Thankfully, no. I’d kept my distance, knowing that my very existence was likely an annoyance to them. I tried to be as neat and quiet as possible. Even hearing them having loud sex was weirdly comforting, knowing that they weren’t thinking of me, that I wasn’t getting in the way.
“Who gave you a copy of Devil’s Tongue?” Wren asked, popping her last piece of sashimi into her mouth. The squirrel man had succeeded in his quest. The woman sitting on the other side of his bench watched him, faintly grossed out. I already knew that most New Yorkers did their best to avoid touching squirrels, pigeons, and other city creatures.
“It was this woman at Barnes & Noble.” We’d just moved from Minneapolis to a suburb of Chicago to stay with Mom’s friend John, one of the nicer ones who would occasionally ask how I was doing. It was the summer before seventh grade, and while Mom worked, I spent most of my time at a mall where she would drop me off in the mornings. I’d hang out for hours in a stuffed leather chair by a window, reading. Leanne, one of the employees, couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, but she seemed so much older when she started chatting with me, impressed by my reading speed. She didn’t seem annoyed that I never bought anything, and she actually started bringing me recommendations after she found out I liked sci-fi and horror. One of those was Devil’s Tongue.
“Nice.” Wren smirked at me, squeezing my arm. “You should dedicate your first book to her!”
“Order forty-two!” The yell jolted me out of my reveries. I went to the counter to pick up the paper bag. My phone pinged again as I left. I pulled it out immediately, wondering if it’d be another cryptic text from Ursula.
But instead it was from Sharon: But where are the Madison P&Ls?? They’re not in the folder!!!!!!
With a heavy sigh, I wrote back. By the time I got home, I’d forgotten all about Ursula’s question.
Chapter 3
Ursula called me with the news on Monday morning. I was en route to work, after having taken Friday off too. It was time to face Pete. But I still stopped to get coffee so that I wouldn’t have to chance seeing him in the kitchen. As I waited in line, an image arose: him looking up at me with a drunken smirk on his face, fondling my breasts.
I squeezed my eyes shut, weathering the shame. Pete hadn’t texted or emailed at all while I was out, which was unusual. Or not so unusual, considering what had happened.
A text popped up from Ursula: CALL ME ASAP! URGENT!!!!! I got my coffee and slipped into a miraculously open seat at the window.
She picked up on the first ring. “Al!”
“Urs!” I tried to sound enthusiastic. “What’s up?”
“I have some news for you.” Her voice was loud, and I could hear the murmur of traffic. “Are you sitting down?”
“I am.” My foot began to jiggle in anticipation. “Why? What’s going on?” Several possibilities arose: Did she want me to interview her for something? Was she coming back to New York for some reason?
“So get this: my agent Melody was having drinks with Roza’s agent this week and she told Melody that one of the women going to the retreat dropped out.”
“Oh, wow.” The idea seemed absurd: How could anyone drop out, barring a surprise terminal disease? Even then?
“Yeah, so Melody told her that her favorite client, meaning me, knows plenty of talented young writers if they didn’t want to go back to the drawing board. And she said yes, and I sent your story and she loved it.”
“Wait, what?” The words weren’t computing. The information was coming too fast.
“To fast-forward to the end, you’re going to a monthlong writing retreat with Roza Vallo.” She coughed. “Also, you owe me for life.”
I pressed a hand to my clavicle. “Urs. You’re not fucking with me?”
She laughed. “You think I’d fuck with you about this?”
“Oh my god.” Wonder and excitement burst like fireworks in my chest. “This is unbelievable. How…”
“I sent your story about the two girls in the woods.” Ursula sounded pleased with herself. “The one you gave us in writing group. It was always my favorite. And I guess she liked it too.”
“Roza’s agent?”
“Roza.”
“Roza read it?” It was like finding out a mythical creature, a goddess, had come down to earth to choose me. I expanded past the wooden counter and the people sipping and chattering around me, stretching in all temporal directions: My twelve-year-old self, reading Devil’s Tongue in a tucked away corner of Barnes & Noble. My future self, sitting across from Roza as she meted out tough criticism but also little jewels of praise.
“Yeah.” Ursula murmured to someone, then came back. “All right. So you know the retreat is coming up fast. Like, two weeks.”
“Whoa.” I leaned forward onto the counter. “My boss is going to freak out. She’ll never let me go.”
“Then quit. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Okay.” I squared my shoulders. “No, you’re right.”
“Damn right I’m right.”
“But just… are you sure?” I couldn’t do this—feel this hope, this exhilaration—if it was going to be snatched away from me. “Like, this has all been confirmed? Or…”
“It’s all done. Check your email—you should be hearing from her people today. Apparently you have to sign some NDA thing… She has strict policies, privacy things. But once you sign, you should be good to go.”
“And they know I’m thirty? Wasn’t everyone supposed to be under thirty?”
“Yeah.” She sounded thoughtful. “I mentioned that because I didn’t want it to come back to bite us in the ass. But they didn’t care. I get the feeling the whole thing has dragged on and they just want to move forward.”
“Okay. Wow. I can’t…” Tears filled my eyes and spilled over. “I can’t thank you enough. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Well.” Ursula’s voice rose an octave. “There is one more thing I have to tell you.”
“Sure.” I wiped the tears away, not caring if my mascara was all over my face. I wanted to curl up on the tile floor and blubber and scream. This was happening. After so much pain and disappointment, something—the best possible thing—was actually happening.
“I gave two stories to my agent. One from you and one from Wren. Because…” She sighed. “You both helped me become a better writer. I wouldn’t have kept going with those early essays if you hadn’t both pushed me. And I respect both of your writing so much. I couldn’t just choose one of you for this.”
“Okay.” The words barely touched me.
“So anyway… they picked both of you. You’re both going.”
My trachea constricted. I could barely eke out: “What?”
“Yeah. So I know that might be a little weird for you.”
“？‘A little weird’？” The words burst out, so loud the woman next to me gave me a wary glance. I turned away. “She ruined my life.”