself—a long list of unsettling intimacies. He hadn’t gone on a single date since my mom, and now a complete stranger was undressing him and sponging him down in his office.
So yeah. He needed a night. That’s what I told myself at least. An excuse to put off the inevitable just a bit longer. I had barely slept the night before, tossing and turning and wondering what if. What if the secret comes out? What if our whole life implodes? When I finally fell asleep for an hour or two, I dreamed that I was in court, getting interrogated on the witness stand. There were thousands of people in the audience, all of them decked out in Marigold orange. Only I wore black. My dad was nowhere to be seen. But Susan and Elliot were in the front row, their faces cold and fierce. I woke up before the jury announced their verdict, but the feeling had been ominous, like the whole courthouse was about to collapse all around me, brick by brick.
It was a new nightmare, at least.
Susan had called me yesterday—within minutes of my e-mail landing in her in-box, of course. I ignored her the first two times, but by the third I realized she wasn’t going to stop, so I picked up. I had to act more convincingly than I ever had in my life. It was the ultimate test of my talents.
“Don’t get me wrong, Thistle,” she cut in immediately after my shaky hello. “I am deeply concerned for your father. Deeply. I’m relieved to hear he’s going to recover, of course, and am just sick that you had to go through this. Dreadful! But surely you have help there providing for him? A caretaker? If not, I can look into getting you one, so that you can be freed of those responsibilities. You’re a minor. They shouldn’t be left to you to begin with, and more than that, this draft, Thistle, it’s imperative that—”
“It’s too much,” I said. “I don’t have the brain space right now. I’m too exhausted and stressed to be creative. If I could just have a little more time…”
“But there’s not more time, I’m afraid,” Susan said. “It was a tight schedule to begin with. The dates are locked in so that it can be out next summer before you start college. The back-to-back turnaround is hard, I know, dear, but if it’s only just a chapter or two still to write…?”
“I can send you what I have so far. Would that help? You and Elliot can read that, and he can get a jump on those initial edits. Then I’ll send the rest as soon as I can.”
She sighed, a long, cutting, abrasive Susan Van Buren sigh. “I suppose for the time being that would take some pressure off, but I’ll have to call Elliot. I’ll try and get you a two-week extension. That’s the best I can do. Even if the ending is a bit rough, Elliot will work through it with you—and I’m happy to weigh in, too. We’re here to help however we can. That’s our job. To make this easier for you, as smooth as possible given these unfortunate circumstances.”
I mumbled a thank-you and rambled on with a string of half-assed assurances. I can’t even remember what I said now, but it must have worked some kind of magic, because the call ended, I sent the unfinished manuscript, and got an e-mail back from Elliot saying he was sorry about my dad and looking forward to seeing the last chapters in two weeks. So all was settled. Temporarily. Very temporarily.
“Dad,” I say tentatively now, tapping at the office door. “Can we talk?”
I hear a grunt—something that sounds a bit like urrgumph—that I take to be a yes.
“Coming in, I hope you’re decent!”
I push the door open slowly, my eyes in half slits in case there’s anything I shouldn’t see. But no, just Dad propped up in the rental bed, fully dressed in a loose button-up shirt and stretchy shorts to accommodate his slings and external fixator.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“How do you think I feel, Thistle?”
I bristle at the coldness of his voice. At his lowest points, he could sometimes be a monster—his forays into customer service jobs were typically short, given that his personal motto tended to be, “The customer is always wrong, I am always right.” But he was never a monster to me. Never.
“I’m sorry,” I say, al
most in a whisper.
“In case it’s not glaringly obvious, I feel like I’ve been run over by a mile-long freight train. I should never have touched that gutter. What was I even thinking? This house is a disaster, I shouldn’t have bothered.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe it’s better if we talk later?”
He sighs. “Sorry. The doctor’s taken me off the more efficient pain meds now. Mia tells me I don’t need them anymore, but that’s not how it feels. And from the absurd amount of money she’s costing out of pocket, you’d think she’d at least be more sympathetic. I’d probably be better off if it was just you and me.”
