Once the pictures are hung Alfie suggests a takeaway.
‘Are you sure? I don’t want to drag you away from friends. Or a date …’ she adds hopefully.
‘There’s nowhere I’d rather be. Pizza or Indian?’
Her face brightens. Because Alfie knows she doesn’t like being alone in the evenings. It brings back bad memories.
He lets her pick what they watch. It’s not until the third episode of a house makeover programme that he lets himself question how he’s ended up at this place: sat with his mother on a Friday evening watching couples discuss wallpaper choices and knowing that this is preferable to his alternative plans for the evening – getting intimate with an Excel spreadsheet.
As he watches, his thoughts drift to Matilda Nightingale and the day Joe Carter visited Book Lane. He looked around Alfie’s age but was unsteady on his feet, his face pale and eyes sunken. Alfie immediately offered him a seat, which he took with a, ‘Thanks, mate.’ When he told Alfie about the order he wanted to place, it knocked the air out of him but he did his best to remain professional.
And now it’s hard not to feel personally invested in thisparticular order. He made a promise that all twelve books would reach their intended recipient, no matter what. But what if Matilda Nightingale never comes back?
‘… and we’re seeing an uptick in the youth market, driven by some TikTok success stories …’
Tilly looks down at her notebook, aware that she agreed to take notes for today’s editorial team meeting but that so far she has written nothing. She writes ‘TikTok’ then scribbles it out.
‘Now, we’ve just acquired a big new book,’ says her boss, Sade, a copper-skinned Black woman dressed in her signature crisp white shirt, colourful acrylic jewellery and slim-fit trousers. ‘Esmerelda Love’s first memoir.’
She clicks a button and a montage of photos appears on the screen. Last night Tilly put off going to bed alone by staying up late working on this newest presentation, using the social media account she has for work – but very rarely uses herself – scrolling through endless photos of Esmerelda Love. A neatly arranged montage of photos showing a young, slim, blonde white woman posing in a variety of beautiful locations in a variety of expensive-looking neutral-shade outfits floods the screen.
‘Tilly, you’re Esmerelda’s editor, do you want to say a few words about the book?’
The eyes of the entire editorial team swivel to face her. They are sat in one of the office’s glass-fronted meeting rooms. It gives Tilly a view of the bookcases that line the corridor, books turned cover out and bearing the faces of the celebrities whose memoirs they have published over the years. There’s a brief silence as her colleagues and boss wait for her to speak. Sleep deprivation fills her mind with fog.
After a moment her brain kicks in and the facts and figures from the proposal that kept her company last night, along with a bowl of pesto pasta and half a bottle of wine, come out of her mouth. She speaks with the confidence and experience that, combined with years of late nights and weekend working, have earned her the position of senior editor at Splash Books. At her last appraisal, a potential promotion to deputy publishing director was dangled – that is, if her projects this year pan out well.
‘And she has a combined social media following of around a million,’ Tilly finishes. ‘So, we’re hoping this will be a big book for us.’
‘That’s brilliant, thank you, Tilly. Will Esmerelda be writing the book herself or do we need to secure a ghostwriter?’
‘She’s asked for a ghostwriter.’ Most of the celebrities Tilly works with do, although very few are upfront about the fact. ‘I’m going to start compiling a potential list today.’
Sade slips her glasses off and twirls them in her hand the way she always does when she’s thinking. ‘How about Rachel Harding? She could be perfect for this project. I get the impression from Esmerelda’s agent that Esmerelda can be exacting …’ Code fora nightmare. ‘Rachel is level-headed and pretty unflappable. Plus, she has the experience to go with it.’
‘Rachel Harding?’ says Tilly, looking up from her notebook.
‘Yes, isn’t she a friend of yours? Can you call her to see if she has availability?’
‘Um, sure …’
Tilly returns to her desk after the meeting, the space cluttered with teetering piles of advance copies of books. She stares at her computer screen and writes and rewrites an email to Rachel several times, before finally settling on something that is brief and to the point.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Proposal
Hi Rachel,
I hope you’re well. I know we haven’t seen each other in a while but I have recently acquired a new author – social media influencer Esmerelda Love. She has requested a ghostwriter and we all thought you would be the perfect fit. The book proposal is attached. Could you please let me know if you are interested and have availability over the next few months?
Tilly
To her surprise a reply comes in, just minutes later.
From: [email protected]
