The Children(4)
Suggestions meaning Memorize and parrot this, or else. “I couldn’t check my email. I’ve been in a makeup chair with my eyes closed.”
“Well.” Fern stopped multitasking and looked at her. “Shit.”
Fucking Ennis. Once an up-and-coming painter, he’d become better known for his large-scale installations. And his recent legal issues. Guin hadn’t seen or spoken to him since she was eleven years old.
Her teeth hurt. She unclenched them. “Ennis Sharpe and his career are irrelevant. Go tell them he’s another don’t. Please.”
Fern looked almost thrown. “There’s no time. But given the title of his new show . . . I think it actually is relevant.”
Guin felt a cold pooling at the base of her spine. “Right. What is its title?”
“Okay, Guinevere!” The PA strode toward them, speaking in a stage whisper. “She’s ready for you.”
* * *
There was a powerful cognitive dissonance in seeing Samantha Brice in the flesh. Weather girl turned correspondent turned morning TV queen, now an actual 3D person, honey-brown hair falling over her shoulders in layered barrel curls. Her pert woodland creature face was so familiar Guin felt a heat in her throat, a flash of déjà vu. A taste, maybe, of how her mother’s readers felt when they met her.
But Samantha’s hand was limp as she shook Guin’s, her eyes a vacant waiting room. “Thank you for being here,” she murmured.
“Thanks for having me,” Guin replied. Thinking, This is America’s sweetheart? She had the presence of a cardboard cutout.
They were seated across from each other on the famous sage-colored couch, witnessed by a sea of mostly women, mostly middle-aged, shifting on stadium-style seating on the other side of the cameras. A stretch of incalculable time passed as an assistant fussed around Samantha then retreated. Endless, probably about fifteen seconds in the real world. Guin had been on TV before, she’d addressed bigger crowds than this, but the need to check her email was hitting her body like stage fright.
She leaned forward. “Samantha? I’d prefer we skip any discussion of—”
“Quiet,” someone said, off to the left, as the countdown to broadcast began. Guin tipped back, disarmed by the sight of Samantha Brice whirring to life like a haunted animatronic. Her eyes saturated, from flat blue crayon to cornflower. The empty stage of her face flooded with empathy and interest and a gentle wisdom. Guin’s skin crawled.
“Welcome back,” Samantha said warmly. “I’m so pleased to have Guinevere Sharpe with us on the show today. Guinevere is, of course, the daughter of Edith Sharpe, author of the beloved children’s book series the Ninth City. She’s also the inspiration and namesake behind the books’ young heroine. Guinevere, thank you so much for being here.”
“Thank you.”
Words flicked by on the teleprompter then disappeared, the usual base layer of Edith Sharpe folderol. “Your mother’s books have sold tens of millions of copies,” Samantha informed her. “They’ve been adapted into hit films, graphic novels, even a musical.”
A shitty one that closed in previews, Guin noted mentally. On her face was one in her arsenal of public smiles: humble yet proud.
“And earlier this week you released Ninth City Dreamer, a memoir about your storied—literally!—childhood. Guinevere, you spent six years of your life in your parents’ famous Farmhouse, a beautiful and bucolic hotbed of artistic creation.”
That was a mouthful. Guin glanced at the teleprompter. The words had already gone away, replaced by Samantha’s first softball question.
“So many people have wondered what it was like to be you, given the fascinating and tragic circumstances of your childhood. What can they expect from your new memoir?”
Guin nodded thoughtfully. “The Farmhouse truly was a world unto itself. I’m so excited to share with readers a window into that world.”
The host managed to dimple without smiling. “Edith Sharpe did interviews sparingly. She appeared at events only in her native New York. There’s so much readers don’t know about her. What might they learn from your book, in terms of casting new light on a literary idol?”
“Well, to me she wasn’t an idol. She was my mother.” Guin laughed affectedly. “Her books have meant so much to so many people, and to me most of all. I’m proud to give her fans some context, as well as a glimpse at her creative process. Not that I was allowed anywhere near her when she was writing!”
Polite audience laughter. Samantha Brice tipped her head, expression tautening by half a degree. Guin tensed.
“There are,” she began, “some who wonder about the more difficult aspects of growing up the way you did, even before the tragedy. Raised by two famous parents, in an isolated environment. Your childhood and yourself written, in a way, into the heart of a cultural phenomenon.”
Guin nodded along. She had a flow chart of responses in her head; her brain ticked steadily through it.
“Your memoir, however, is rather sunny.”
Samantha paused expectantly. But that wasn’t a question, was it? Guin recrossed her legs, giving herself a moment to think.
“You’re not wrong. And, no, my life hasn’t been entirely sunny. I think . . . I do think that sense of, let’s call it nostalgia, that you might find in Ninth City Dreamer is a reflection of what a beautiful time that was in my life. And there probably were more hardships than I’ve put on the page. Before the Ninth City money came in, we were running on fumes, financially speaking. But my parents protected me from that kind of worry, always.” A pause, as she turned up the dial on her most effective public face: courageous orphan. “And when I think about what came after, I can’t help remembering that period of my life as a very bright one.”