“We have an option clause with Woodsworth,” Nadia says, “so they’d get the first look. Laura has shown some of the loudest interest. I know you’ve had a good experience with her, but would you rather I shop your proposal to other publishers given the whole Ryan situation?”
“What do you mean—are they soured on me after the photo?”
“Not at all. I mean more the conflict-of-interest bit. Aren’t you guys a thing now?”
I swallow hard, shake my head once. It’s all I can manage.
She frowns sympathetically. “Damn shame. Wouldn’t have taken Grant for a commitment-phobe, but heisa male from New York, so.” She rolls her eyes and sighs, like,c’est la vie.
“He got another job, anyway,” I croak.
“Seriously?” she asks, suitably shocked.
I nod. “He’s leaving Woodsworth.”
She shakes her head. “Everyone’s flying the coop,” she says. “But hell, that’s handy, isn’t it? Out of your life and out of your mind. All the better to unstick that stickiness if we do sign with them. Shall we book a meeting?” She opens her laptop. “Another bookanda show. Think of the tie-in opportunities.”
When I open the door for Maral later that afternoon for our usual pre-event glow-up routine, tears spring immediately to my eyes. Seeing her on the threshold calls to mind that this is one of the last times we’ll do this together. She’s moving next month, and we only have a handful of events before then.
“This is your fault,” I say, pointing to my blubbering face. “Both for leaving and for telling me to feel my feelings.”
She winces. “Think of the endogenous opioids?”
A laugh warbles out as I step aside to usher her in.
She wraps her arms around my neck. “The flowers were beautiful. You didn’t have to do that.”
I squeeze her tight. “I should have done it right away.”
A strand of her hair sticks to my wet face as she pulls back. “How did the meeting go with Scope?” she asks.
She’d offered to come, but I thought it would be better toappear as we mean to go on, should Scope want to move forward. Since Mar won’t be a part of the show, it wouldn’t be right to present ourselves as a team. “Good,” I say. “Our visions are aligned, and they sound more than passingly interested. The head of the network will be watching tonight. He’s the final decision-maker.”
“You’re gonna kill it,” she says.
I nod, but it feels mechanical.
We talk about tonight, bounce around ideas about the podcast and how we’ll manage the transition from duo hosts to solo, and I walk her through the four pages of ideas I’ve already jotted down for a second book. When I give a seven-minute monologue about some of the potential new content I’m toying with including, she beams at me. “I haven’t seen you this excited about something in a while.”
She’s right. I’m a pretty excitable person, but this hits different, deeper. I can’t wait to start writing.
She recounts her parents’ reactions when she told them about Boston this morning—they were understandably unhappy about her not moving to L.A., but that was tempered by their delight that she’ll be working as an engineer at last, and living close to her aunt, at least at first.
It’s getting harder to envision myself in L.A. An image that only a short while ago seemed so crystal clear in my mind is becoming hazy, undefined. Maybe because Maral’s been removed from it.
It occurs to me that nothing’s logistically stopping me from moving back to Boston too. What is home if not with family? The people you love? I could find a new brand manager, hire a producer, continue the podcast solo, write my next book, do speaking events. Figure out some way to deal with Mom’s passive-aggression every day…find a padded, soundproofed room to stifle my screams.
My shoulders droop.
Even if Boston didn’t sit so heavy in my memories, it’s a skin I’ve shed and that won’t fit anymore. I don’t want it to.
I can’t deny that the strongest call of all emanates from the center of this bustling island. Yet staying alone in New York feels…disgraceful. Like a selfish deed, a choice I can’t justify in any familiar terms.
What do you want?
The question has been plaguing me since Maral raised it. My fingers itching to pick up my phone, to contact Ryan, beg him to give me another chance. But the fear of putting myself out there—of rupturing the thick membrane around my heart and leaving it exposed—keeps winning out. I don’t know how to overcome it. I wish there was some resource that could guide me. It may be time to look into therapy. (Long past time, but who’s counting.)
As though reading my mind, Maral asks if I’ve heard from Ryan. After I fill her in on what happened on the steps outside the Bryant Park library, she whistles, low and slow. It sounds like a bomb dropping. But the surprise I expected to see on her face is markedly absent.
