The Accidental Bestseller

by Wendy Wax

  18

  Publishers don’t nurse you; they buy and sell you.

  —P. D. JAMES

  Lacy Samuels got back from the Hamptons, where she’d taken a share in a house for the Labor Day weekend, late Monday night. She was suitably sunburned and happily tired, having discovered that the attraction to a friend of a friend was reciprocated.

  On Tuesday morning she took the subway to Penn Station and despite the state of semidread she always felt until her boss’s mood was known, she walked eastward to Scarsdale with a jaunty step.

  The truth was, she’d always been a glass-is-half-full kind of person and she’d taken plenty of grief from her friends over the years for her eternal optimism. But there was a chance that Jane Jensen had also gotten laid over the holiday weekend. Or that she’d be relaxed and rested after the long weekend. Or at least up-to-date on her meds.

  In the Scarsdale lobby Lacy ran into Cindy Miller, an assistant in the publicity department, and her friend Shelley in marketing, and they compared weekends in the elevator on the way up to their respective floors. In her cubicle, Lacy booted up her computer and skimmed down her e-mails, most of which were either companywide memos or terse directions from her boss.

  An e-mail from Kendall Aims speared her attention and she held her breath while she clicked it open, afraid it might carry a demand that Lacy be taken off her book. She breathed a sigh of relief when she read the pleasantly innocuous missive, though the query about the book’s cover gave her pause. She wasn’t looking forward to having to show the recycled cover to Kendall. She sent off an equally pleasant reply, saying that she looked forward to reading Sticks and Stones and inviting Kendall Aims to be in touch if she could be of assistance in any way.

  She had just pressed Send when Jane Jensen appeared in her cubicle, looking neither sunburned nor satisfied.

  “There’s an editorial meeting in five minutes,” she said, wasting no time on pleasantries.

  Lacy nodded, unsure what this had to do with her; her boss had never bothered to inform her of the timing of any such meeting before. “That’s great,” Lacy said tentatively.

  When Lacy made no move to move or respond, Jane motioned for her to get up. “That means we need to go to the conference room,” she said, her tone impatient.

  “You want me to come to the editorial meeting?” It was embarrassing, but Lacy could actually feel her face light up with excitement.

  Afraid Jane might change her mind, Lacy jumped up and grabbed a yellow pad and a pen, though she had no idea whether either of these items would prove necessary. Then she fell into step beside Jane, unable to tamp down her excitement over this unexpected opportunity.

  Jane brought them to a stop just before they reached the boardroom. “I don’t want you embarrassing me, so there are a few things you need to understand.”

  Lacy nodded. She could already imagine the insights into publishing she would glean. Maybe she’d come up with a great idea and be noticed by the associate publisher, Brenda Tinsley, whom she’d heard referred to as “the hand of God.”

  “You will not sit at the conference table. There’s a row of chairs around the outside of the room. You will sit in one of those behind me in case I need you to do or go get something.”

  Lacy looked more closely to see if Jane was joking, but although her eyes were clear and focused, which was not always the case, there was no humor in them.

  “You will not make eye contact with anyone actually sitting at the conference table, except me.”

  Lacy resisted the urge to look around for the Candid Camera crew. Surely Jane couldn’t be serious.

  “Most importantly, you will not speak during the meeting.”

  Lacy blinked, certain she’d misunderstood or that despite the grim look on her face, Jane was joking. “You’re not serious.”

  “That’s the way it is. If you can’t follow these simple directions, you can go back to your desk.”

  The conference room was beautifully decorated, the mammoth table in its center an oval of shiny mahogany. The associate publisher sat at the head of the table with the heads of production, art, sales, and publicity, as well as others Lacy didn’t recognize, radiating out around her. She had no doubt they were arranged in some sort of pecking order that she didn’t yet understand.

  As she followed Jane in and around the table, Lacy glanced longingly at the empty seats, but Jane, who clearly had eyes in the back of her head, turned and gave one menacing shake of her head. Jane drew out the empty chair next to Cash Simpson from sales, and settled herself into it. Realizing eyes were on her, Lacy hurriedly took the empty seat behind her, a much narrower, less padded affair pressed up against the wall.

  As Tinsley called the meeting to order, Lacy’s breathing slowed and she began to recover her equilibrium. OK, so maybe she wasn’t an important part of this meeting, maybe she couldn’t participate or speak. But she was here, privy to all sorts of things. She’d finally know, firsthand, what happened at the weekly editorial meetings. It was a first step. She owed it to herself to learn as much as she could.

  She watched as each of the editors present gave status reports on the books they were already responsible for and then pitched manuscripts they wanted to buy. It came down to a vote on each of those, with the editorial director having final say. The books pitched with the most enthusiasm and by those able to build consensus generally seemed to get approved. She also noted that in some cases, the pitching editor had already gotten others at the table to read the manuscript so that they could introduce their favorable feedback as well.

  Lacy’s interest was piqued by the careful dance at the table. She noted the alliances that existed, who had the most power, who bowed to whom.

