Grace
Ah, vindication. To know where you stand and get to have the last word. I feel as free as a child experiencing the Sizzler buffet for the first time, going back for thirds and fourths without any consideration for the inevitable implications of mixing unlimited corn fritters and soft-serve ice cream in the same meal. (Sidebar: Why did they ever close the Sizzler buffet? It was a national treasure, and now what are we left with? Crapplebee’s? The Cheesecock Factory?) Now I can get back to work on this fine Tuesday, unbeleaguered by useless email exchanges.
In fact, I close my email account tab so I won’t even be tempted to look at it. No distractions!
After a quick nap, I get a phone call. It’s Lindsay. Weird. She rarely calls—she sends a once-a-week check-in email, but only when I’m on deadline—and that’s about it.
“Hello?”
“Grace, are you sitting down?”
“Always,” I reply. “What’s up?”
“We got an offer.”
“ForReckless Outlaw?”
“Yes! Cabaret Books offered $500,000!”
Shut the fuck up. This can’t be real.“Forthatpiece of smut?”
“They think it’s the nextFifty Shades. They loved it!”
No way. There’s got to be a catch.“Are you sure you have your currency correct? They didn’t offer, like, five hundred thousand pesos?”
“Yes, I’m sure! I hope you’ve got some champagne at home, because Karlie London’s about to become hella famous, girl!”
“Um, cool! Wow! OfcourseI have champagne in the house. I mean, my wholelifeis just one big party,” I say. Really, I have two bottles of champagne left over from my bridal shower that I can’t bring myself to drink, collecting grime in the back of my fridge. I keep them just in case the sad day comes when I can no longer afford groceries and need to be resourceful about finding sources of potential sustenance.
“Well, before you pour, there’s two little things.”
I knew it. Here it comes.“What’s up?” I ask, my head spinning like the Gravitron at the annual Our Lady of the Angels carnival back in elementary school.
“Well, first of all, it’s not a done deal quite yet. The editor I pitched it to is working on the deal. There’s an acquisitions meeting in a few days, andthat’swhen we’ll know for sure.”
“So…wedon’thave an offer?”
“No, no. We do. She’s just…working on it. Which brings me to my second point. She wanted to know if you had anything in the works. She thinks they’d be open to considering a two-book deal if you had anything else to pitch to them.”
A two-book deal?
“I told them you’ve been working on a new manuscript for the pastsix months and it’s supposed to be ready in about four weeks. But we can push up the deadline on that, right? Say, to two weeks?”
“Twoweeks? How come?”
“Well, I mean, you told me you’re killing it with your word count. So based on that, I figured you could just grind it out a little harder for the next two weeks and get it done. I mean, it’s not like you have a day job or anything,” Lindsay points out. “No offense.”
“Uh huh.”Super-size offense, bitch.
“It doesn’t have to be polished, Grace. Just give ’em your best shot. I really don’t think they’re going to say no.”
“And how would that change the numbers?”
“Well, if you add in a second book, they said they’d up the advance to seven fifty.”
“Oh my God! $750,000?”
“I can’t make this shit up, girl. I say let’s hop on the surfboard and ride this wave. Who knows when we’ll be able to make it rain like this again?”
