Merritt took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back.
“I see. And nothing I can say will make a difference?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Merritt nodded once, then stood, extending her arm. Édouard looked at her in confusion.
“Well,” she said, taking first Shreya’s hand and then that of the slowly standing Alan, “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”
“Well,” Shreya said flatly. She shrugged, as if not knowing what to say, and Alan made a noise that seemed to lament the lost minutes.
“Thanks,” Merritt said then, her voice suddenly meek as she straightened up to go.
She turned to the door, then stopped and turned back.
“Oh, sorry, just two more quick things I forgot to mention.”
“Yes?” Shreya’s annoyance was fully visible now. Alan fiddled with his briefcase, and Édouard watched her, enrapt, as if she were an actress in a play.
“Whit inherited all of Helen’s social media,” Merritt said, speaking like someone remembering a temporarily forgotten piece of information, “and as of when I checked last night, that amounts to around four million followers across platforms.”
Alan looked up from beneath his Martin Scorsese eyebrows, then at Shreya, who seemed pained in her attempts to wear a neutral face.
“I have a sort of strong feeling that any video or thread Whit makes about this will goprettyviral.”
Shreya narrowed her eyes. “Yes. IfWhitwere to do that, it would probably go ‘pretty viral.’ And the second thing?”
“The second thing,” Merritt said, smiling, “is that Ian Hoult, the writer who sometimes publishes pieces withThe Atlantic—”
“We know who Ian Hoult is,” Alan said irritably.
“Oh, good, that’s helpful.” Merritt’s voice, she knew, was gratingly chipper. “Anyway, Ian is interested in interviewing us for an article—about how corporate greed can be so great that it supersedes even the dying wishes of one of the brightest lights in children’s literature: an author who, some might say, had been carrying this publishing houseon her backfor the last decade, and whose death has revealed not grief, not respect, but an overly fussy commitment to arbitrary deadlines and a deep and abiding love for, above all else, the bottom line.”
Merritt needed to take a breath after that.
Alan stood up straight, clearly incensed, but Shreya put a hand on his arm to keep him from speaking.
“You make two very interesting points, Merritt.”
Was that a small smile on her face?
“Do you mind waiting here, just a bit longer, while I have a chat with my colleagues?”
“Not at all,” Merritt said, retaking her seat.
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
Shreya left quickly, effectively dragging Alan with her as he scowled all the way out the door.
Édouard turned his lovely eyes and curling smile on her when they were gone.
“Very good. Very, very good.”
Merritt felt glowy and warm for the next fifteen minutes—until Shreya returned. Alone.
“Can you get this to me as a doc?” she asked, placing her hand on the formerly forgotten manuscript.
“What?”
