“I wrote that too!” I’m immediately self-conscious about my teacher’s pet I-just-aced-a-quiz voice when I see Charlie’s face. “What?”
He squelches his smirk. “Nothing.”
“Not ‘nothing,’？” I challenge. “That’s a face.”
“I’ve always had one, Stephens,” he says. “Fairly disappointing you just noticed.”
“Your expression.”
He leans back in his chair, his red Pilot balanced over one knuckle and under two. “It’s just that you’re good at this.”
“And that’s a shock?”
“Of course not,” he says. “Am I not allowed to enjoy seeing someone be good at their job?”
“Technically this is your job.”
“It could be yours too, if you wanted.”
“I interviewed for an editing job once,” I tell him.
His brows flick up. “And you didn’t take it?”
“I didn’t do the second interview,” I say. “Libby had just gotten pregnant.”
“And?”
“And Brendan got laid off.” My shoulders tighten, locking into defensive mode. “I was making good money on commission, and taking an entry-level job would’ve meant a pay cut.”
He studies me until my skin starts to thrum, then looks away again; we’re caught in an endless game of chicken, taking turns losing. “How did Libby feel about that?”
“I didn’t tell her.” I turn back to my notes. “Next up, we have Josephine.”
After a beat, Charlie says, “Don’t you think she’d be sad you gave up your dream job for her?”
“She doesn’t exactly admire my devotion to my current job,” I remind him. “Now, Josephine.”
He sighs, giving in. “Love Jo.”
“Is she different enough from Old Man Whittaker, you think? I mean, old, crotchety person with no family?”
“I think so. We get depth to her character quickly, and her backstory, with the ex who drove her out of Hollywood, doesn’t ring any Once bells. Old Man Whittaker lost his family, but Josephine never had one to begin with. And besides, the discussion of how her being a woman dictated how the media and world treated her is kind of this book’s whole deal.”
“True,” I say. “And I love that, but it does bring me to my next thought. Maybe we should pull back on the reveal about her connection to the film industry until later.”
Charlie’s eyes take on a Mac spinning-wheel quality, like his thoughts are loading. “I disagree,” he says slowly. “What I’d prefer is if we didn’t find out why Nadine never became an actress until later. I think there’s opportunity for tension there. Like maybe when Nadine finds Jo’s Oscar, it comes out that Nadine originally wanted to act and Jo asks what changed her mind, and we get some foreshadowing.”
“Shit,” I say.
“What?” Charlie says.
“You’re right.”
“My condolences,” he says. “This has clearly been very hard on you.”
I start typing the update into my notes.
“Nadine shouldn’t have given up on acting,” Charlie says.
The words float there for a minute, an obvious trap. “She makes a lot of money agenting,” I reply.
“She doesn’t enjoy her money,” he reminds me.
I keep typing. “She likes agenting.”
“She loved acting.”
“I thought you were her biggest fan.”
“I am,” he says. “That’s why I want her to get her happy ending.”
“I don’t think it’s that kind of book, Charlie.”
His shoulder shrugs in tandem with a flick of his full lips. “We’ll see.”
Despite my carefully organized document, the way we move through our edits feels more like those days wandering the Central Park Ramble with Mom and Libby.
The document balloons and then we pare it down, Charlie pulling my laptop over to him to reduce four sentences into one, me pulling it back to thread through more compliments, until, hours into the process, I realize we’ve switched roles. Now he’s the one inserting praise and I’m the one trimming fat.
As he watches me, he murmurs, “I’ve just always wanted to see a shark attack up close. So much blood.”
Face warming, along with a few less innocuous places, I turn back to the document, overrun by tracked changes. “I like to see my progress.”