  Hannah Sutcliff seemed especially well liked and respected. A polar opposite to Jane, Hannah was tall and blond with an innate sophistication that made her look as if she could have spent her days lunching and shopping on Fifth Avenue rather than nursing books into the world. She was rumored to have a trust fund or a wealthy patron, though Lacy had no idea if either of these things were true. Others claimed she’d had an affair with the publisher, but this also was unsubstantiated.

  What was known was that she had come to Scarsdale as Jane Jensen’s intern and had taken an incredible amount of abuse at Jane’s hands. And had never forgiven her for it, despite the fact that she and Jane were now equals.

  About thirty minutes into the meeting, Lacy began to notice how often Jane turned to Cash Simpson, how often she stole looks when he was speaking or looking elsewhere. Cash Simpson was one of the most dynamic at the table and one of the best looking. As one of the few males present, he drew plenty of eyes. But no one studied him as frequently or with as much interest as her boss.

  Lacy filed this bit of information away for future examination.

  When it was Jane’s turn to speak, Lacy had to admit, she came across well. She was clear and precise with no hint of the turbulence that Lacy often saw bubbling beneath the surface.

  Lacy stilled when Kendall Aims’s book was brought up. Jane managed to sound coolly professional and yet somehow dismissive as she indicated that they would not be going back to contract with the author and that the book was due December first and slated to come out the following December. When someone asked about cover art, Jane said they already had the cover and held up the rejected Carolyn Sinclair cover, which now had a manuscript page sticking out of the briefcase and Kendall Aims’s name squeezed underneath. She then explained that the author’s numbers were in the toilet and that she had already been informed they would not be going back to contract. There was no need for promotion or anything else. They simply needed to get it out on the shelves to fulfill their obligation. No mention was made of Lacy editing the book.

  In moments they’d moved on to a new author another editor was interested in acquiring. This was her first manuscript, the editor explained, and would help fill Scarsdale’s hole in the still popular paranormal category. Best of all,
the author could be gotten cheap and appeared to be quite prolific. She suggested a three-book contract locked in at a shockingly low advance per book. There was a show of hands and that was it.

  Lacy imagined the aspiring author’s excitement when she received “the call” informing her of her first sale and the celebration that would follow. But Lacy’s glass, which she generally saw as half-full, was looking more like a dribble glass at the moment and she couldn’t shake the sense that she’d just witnessed the purchase of a “widget” as opposed to the beginning of a publishing career.

  When Mallory awoke late Tuesday morning and went upstairs for coffee, she found Kendall already sitting at the kitchen table making notes on a yellow pad. A peek over her shoulder confirmed that it was not a to-do list.

  The house felt emptier and quieter without Tanya and Faye, but it was nonetheless imbued with an air of expectation and possibility as well. For the first time in months, Mallory was actually looking forward to sitting down in front of a computer screen. She savored the sweet sense of anticipation as she poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot.

  “Good morning,” she said, as she added creamer and sugar substitute then brought the cup to her lips for that first wonderful sip.

  “Morning.” Kendall looked up from her notes. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Good.” Oddly enough it was the truth. She’d slept through the night and had awakened with this unfamiliar sense of well-being.

  “Me, too,” Kendall said. “I’m just making some character notes. It’s kind of interesting to try to figure out how close to the truth I can come without turning Sticks and Stones into an autobiography.”

  “Well, at least the names will be changed to protect the innocent.”

  “Yeah.” Kendall smiled. “But it’ll feel so good to vent. I realized this morning that the book will give me the opportunity to point out the arbitrariness and brutality of the publishing business without appearing to be whining.”

  “That’s true,” Mallory said, her own mind also whirling with just how much she might reveal. She’d become so used to sidestepping and deflecting. Maybe this was her chance to tell all the things she’d kept so carefully to herself. And if Tanya, Faye, or Kendall, who would be the only ones who ever knew she created the character of Miranda, ever called her on it, she could simply claim “fiction.” After all, they were writers; they made things up all the time. That’s what they were supposed to do.

  Humming under her breath, Mallory took an apple from the fruit bowl and carried it and her laptop out to the deck. She arranged herself at the table where she could see out over the valley and took a generous bite of her breakfast. Before long she wasn’t seeing the valley or the mountains or even the deck itself. She was remembering that first conference where she’d met Faye and Kendall and Tanya, when her dreams were just that. And her writing was a means of escaping the past that still haunted her.

  She roughed out a first scene through Miranda’s excited eyes, drawing on the remembered emotions of that first day of the conference when she’d found herself surrounded by a thousand other writers who wanted what she wanted, and dreamed what she dreamed.

  From the beginning she’d realized that many of the attendees were more excited about calling themselves writers than actually being one. They would spend years cleaning and polishing the first chapters of a manuscript, never persevering on to the end. The act of writing was hard and lonely; talking about writing was just the opposite.

  Mallory’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she tried to put the reader in her character, Miranda Jameson’s, point of view. For Miranda, becoming a novelist was an emotional escape and a way to get back the security and comfort that had been taken from her. No one bothered to tell her how stacked against her the odds of success were. And she wouldn’t have listened if they had.

