Booked Up

by Harper Logan

  “Yeah, yeah, I get that. But look. I’m in an awkward position. Trying to figure out what to do. I’d like to talk to you about this.”

  “You are talking to me about it.”

  “Not on the phone. In person.”

  “After you threatened to break me in half?”

  Madeleine rolled her eyes when she heard that. She pulled a pen from his desk and wrote a note in her big, flowing handwriting: Tell him you’ll meet him.

  He nodded. “But sure. Let’s meet.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it. How about tonight? Emperor Noodle?”

  The idea wasn’t super-appealing; he’d gotten food poisoning last time he ate at Emperor Noodle, but Madeleine was busy nodding her approval.

  “I’ll see you there,” Cam said, and hung up.

  “Hah!” cried Madeleine, all but rubbing her hands together in satisfaction. “Now we have him!”

  “We do? I’m not really looking forward to an awkward conversation over greasy noodles.”

  She stared at him. “Dear. Tell me you are not that obtuse.”

  “I don’t think I am?”

  “You’re going to throw yourself at him.”

  “What? No I’m not.”

  “You are!”

  “But he’s not gay!”

  “He just asked you out,” she said.

  “Not out-out. Just out.”

  “If he spends as much time at the gym as you’re describing, and he’s trying to be the big macho writer, and he asks you out—”

  “It’s a big stretch, Madeleine,” he said, wincing again at his choice of words.

  “Tut-tut,” she said. “It works either way. If you flirt with him, and he is receptive, you’ll be able to soften him up, so he’ll think much harder about the effect of his vile words against us. And if he isn’t receptive, then we’ll know exactly where to hit him next.”

  “Um…where?”

  “Fighting slander with slander, Cam! If he’s not interested in you, then we’ll simply start the rumor that he is!”

  “See, I feel like you just crossed the line between vengeful and evil.” He picked up a stack of fan letters. “All these people talk about how deep and sensitive you are. It’s one thing for me to go yell at him and tell him to apologize for the review. It’s another for me to…to what, what are you expecting me to do with him, exactly?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Cam, whatever you boys get up to when you’re alone.”

  He pushed himself up from the desk. “This is crazy.”

  “He’s just a man,” she said. “Tell him how good-looking he is, tell him how smart he is, he’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand.”

  “Unless he’s not into guys. In which case you’ll lie about someone’s sexuality, which is really gross and awful.”

  “What’s gross and awful is the way he treated us in that review, Cam.”

  Us. Treated us. And that’s what it came down to, didn’t it? If you weren’t for Madeleine, you were against her. You couldn’t be neutral. You had to pick a team.

  And he knew, without her having to say it, that if he picked the wrong team right now, his career with her was over. There didn’t need to be any threats about that. She didn’t even need to hint. If he crossed her, if he ever showed himself to be less than 100% loyal, he’d be on the first train back to his parents’ house. And then his dream would be over.

  But the dream was a little bit over already, wasn’t it? Madeleine wasn’t the sensitive soul in person that she was on the page. Times like this, she was positively unbearable. His earlier worship of her seemed almost laughable. Funny how idols get tarnished when you actually know them.

  On the other hand, nobody he knew worked as hard as her. While he’d been gone, she’d added another twenty pages to her next book. She’d left behind her earlier career, and a marriage, and friendships, to pursue her dream. And that’s the challenge she always laid out to him: What are you willing to give up to pursue your dream?

  But, said a tiny voice in his head, is this still your dream?

  Yes. Yes, it was. Wasn’t it? Yes.

  And Sergio had come out of nowhere and tried to take that dream away.

  He nodded to Madeleine. “Okay. Okay. He’s got to be stopped. Let’s do this awful, terrible thing.”

  7

  Cam

  Serge took a drink from a bottle of spring water. Cam watched his throat move. It was really hard not to look at Serge whenever he moved. Every bit of him seemed built and strong and a little scary. Even now that he’d asked Cam not to call him Mr. Faletti, or even Sergio.

