Chapter 6
I force myself to stay glued to my chair, hands clasped neatly on my lap, ankles crossed politely beneath my chair. Even though every part of me wants to run.
The volume in the world around us has turned down, lowering to a quiet hum. Time slows. My palms feel warm and sticky as they clasp one another, like two hot pancakes stacked together. I’m suddenly kicking myself for putting on that expensive, made-from-organic-tree-bark-while-saving-Liberian-puppies deodorant Olivia prodded me into buying so I could “do my part to save the planet” while ensuring the aluminum in the regular stuff didn’t seep through my pores and give me dementia. Right at this moment, I’d give anything for a good, cheap, all-body rubdown of aluminum.
“Sounds good,” I say at last, forcing the conversation to come to its inevitable destination. My voice is almost normal, except for the raspy rise as I finish the word. What I’d intended as a carefree tone turns out be to an anxious, mousy squeak. I lower my voice an octave and press on. “I’m impressed you’re even checking your email given everything going on this weekend.”
She waves a hand with a companionable smile. “Oh, you know how it is for us workaholics. It’s never that easy to leave the work behind.” She gives a little self-deprecating laugh, and I chuckle along.
“Isn’t that the truth,” I say and try my hardest to muster up the biggest smile I can—which isn’t saying much. I feel I can’t keep up with this shabby attempt at lighthearted preamble. It’s time to get on with it. Both thankfully and horrifically, she senses it too.
“Anyway,” Claire says, her voice instantly more businesslike. “I opened your email last night for a reason. When you shared with me the hook of your story last year, I was intrigued. A recovering shopaholic and your personal finance radio personality fall for one another in a coffee shop, only to then have to settle out their differences? It was so charming. Truly. But the story you told me last year and the story I saw on the page last night are two very different things. What I wanted—” She pauses. “What I really hoped for was that story.”
That story.
She wanted that story.
My stomach drops to somewhere around my feet. I’m not even sure what she’s saying. My manuscript is not the same as my manuscript? Of course it’s the same. Everything about it is the same. The only things that changed were a few revisions here and there because I was wise enough to know I was no expert in the romance-writing department and consequently took up as much reading on the subject as I could.
I’d read a new book on the craft of writing and realize a ghastly amateur move, then shift the manuscript to parallel the winning wisdom within that book.
I’d read another book, realize another major flaw, and adjust my manuscript accordingly.
Yes, at times the books would contradict one another, and that was, I admit, confusing. But I worked through it. My manuscript worked through it.
And came out stronger.
I think.
“Oh,” I say feebly, trying hard not to fidget with my hands. Trying just as hard to form cohesive, intelligent words while keeping my face and voice from giving away just exactly how I feel. Which is as though a lightning bolt has struck overhead and a telephone pole has bludgeoned me.
“Now, I didn’t get through all of it last night, of course,” she continues.
“Of course,” I say, a bit of hope rising. Of course she didn’t read the whole manuscript. Of course. “How far along did you get?”
She hesitates. “Enough.”
Her word falls like a massive blow.
Enough.
She’d read . . . enough.
I feel sick to my stomach.
This author side of things is awful.
I’ve never been on the receiving end of manuscript rejection before. It’s dreadful. Nobody should write.
“But there are pieces there. Potential. And”—she pauses thoughtfully—“under normal circumstances, I think I saw enough potential in your story that I would’ve welcomed the opportunity to continue working with you on it, getting it into tip-top shape.”
I raise my eyes. Yes. Yes, that would be a good idea. I myself do that sometimes when I get particularly keen on a potential client. We’ll just . . . exchange emails. We’ll volley them back and forth until it’s right. And then she’ll take it to her team. And then it’ll move on to pub board. And then I get a contract.
The sweet words echo in my ear. And then I get a contract.
“But,” she continues, “the fact of the situation is that I’m not under normal circumstances at this point in time. Had I gotten this email last year—even six months ago—things could’ve been different.”
Claire shifts in her chair, clearly trying to be as subtle as she can in the reminder that I should’ve sent her this manuscript sooner, like we discussed.
But I tried to send it sooner.
I really did. It just never was quite ready back then. Never quite perfect.
“I’m retiring at the end of March,” she continues. “As such, I am in the midst of offloading my authors onto other editors, not taking on any new ones. And the reason I took a look at it last night was because I liked your hook. I like you. And were . . .” She hesitates, as if considering if I’m emotionally able to handle what she’s about to say. “Were the manuscript in prime condition, I would’ve considered taking it on. Just”—she gives a wry smile—“get it through contracts and then hand it over to an editor on my team. But . . .”
She trails off, and while that little shrug she’s giving may seem like a good enough finale for her, I feel my anxiety rising.
But . . . what?
What?
You can’t just leave off our conversation with, “Well, I could’ve made all your dreams come true. But . . . ,” and then shrug and ask me to pass the sugar.
