by Allison Parr
So I nodded, two small jerks of my chin, and then I tilted my head up and walked out, past nameless paintings and unused furniture, letting tears stream in the empty, dark halls.
Chapter Seventeen
There were two sides of New York. There was the beautiful city, the one showcased in films, the one compared to Paris and London, which people traveled from all over the world to see.
And there was the other New York, the angry city, which came out after a bad day at work or a fight with the family or a failure of any kind. That city was wet and dark and hard. There, tourists walked slower than snails and didn’t know how to angle their shoulders so they wouldn’t hit locals as we barged down the street. The buildings crowded out the sky, the weather was cold, the subways were packed and you’d always, always, just missed your train.
I lived in that city for a week after the gala. I turned ugly. I became the kind of person who cut in front of the gangs of people taking pictures of Macy’s windows. When a suburban dad cursed me out for ruining the video he was taking on his smartphone I spat: “This is a city people actually live in, not a tourist trap.”
That weekend, I scowled so hard and so long my face actually hurt. My shoulder ached from the amount of times I’d knocked into strangers on the street, refusing to move an inch if they weren’t going to accommodate me, too. I burned with energy, and used it to pound through Central Park, music blaring through my ears. Then I returned home and chowed through a full box of Pad Thai.
Eva watched all of this with a furrowed brow. The morning after the charity auction, she had begun to cheerfully grill me, only to be given a quick, “It didn’t go well.”
I didn’t want to talk about it.
Most of the time, I didn’t think about it either, but late at night I relieved the evening over and over, an endless loop of ways the conversation should have gone, things I should have said. I wouldn’t have freaked out. I wouldn’t have judged. I would have said, “That was great. Let’s go to Larry’s diner.”
On Thursday, I didn’t have a temping gig so I went into my internship instead. At first, I might as well have stayed home, because I was utterly non-effective. I kept stopping and staring at the wall, hot with shame as I remembered my behavior. My stomach clenched with humiliation and my face crumpled with hurt. Freak. In an effort to mindlessly distract myself, I pulled all the junk out of my inbox and started tossing half of it. I stopped when I found the gossip-rag on Alexander the Great, struck again by the professionalism. I flipped through it, reading up on ancient rumors. One suggested Alexander’s best friend was also his lover, and that when Hephaestion died, Alexander went mad with grief for a week.
I didn’t want to read that story.
Instead, I flipped to a “What-Not-To-Wear” section featuring five paintings of the conquering tyrant, where his outfits ranged from Macedonian armor to Persian robes to Renaissance pantaloons. I read the snarky comments on the clothing and the painters and, for the first time in days, laughed. I sat there for half an hour, a reluctant smile on my face as I absorbed gossip from two thousand years ago.
I’d put it aside knowing there was no chance Gretchen would take on an unagented submission, but damn, I liked this book. And why did I always have to have that “no” switch on in my mind, dismissing things before I’d even given them a shot? No more. If I could try to open up to Ryan, even though I’d failed and slammed my walls back up just like always, I could damn well be brave enough to try to further my career.
“I’m going to go talk to Gretchen for a minute,” I told Marie.
I waited until the editor ended a call, and then I ducked into her office. Gretchen peered at me over stacks of papers, books, and a half-proofed manuscript. “Hmm?”
“We got this manuscript in a bit back.” I held it up. “I know it’s unsolicited, but it’s really good. It’s a history of Alexander the Great in the form of a tabloid.” She looked unimpressed, so I plunged on, pitching the book as though I was its agent. “Several similar books have been published recently—collections of historical tweets, world history and classic literature interpreted through Facebook—it’s like those. Clever, but informative.” I handed it over to her, heart pounding.
She barely flipped through it. “You know we don’t take unsolicited manuscripts.”
“I know. But I think this is worth looking at.”
She shrugged, handing the book back to me. “We’re already swamped with books, and to be honest, I don’t see anything that special about this. How many people are interested in Alexander the Great?”
Usually I would back down at this point, muttering that was right and retreating to my corner. But Ryan’s insidious, unwanted voice whispered, “I don’t believe for a second you could be scared of anyone.” “It’s really well done. But if you’re not interested... Would you mind if I talked to the author?” At the request, my nerves started up a can-can line.
Gretchen frowned at me like I was crazy. “What do you mean? Talk about what?”
“I think it has a lot of potential.” I folded my hands being my back. My throat was dry, but I kept my gaze straight. “The whole notion is smart, and could be done for all sorts of figures, and historical periods. I just—would like to talk to the author about it.”
Gretchen leaned back in her chair. “And then what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. But I’d be interested in working with the author, perhaps to build a website, which I think, due to the popularity of similar sites, would be very popular. And I’d like to help her focus her angle.”
Gretchen still regarded me as though I was a strange, foreign bug, and then she sighed. “I can’t stop you from looking up a person online, reading her excerpts, and contacting her that way,” she said slowly. “But no Maples&Co employee contacts authors we don’t plan to represent.”
