“Why don’t you work on your portfolio in the meantime?” Bella suggested over lunch.
“My portfolio?”
“You know, a professional collection of your work. Do some freelance writing for magazines or lit journals. It’s a good way to build up your platform, and the money isn’t always terrible. You must have a few decent contacts.”
Molly didn’t know anyone who worked in magazines except for Nell, an old classmate from undergrad who was in editorial at Cosmopolitan. They’d both been English majors and still saw each other every now and then through their loosely intertwined social circles in the city.
Molly felt as if she’d stripped down naked when she sent the email to Nell explaining that she was working on a novel and looking to do some freelance articles while she revised it. Was Cosmo seeking writers?
That’s how Molly ended up with her byline underneath headlines like “Eight Totally Random Things That Make Men Horny” and “Five Songs You Need to Add to Your Sex Playlist Tonight.”
Jake peered over her shoulder one afternoon while she was working.
“We don’t have a sex playlist.” He frowned.
“I know.” Molly closed her laptop. She didn’t like it when Jake read her stuff before it was finished.
“So why are you writing about sex playlists?”
“They’re all assignments, Jake. I don’t choose the topics.” Molly felt tense, edgy. At the root of it, she was embarrassed to be writing articles about vibrators and sex positions, but Cosmo paid well—fifty cents a word—and she needed the money. She’d pitched ideas for pieces she actually wanted to write to outlets like Vogue and Slate and The New Yorker, but never heard back from any of them. She’d submitted her favorite chapter of Needs as a short story to a number of literary journals. Crickets.
One evening in late January, Molly trekked to the Upper West Side for the launch party of a novel written by her friend Anya from NYU. The book was a literary thriller that had already been optioned for television and lauded by The New York Times. Refilling her wine at the makeshift bar, Molly heard a female voice speak her name.
“… and have you seen the stuff Molly Diamond is writing for Cosmo? Complete trash—makes me cringe! Apparently, she’s working on a novel. Bet it’s total junk, too. Weird that she never told any of us she was trying to publish. It’s like she thinks she’s better than everyone because she dates that famous singer now. You know, the hot one. He has to be cheating on her.”
Cheap Merlot sloshed over the rim of Molly’s plastic cup. She turned around to see Shannon Jennings—a girl from her workshop at NYU—gossiping with another classmate she recognized. Shannon’s face froze, except for her jaw, which fell to the floor.
“Excuse me, Shannon.” Molly rushed by her. It didn’t matter how much she willed back the tears—they were tight in her throat, moments away.
“Molly, sorry, I didn’t recognize you with your hair pulled—”
But Molly didn’t hear the rest. She set her wine down on the nearest table and beelined for the exit. She wished she could’ve retorted with something cool—the kind of biting remark Liz or Everly would’ve made—but Molly had never been great with quips or confrontation.
She felt a stab of guilt for leaving without saying goodbye to Anya or the handful of others she’d kept in touch with from grad school, but she was already wiping her eyes by the time she made it out onto the street. Shannon’s words played in her head on the long subway ride back to Brooklyn. Molly didn’t know how to stop them from hitting her rawest nerve, the one that cracked her wide open. The only place she could think to recover was in the manuscript, and so that’s where she went when she finally reached her apartment. Jake wasn’t home. She didn’t know where he was or what time to expect him back—he’d left for the studio in the morning, and they hadn’t spoken all day.
Molly opened her computer and stared at the document that had consumed so much of her life—years, at that point. Her heart and soul poured into ninety-seven thousand words. This was it. Shannon’s voice echoed in her mind again: Bet it’s total junk, too.
Molly laughed out loud to no one, a hollow sound bouncing around her rib cage. Needs probably was total junk. Jake probably was cheating on her. Her father probably was flourishing wherever he’d landed, his life rich and whole without her. Molly poured herself a glass of wine and sat in this sad, cynical moment, almost basking in the pain of it. She drank half the bottle in bed, and when Jake got home, she pretended to be asleep. She knew he’d be stressed and eager to vent, and she was tired of being his punching bag.