You’re the editor, for crying out loud! I want to wail. You need to know how to end a scene!
“I hate to have to throw myself out of the ring before the bidding gets started, though.” She smiles at me as though she’s the one to be pitied here, not me. Which . . . now that I think of it, I may be a tiny bit to blame for. I may have touted myself just a little after I got her business card last year, ballooning up the fact that one small press almost certainly working out of its garage had expressed interest into the illusion that dozens of New York houses were knocking on my door. Oops. “Anyway, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to dissect all the pieces of your manuscript with me anyway. Especially when I’m only one opinion.”
You’re the only voice I want to hear! my brain wants desperately to blurt out, and I squeeze my hands together tightly to keep from doing so. You’re the only voice that matters!
It’s time for another tactic.
“What,” I begin as lightly as I can, “sort of things did you notice?”
“Hmm.” Her eyes dim slightly. She takes an extra-lengthy time to reply. “Well, for example, the meet.” She puts up a hand. “Now, meeting in a coffee shop is a wonderful idea,” she says encouragingly. She gives a gentle smile as she waves a hand around. “We’re meeting in a coffee shop here, just like thousands of people use the coffee shop as an extension of their living room. There is always something lovely about the ambience. But,” she says after a pause, “it’s just . . . a bit overdone.”
My mind flashes to the words my mystery editor inscribed on the manuscript: Wildly unoriginal.
“I just thought,” I venture, “perhaps it was original considering the way the two characters mistakenly mixed up their cups when they picked them up, only to find out, you know . . .” I shrug with a smile. “They actually ordered the same drink . . .”
“Yes, and I believe Hallmark has enjoyed that opening as well. Time and time again.”
Her smile is tender. I know she’s trying to make light of it all, make it a joke for my sake. And for hers I smile back as the words on my manuscript’s margin flash across my eyes: Nauseating and directly plagiarized from every Hallmark movie in the last ten years.
“Interesting,” I say, nodding as though I’m casually digesting this information and it’s not feeling in the slightest like glass shredding my insides as it goes down. “So the meetup needs some attention.”
“And the characters,” Claire adds, nodding back.
“The characters. Yes. Of course. The characters.” I pause. “How exactly . . . with the characters?”
“Well, for example, Sloan.”
“Sloooan,” I repeat. “Yes. Sloan. Exactly what about Sloan?”
“Sloan has to go.”
Claire delivers the fact of the matter just as easily as she would say, “You know, I think that table lamp has to go. It’s throwing off the vibe in the living room.”
Sloan. The quirky woman desperately in love with Renaldo. The one who inserts herself in every other scene in one bumbling way or another. The one threaded expertly into the story to highlight the movement and growth of the other characters. Sloan.
And precisely how, I want to yell, would I manage taking out a major character without the entire story collapsing?
The mystery editor’s words—We don’t need this character—are crackling through my brain, but I don’t have time to dwell on it.
“And I did have one thought,” Claire continues, her eyes brightening. “Have you ever considered shifting the manuscript to the present tense?”
Have I. Ever considered. Shifting to present tense.
Claire Donovan is replicating the words and thoughts of my mystery editor so well she practically is the editor. Who knows, maybe she actually is the editor. Maybe she is the one who stole into a foreign publishing house in order to sneak up into a secret room, scribble hateful comments on my manuscript, and steal away again. That seems like the only logical conclusion here.
That or, I feel with sickening dread, my mystery editor was right.
Everyone around me is right, and I’m the only one who can’t see the flaws in my own work.
I’ve heard this from my authors before, at least a dozen times. How blinded they get to their own writing. How hard it is to see the story from the reader’s perspective. In my mind, I live in the world of Harpwood, Indiana. I’ve worked so hard and for so long on this story, I know every intricate detail—both written and unwritten.
A sudden mood of despair hits me, and I can’t help but feel my shoulders beginning to slump. All this time I thought I had something. An idea. A spark. All this time, I thought, I may just be able to do this! I may just have a writer’s soul after all! But what am I, really?
Just a girl, sitting in a coffee shop, who’s completely deluded herself.
“Well, I’d better be getting back,” I say, shifting my knees out from underneath the bistro table to stand. I force a little laugh. “And I’m sure you have much more important things to attend to than talking with me all day.” I smile as I speak, my cheeks plastered into formation, although I’m finding it hard to look her in the eye. “Thank you so much for everything, though, Mrs. Donovan. I know I am . . . very small . . . compared to you, and yet even I understand what it’s like to have your in-box flooded with proposals and ideas. I’m truly honored you chose to consider mine.”
I move to stand, all the while gazing fixedly at the floor.
“Savannah, wait just a moment.”
I pause.
Force myself to meet her eye. When I do, her gaze is steady, open.
