“What about me?”
“Areyouover it?”
“Sure,” I say, convincing exactly no one.
“Then you’ll do the interview?” Evan asks.
My throat feels like it might close up at the sound of his question. I press the button on the elevator and try to swallow. The door opens and I step inside. “I just don’t think I can, Ev.”
He groans. “Seriously, Mel? Weneedthis.”
“I appreciate you, Evan. You know that. But I just…” I sigh. “Have you ever considered that maybe being an author isn’t in the cards for me?”
“That’s crazy talk. Don’t say that. I’m serious. That’s not even funny.”
“I mean it. Maybe I’m just out of stories to tell.”
“No. You’re wrong. You wouldn’t know success if it smacked you in the face. Your numbers are strong. Your follower count is always growing. The imprint is happy with you, Mel. Why do you think they would bother to go to all this trouble?”
“Because they feel bad? Because they got called out on Goodreads in a slew of one-star reviews where I was referred to as a cheap knockoff of Beckett Nash’s debut masterpiece?”
“It doesn’t work like that in this business. You know as well as I do that publishing is ruthless. But what’s happened here is a real injustice, and you’re agoodauthor with a solid track record. Fuck Goodreads. I need you to get out of your own way and let us help you.”
“Listen,” I say. “This is all just a lot. It’sbeena lot, these past few weeks, you know?”Past few years, if we’re being honest.“Maybe I just need to take a step back. The Goodreads thing has hurt me, for sure, but the idea of doing some big spread in a magazine with so much reach—it’s too much right now. Please just tell them no.”
“How about this? I’m going to tell them you’ll think about it. Then I’m begging you—take a few days and do exactly that. Think about it. I’ll leave you be. You let me know what you want to do by next Monday. But don’t shut down on me because you’re overwhelmed. Deal?”
“Deal,” I agree, if for no other reason than the fact that I need to be done with this conversation right now. I open the door to my apartment and kick my shoes off onto the mat in the foyer.
“I’m sorry, Melody,” Evan says. “I really didn’t know how tough you were taking all of this. I feel like I’ve been a bad friend.”
“It’s okay. It’s not you.” I set my work bag down on the floor next to the shoe pile. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long month.”
“I genuinely care about you. All client-agent stuff aside. I want you to be okay.”
“I know, Evan. You’ve always been more to me than just a literary agent. And I’ll be fine. I just need to clear my head.”
“Yes. Do that. Think it through. That’s all I’m asking. I’m here if you need me.”
“I will. I promise.”
With that, I hang up the phone.
I look out over the empty apartment. Everything is untouched, as if she’s still here. I’ve managed to change a few small things—I’ve added a picture here, a piece of furniture there, and I eventually put the Christmas tree away, but the essence of the place is the same as I’ve always remembered. The apartment is long and fairly narrow, with windows that face north and west, since it’s a corner unit. Upon entry, the formal living room is to the left and the dining room is to the right, and straight ahead past the dining room is a galley kitchen with a breakfast nook that ends with a window leading to a fire escape.Our low-budget terrace,Mom used to call it, although we never once sat out there. From the kitchen entry, an S-shaped hallway leads me first to my bedroom, then to the guest bathroom, then to the master bedroom with a tiny en suite bath. Funny to call it that, as if this is fancy living, instead of the once rent-stabilized, solidly middle-class co-op it is.
I can’t sleep in the master bedroom. I think there are some things you just never move on from, and for me, that’s one of them. That room is Mom’s. When I moved back in with her after the diagnosis, she joked that one day I’d get to have her room, but I didn’t think it was funny then, and even now I still don’t. I wouldn’t call it a shrine, because a shrine can only exist with visitors, right? I’m not sure. It’s just a space that I don’t go into. The door stays closed and I live in the rest of the apartment, and that’s that.
I live on the fifth floor. Apartment 5-H.H like in Harry,she used to say.
I work two and a half blocks away, at Forest Hills High School. Mom was a music teacher there, and she got me the interview as an English teacher ten years ago. In many ways, we lived a parallel life for a little while. When I took the job, I was living in Brooklyn so I had to commute to and from Queens every day, but once she got sick, it didn’t make sense to do that anymore, so I moved home. We did everything together. We went to work together every morning. Walked home together after school. Had dinner together. She used to chastise me. “You’re young!” she’d proclaim. “Your twenties and thirties are the best years of your life. You should get out there and live them to the fullest.” But we both knew it was a load of shit. Mom grew more exhausted by the day, and me putting my life on hold to take care of her was a temporary thing. She finished out the school year and then succumbed to retirement, despite desperately wanting to continue working. Her days became marked by naps, and in the afternoons after I got home from teaching summer school that July, and later, when the new school year began, we’d have tea together and I’d spill all the faculty lounge gossip as I prepared an evening meal for the two of us. Now that she’s gone, I sometimes feel like I live the life she carved out for herself. Only instead of being a music person, I’m a book person.
Sure, it’s not the life I hoped for. But itiscomfortable. And I don’t see any reason to mess with that.
Let Beckett Nash have the starry-eyed dreamworld.
I’m doing just fine right here.
Chapter 5
