“If only you knew,” I say under my breath.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “But the other one—Reckless Outlaw? What happens with that if she’s been fired?”
“Did you sign anything?”
“No. Lindsay said she was working on a deal—something about them having to go to an acquisitions meeting—and originally they were thinking about offering $500,000 for the one manuscript and $750,000 if I could give them a second one for a two-book deal. So, I was working on the second one—that’s the thing you read—but she hated it and I have no idea what the status was on the deal.” A woman with about forty shopping bags and a scarf wrapped around her head gives me a dirty look. I lower my voice. “Evan, I don’t even know the last name of the editor she was talking to at Cabaret.”
“Okay, hold up. Explain this to me. Lindsay was working on a deal, but it wasn’t finalized?”
“Correct.”
“Do Sean and Kath know about it?”
“I don’t know if she told them,” I say.
He pauses, and I hear him swallow. “My guess is no, because if they knew, they’d be doing immediate damage control and you would have already received multiple calls from them.”
“But my phone—”
“Right. It was floating upstream in the underground waterways of New York City. Still—I know them. They’d be up your ass so deep you’d taste it in your throat.”
“Gross image.”
“You’re welcome. G, when you signed with Vision Board, did you sign with the agency or with Lindsay?”
I sigh. “I signed with Lindsay. It was part of the arrangement. She was new and was trying to build her own list.”
“Shit,” he seethes. “And now she’s kaput.”
“Exactly. Which leaves me here totally freaking the fuck out, Evan! What am I going to do? I need that deal!”
“Well, you know I hate to be the bearer of bad news, love, but if you didn’t sign anything official with Cabaret then there is no deal. And if she’s gone…” His voice trails off.
“I’m fucked,” I mumble. The weight of the revelation feels like an axe through my ribs.
“At least through Vision Board you are. I mean, unless you petition yourself to Sean and Kath and try and get one of the other agents here to rep you. Although, Lindsay is—was—the only agent really working in the romance space anymore. But if you have someoneelserepresent you, that person could revisit it for you.” He sighs. “But, I’ve got to be honestwith you. Sean was just saying how he can’t afford any more bad publicity. Having an agent be fired so dramatically because she got violent? It’s a bad look for them.”
I begin to hyperventilate. Shopping bag lady eyeballs me. “Ev, I gotta go.”
“Okay, but for real, I’mobsessedwith this new manuscript of yours and I totally think you should keep at it.”
“Ican’t,” I say, trying to control my breathing.
“Why not?”
The subway doors open and a large man wearing giant headphones squeezes into the seat beside me. I can feel my blood pressure rise with each audible thump of the bass from his blaring rap music. It hits me: Lindsay’sgone.Like forever. She threw my career out the window as if it were nothing more than a chair in the conference room at Vision Board.
“Because the story is all about Lindsay. The guy? Her ex? I went to high school with him. And we’ve been sort ofseeingeach other.”
“Shut. Up. You. Whore! He was hot too!”
I’m unraveling. I’m going to pass out right here on the subway, and my fate will be forever linked to Shopping Bag Lady and Headphone Guy deciding whether or not it’s even worth it to call 9-1-1.
“His name’s Colin. He helped me write the new story. It was all based on the awful shit she did to him.”
“I cannotbelieve this! You’re sobad, girl. Who knew little Gracie Landing had it in her?”