  Finally he put the bottle down, and peered at Cam. “Did you really put a brick through an editor’s window?”

  Emperor Noodle was quiet tonight, only a few professorial-looking couples enjoying their dinners together. Somehow that made Cam feel very exposed. But now Serge’s question confused him.

  “I never did anything like that.”

  “Really? There was some rumor that you’d done that. Who knows what they were talking about.”

  “I mean, Madeleine’s old assistant, she was apparently like that. She’d do anything to avenge Madeleine’s honor.”

  “Her…honor?”

  “I don’t know. It all sounded really toxic.”

  “Wait, so were you the one who painted some guy’s car windows black and flattened his tires?”

  “That was her, not me.”

  Serge laughed loud enough to make everyone turn and look at him. “You’re kidding me. My agent had me worried Maddy’s assistant was going to pull a knife on me or something. Glad to see she’s changed to a more harmless assistant.”

  Harmless?

  “Glad I could be a relief, I guess,” Cam said. He toyed with his chopsticks in the bowl of noodles in front of him.

  Serge, having invited him here, had refused noodles. Your body doesn’t need those empty carbs, he’d said when they ordered. He had the egg-drop soup.

  Here was a problem: Cam didn’t really know how to flirt. It had never occurred to him until now. The guys he’d dated in the past had all been serious, studious types, the kind of boys who thought too hard about the indie music they listened to, who were somehow both intense and fragile at the same time, and who had found a kindred soul in Cam’s own brittleness. They’d typically get together based on some cutting jokes about a much-despised musician or film, then break up a couple of months later due to some big emotional crisis.

  He swallowed. “So, you’re looking very…um…big? I mean, you work out a lot?”

  “That’s an odd change of subject,” said Serge.

  Cam blushed. Not only did he not know how to flirt, he didn’t know when to either. “Oh, sorry, I thought we were making conversation now that you weren’t worried I’d knife you here in the restaurant.”

  Serge chuckled. “I’ll admit, I wondered what Madeleine had in mind for me. I checked with a few other people. She has quite a reputation.”

  Cam wished he could just be honest. She was worried about her latest book. So was Cam. It was just too long, too slow. And none of the reviews were great, although none so damaging as Serge’s.

  But how do you say that to someone like Serge? He could so easily use that fear for another attack.

  “So let’s talk about that review,” Cam said.

  “It was honest.”

  “But not really.”

  “No, it was.

  “You hated it that much?”

  “Did you read it, Cam? It was a really bad book! I know you work for her, but try to be objective.”

  “That’s what I’m asking you to do. Be objective. Did it deserve the harsh tone in that review?”

  Serge took another sip of his water. “Are we just going to go back and forth on this? What do you want me to do, Cam?”

  “Apologize.”

  He sputtered. “What? To Madeleine?”

  “Yes,” said Cam. He leaned forward. “Do it on social media, so it gets seen by your r
eaders. Then on the panel, mention how you were too strong. Blame it on…oh, I don’t know, you’ll make something up. But apologize.”

  Serge shook his head. “Why on earth would I do that, Cam?”

  “Because Madeleine—”

  “I don’t give a shit about Madeleine’s feelings, man! Why should I? Who is she to me? I wrote a review to make a little money. She’s written them too. It’s something one does, as a writer. And that’s what kills me about this. She knows the score. If she hated a book, she’d pan it too. So why would either of you think I’d have the least bit of motivation to apologize for it?”

  Serge took a breath, and ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “Are you so deep into the cult of Madeleine that you don’t see that you’re asking something ridiculous?”

  “I’m not in a cult,” said Cam. “I’m an employee, asking a favor for my employer.” He was trying to keep his voice as even and quiet as possible. People were looking around at them again.

  “It’s one review,” said Serge. “Are you going down to New York to talk to the reviewers there, too? Are you going to go out to LA and threaten the guy out there who panned her?”