“I can help take care of you, too, Dad. Whatever you need.” I take a deep breath and step closer to his bed. “We’re a team.”
His face softens, at least marginally. “Thanks, sweetie. I don’t mean to take it out on you. Really. None of this is your fault. I just…I need to get used to…this.”
“You’re going to get better. It’s temporary.”
“They can’t guarantee a full recovery—there could always be aches and pains. I’m not a spring chicken.”
“And you’re not a Thanksgiving dinner either.”
“Stunning use of metaphor,” he says with an almost smile.
“Ha. Yeah. So speaking of metaphors…”
He pinches his eyes shut and sighs heavily. “I know where this is going.”
“The deadline, Dad. The manuscript was supposed to be done today. I called Susan yesterday and got a two-week extension, but what am I supposed to do now?”
“Two weeks?” He laughs. Not a happy one. “That’s impossible. Not only are my arms broken and in slings, but my head is pounding. I ache in places I never gave a thought to in my life before. And this ending—it needs to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. And I can’t do perfect right now. I can’t do anything close to perfect. I’m not even sure I could do moderately shitty at the moment.”
“I’ll help,” I say, moving in close enough that I can rest my hand delicately on his shoulder, afraid to graze a bruise and set him off more. “We could find a comfortable way to prop your keyboard up on a tray for you to type. You really only need your fingers, right? Or you could try dictating to me, I know plenty of authors do that if—”
“Thistle, no. We’ll wait. We will do it right, when I’m myself again. If they have to push the date back, so what? Our fans will wait. They’ll just be even more excited.”
“Well, it can’t come out much later…Susan said they’ve already built everything around next summer because of my going to college, and she thinks that waiting will—”
“I’m so tired, Thistle. I need a nap. How about I call Susan when I’m feeling up to it? I’m sure I can finagle the time we need. We can send the chapters we already have, they’re pretty polished, and—”
“I already did that. Elliot and Susan both have the manuscript. But that’s not enough. Don’t you get it, Dad? Your being incapacitated doesn’t explain to them why the book can’t be finished now. It doesn’t explain why I can’t work on it. Not you. Me.”
“You’re taking care of me. I’ll tell them it’s a full-time job and I need you.”
“I already said we have a caretaker here—Susan was going to send someone herself. She’s convinced there’s no reason I can’t bang out a rough ending that we’ll polish up during edits. I’m scared, Dad, and Susan said—”
“Thistle.” He takes a sharp breath. “Stop. Susan works for us, not the other way around, and it’s her job to fight for what we need. And what we need is more time. I appreciate that you got this extension, I do, but we both know it’s not enough. We’ll get her to understand, and then it’s her responsibility to make Zenith understand. Everything will be fine.”
“You can’t know that.”
There’s a pause. And then he says, “I will write an ending that will blow Susan’s and Elliot’s expectations out of the water.” He’s talking too slowly, enunciating overcarefully, each word louder, heavier. “But I’ll write it when I feel ready and capable. There’s no other way. I don’t think you understand how monumental this responsibility is, Thistle. The absurd amount of pressure. This is my whole career.” He breaks for a second, but even a second is far too long. “Our career.”
“Is it?” I say quietly, two paper-thin words, floating, suspended in the air between us.
Dad doesn’t hear, or at least he pretends not to.
“Go enjoy the free time. Read books. Watch TV. Hang out with Liam. Whatever—go be a normal teenager. You don’t have to worry about any assignments. Maybe get some exercise, try out a yoga class, work on your physical education. It’s only November and you’re already so far ahead in your logged hours, and your portfolio is stellar as always. Mrs. Everly will give a glowing certification to the superintendent come June, I’m sure. Just, please…I can’t take the deadline stress right now. Let it rest.”
I don’t bother responding.
