After people were actually reading it.
After that fat character got a name and strangers started to use it on Cherry.
But literally everything gets easier over time.
Cherry got used toThursday.
She knew that Tom was always working on it. He told her so. Sometimes he’d ask for her help with a joke.
And he told her when he started to get more readers. The webcomics site that hosted him was acquired by a larger blog site, andThursdaywas featured on its front page.
Tom was unsettled by the attention. Flattered, possibly. But any attention at all made Tom uncomfortable, in every circumstance.
When a graphic novel editor reached out, Tom ignored the email.
Cherry was the one who pushed him to reply.
Maybe that was crazy...Why would Cherry want more people to see Tom’s version of her?
But by that time, they were married. By that time, Cherry knew Tom’s whole story. She knew how much he hated his job. She knew how beaten down he felt, generally—how hard it was for him to feel good about the world and his place in it. And she just loved him so much. She was so attached to him. She was living with him under his skin.
Tom was her husband; Baby was just a drawing.
What happened in the comic wasn’t important. What was important was what the comic did for Tom. It was the corner of his life where he got to make every decision. Where he felt the most free.
And Cherry knew thatThursdaywas excellent. She didn’t have to keep reading it (she hadnotkept reading it) to know that.
“You deserve every good thing that comes your way,” Cherry told him, the night before he called the editor. They were sitting on their couch, and she was holding his face in her hands. “Thursdaydeserves it.”
Baby came up between them only once. Explicitly. After Tom had made a deal with the publisher.
His first advance was small, but it felt like money for nothing. The work was already done.
“Ophelia wants to start the actual book a couple years into the series,” Tom said. Ophelia was his editor in New York. “She says that’s whenThursdayfound its groove.”
Tom and Cherry were out in the driveway. Cherry was refinishing a big oak wardrobe that they’d bought at an auction. Tom was helping her paint an art deco border on the sides; he could freehand a right angle.
“That makes sense,” Cherry said. She was crouched down, painting a scene on the wardrobe’s doors—two talking hats from an obscure Disney cartoon. Cherry had tried to make Tom draw the characters, but he said they’d be cuter if Cherry drew them, even if she was out of practice. Cherry was working as a manager by then. Not an artist.
“So,” Tom said, “that’s about the point where... The Guy meets... Baby.”
Cherry’s tongue was sticking out. She was painting a really finicky part. “Uh-huh.”
“I just—Well, I don’t know if you...” Tom’s voice trailed off.
Cherry glanced up at him. He’d stopped painting, and he was looking down at her. Helpless. There were two lines between his eyebrows.
“It’s okay,” Cherry said.
Tom looked in her eyes. “It’s just, um...”
“It’sokay,” she repeated.
They’d been together almost seven years, and it reallywasokay, all of it. But Cherry still didn’t like talking about the details. If she was going to keep Tom’s art separate from their life, she needed it tostayseparate. She didn’t even like hearing Tom mention Baby by name.
But there Baby was. Standing there with them in the driveway. With her big butt and her belly and both of her chins.
Cherry ignored her.