“Your story does have promise,” she says slowly, as though hoping with each measured word I fully absorb and believe it. “It truly does. You just need to get that story, the one I heard last year, on paper. That’s all.”
For a long moment, I pause.
And there, looking into her warm eyes, all the while trying to absorb her words as she intended, I'm aware of a new thought forming. And for a moment, I push away the doubts flapping their large, thunderous wings.
This is not someone trying to butter me up when I’m feeling low. This is Claire Donovan.
The Claire Donovan.
And we may have had a jolly chat in line last year, yes, but the fact is this is her job. She gets hundreds of supremely vetted, hand-selected manuscripts to peruse each year from the hands of a few select literary agents. And while, yes, we did have one nice chat last year, the fact is she wouldn’t have sat here, wasting twenty minutes of her precious time, if she didn’t actually think my story had an inkling of potential. She wouldn’t have wasted the time opening that email if she didn’t really believe there was something there. She wouldn’t have read at least a few pages by computer light near midnight if the hook hadn’t grabbed her. And she certainly wouldn’t have taken the time to pull me aside and talk today instead of shooting off a sympathetic email.
Contrary to the chant pulsing in my ears, I am not doomed.
I might not have a good enough manuscript here to get a deal on the spot, but I have a start. A good start.
And I need to make a decision. Right now. Because it really might be now or never.
The smile I had plastered on before falls, my expression replaced with a serious brow.
“So, you said that if my manuscript was up to the quality you had hoped, you would be willing to push it through pub board before retiring at the end of March.”
She eyes me warily, clearly noticing the change in my own tone. “If. Yes. I would’ve. If.”
“So, if I can get this manuscript perfected by your next pub meeting, you’ll consider it.”
She hesitates. Takes a breath. “Well, Savannah, I—”
I raise my hands in the air. “I know you are talking about a major rewrite here. I am in no way misunderstanding the level of work you’re asking for.”
“It would take quite the upheaval,” she says. “More than, I fear, you may be able to do in such a short time. Our pub board meets the first Tuesday of the month.”
“The first Tuesday of the month. I can do that,” I say, nodding, more to myself than to her. “I will do it.”
She peers dubiously at me for so long, I scramble and then throw out the words. “I even have an editor working with me now. Someone who agrees with all the pointers you’ve just given.”
She pauses. “You have someone helping you?”
“Yes.” Help. Criticize. Same thing.
I can see her expression slowly turning, my own eager expression and confidence causing her to budge. “I can’t promise anything. You know that.”
I nod fervently. “I do.”
Several seconds of silence pass. The hubbub around us grows—classes out, halls filling up with people.
“Alright, Savannah. Get it to my in-box by March 1, in the best condition you possibly can, and I’ll give it another look.” And with those words our meeting is over. She’s rising to her feet.
I shower her with a dozen “Thank yous” and “I wills.” As we part, she doesn’t smile quite as confidently and carefreely about our interaction as I would have hoped, but it doesn’t matter. The point is I now have time to prove she’s made the right decision in giving me another chance. I have time.
As we separate in the sea of people and I follow the stream back toward the exhibit hall, my head races as I process what just happened.
My dreams were dashed. Momentarily.
Then they came true. Sort of.
And now I have exactly—I check my watch—forty-four days to completely rewrite a book that took me four years to write in the first place.
Forty-four days.
Forty . . . four . . . days.
Six Mondays.
Six Tuesdays.
Six Saturdays.
Just six.
I can’t be sure—I only edited Breathe Your Way Through Panic Attacks last year—but if chapter 4 is any indicator, I believe I feel a panic attack coming on as the status of my situation starts to settle in.
I step into the aisle with booths on each side.
The Pennington booth is still packed, the crowd less angsty here in the afternoon (no doubt because everyone has already cruised by the booths at least once) than it was this morning. People now are actually perusing the stacks of books on the tables, making the atmosphere more like that of a bookshop and less of a hijacking. I squeeze between two women holding up a black-and-yellow-striped disk as they discuss Linden’s new audio.
Out of the corner of my eye I spot Lyla, whose typically glossy curls now look like they’ve been beaten in a windstorm. Her smile looks like she’s put Vaseline on her teeth (one of several odd cheerleading tricks she once used in high school to keep smiling for long periods of time). She holds a scanner out to a man’s badge as she talks, but when our eyes meet, she breaks off her speech to give me a look that says, Run, Sav! Run for your life!
I halt immediately.
“Savannah!” Just as the librarians in front of me break apart, Giselle’s figure comes into view. “Tom was just asking about you.”
Tom.
I frown.
Who’s Tom?
And then the bell clangs loudly in my head.
“Tom?” I say, suddenly on the receiving end of a hug. As his rather round, Santa-bowl belly bumps into me, I inhale the distinct smells of sour-cream-and-onion chips, cigarettes, and ancient recliners. I squeeze out words while he squeezes me: “Tom. I didn’t realize you were going to be in town.”