  Cam bit his lip. Everything was going wrong. Here was that bubble again. Things that made so much sense when he was with Madeleine stopped making sense as soon as he was away from her.

  Was this as ridiculous as Serge said? He was beginning to think so. He was beginning to see his entire life as one ridiculous farce after another.

  Here he was, appointed by Madeleine to flirt with a man who saw right through him.

  He’d actually agreed to this.

  This was why he never had a relationship work out, wasn’t it? This dynamic, right here. It was like he’d sold his soul for the job with Madeleine. Like his drive to succeed at his dream had blinded him to how to deal with anything that wasn’t part of the dream.

  “This was dumb,” he said to Sergio. “Agreeing to meet you here like this, neutral territory, thinking I could convince you to do the right thing.” He had half a mind to get up and leave…yet he couldn’t. To leave in the middle of a tense conversation would just be one humiliation too many. And yet, what else was there to say?

  “I don’t know,” said Serge, “I’m feeling like a genius. I went from being a little nervous at being in Madeleine’s sights, to feeling just fine about it.”

  “So, what, if it had turned out I was the crazy assistant, you would’ve apologized?”

  Sergio shrugged and smiled innocently. As much as Cam hated him right now, that smile made him hate Sergio more. His teeth were so white and straight, such a contrast to his full, cruel lips. Cam had never known what to do with guys who believed in their hearts they were hot, and Sergio clearly believed it. Worse, he was right. Cam didn’t want to admit it. Every instinct fought against admitting it. But Sergio looked really, really good. Enticing in a way that the guys Cam usually dated never were.

  “If you were the crazy assistant, I’m sure I would’ve done something to try to calm you down.”

  Cam looked down at the table, at his hands. “Maybe I could get crazy.”

  Sergio laughed. “No offense, but I doubt you’ve ever been crazy in your life. Crazy people don’t wear cardigans. But look. If the worst outcome here is that Madeleine has hurt feelings, then we’re doing pretty good. You can go back and tell her you delivered your message with wild eyes and a dangerous look, and I can get back to work, confident that she’s not going to shoot me during the panel.”

  It sounded so easy. And if Cam’s feelings hadn’t played any role, it would’ve been easy. But how could he go back to Madeleine and admit defeat again? And how could he live, knowing this arrogant creep saw him as weak and inconsequential?

  Thus he deliberately, and just a little too loudly, asked, “So are you gay?”

  Shame immediately swept over him like a dark fog. But even that fog could not obscure the color that rushed to Sergio’s cheeks, the way his eyes flicked from Cam to the nearly tables, the way his posture became suddenly stiff and defensive.

  “What? Of course not,” Sergio said in a strained voice.

  Straight guys have a few different responses when asked if they are gay. There’s the angry response of the homophobe: Fuck no! There’s amusement, the laugh and the shaken head. But they always answer with confidence: No, that’s not me.

  But Sergio was worried. And in that brief second, Cam knew that he had won. (But at what price? asked the little voice in his head.)

  “It’s okay if you are,” said Cam. His brow furrowed. Now that he knew, even with Sergio’s nervous denial, what could he do with the information? Madeleine would have said to press harder, but he found he couldn’t do it. Not right this second. The secret—for it was clear Sergio was keeping it a secret from everyone, possibly even himself—hung between them, as unable to be spoken about, as it was to be spoken.

  “I’m not,” said Sergio. His voice sounded more confident now, as he got over his surprise and mastered his tone. But his body still radiated wariness and the possibility of harm. He stared at Cam. “But I see what’s going on here.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” said Cam.

  “When will the accusations start? If I don’t apologize to Madeleine, will a whisper campaign against me begin?”

  Now it was Cam’s turn to tense. He couldn’t deny it. Madeleine had exactly that plan.

