THE DARLINGS
Meeting here tonight, 6 p.m.!
Sam checked her phone. It was 6:45; she’d planned for rush-hour traffic leaving the city but not the tremendous pile-up on I-95. Was it even worth going in? It was, she decided. She hadn’t told William she was coming to this meeting, wanting to surprise him—and just maybe to make sure he wasn’t working the crowd for donations in a rhinestone-spangled evangelist suit—but she also had to admit she could use some assistance on her novel, if even by osmosis. She eased open the door and slipped in.
The ballroom was almost full, the chairs at the round tables occupied. It looked more like a popular event at a literary conference than a support group. Everyone was listening to a dude with a beard bun at the podium, confessing that his agent had ghosted him. There was a lot of nodding. Sam saw William at a front table, head cocked in an attitude of attention. He was in khakis and a light blue button-down shirt today, and something else was different—he had shaved his goatee! He looked handsome and a bit hammy, the exposed pink expanse of his face featuring a strong jaw and the hint of a double chin. Sam loved it. She imagined rubbing her cheek against his now smooth one and had a full-body convulsion of desire.
“So yeah, man, I don’t know what to do,” said the beard-bun guy at the mic. “It took me, like, sevenyearsto write this novel, and now my agent said she can’t sell it becauseappropriation. Just because there’s a gay female POV character? I mean, she’s based on mymoms! If we can only write about ourselves now, what are we supposed to do? Just write nonfiction? Whatever happened to making shit up? It’s a shit time to be a male author, I can tell you that.”
This statement was a super-easy sell among most of the men in the room, who were nodding, and not so much among the women or nonbinary writers, who leaned toward each other to murmur comments, smirked, or just sat. Sam felt for the beard-bun guy; everything he was saying was true, and also it was high time the men didn’t have the head of the table.
“Anyway, if anyone out there has anymaleagent intel or could passon my name, I’d be grateful. Thanks.” He flashed a peace sign. William stood and gave him a bro-hug, two seconds and a back clap. Sam wondered if William would speak in response, since he was an obvious and mighty exception to both the prohibition on writing from another gender’s POV and being a threatened species as a white male writer. Instead, he checked his watch.
“I think we have time for one more share,” he said, and to Sam’s shock she recognized the woman who waved her arms like a potential game-show contestant, calling: “Me! Me!” It was one of Sam’s own workshop novelists, Tabitha.
“I cede the floor to our enthusiastic friend from table nine,” said William. Sam tried to catch Tabby’s eye as she made her way to the front of the room, but Tabby didn’t see her.Wasit Tabby? Yes: barely taller than the podium, late fifties, naturally red cheeks, black hair with distinctive white streaks. Dressed in a pretty flowered skirt and pink blouse. Sam hadn’t even known Tabby was struggling.
Tabby adjusted the mic to her mouth level. “Damn thing,” she said, to chuckles. “It’s hard to be short. Hi, I’m Tabitha, and I’m a novelist—I guess.AmI still a novelist? That’s the question. You all listen and decide. All I know is, I’ve wanted to write fantasy ever since I was a little girl—anyone else? Okay, thank God. All you fantasy geeks, meet me up front after.
“It took me a long time to get started. My parents wanted me to be anything but a writer. A doctor. A teacher. Mostly a wife and mother. That’s what I did—got married and had kids. I was a journalist before that—kind of a strange job for someone who loves fantasy, but I figured it was a way to write and make a living. I was a reporter for theBostonSun, and once the kiddos were born, I wrote for women’s mags,Good HousekeepingandReal Simple. It paid the bills and I could be home with my munchkins. I bet some of you ladies know what I’m talking about.
“But I never stopped wanting to write fantasy, and after my youngest was in high school, I joined this workshop. The teacher was a bestselling author, Sam Vetiver, and you had to submit pages to get in. Boy,was I scared. I thought she might be too fancy-pants for somebody like me who hadn’t written fiction since college. But she must have been on drugs or something, because she let me in.”
Sam wanted to leap to her feet and give Tabitha the boxing salute, or at least cup her hands around her mouth and yellYO TABBY!She kept quiet. She wanted to hear how her workshop had failed Tabitha so much that she was here. Sam was at least gratified to see William smile at the mention of her name.
“The workshop has been a real lifeline,” Tabby continued, and Sam deflated in relief. “I’ve been in it for twelve years. Some of the writers have been in it even longer. We stay in until we finish books, then send them out, then come back in to start new ones. I wrote all my books in that class. I published my first book when I was forty-one, and now I have four of them, a trilogy and a spinoff. If you’re lucky, you know how it feels to have acrew.”
Sam told herself, DO NOT CRY. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
“So what am I doing here?” Tabby said. “First of all, I read about the Darlings in theSunand I thought: What a great idea. Writers need all the support they can get. Thanks to our famous friend here.” She smiled at William, who dipped his head. “But also, there’s something my workshop can’t help with. I’m not sure anyone can. It’s this: All my books were published by the Big Five. Well, when I started it was the Big Twelve. Not anymore. Anyway, they stopped selling my backlist. I went out of print. Then my editor got fired. My agent left to become a yoga instructor. Ihavea track record. I was a regional bestseller. Once I walked into Costco and there was awallof my books. And now? I can’t get a single agent or small press to even answer my queries. I just get those bouncebacks,Thanks for reaching out, we’ll be in touch soon.”
“Preach, sister,” somebody called. Tabby pushed her glasses up on her nose.
“Langston Hughes asked what happens to a dream deferred,” she said. “What I want to know is, what happens when you get your dreamand it dies? . . . I guess you just have to find joy in what you started out with: the writing. Because that’s all we can do.” She punched a fist in the air as she left the podium. “Good luck, everyone! Go Sox.”
She stood on tiptoe to hug William as he came to the podium. “Joy in the writing,” he said. “May that be true for all of us. See you next time, friends.”
Sam watched Tabby grinning for a photo with William. She felt gutted. It wasn’t just that Tabby had been enduring this heartache, and Sam hadn’t known, or that Tabby’s career decline was familiar, or that Sam was worried about suffering the same fate—though all of those things were true. Although Sam’s track record insulated her somewhat, she was suspended, like most writers, over the same chute. But what really struck Sam was that Tabby was right. Joy in the writing! When was the last time Sam had felt that? She honestly could not remember.
Tabby spotted her then and came over. “Look who’s here! Did you hear my shout-out to you? What are you doing here? You don’t need this group!”
“You’d be surprised,” said Sam. They hugged. “I feel so bad, Tabby. I didn’t know you were going through all this. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tabby shrugged. “You’re so busy and important, I didn’t want to bother you.”
Sam laughed, although she felt awful. “First of all, I’m not important. Stop believing everything you read on social media. Second, I’m never too busy. I’m doing the same thing you are. I’m just like you!”
“Okay,” said Tabby, though she didn’t seem convinced. “So how was your tour?”
“Good. Over now.”
“And you’re working on the new book? How’s that going?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
Tabby looked around at the writers, the women in dresses or casual wear, the guys in T-shirts and beards, jockeying for position around William. They would be asking him for introductions to his agent or editor, Sam knew, or handing him their manuscripts to pass on. “Youwere gonna talk about your problems in this crowd? I can’t imagine that.”
Me neither, thought Sam, but she hoped that was because she was unaccustomed to writerly confession, not pride. Drishti would say,Get humble, kid. Ask for help. You’re no different from anyone else, no worse but no better, either.“I’m more here to procrastinate.”
