Ava cocks her head, considering.
“What?” presses Eleanor.
“I agree. About the samples needing to stand on their own. But if we’re being honest, it’s not just about craft. I have to work with them, and I’m sick to death of hand-holding old white men and their egos.”
“So you go along. Spend the weekend on the island with the writers. Get to know them.”
Ava twirls the pen. “I’ve been to my share of conferences. I’ve been bribed, and flirted with, and followed into bathrooms, had writing samples shoved under stalls. Writers turn into different people when they get near someone who can change their lives. I want to see who theyreallyare. How they act around their fellow writers. I can’t do that if they know I’m the editor.”
“What are you thinking?”
Ava digs around in her desk, and finally comes up with a set of glasses. She has five. Holden knows because he makes a note every time she wears a different pair (he really is very bored): There is leopard print, mint green, polka dot, a pair that is goldenrod and round, and another that is teal with gold tips.
But this pair is pink. It’s funny; in the six months he’s been working for her, he can’t remember ever seeing his boss wear pink. But back at Yale, an acting teacher taught them that they could build whole characters around a single thing—an umbrella, for example, or a hat—and he wonders if Ava has ever taken an improv class, because when she sets the pink glasses on her nose, her whole face seems to change. One eyebrow goes up, giving her a look of dry amusement, one he’s never cataloged. He promptly makes a note of it on his legal pad, along with the new glasses, as she says, “Meet the sixth author vying for the job. Priscilla Renée Fox.”
Eleanor raises a single silver brow. “And what do you write?”
Ava considers and then declares, “Romance.” Eleanor gives her a look. “Not the most obvious choice, I know,” she goes on, “but that’s a plus, as far as I’m concerned. And chances are, they won’t see me as a threat.”
Holden raises his hand. Eleanor doesn’t see it, but Ava clears her throat.
“Yes, Holden?”
“Won’t they still recognize you?”
“Thatisa risk,” ventures Eleanor.
Ava snorts. “Please,” she says. “First of all, the only time anyonemighthave seen me and Arthur in the same place was at the Edgars, which I never got to attend because your uncle always insisted on being his plus one. And second, do you know how many Black female fiction editors there currently are in New York?” She doesn’t wait for either of them to answer. “Four.”
Holden frowns. “But that’s asmallnumber.” He feels suddenly uncertain. “Isn’t it?”
“It is,” she says, her voice bone-dry. “And yet somehow I am always being mistaken for someone else. Last year, an agent confused me with Miranda Lester. Who is six inches shorter than me. And sixty-five.”
“Point taken,” says Eleanor. “But if you’re going as Priscilla, we’ll still need someone to pose as Fletch’s editor, for the purposes of the competition... What about him?”
Holden is surprised to find Eleanor pointing his way.
“Me?” he asks at the same time Ava says, “Him?”
Eleanor gives him a once-over. “He certainly looks the part.”
Holden glances down at his Tuesday outfit—a blue cashmere sweater vest over a pinstripe shirt, tan slacks, and a gold watch, a gift from Uncle Ellis last Christmas—and smiles, glad thatsomeone’snoticed. His glasses have begun slipping down his nose, so he pushes them up again.
“He looks ridiculous,” says Ava, which honestly stings. He got two compliments on the way into work that morning, both from very professional-looking men.
“You know what I mean,” says Eleanor with a flick of her wrist. “He looks like central casting’s idea of an editor.”
“You mean he looks like a white man.”
“Exactly.”
Holden frowns. He doesn’t like when they talk about him as if he’s not there.
“It’s not my fault,” he starts to say, but halfway through, both women shoot him a look and he swallows the retort.
Eleanor Vandenberg steeples her fingers. “What do you think, young Mr. Merriweather? Are you up for pretending to be Arthur Fletch’s new editor in order to save his legacy and, by extension, your own?”
Holden brightens. “Yes!” he says, delighted by the prospect of doing more, and seeing Scotland in the process. And he is even qualified. “You know,” he explains, “I almost became an actor.”
