Perhaps I’dalreadyfailed. I’d just asked for my last trump card—to write a book that was anything, everything, but a happily ever after—and he said no.
“Mr. Andor,” I began, my voice cracking, “the truth is—”
“Ann needs to deliver the manuscript by the deadline,” he interrupted in a cold, no-nonsense voice. The warmth it held a few minutes before was gone. I felt myself getting smaller by the moment, shrinking into the hard IKEA chair.
“That’s tomorrow,” I said softly.
“Yes, tomorrow.”
“And if—if she can’t?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line. He had a sort of wide mouth that dipped in the middle, expressing things that the rest of his face was too guarded to. “How much time does she need?”
A year. Ten years.
An eternity.
“Um—a—a month?” I asked hopefully.
His dark brows shot up. “Absolutely not.”
“These things take time!”
“I understand that,” he replied, and I flinched. He took off his black-rimmed glasses to look at me. “May I be frank with you?”
No, absolutely not.“Yes...?” I ventured.
“Because Ann’s already asked for three deadline extensions, even if we get it tomorrow, we’d have to push it quickly through copyedits and pass pages—and that’s onlyifwe get it tomorrow—to keep to our schedule. This is Ann’s big fall book. A romance, mind you, with a happily ever after. That’s her brand. That’s what we signed for. We already have promotions lined up. We might even have a full-page spread in theNew York Times. We’re doing a lot for this book, so when I prodded Ann’s agent to speak with her, she connected me with you, her assistant.”
I knew that part. Molly Stein, Ann’s agent, wasn’t very happy to get a call about the book in question. She thought everything had been going smoothly. I hadn’t the heart to tell her otherwise. Molly had been pretty hands-off with my ghostwriting gig, mostly because the books were part of a four-book deal, this being the last one, and she trusted that I wouldn’t mess up.
Yet here I was.
I didn’t want to eventhinkabout how Molly would break the news to Ann. I didn’t want to think about how disappointed Ann would be. I’d met the woman once and I was deathly afraid of failing her. I didn’t want to do that.
I looked up to her. And the feeling of failing someone you looked up to... it sucked as a kid, and it sucked as an adult.
Benji went on. “Whatever is keeping Mrs. Nichols from finishing her manuscript has become a problem not only for me, but for marketingandproduction, and if we want to stay on schedule, we need that manuscript.”
“I—I know, but...”
“And if she can’t deliver,” he added, “then we’ll have to get the legal department involved, I’m afraid.”
The legal department. That meant a breach of contract. That meant I would have messed up so big that there would be no coming back from it. I would’ve failed not just Ann, but her publisher and her readers—everyone.
I’d already failed like that once.
The office began to get smaller, or I was having a panic attack, and I really hoped it was the former. My breath came in short bursts. It was hard to breathe.
“Miss Florence? Are you okay? You seem a little pale,” he observed, but his voice sounded a football field away. “Do you need some water?”
I shoved my panic into a small box in the back of my head, where everything else went. All of the bad things. The things I didn’t want to deal with. The things Icouldn’tdeal with. The box was useful. I shut everything in. Locked it tight. I pressed on a smile. “Oh, no. I’m fine. It’s a lot to take in. And—and you’re right. Of course you’re right.”
He seemed doubtful. “Tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“Good. Please tell Mrs. Nichols that I send my regards, and I’m very happy to be working with her. And I’m sorry—is that acactus? I just noticed.”