It took everything in me not to scoff out loud. It’s not like Inevertalk about myself publicly—of course I do. People know my parents moved here from Armenia when I was a toddler, they know Maral and I grew up together in Boston. They know I was a top student, class valedictorian, went to Harvard Med School. And they know I decided to leave in the middle of my residency to pursueSo Proud of Youfull-time. They’ve never needed to know thewhyof any of it, and the show’s gone gangbusters. Focusing on the guests has always been my MO—listeners enjoy seeing themselves reflected in other people’s experiences.
“Weloveyour idea.” This came from Laura, the cheerful blond editor who took control of the ship before it could crash against the cliff face. “We’ve been big fans ever since that first viral video that put you on the map.”
“Your YouTube channel got me through senior year at college,” said Meredith, a publicist with a sweet sprinkling of freckles across her face. “And I actually think the fact that the whole thing started as a humble ode to your cousin means it’s always felt super personal.”
“We think we’d be the perfect partners to help broadcast your message to a wide readership,” Laura said before launching a flashy slide deck full of marketing campaign ideas, cover mock-ups, and publicity plans. They were pulling out all the stops to try to woo me, but their publicity director’s doubtful reaction still rankled.
When we reached a slide featuring the team’s recent successes,Laura’s and Meredith’s boasting motivational management tomes and celebrity cookbooks, I saw that, by contrast, Ryan’s list featured a veritable who’s who of scholarly superstars. Historians and political biographers and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists. I had to fight not to roll my eyes. No wonder he was trying to poke holes in my idea—clearly it wasn’thighbrowenough for his tastes. Someone like Ryan, with his career history of promoting Important Works, wouldn’tgetthe self-help genre. Because someone who’d probably heard how smart and talented and capable and handsome he is every day of his life would never connect with a book about finding your inner champion when you’ve never had an external one.
Didn’t matter, though. One naysayer doesn’t spoil the bunch, and I loved the rest of the team. So, after a heated auction among various publishers, in the end I signed with Woodsworth (didn’t hurt that they paid me a mint). I figured I’d be working primarily with Laura and Meredith anyway, but little did I know that Ryan would still be part of the picture.
“Stoplooking at reviews,” Maral says now, emerging from the den.
I startle. “I’m actually not!”
She points at my phone. “Your mom?” she asks, her tone low, knowing.
“No, happily it’s been a whole two hours since her last directive.”
“Did she acknowledge your book release, at least?”
I shake my head, trying to keep my tone even. “I don’t think she knows it’s today.”
“Of course not,” Mar says under her breath. Then, “So who inspired that face?” The look of consternation she mimes is more like constipation.
I clear my expression. “Remember that Woodsworth publicist who set up the interview withTalonmagazine?”
Maral gasps. “The Storm Cloud?” she asks, referencing our nickname for Ryan. “He of shittyKirkusreview fame?”
“Among his several other missed swings,” I say. “He just emailed to…congratulate me on my achievement?” My voice is laden with suspicion. I read aloud, “ ‘Your book is going to touch a lot of people.’ ”
Distrust gleams in her eyes. “Huh.”
“Weird, right?”
“Definitely weird. I thought you demanded he be taken off the campaign?”
“I didn’tdemand,” I say. “I asked. Politely.”
“Right. Park your steamroller, did you?”
“Anyway.” I wave my phone at her. “You don’t think this is a bad omen, do you?”
“Of course not,” she says.
But I’m not convinced. We call him “the Storm Cloud” for a reason. I love the entire team that helped bring my book to fruition, but Ryan is the exception. Laura insisted he’d be a boon for media outreach, given that his strong connections could get hits that would, in her words,move the needle.
I wanted to trust that she was right—that his deprecation in that first meeting and his aloofness in our every interaction thereafter wouldn’t carry over into his media outreach—but Ryan’s efforts might as well have thrown a lit match on a pile of butane-soaked advance copies. Almost without fail, the media hits he secured panned my work. Some in grander fashion than others. (The disdainfulTalonfeature, a real standout, released on a weekend when I was visiting Mom in Boston—a one-two punch I could have lived without.) Each hit was followed by a dip in preorders and abandoned coverage in other media publications. In six months, I wore out two pairs of running shoes from twice-daily circuits around Central Park in the effort to distract myself from the sense of doom. Luckily, Meredith’s outreach balanced out his bungledattempts—the reviews she garnered were raves, and she even landed me a Reese’s Book Club pick for the month, especially remarkable given the narrative angle is a departure from their usual nonfiction choices—and righted the train before it had the chance to derail. Minus the handful of bad reviews that continue to trickle in, which is normal for any book, buzz has been generally strong in the months since I (politely) insisted Ryan be taken off the campaign so he could stop jinxing its chance at success.
“Maybe the publishing staff are mandated to send congratulatory emails on release day?” Maral offers.
“He’s the only one in my inbox.”
“He’s also the only one not coming to the launch, though.” Maral holds my herringbone blazer aloft, and I slip my arms into it. “At least you won’t have to see him.”
“True. Good vibes only tonight.” The last thing I want is him cursing the event with his presence. The farther away he stays from my book, the better. “Let’s go crush this thing.”
The bookstore is packed. I’m not surprised to find it bustling at five forty-fivep.m.on a Tuesday—I’ve stopped in to the Strand at all hours on any given day of the week myself. There is no peace like browsing books, a strong black coffee in hand. Except maybe walking through my picturesque Upper West Side neighborhood during a snowfall, coffee in hand. Or running through Central Park at the crack of dawn, framed by beautiful towering skyscrapers, the promise of coffee close on the horizon.
