Next on the list: Madeline Bingley. Her story makes my skin crawl, hot and prickly under my thick orange Marigold sweatshirt—promotional swag from Zenith. Like me, she found her literary agent when she was a teenager. By the time she was a sophomore at Yale, she’d landed a book deal for a rumored half million with a major publisher. Everything was going so well—she was touted as a hardworking student, a hot young writer on the rise—until it was reported that she’d plagiarized from multiple sources. Accusations flew, a handful of big-name authors throwing their claims into the ring. All copies of her book were recalled and destroyed. Yale suspended her, then dropped her altogether.
Her trail ends there.
At least Marigold’s story is original.
I shut off my laptop. That’s as much as I can take for today. Neither of these cases is quite like ours. But we’ve lied, too, to our agent, our editor, the publisher, fans. At the very least, we’d probably have to make statements in new editions, clarifying that my father was the actual author. That I was nothing but a muse at best. As for a potential recall…would Zenith really take that hit? The money they’d lose—I can’t wrap my head around it. But fans could demand refunds. It might be inevitable.
The heat is practically steaming from my pores now. I tear my sweatshirt over my head and toss it on the floor. I need to do something. Anything. But what?
What the hell can I do about any of this on my own except write the ending?
Me. By myself.
I could write it the way Dad wants it or I could have my dream ending. What if—what if this one piece of the story…what if it could be mine? One piece, but the most important one yet. The last say. The final word.
I’d need to revise parts of Dad’s earlier chapters to set it up right, pave the way. But then I would make things so perfect for Marigold—or no, not perfect, never perfect, because that’s not authentic. No, I’d make her life be exactly what it needs to be instead. Good-bye, Mom! Good-bye, Colton! Hello, normal life in the real world—a sadder world without her mom in it, yes, but a world that still has her dad and Jonah and her friends. A world of the living, not the dead.
For a few seconds—a few glittering, shimmery seconds—I almost feel hopeful. I almost believe that yes, I can do this. I’ve helped my dad the whole time, watched him construct these books word by word, sentence by sentence. And there are other teen YA authors out there—I doubt that all of them are fakes like me. So it’s not entirely far-fetched to think that someone my age is capable of writing at least semi-decent sentences.
Just as quickly, that golden bubble pops. Even if I could convince my dad to let me do this, I’m not a writer. I’ve never written anything besides essays for Dad to read and put in my annual evaluator portfolio. And besides, I wouldn’t be able to seamlessly attach my work to his. Susan and Elliot would see that the writing styles were different. Of course they would. Fans, too.
Maybe I could start the process, though. Cobble together a thorough outline, and then help Dad write actual sentences and paragraphs in time for the deadline. Of course I’d also need to get him on board with my ending.
I turn my laptop back on, open my e-mail and find Oliver’s last message. Fifty bucks for a sneak peek of the last book.
I could let Oliver and Emma read what we already have, pick their brains about how to pull the final scenes together. Emma as a superfan who probably knows the characters and the world as well as I do; and Oliver would no doubt be a great critic. I could say that I’m paralyzed by the idea of wrapping it up perfectly, that I need them on board as—extremely confidential—advisors. Before I can decide if any of this—the outlining, involving Oliver and Emma—is a good idea, a new message pops up in the in-box.
Hey, Thistle—Okay. I guess I shouldn’t have attempted bribery in the last e-mail. Maybe that’s not your style. I promise that Em and I will both be exceedingly patient and never ask about the last book again unless you want to talk about it. So…I guess that’s it then? Unless you do want to talk sometime. About Marigold. Or about whatever really. The existence of other universes, the plausibility of reincarnation, the necessity of the quadratic formula. It must get lonely being homeschooled. Or maybe not, since you’re like an über-international-bestselling author who has loads of admirers. Just shout if you ever wanna. Okay?—O
I stare blankly at the e-mail for a few minutes, hoping that the words will magically click together in a way that makes more sense. Is Oliver…flirting? Asking me out? Or is he just being friendly, hoping to strike up a dialogue for Emma’s sake?
My brain is too tired to excavate the meaning. I haven’t eaten anything since oatmeal for breakfast, which probably isn’t helping. I have no appetite, though. Except—I pull open my drawer, and yep, it’s still there, waiting for a moment just like this. My stash of dark chocolate, left over from the tour. I don’t have to be hungry to eat chocolate.
I unwrap one of the bars and take a big, messy bite as I throw myself onto the bed, rich chocolate warming my throat. I have hours before Liam will be home. Empty hours. I can’t think about Marigold anymore so I reach for the stack of advance reader’s copies of new books on my nightstand, running my hand along the spines. I pick a book with a mosaic rainbow on the cover by an author whose name I don’t know. I flip to the first page and start reading, not bothering with the description on the back cover. It doesn’t matter what it’s about. It just matters that it’s something, somewhere besides here, my sad little bedroom in Philly.
Because I need someone else’s world right now.
Any world, any life, but my own.
ten
Sometimes it was easy for Marigold to forget.
Easy to forget that the other kids she met up here—they were all dead. So easy, especially after that first hug with Colton.