“I wasn’t,” he says, then lets go to step back with a huge grin. As though this was his little ruse. As though he’s just given me the best surprise. “But then I thought to myself, what’s six hours for a fine opportunity like this? You didn’t get my email?”
“Uh . . . no,” I hedge, taking another step backward for good measure. Tom is one of those authors who likes to send me thirty emails a week, mostly about cats. “I must’ve missed it.”
“Ah, well, I thought that’s what happened. Anyway, here I am!” he says and throws his arms out grandly, causing at least three people to duck.
Tom Haggerty was picked up by another editor, Siri, a handful of years ago. When Siri got the boot six months ago, Giselle divvied up his authors among the team. Which meant she gained Francine Thomas, a perennial bestseller who sends Giselle cupcakes on her birthday. And I got Tom, a perennial bestseller who prefers really tight, full-frontal hugs lasting thirty seconds too long.
“Don’t mind me, though,” Tom says, scratching the fabric on his stomach. “I know you’ll be all kinds of busy at these things. I won’t get in the way.”
“Nonsense,” says Giselle, sidling up beside him and giving his shoulder a pat. “You’re part of the Pennington family. I just know Savannah would love to tour you around.”
Forty-four days.
“Actually,” I begin, but then I see a familiar pair of oxfords stepping up beside me. My teeth are clenched so tightly I can barely force out my own Vaseline smile. “I can’t think of a single thing I’d rather do.”
I try to ignore the ache in my sternum.
Forty-four days. That’s basically a chapter a day. A brand-new chapter every single day.
With a meet cute that needs a total transformation.
Characters that need slashing.
Dialogue that needs a total override.
And language that is, apparently, snobbish and utterly dénué de sens.
“Terrific.” Tom has thrown out his hands again, this time toppling a whole stack of books onto my feet. I gather them up in my arms, and when I stand, I discover Tom has slid into the remaining inches between us. His eyes are a twinkling mossy green, matching both his moss-green collared shirt, of which he’s ignored the top three buttons, and his rather gloomy, philosophical Camus-style books that discuss—far too often, in fact—moss. His voice is low. Sort of purring. “That’s just terrrrific.”
“I believe we haven’t met.”
And suddenly I see the sleeve of an arm being thrust between us and Tom taking a step back. He turns and, with a slight frown, surveys the man who has just intervened.
William—clean shaven, poised, and with an expression that conveys a thinly veiled Who the heck are you, and why are you talking to my editor?—stands eye to eye with Tom. The sameness of their height is, most refreshingly, where the commonality ends.
“William Pennington,” William says, taking a slightly dazed Tom’s hand. “New publisher of the Pennington Pen division.” His eyes dart down to Tom’s name badge. “And you must be Tom, one of our authors. What a surprise to see you.”
And now it’s my turn to feel a flash of delight sparking in my eyes.
“Yes, well,” Tom says, his eyes brightening. He shakes William’s hand heartily. “I had the weekend off, and I thought to myself, who’s the only person in the world I want to see?” He turns his gaze on me. “And of course I knew the answer immediately.”
I give a little smile in return. I seem to be one of Tom’s favorite people.
My ankles throb at the reminder of that hideous evening just a few months ago. I look down at Tom’s shoes and grimace. He’s wearing them. The pointy red cowboy boots with at least a dozen rhinestones.
“Ah. Yes,” William says, retracting his hand and putting it in his pants pocket. “So you have some work to go over together, I gather?”
That’s funny. William didn’t ask once about work with any of the other authors.
“Work. Of course. Yes. And then”—Tom gives a cheeky grin while he surreptitiously pulls up his jeans to highlight his boots—“I imagine we’ll paint the town red again like last time. That was one-of-a-kind fun, wasn’t it, Savannah?”
“One-of-a-kind, indeed.” In reality, the idea of heading to every karaoke bar and line-dancing saloon in Nashville is so unoriginal it’s laughable.
I spot Lyla in some sort of altercation with an elderly woman, the librarian’s beaded eyeglass chain swinging as she tries to yank back the massive foam board of Oswald’s face from Lyla’s hands.
“Excuse me, I’m going to have to . . .” I trail off as I move toward the couple, and both men’s faces turn. William’s expression, for his part, doesn’t flicker. Clearly he’s been to so many of these things he’s come to expect the odd librarian-trying-to-make-off-with-our-cargo situation.
“I’ll just wander around for a while, then!” Tom calls merrily, and stuffing both hands into his pockets, he drifts out of the booth. “See you soon, Savannah!”
I force the smallest smile that could still pass for professional interest and call back, “Okay, Tom.”
Tom Haggerty. Line dancing.
And forty-four days.