A few years ago, Melanie took an internship at a mid-sized literary agency, and I took off to write a story that would rock the world. I gave her, A View from Home, a novel about the foster care system in our country, and she went over the head of the man she worked for who said, “It wasn’t good enough” and emailed it to a company contact at Random House Publishing, where they not only bought the book, but hired her that day.
She became a junior editor at Random House, and I became a novelist. She became a senior editor when my first book put me on the New York Times Bestseller list. The subsequent three novels hit the list as well. Acclaimed awards, Wall Street Journal, and we were both riding a high of dreams coming true.
I can hear as she taps her long fingernails on her glass top desk, and then I hear the bell go off inside her head.
“Raw.”
“I’m giving you raw. I’m giving you real. I am giving you what people go through every day,” I tell her, trying to keep my annoyance at bay. After all, she is trying to help me.
“The market has shifted, Tatum. What’s selling is not this.”
I hear a thud and am certain it’s the manuscript I sent her. She prefers e-mail; I don’t.
“Then I’ll self-publish,” I threaten, and she audibly hisses into the phone, saying nothing.
This is new territory for us both. I love Melanie. I love working with her. Unlike the horror stories I hear about publishers washing out an author’s voice in edits, she doesn’t do that to my work.
“You still there?” I ask.
“I am,” she says firmly then pauses. I hear a door shut, then her heels click across the floor before she sighs out, “Please, Tatum. Please give me something that will blow the roof off this place. I know you have it in you. I know you do. Just let it happen.”
“Do you need this, Melanie?” I ask, wondering why she suddenly wants to mold my work into a completely different realm than I have ever written.
“Yes. Yes, I do. We both do.”
I sigh, feeling the weight of her world and my own landing firmly on my shoulders. “Okay, give me two months.”
“One,” she says, her edge returning.
“You have to push, don’t you?” I half-laugh.
“You taught me how,” she returns with a smile in her voice.
“Talk later.” I start to end the call.
“Wait! It has to be hot, Tatum. I need your voice, but bring the damn heat.”
“Melanie...”
“You’re gonna need to put yourself out there.”
“Meaning?” I have no idea why I ask when I know damn well what she is getting at.
“When’s the last time you actually got your peach plucked?”
“That’s none of your business,” I say with no intention of answering her, especially when she uses words like “peach plucked.” That’s up there with “moist” in words I would rather not use or hear reference to in sexual situations.
“You need to go find yourself a sexy, suit-wearing mogul,” she suggests.
“I’m in Detroit, Mel.” I sigh. “Remember, I was going to show the times in Motor City. A whole look back and look forward.”
I hear her nails tapping her keyboard. I know damn well she’s googling where to find the perfect place for inspiration.
“Get your ass to Texas.”
“I’m here for a month.” I stand with my phone in my hand, looking out the hotel window at what I know from pictures was once a beautiful city.
The river is mucky, the boats decrepit, and the cracked sidewalks once were beautiful. Detroit was something a long time ago.
“Right,” she sighs. “You can’t change your plans for the eye candy and your best friend?”
I laugh. “Melanie, this is all set up. Money spent, timelines sorted. I’m willing to think outside the box and shift my focus, but I can’t uproot my plans and still feel like I’m not insane.”
“Okay, okay,” she concedes.
“Goodnight, Melanie.”
“Goodnight, Tatum,” she says with a softness in her tone that is without a doubt caused by the stress I just alleviated.
Hers is gone, and mine has returned. Yin and yang. Night and day. We are never on the same page, but the balance is and always has been there.
I sit down on the chair next to the small table by the window, grab the glass of sweet red wine I had just poured, and take a drink. It’s sweet, crisp and, God willing, it will help me sleep tonight.
I drink the entire glass, and then pour another before reaching across the table to grab the manila folder and drag it closer to me. I look through the pictures from the 1950s: the new buildings, the finely-dressed people on the streets, the cars. The streets were full of them, all shiny and new. Detroit used to be spectacular. I know it was; the proof is in the pictures. But it is not anymore.