  “Miranda Jameson was not her real name, of course,” Mallory typed, “but a name she’d adopted long ago. Her clothes were expensive, though not the latest style, and her air of confidence was mostly bravado. She surveyed the gaggle of authors waiting to make their fifteen-minute pitches to an editor or agent and felt a surge of panic assail her. Miranda shrugged it off and walked with her head held high to the place where she’d been told to wait, rehearsing her pitch in her head, refusing to mutter it aloud like some of the others.

  “A twentysomething young woman with big blond hair and clothing, which might have been stolen from Daisy Dukes’s closet, glanced up from the couch on which she was seated and looked Miranda up and down. ‘Lordy, me, look at you,’ she said in a Dogpatch sort of accent, ‘You don’t look one bit scared. I’m so damned nervous I can hardly keep my teeth from chattering.’

  “Two other women standing nearby turned at her comment. One was near fifty and had a face that looked vaguely familiar. She introduced herself as Faith. The other was midthirties and said her name was Kennedy. When she spoke Miranda could hear a trace of the South in her voice, though her accent was both more affluent and educated than the blonde’s.”

  The sound of an electric drill brought Mallory back to the present and she debated for a few moments whether to go check on Kendall. She’d already rejected the idea of getting up when Kendall came back to the kitchen table with her laptop. Soon she heard Kendall’s fingers tapping on computer keys.

  Mallory closed her eyes and drifted back into the scene. As the truth flowed out of her in its fictitious disguise, Mallory stopped judging and tried not to edit. She sketched a scene between all four of them, trying her best to capture the feeling of comfort that had come from the unexpected bonding between them.

  Mallory wasn’t sure how these scenes would go together or which of them she’d keep, but when she finally looked up from her computer screen, Mallory was surprised to see the sun high up in the sky. She’d been completely unaware of the passing time or her page count or anything except the feelings of the character she was intent on bringing to life.

  Now she heard Kendall moving around in the kitchen, heard the refrigerator open and shut. She felt a faint stirring of hunger and noted with surprise that it was already 2:00 P.M. Had she really been writing for almost six hours without even realizing it?

  Mallory saved what she’d written on her hard drive and then on the jump drive she always carried with her. She stretched, trying to work out the kinks from sitting so long, but despite the physical aches and pains, she felt fabulous; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d written so freely or for so long.

  She would not think about the book she had due or the husband she still hadn’t heard from. She intended to rejoice in the flow of words and leave it at that.

  Her step was light, and her spirit lighter, as she headed inside to join Kendall. And if she was going to allow herself at least one cliché today, she’d have to say that she felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders.

  19

  All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.

  —P. D. JAMES

  Tanya made it through her shift at the Downhome Diner without actually speaking to Brett. She turned in orders, picked them up, and fenced mechanically with Red, but felt awkward and uncertain around Brett, knowing she needed to express her gratitude but uncomfortable with feeling beholden to him.

  She’d come home the night before, braced for Trudy’s complaints and her daughters’ whining, and instead found them content and happy—or as close to both as Trudy could get. The three of them couldn’t seem to stop singing the praises of the Adamses and the whole thing had Tanya completely off- kilter.

  And so she waited her tables, flashed her smile, poured countless cups of coffee, all the while so busy trying to figure out what to say and how best to say it that she ended up saying nothing at all.

  Now it was time to clock out and it was clear she couldn’t leave without acknowledging what Brett had done for her. She wouldn’t have been at Kendall’s if he hadn’t handled Trudy so beaut
ifully.

  Resolute, she untied the pocketed apron she wore during her shift and walked slowly toward him, crumpling the fabric in her hands. He cracked eggs, tossed the shells, flipped, fried, and plated up with an impressive economy of motion, never once taking his eyes off her as she approached; the man had come a long way under Red’s experienced eye.

  He smiled and raised an eyebrow as she came to a stop before him, but he didn’t stop working and he didn’t speak.

  “I, um, wanted to thank you for what all you did for my family over the weekend.” Tanya’s gaze didn’t quite meet his; she kept it aimed just over his left shoulder.

  “It was no problem. Valerie and the girls had a good time.”

  With great difficulty she shifted her focus to his face and saw the amusement on it. She continued to mangle the apron with her hands. “What is so damned funny?”

  “You.” He flipped an egg and plucked two slices of whole wheat bread from the toaster. “You look like somebody made you walk through fire barefoot. It’s not such a big thing. I was glad to help out. You say, ‘Thank you.’ I say, ‘You’re welcome. ’ ” He shrugged as he plated two meals and rang the bell for pick up. “No big deal.”

  “It is to me,” she said. “I haven’t had a lot of people wanting to help over the years. It’s kind of foreign, you know?”

  “Well, I’m real sorry to hear that,” Brett said. “Everybody needs help now and then.” And then he shifted the conversation in that effortless way he had. “So how’d the brainstorming go? Did you figure things out?”