The Children(71)

“You’re not talking to Legal,” Regina snapped, “you’re talking to me.”

A gap. Guin pictured her receiving a stern look from Ari.

“I’m very unhappy about this,” Regina went on, more calmly. “Your family is the property. It is the brand. It’s bad enough we’ve got Van Gogh over here, with his wrongful death lawsuit and his total lack of—”

“Van Gogh?” Guin couldn’t help herself. “That’s a bad comp.”

“You fucked the rollout, Guin!” Regina let herself yell. “You’re out there trying to sell a memoir that makes the Sharpe family look like the goddamned Von Trapps, and here you are on tape saying you had a fucked-up childhood? Adding fuel to your brother’s murder lawsuit? You look like a two-faced crackpot! We don’t want you speaking publicly about the memoir, the Ninth City, your mother—none of it. You’re benched, okay? For the time being, you are done.”

“I’m sorry. You’re firing me? From promoting a book about my life?”

“Is it, though?” the publicist said scathingly. “And no, I’m not firing you. You’d have to have a job for me to do that.”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t. I have no time, and a million and one stakeholders looking for answers. This is going to be the week from hell.”

“You love weeks from hell.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being glib or if it hasn’t sunk in yet. You’ve gone viral. For ranting to a TikTok child.”

Guin felt suddenly adrift. She was being dumped, wasn’t she? Her thoughts felt sticky. She couldn’t remember what was in her contract, what rights she had. Seizing what ground she was sure of, she said, “You can’t stop me from talking about my own mother.”

“We could sue you for defamation.” Ari’s voice was startling, deep. “Depending on what you plan to say.”

“I’m not planning on saying anything.” Fury was filling the place where Nisha’s video had gutted her. “Are you kidding me with this? One mistake and I’m out? This is bullshit. I’ve been doing free promo for you people for years.”

“You’ve been taking expensed trips on Hart & Crane’s dime for years,” Regina said. “Raising your mother’s profile and your own royalty checks. Not to mention those speaker’s fees.”

“Oh, come on. As if I need the money.”

“Very relatable, Guin! Save that for your next TikTok.”

Guin shook her head helplessly. “This is bullshit.”

“You already said that. Honey, you’re struggling.” Regina wrestled her tone back to civility. “Clearly your brother’s announcement brought up some things that are best dealt with privately. Take this break as the gift that it is, and we’ll check in down the line.”

“‘Down the line.’ What does that mean? You realize I could hire an independent publicist, schedule my own interviews.” Guin paused. Then she went for it. “And you do know there are things I could say. Things that aren’t in the memoir, true things, that would make all of this look like a fuckin’ cakewalk—”

Regina ended the call. Guin cursed, slamming her phone onto the counter. Then picked it up, drawing her arm back to whip it across the room.

And stopped. Breathing out slowly, channeling the misty memory of a yoga class she took once and only once. Pressing her forehead to the cool marble countertop, she tried to let her mind untether, go into a meditative—vegetative?—state.

Her mind resisted. Regina was right: it hadn’t sunk in yet. It was starting to. Descending like a flock of starlings, falling over her in a chattering curtain.

You had a pretty fucked-up childhood, didn’t you?

Of course. Didn’t we all?

Her hands rose to her ears. She could turn it around, turn this mistake inside out. There was an answer, she just had to find it. But the doors kept slamming in her head. What had she done? Thrown it away, that’s what. Pissed gasoline on the story of her life and lit a match.

Except it had never been her story, had it? It had always belonged to Edith. The marvelous tale of her own sunny double, the intrepid Guinevere Sharpe. Abandoned by her creator at age ten, never to grow any older. She was the one whose story was at stake. For one rash moment Guin wished for a hundred gallons of gasoline and a hundred matches.

Everyone wondered what it was like to be her. She’d told and told them. What if—and even the thought was practically untouchable—she told the truth?





Thirty-Seven

2003




Everyone wonders what it’s like to be you.

That’s what people said. Party guests, their father’s models, the occasional interviewer who came to the house. Their mother’s evil editor, Jonathan Froud, who’d attached himself to Edith and her fame with the rank tenacity of a remora.

In the Farmhouse there was one telephone, two radios, a typewriter, and a record player. There were no computers, no television. Once a week at least Guinevere and Ennis rode their bikes along the road for miles—getting off and pushing in the places where the Queen Anne’s lace grew too thick or the shoulder’s width too suicidal—to watch movies at a revival cinema.

It shared its dying downtown strip with a hippie grocery, a shop that sold sheet music, a diner where a man with nautical tattoos and a hairnet sold them cups of tomato bisque for a buck ninety-nine. The theater was family-run, third generation. As far as Guinevere could tell, the manager was the last man standing.