From hugs, to holding hands, to this moment now: Colton pulling her against him, his eyes closing, lips parting.
I cannot do this, she thought, her heart pounding in her chest. I cannot kiss him. Colton is dead. Dead. Dead like Mom. Who I still haven’t found. But I will. And she’ll help me with this—she’ll make everything easier, clearer, just like she always did before.
Marigold said none of this out loud, though, and she didn’t move either. She didn’t step back after Colton’s lips pressed against hers, his arms wrapping around her waist.
This—this was crossing a line. A decision she wouldn’t be able to take back. A single moment that could change everything.
She closed her eyes, breathed in the sweet Afterworld air.
And then she kissed him back.
—EXCERPT FROM LEMONADE SKIES, BOOK 1: GIRL IN THE AFTERWORLD
I wait until I hear Mia close the office door, her white-tennis-shoed feet shuffling back into the kitchen, before going downstairs to say good night to Dad. It feels like the right thing to do, even though seeing him is low on the list of things I want from my night.
“Dad?” I nudge the door open slowly.
“Hey, Thistle,” he says quietly. His eyes are closed as I step into the room, and there’s a small frown on his face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m okay. Just woke up from another nap and I’m groggy.” He opens his eyes, but the frown stays. “Too much sleep isn’t always a good thing, I guess. But it’s all I really want to be doing right now.”
“Well, I just wanted to say good night.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” He pauses, looking away from me, and I’m about to lean in for one quick peck on his cheek good night when he starts again. “So I tried to write this afternoon, just to see what I could come up with—first with me typing, but I couldn’t get comfortable with these slings on, feeling so restricted, and then dictating on my laptop with Mia’s help. It was abysmal, Thistle. I did it for you, though. I wanted to try it out because I know h
ow stressed you are. But…nope. Nothing. Not one decent word. Total failure.”
“Oh.” He tried to write for me. He tried, and it didn’t work.
“It’s okay,” he says, turning to me again. “We both need time off. I work too hard. You work too hard. But I’ll be better eventually. We’ll figure it out. Go get some sleep.”
I nod numbly, even if I don’t agree.
* * *
When I hear Liam get dropped off that night, I don’t wait for his ping on my window.
I pull a sweatshirt on over my pajamas and grab two Ping-Pong balls before I step into the hallway. I see a light under the door of Dad’s old room—Mia’s room now—and make sure to avoid the creakiest floorboards. Not that it matters if she catches me slipping outside. She’s here to take care of my dad, not me. We’ve barely spoken to each other—not because I have anything against her, but because I’d rather be locked away in my room than making small talk with a stranger who’s currently eating in our kitchen, sharing my bathroom, sleeping a wall away from me. It’s just one more thing that makes my usually orderly, predictable life way too shaky.
I feel bad suddenly, ignoring her like this. It must be hard for her, too, having a job that constantly puts her into new environments. I’ll try to chat over breakfast tomorrow. Exchange a few pleasantries, not run up to my room hugging my oatmeal bowl like I did today.
But for now I glide smoothly down the steps, past my dad’s office, into the kitchen. Lucy startles from under the table, snorting and kicking her legs out in her sleep. She’s unsettled, too, sleeping in a different room. I crouch down and smooth my hand across her ears. She doesn’t wake up, but she seems to sleep easier, her feet going still as her breath evens out.
It’s cold when I step out into the garden, the brisk November air stinging as it hits my lungs. I move quickly, pushing our picnic table closer to the brick wall. Liam’s family very conveniently has a wooden bench just on the other side, and it works as a step down. I hoist myself over the wall, and then use his bench to hop to the ground. Liam’s light is on and I’m about to toss a Ping-Pong ball when he appears at the back door.
“You’re pretty eager, huh?” he says, grinning as he walks into the yard. “It got late, I’m sorry. Even my parents didn’t wait up for me to see how the game went.”
I don’t answer. Instead I drop the balls on the ground and step up next to him, grab his warm cheeks with my cool fingers, and pull him down for a kiss. I need this. Him. A real connection. He’s the one part of my life that I can rely on right now. The only piece that makes sense.
He pulls away, and I lean in even closer, wrap my arms around him more tightly.
“Do you want to come inside?” he says, his lips grazing my forehead as he speaks. I can feel him smiling without needing to look up. “It’s way too cold out here.”
I nod and let him tug me along, through his kitchen and downstairs to the basement. It’s a second living room, mostly Liam’s, with a massive flat-screen TV and entertainment center, a foosball table, and a bar—though his parents only ever stock it with soda and iced tea. I’m pretty sure his friends from school provide the beer when they use his basement as an occasional weekend meeting place. But Liam and I have never talked much about that. He’s asked me over a few times when they’re here, but I almost always find a reason to pass. He’s different around his school friends. Drinking PBR and rattling off Phillies or Eagles stats, laughing over crude jokes, dissecting parties and people I’ve never met before. I like it best the way it is now—just Liam and me.
But now that we’re dating, I should start making appearances sometimes. Make an effort to get to know his other friends.
