“Yes, you do.”
I didn’t mean to say it aloud, but the words fell out of me fast. There was silence between us as I bent my legs and crouched to the ground in the middle of the sidewalk, silently mouthing “fuck me” with my eyes clenched closed. I heard him exhale.
“Yeah, I do,” he agreed.
I opened my eyes to the blue sky, my chest beating even faster.
“Bye, Asher,” I said quietly.
24
THIRTY-FIVE
I HAD A MANAGER. I, Maggie Vine, was officially being managed by a professional person. I, Maggie Vine, had a contract.
I grinned stupidly at the massive stacks of paper in front of me in the white-on-white room, with the city’s skyline shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The guaranteed money from this deal—the money I would get once I delivered all seven tracks—was enough to build a future. The money that would come once this movie was made was enough to keep that future a reality. I could create an embryo, I could become a geriatric singer-songwriter and then have a geriatric pregnancy. Life was officially full of options—the weird, young-geriatric, good kind. The joy inside me was so big that I wanted to scream, but I was pretending to be a professional, so instead I swallowed hard and stared ahead.
My brand-new manager, Shelly Pier, sat across from me at the huge oval conference table—just the two of us dwarfed by a room meant to house twenty people. Shelly looked like the spiritual granola type, with fringe bangs covering her purple glasses, chunky mixed-metal rings on her fingers, and a dizzying oversized patterned dress swallowing her figure. According to Asher’s Grammy-winning musician friend, Shelly was everyone’s fun-loving, mama bear manager, but if you tried to screw over one of her clients, she would become the scariest person in the room.
Shelly smiled brightly at me and reached across the table, pulling the paperwork toward her.
“All done,” she said, tucking the papers under her arm and shooting up like a rocket.
I followed, surprised that pleasantries were apparently not a thing. I anxiously threw my pen and copies into my backpack and stood to meet her face-to-face. Shelly smiled and gripped my fingers hard into a handshake.
“This is the start of the rest of your career, got it?”
I stood up straighter and mimicked her grip, trying to appear just as professional, even though I was throwing a party in my mind.
“Let’s have a long-running career that isn’t defined by a one-hit wonder from a kid who hadn’t reached puberty. Sound cool?” she said, as if she had just asked me if I wanted an iced coffee.
“A long-running career. That’s the dream,” I said, nodding with a shit-eating grin.
She dropped my hand and crossed her arms, her smile fading. I quickly willed the corners of my mouth to lay across my face.
“Vine, you’re not big enough for a PR rep, so I have to be your every-person. Which means, I have to be the person who asks you: Are you sleeping with Asher Reyes?”
I could feel my ears reddening as I opened my mouth to answer. “No.”
“Okay, because I’m a little torn,” she said. “On one hand, I don’t want your career to be defined by a famous man, or by a man at all. On the other hand, I know how this machine works—you’re standing in front of me because a very famous man put you here, and he’s a good one at that. It’s a cute story: ‘Out of nowhere, Asher Reyes saw Maggie Vine singing and fell in love with her voice. He hired her to write original music on his movie—which she was perfect for. And then, much later, he fell in love with her.’”
“Well, that’s not exactly what happened—”
“Or, we have option B: ‘Asher Reyes fell in love with unknown singer, Maggie Vine. He hired her to write original music on his movie because he was fucking her, not because she was right for the job.’”
I shifted in my Converses, thrown by her blunt delivery.
“Neither of those are true,” I said.
“So, tell me your truth before I read it somewhere else.”
“Asher and I fell in love when we were teenagers at summer camp.”
She drew her eyebrows together in a frown. “You can’t be serious.”
“For a few years we were a thing. And then we went our separate ways. I found out he got the rights to my favorite book, I knew I could crush the music, I auditioned for him and Amos, and they hired me. I’m not sleeping with Asher Reyes. Up until a couple weeks ago, I hadn’t seen Asher since we were seventeen.”
Shelly tilted her head at me. A slow smile crept up on her overlined red lips.
“I like your story the best.”
“Well, it’s the truth.”
“Maggie, you have talent—real talent that I believe in. I’ve watched every live performance of yours that my intern could get her hands on. You wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t see longevity. And you can string out your fifteen minutes, easily. But I want to warn you: the world loves nothing more than to form a strong opinion about a headline without reading the article. It’s getting harder and harder out there to earn people’s respect. My first warning here, and it’s not likely, but you should know: if you’re Asher Reyes’s girlfriend first, then it’s possible, if the movie doesn’t do well, that that’s what your brand will be. Now if the movie and music are as beloved as we both hope they will be—you’ll be just fine. But there’s also the possibility that you break this guy’s heart before your songs are due, and his dick shrivels up and he tears up your contract, calling it ‘creative differences.’ I’m telling you, kid, I’ve seen it all, and I don’t want your career to end before it’s begun, nor do I care to see what a long lawsuit against the most famous man in America looks like.”
I heard what she was saying. The worst moment of my past was ringing like a bell behind my ears.
“I get it. So, if, let’s say, we do decide to—”
“Finish the job first. Go a month into filming, when they’ve already recorded your songs and can’t go backward. And then, go for it. Go get that photo op of Asher Reyes making out with you on a yacht in St. Barts. Let him undress you on the yacht, for all I care.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said slowly, trying to stop my imagination from painting the vivid portrait of Asher using his teeth to take my bikini off on the aft deck. Not specific at all.
“One last thing, my team did a deep dive into your social. Mazel tov: you’re clean as a whistle. But I don’t have access to your DMs. So, is there anything regrettable on there, or anywhere else?” She folded her arms, dead serious. “What I’m asking is: Is there anything from your past that I need to know? Any lost demos floating around? Any horrible stories? Important people you pissed off?”
I went to shake my head, but the name Cole Wyan was stuck in the back of my throat, stiffening my body. I had a demo that was technically floating out there, somewhere. But it was irrelevant now, so I tucked the knowledge of it back where it belonged: into the darkest, most horrible corner of my mind. That man had taken enough of my past, and I refused to let him anywhere near my future.
I dropped my shoulders, shook my head, and painted on a smile.