Instead I walk out of the room, close the door behind me. I have nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do. I hear Mia in the kitchen, the sound of running water and clinking glass, and turn toward the stairs. I go to my room, collapse onto my bed.
And I cry. Because Dad might be the author, but it’s my deadline—and I don’t know what to do. I don’t trust his solution…but I have none of my own.
Maybe because no solution exists.
* * *
It’s three o’clock that afternoon when I finally roll out from under the covers.
I pull up a scan of the contract for Girl in the Afterworld on my computer. I squint at the far too tiny words jammed onto too many pages, trying to make sense of the dense legal language. The Guardian, on behalf of the Author, hereby warrants to the Publisher, and to the Publisher’s successors, licensees, and assignees, that: the Author is the sole and exclusive Author of the Work(s)…And so on. Warranties and indemnities, claims, settlements, judgments. The phrases blur into one big messy knot. I read and reread sentences, two, three, four times. I stare at Dad’s signature on the last page. Dad’s signature, not mine.
I’d forgotten the details. There had been so much paperwork at the time. I’d needed to apply for a work permit, and we had both signed agreements for Susan. But it was Dad who put his name in ink on the Zenith contracts, acting as my guardian because I was a minor—Dad who guaranteed that I was the sole author, that I would meet all deadlines.
Dad may be the one legally in breach, but that doesn’t mean my future won’t be ruined, too. I’m the face people will remember.
My phone rings, startling me. I close the contract with one urgent click of the mouse. I can’t look at it anymore. I can’t think about it.
A picture of Liam is lighting up my phone. He’s standing on a stadium seat, cheering at the end of a particularly epic Phillies game we had gone to—hands waving in the air, a blurry smear on the screen, and his eyes, his smile beaming down at me.
I shut off the ring, pushing the phone away. But then I think back to that game, how Liam had yanked me up onto the seat next to him after I’d snapped the photo—how I’d wished with everything in me that he’d get carried away by his excitement over what was happening on the baseball diamond and kiss me right then and there. I look back at my phone and frantically tap Accept to take the call.
“Hey,” I say quietly.
“Hey! Thistle! I was worried, you never texted me back this morning.”
“Yeah, it’s been…a long day.”
“I’m sorry. I have a water polo game now, outside the city, but can we hang tonight when I’m back? It’ll be late, but I have to head out in the morning—it’s my pop’s birthday, so we’re staying with him and Gram this weekend. I really want to see you before I go.”
“Yeah. Sure. Of course,” I say, before I can change my mind. Seeing him—seeing anyone besides my dad—is probably the healthy thing t
o do. I am supposed to be a normal teenager, after all. Dad’s orders. “Toss a Ping-Pong ball when you’re back. For old times’ sake.”
“Really? The ball again? I only started using the front door because…because I don’t know, I thought you’d want certain things to be different. Now that we’re…you know. I was worried you’d think I wasn’t taking this seriously.”
“Li, please. I’m a sucker for cute traditions. You have no idea how happy those pings on my window make me.”
“I do because they make me that happy, too.”
I feel momentarily better.
But then we hang up, and I can’t resist the urge to do some digging online. What were the fates of other frauds like Dad and me? The first name that pops up is Brandon Ball. He’d published his book—Flies Over Alabama—as a memoir, only to be called out later for it being much more semi-fictional than fact. A media storm ensued. What he did is called literary forgery. That is: writing that is either attributed to a made-up author or, in the case of nonfiction, writing about something that isn’t true. My heart skips a beat because the sunny and warm and entirely happy-looking Thistle Tate who’s grinning at fans in a photo on every book jacket—that girl is very much a made-up author.
I keep reading about Brandon Ball. I have to.
His publisher stood by him briefly, until it became clear that the book was fraudulent—so many pieces not adding up, people who had never existed. Statements were issued, and customers could return their copies with proof of purchase. I try to find what came next—what Ball did with his life after—but there’s nothing. He’s disappeared from the Internet entirely. A total nonentity.
The Undoing of Thistle Tate Page 9
