His publisher flew his publicist to L.A. to make sure Tom took phone interviews and showed up for photo shoots. Rachel, again. Tom liked her. Probably because she bossed him around and made all hisdecisions for him. If Cherry asked him what he was having for lunch, he’d say, “Whatever Rachel orders.”
Tom had been in Los Angeles for three months when he told Cherry he’d signed a first-look deal with HBO because Rachel thought it was a good idea.
“Isn’t Rachel yourbookpublicist?”
“She’s kind of my everything publicist.”
“I’m his consigliere,” Rachel said in the background.
Cherry hadn’t known she was there.
Cherry was very good at her job.
It was the sort of job that would take as much as she gave it. Cherry was neverdonewith work—she never had to be. There was always something else to propose or review. (Once you’d successfully proposed something, you could then review it.) She spent her days in meetings, selling ideas, then smoothing their progress through the bureaucracy. At night she replied to email, scheduling it all to send the next morning, so she wouldn’t look like she was working as late as she was.
Everything Cherry worked on at the railroad was an “initiative.” She liked the sound of that. She liked the urgency.
“I can’t right now,” she’d said to Tom once, when he wanted her to go...somewhere...with him. On someThursday-related trip. “I’ve got too much on my plate.”
“You don’t have anything on your plate that you didn’t put there,” Tom argued.
Cherry failed to see his point. Didn’t he recognize what a beautiful situation she was in?She didn’t have anything on her plate that she hadn’t put there.And neither did he!
After a while, Cherry got used to being alone with Stevie. She stopped sending Tom frustrated text messages about it. When he was delayed, when he apologized, when he was miserable and caught up andstillnot coming home—Cherry would say, “It’s okay. Do what youhave to do.” And, “We’ll be here.” (“We” because Cherry was a “we” now with this stupid dog.)
But Cherry didn’tfeelokay...
She was lonely. She was resentful. She felt like she’d given Tom everything, and he’d taken it, and then he’d taken it somewhere else.
The less she saw of him, the more she seemed to see ofThursday.
Tom’s comic was everywhere. It was “having a moment.”
“Is Tom Valentine our Charlie Chaplin?”askedThe Atlantic. AndThe New York Timeswanted to know,“Is Anything Better Than ‘Thursday’?”
Rachel was earning her keep.
“Cherry?”
Tom had called without texting first. He almost never called. (He almost never texted.)“I’d rather just get through it and come home,”he’d told her once, when he first started traveling.
“Tom?”
“Hey, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you—is everything okay?” Cherry was walking Stevie. It was already dark.
“What?”
“Tom? Were you in an accident?”
“What—No. No, I’m fine.”
“Oh,” Cherry said, waiting for her heartbeat to slow down. “Good.”
“I was calling...”
She waited. “Stevie, no,” she said.“No!”Their neighbors had a row of winter-dead peonies, and Stevie always tried to dig them up. “Stop it...Tom? Are you still there?”