We fall onto the sofa, still tangled up. He’s looking at me curiously, his dark eyebrows knotted, but I don’t want to talk. I just want to kiss, to feel his warmth under my hands, to know that this part of my life is okay. Feeling, not thinking. Just being, without all the rest. I kiss him harder and wrap my hands around his neck.
“Thistle,” he says as he pulls back. “Are you…okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” I say, already trying to stick my lips back on his, make the words disappear, but he shakes me off.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like this new fierce side. But it just seems unlike you.”
“I’m upset,” I say, turning away to avoid his too-serious eyes. “My life besides you totally sucks right now. My dad couldn’t have dreamed up this kind of drama in a Lemonade Skies twist. We missed our deadline and I got us a new one, but I can’t make him understand that we can’t miss this one, too. We just can’t when everything is at stake—everything, the book, our future, my dad’s entire well-being—and I have no one to help me, so please. Please just let me forget about all of it, at least for a little while. Just kiss me.”
His neck stiffens under my hands. “You don’t have ‘no one’ to help you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I know I have you, for the important life stuff anyway. But the book stuff—it’s on me to figure that out.”
“I can help you with that, too.” I shake my head, thinking I should maybe explain more about the contract, the actual legal consequences, my idea for outlining the ending myself, but then he continues: “I wish your dad had never started this.”
“I know,” I say instead. “Me too.”
“And I wish you’d never gone along with it—this lying. It’s going to catch up with you, and then what?”
“That’s the whole point, Liam. It can’t. And it’s not like I had a choice.”
“Really?”
“Stop it. You’re not helping.” I roll off his lap, edging away from him on the sofa. “This is why I didn’t want to talk to you about it. You hate the books, and I only did it in the first place to help my dad. To make him happy.”
“Well, it’s not fair that both of you are always choosing his happiness over yours.”
We’re both silent then and I realize that Liam can’t understand, not really. He has two parents who are happy, healthy, alive. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. My last grandparent, my dad’s mom, died in a nursing home when I was six. Both of my parents were only children.
Dad is my family. Tiny and pathetic as it may be.
“I just want whatever will make you feel better,” he says finally. “I care about you, Thistle. I really, really care about you.”
Maybe I love you would have made a small dent in my armor. But he doesn’t say it.
And maybe it doesn’t matter, that word. Because it’s suddenly clear to me, the truth blazing bright. I don’t know how to say it, though. I don’t know how to suggest we take a temporary hiatus until this problem is all sorted out because right now, Liam is making everything so much worse. Instead I grab the remote and turn on the TV.
I curl myself back up against him and give myself this at least—this night of pretending that it’s okay. That we’re okay.
* * *
Mia and I talk over breakfast. I learn a little more about her—she’s new to Philly, and had been living with her sister’s family about twenty minutes outside the city. She seems glad to be here, gladder than I would have expected given how unpleasant both of us Tates are proving to be.
Afterward, when I’m back in my room, I decide to e-mail Oliver. At first I tell myself no—nothing good can come out of more bonding with him and Emma, but if I’m going to try to outline those chapters, I really need their help.
Hello there, Oliver. No, I don’t believe in bribery. But I am sick of holing up every day to finish this officially overdue book. My dad’s fine(ish) now, but he got in a bad accident recently, so things around the house are rough. So what I’m saying is: yes. It gets lonely. And it would help me with the ending if I could talk through some of it with not one but two Marigold superfans. (I’m including you on the list now, don’t even try to refute it. You don�
��t try for bribery unless you’re a stone-cold superfan.) So maybe the three of us could hang out sometime and brainstorm? If Emma’s feeling up to it. Anywhere that’s not my house is fine by me. But no worries if you’re busy. Just let me know. Okay?—Thistle
I have to pry myself away from my desk to stop refreshing the page, waiting for a response. I sit on the bed and rack my brain trying to think of my other hobbies, all the other fun, entertaining, enriching activities I could be doing. Surely I must do things besides read, pretend to write, watch TV, hang out with my dad and Liam. There’s my garden, but it’s too cold for that now. Sometimes I listen to music?
This is sad. Pathetically sad.
My phone chimes, a text from Liam. I feel a nudge of guilt thinking about my e-mail—though, really, I did nothing wrong. I asked to hang out with Oliver and Emma.
I open the text.
I’ve been thinking about you all morning. I really am sorry for pushing last night. No more Marigold talk. Swear. I know everything else sucks, and I want to at least be the one unsucky thing for you.
I stare at the text for a few minutes.
Another chime, and: I wish I wasn’t gone this weekend. I want to take you on a proper date.
A brief pause, and then a third: Next weekend, whatever you want. I promise.
I should be elated by this turn of events. Liam acknowledging he was wrong, vowing to be the happy light in my life I so desperately need. He won’t bring up Marigold again.
I felt so sure last night, though. Sure about taking a break until I’ve sorted everything out.
I deliberate for a few minutes before I text back: No worries. Have fun in the country with Pop and Gram! xoxo
Vague and noncommittal. Maybe a few days apart will do us good.
I get up and walk back to my desk, refresh my e-mail. A response from Oliver.
The Undoing of Thistle Tate Page 10
