He’d sent Marta pages a few weeks ago? He hadn’t told her he was going to do that.
“Um—yes, he worked really hard on it. It blew my expectations out of the water as well.”
Marta looked very smug. “Sales is going to go bananas for this one. That was a great idea you had, to go talk to him.”
Great idea she had? Now Izzy was very confused.
“I…Thanks, Marta,” she said. “But I saw that piece yesterday, and I thought that TAOAT was planning to cancel the book?”
Marta gestured to her. “Shut the door.”
Izzy got up, shut the door, and sat back down.
“Don’t pay that piece any attention.” She could almost see Marta grind her teeth. “I don’t know who that source was, but when I find out…” Marta smiled. It was the scariest smile Izzy had ever seen. “I reached out to both Beau Towers and his agent as soon as I saw the article. They know it’s bullshit. We haven’t decided how to handle it publicly here yet—now that we have the manuscript, we might just let it stand until we have a cover, surprise the world some, that’s always a good splash. Ooh, or this might be fodder for a new chapter. Publicity will die at that promo material.”
Izzy had no idea what to say. She’d spent the last eighteen hours gearing herself up for this confrontation, but Marta already loved Beau’s book, TAOAT was on his side, and Marta had congratulated her?
“I give you a lot of credit for how good this book is,” Marta said. “Good job.”
As amazing as it felt for Marta to say that, she couldn’t take all the credit. “Thank you, but Beau is a great writer. I did a lot, yes, to help him figure out how to write a memoir, but the writing is all his.”
Marta waved that away. “Yes, yes, that’s what being an editor is. The writing is always all theirs, but that makes our work even more important. His proposal for this memoir was a nightmare. I could see there was a good writer in there, but I knew it would take a lot for me to pull a book out of him. You did a lot of that work for me already.”
Today was not at all turning out to be how she’d expected. Should she do something else that she hadn’t planned on? She didn’t stop to change her mind.
“Thank you, Marta. Actually, there’s something else I’d love to talk to you about. I’ve wanted to move up to assistant editor for a while, but it didn’t seem like that was possible for me here. But recently, Josephine Henry over at Maurice reached out about an assistant editor position. I had an interview over there yesterday.”
Marta nodded slowly. “Yes. That sounds like a great place for you.” Izzy’s mouth didn’t quite drop open, but only because she caught it in time. “I tried here, you know. Because of the budget cuts last year, we couldn’t add any new assistant editors, and I was worried that I might lose you. To be honest, I was waiting for you to ask about it.”
But Gavin said…
Gavin said her book was no good. Gavin said she didn’t have potential here. Gavin said Marta didn’t believe in her.
None of that was true.
Before Izzy could really absorb this, Marta spun to face her computer. “I have Josephine’s number. Let me give her a call about you now.”
Izzy just stared at her.
Marta glanced at her and laughed out loud. “I’m only going to tell her great things about you, not that there’s much else to tell.” She thought for a moment. “Well, you’re not very good at tooting your own horn. Work on that.”
Classic Marta: telling her one of her faults, ordering her to get better, not recognizing or thinking about all the reasons why it was difficult for her to acknowledge or brag about her accomplishments. Ahh, the world felt a little bit more normal now.
“Okay” was all she said. “Thanks, Marta.”
Marta reached for her phone, and Izzy stood up.
“Josephine, hi,” Marta was saying by the time Izzy opened the office door. “This is Marta Wallace. How’s business?”
Izzy closed the door gently. Of course Marta would ask “How’s business?” instead of “How are you?” To be fair, to Marta the two were likely one and the same.
She walked back to her desk and then shook her head and went to the elevators. She couldn’t sit down at her cubicle after what had just happened. She had to go somewhere and be alone to process that conversation.
She’d expected Marta to be curt, dismissive, tell her in so many words that her two months in California had been pointless, to Beau, to TAOAT, for her career. And yes, Marta was curt, she always was. But everything else had been different.