I clutched the manuscript to my chest, thinking furiously. “Okay. Of course not. That’s good to know.” I backed out of the office, shaking, before she could withdraw her implicit agreement. Once out of sight, I breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t told me it was illegal to contact the author. She might think it stupid and a waste of time, but I could convince her otherwise. Done well, this would be a book she wanted, and a book she wanted might land me a job. I started to grin. It might be only the germ of an idea, but at least I had taken action. As least I was going to try.
That evening, I took my standard route home, walking down the Slope and resisting chocolate covered pretzels from Duane Reade, coffee from Dunkin Donuts and take-out from hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurants. But I stalled outside one of the local Irish pubs, staring in at the widescreen TV. Inside, fans in black and crimson toasted each other with foamy pints under low hanging yellow lights. I pulled my coat tighter, gloved hands shoved into pockets as I watched Leopards fight Dolphins under the warm Miami sun. I watched and watched and watched, and the moment the camera focused on Ryan’s face, eye black underlining his farseeing gaze, I turned and hurried on.
* * *
The author’s name was Alexandra Wilson, and she lived in Chicago. She sounded astonished when I called her up. “I’d love to talk to you about it.”
I’d told her this is my email, but I wanted to make sure we were clear. “You do understand that this has nothing to do with Maples&Co. But I do think you have a really good manuscript, and I’d be interested in doing a—a consultation.”
“Oh.” Now she sounded younger than I’d expected. “Really? That would be great. Does that cost money?”
Good question. “Er—no.” Was that the wrong answer? I needed money, and people probably did charge for editing services, but I had contacted her, not the other way around.
“Well, great. I’m actually going to be in New York next week. I’d love to meet with you.”
I spent the next week researching similar titles to Alexa Wilson’s. I studied formatting and designs. I ran through the manuscript with a red pen, scratching out adverbs left and right, sti
cking in notes, fact-checking each article.
“I don’t get it.” Eva wrinkled her nose at me one evening. She sprawled on the couch, chain watching Gilmore Girls, while I lay on the carpet with manuscript pages spread out before me. “So what if you help this lady make her book amazing? How does that help you?”
“I don’t know. I hope that if I make it ship-shape, Gretchen will take it.”
“Well, and what does that get you? Didn’t you say you guys also have agents? If you do all this work for this woman, why don’t you just be her agent and get that commission?”
I paused. “Huh. Good idea, except I’m not an agent. I don’t have any credentials or anything.”
“So?” She folded her legs. “You must know how to do it. Don’t you read the contracts? In acting, it’s all about knowing people, and you already know your editor, and I bet you know the competition, too.”
I thought about it. The legality of taking a book from the slush pile and subbing it around seemed shady. Then again, what did I have to lose? “I’d thought about bringing it back to my editor, but if she doesn’t want it, who the hell knows? I might as well. I do know people, and an agent gets at least fifteen percent.”
Eva was silent for a moment. “All right. I have to ask. You’ve been totally aggressive and fierce this week. What’s going on?”
“Maybe I’m always fierce.”
“Yeah. No. And this isn’t, like, mama-bear fierce, but more soulless-corporate person fierce.”
Affront straightened my spine. “I haven’t done a single soulless corporate thing!”
“No, but I can imagine you doing something.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What happened with Ryan?”
I stared down at my papers. A bust of Alexander stared up at me. His eyes were sultry and far-sighted, and his full lips were carved in a pout. He knew he was beautiful. He knew his curly haired lion’s mane was the envy of thousands.
Or the sculptor knew that he better make the young king stunning, or he’d lose his own head as soon as he finished sculpting this one.
“I slept with him.”
“What?” Eva shrieked. “Oh my God! When? How was it?”
“At the charity auction,” I admitted. “And it was...wonderful. It just didn’t end well.” I tried to fill her in on the details, but my throat choked up on the words. He called me a freak. I called him a slut. I cringed with shame just thinking it. “Anyways, afterwards was awful.”
Eva came down to the floor and enveloped me in a hug. “I’m so sorry. What an asshole.”
I leaned into her, almost laughing. I wasn’t sure he was the real jerk. “Thanks.”
“Um...at the charity auction?”
“We were in a back room,” I defended myself. “Far away.”
She snorted. “Yeah, ’cause they don’t have security cameras in every room in museums.”
I sat upright. “You don’t think anyone...” I tried to swallow, my throat dry. “You don’t think...”
“Shh.” She stroked my hair. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure no one saw you. Or if they did, they thought it was romantic.”
I wanted to throw up.
“Okay. Don’t think about that. Focus on the present. And you know what we need now? A proper girls’ night. We’ll have Jen and Nanami over and we’ll watch bad end-of-the-world movies where almost everyone dies.”
We scheduled the end-of-the-world for Friday night, and by the end of the week I’d cooled enough to share the rest of the details with Eva. After that, I planned to put this whole football debacle behind me. Which would be easy. I just had to avoid any mention of the NFL ever again.
Except at ten o’clock Friday morning, Abe called.
I stepped out into the hallway to take it, making a face at Laurel as I walked by. “Hi.”
“Hey, Rach.” Abe sounded unnervingly peppy. “So...are we getting together for Shabbos tonight?”
I closed my eyes. “No, Abe. Sorry. I’m busy.”