  “That’s so ugly,” said Sergio. “If anyone should know why someone’s sexuality shouldn’t be used as a weapon against them, it should be a gay person.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You didn’t have to, Cam. Do you think I can’t see right through you? You might not be crazy, but you’re manipulative. It’s all you’ve got left after selling your soul to Maddy. I can imagine the stuff she’s put you through psychologically. Anyone who writes like that and expects adulation has to be pretty messed up. And now you’re a robot following instructions. You’re going to leave here, you’re going to say I’m gay—”

  “You said you weren’t.”

  “Like that matters. You’re going to tell her, and she’s going to use it against me.”

  The guilt sat heavily on Cam. It weighted down his shoulders, pushing down his head until he couldn’t make eye contact with Sergio. What he wanted to say was that Sergio had brought it all on himself. But that wasn’t even true. Now that Cam knew the truth, he was the only one who could prevent any further damage.

  “I’m not saying I’m going to tell her anything.”

  “You’re not saying? Those are weasel words, Cam.” But the confidence was gone from Sergio’s voice. He looked like he was going to say something else, and Cam wished he would, anything to stop the feud before it really got started.

  But Sergio shook his head. He pushed himself up from the table. “I wish I’d never asked you to meet. I thought I could convince you not to do anything stupid. But I should have known the little wheels were turning in your head during this whole conversation, looking for anything you could use against me.”

  Cam had no words left. He felt so worried and guilty he couldn’t speak.

  But Sergio had one last thing to say. “Just remember. You don’t have to be Madeleine’s drone. She can’t force you to do it. That’s a decision only you can make.”

  Then he was gone, and Cam was left alone.

  8

  Serge

  The day of the panel saw Sergio more scared than he’d felt in some time. As students, professors, and people from the community began to fill the room, passing the easels with signs featuring his photo, Madeleine’s, a couple of other local writers, he felt like the crowd was stealing all his oxygen, leaving him with nothing but gasping, empty lungs.

  He had to get it together. This was ridiculous. He had a reputation to protect.

  And it was all going to come crashing down, wasn’t it?

  He hadn’t spoken to Cam since that dinner. He’d hardly left the house. He felt so
guilty about how mad he’d gotten at Cam. Wasn’t Cam just the messenger? Serge shouldn’t have taken out his fear and frustration on him. But at the same time, he felt so much fear. He worried that he’d walk out onto the streets and hear people whispering about him, pointing at him.

  Worse was the utter lack of sympathy from Tish. She’d gotten so sick of him talking about it, she’d snapped. “This isn’t the 60s,” she’d told him. “They can’t destroy you by outing you. Trust me, if Madeleine did that, the entire world would be on your side in minutes.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that. He’d seen the world be very cruel to guys who were into other guys.

  (Besides, I’m not gay! Or bi! Or whatever!)

  His agent hadn’t been any more sympathetic. “Got a call from the publisher,” Sam had told him. “Friday came and went, no pages. You still in the writing game, Serge? Maybe you figured you’d take up a new career, auto repair, window-washing, something like that?”

  “I’m just really nervous about this panel,” he’d told the agent.

  “Serge. There are two kinds of writers’ work in the world. There’s all the bullshit that makes a little money between books—the reviews, the panels, saving some money while letting the college pay for your residency. But none of that matters unless you do the second kind of writer’s work. You know what that kind of work is?”

  “Writing?”

  “Bingo, baby. Get me the pages in the next three days, or the publisher’s going to get the lawyers involved. That contract we signed was lucrative, but it wasn’t pretty, Serge.”

  The head of the creative writing faculty was working the room, shaking hands, greeting everyone. The lights shone off his big bald head. Serge and the other writers weren’t really due to sit down for another five or ten minutes.

  He had to get out. Escape. He shouldn’t have even come here.

  The way out was blocked by people who were eager to see the local literary celebrities. He smiled as best he could, knowing his lips were tight and tense, shook a couple of hands, made excuses about having to call his agent, and finally made it back out of the room. He turned to rush down the hall to the exit.