“I thought we were scheduled into your calendar.” A tiny bit of hurt entered his voice. Fake, right? Hadn’t Ryan told him and the rest about—well, all of it? Why would they want anything to do with me?
“I’m having a girls’ night in.”
“That sounds fun, too. Am I invited?”
“Sorry, Abe.”
“Okay, well, are you at least coming to the game Sunday?”
“I didn’t realize you had one.”
He was starting to sound annoyed. “Course we do. It’s against the Ann Arbor Bisons?” He sighed when I didn’t answer. “I get that you’re in a fight with Ryan or whatever, but that doesn’t mean you have to blow the rest of us off.”
Guilt spiked through me. What kind of friend was I, that I’d been insensitive enough to ignore him simply because I’d been absorbed by my own troubles? “Sorry. My roommate and I were going to do a picnic in the park tomorrow. Want to come?”
“Central Park? Yeah! Don’t they have a zoo there, too? We should check it out.”
His eager tone cut. Abe had only moved to the city recently. He might not even know that many people outside the football circuit. “I’ll see you then.”
“Who was that?” Laurel asked when I stepped back in the office. “You made a face.”
“Oh—one of my friends. I’d been neglecting him, so we’re going to have a picnic Saturday.”
“That sounds fun.” Laurel made a show of being casual. “I’ve been meaning to do that. After all, we probably only have another week of warmish weather before fall hits hard. And it’s so pretty out, with all the leaves.”
Was Laurel angling for an invitation? Wouldn’t she ruin her designer clothes sitting on the ground? “Uh—you can come, if you want.”
“Great!”
That evening, Nanami and Jen arrived with a box of brownie mix, a bag of peanut butter cups, and a carton of vanilla ice cream. Just like in college. We swirled the peanut butter cups into the brownies and then intently studied Jen’s collection of disaster movies, on the off-chance they had changed since last time.
After selecting a B-list film filled with aliens and bad one-liners that we could all quote from memory, Nanami made a face and dragged my computer into her lap. “Just thought you should see this...”
We all crowded around as she pulled up a gossip website that I’d heard of, but never actually visited. I froze when I saw one of the front articles. “Gallery of the Museum of American Culture’s Children’s Society Gala.”
I groaned. “No way.”
She clicked through until, just as I’d suspected, a picture of Ryan and me loaded. It wasn’t bad. Ryan and I were both sneaking a look at each other as the camera snapped, and we had matching little grins. We looked like we liked each other.
The picture was part of a slideshow, not an article, so the caption included no more than our names. Still, it was a little unnerving to see that lovelorn look on my face as I glowed up at Ryan. Especially on a popular website.
“Let’s watch the earth blow up, okay guys?” I said, and we all turned back to the movie.
* * *
The next day was unseasonably warm, and bright sunshine streaked down through the golden canopy as Eva and I strolled along Central Park’s mall. Yellow leaves, shaped like petals, fluttered down and dotted the wide boulevard, while above they meshed with some still-green patches against the soft, pale sky.
“This is gorgeous.” Eva swung her canvas bag absently as we walked by statues and vendors and artists. She fit into the scene perfectly, decked out like a 1920s fashion plate. Black lace from her dress peeked out beneath a maroon coat, while a black cloche perched atop her blonde hair. She was dying to chop it chin length and dye it black, but she was stuck with a long hairdo until P&P: The Musical finished its run. “I always mean to come here more often.”
“Me, too.” We descended the grand staircase that led to the Bethesda Terrace, where a bronze angel presided over the cascading fountain a
nd pool. Skirting the terrace, we headed along the lake, where the brilliant oranges and tomato reds muddled in the water.
We meandered deeper through the forested Ramble where the shining buildings vanished from sight, coming so very close to the Marionette’s theater. I could almost hear Ryan’s laughter. We made our way up Vista Rock, one of the highest points of the park. We were meeting Abe at Belvedere’s Castle observation deck; Nanami and Jen, more familiar with the park, would join us on the Great Lawn just below.
We beat him there, and leaned against the stone walls, watching first the tourists who admired the Victorian folly, and then turning our backs and looking out across Turtle Pond, to the Lawn beyond. Huge round trees rimmed the edge of the park, the balls of color reflected in the water. The pond’s marshy edges faded to straw-like yellow grasses. Beyond the trees, skyscrapers arched into the white-streaked sky.
“Rachael!”
At Abe’s voice, I turned, and watched him bounding up stone steps. I grinned and lifted my arm in a wave.
Two more heads bounced into view.
“Oh.” Eva didn’t sound all that disappointed. “Friends.”
Dylan and Mike waved.
I groaned. “I didn’t quite realize what a party this would be.”
Eva gave me a sidelong glance. “You and your football players is the weirdest thing in the world.”
“Don’t pretend you’re not enjoying it,” I muttered as they reached us, and she laughed.
I performed introductions all around. Eva glowed under the attention, and she soon had the three guys in her thrall as she described antics from her theatre. When Dylan egged her to sing, she jumped at the chance, and started belting the opening number—“Universally Acknowledged/In Want of a Wife”—as we climbed down toward the Great Lawn. Abe laughed. “What is this?” he asked me. “Do you know this, too?”
