“A biography? You’re taking our story and turning it into a book instead?”
“It’s what Evelyn wants. I’ve been trying to convince her otherwise.”
“And have you?” Frankie asks. “Convinced her?”
“No,” I say. “Not yet. But I think I might be able to.”
“OK,” Frankie says. “Then do that.”
This is my moment.
“I think I can deliver you a massive, headline-making Evelyn Hugo story,” I say. “But if I do, I want to be promoted.”
I can hear skepticism enter Frankie’s voice. “What kind of promotion?”
“Editor at large. I come and go as I please. I choose the stories I want to tell.”
“No.”
“Then I have no incentive to get Evelyn to allow the piece to be in Vivant.”
I can practically hear Frankie weighing her options. She is quiet, but there is no tension. It is as if she does not expect me to speak until she has decided what she will say. “If you get us a cover story,” she says finally, “and she agrees to sit for a photo shoot, I’ll make you a writer at large.”
I consider the offer, and Frankie jumps in as I’m thinking. “We only have one editor at large. Bumping Gayle out of the spot she has earned doesn’t feel right to me. I’d think you could understand that. Writer at large is what I have to give. I won’t exert too much control over what you can write about. And if you prove yourself quickly there, you’ll move up as everyone else does. It’s fair, Monique.”
I think about it for a moment further. Writer at large seems reasonable. Writer at large sounds great. “OK,” I say. And then I push just a little bit further. Because Evelyn said, at the very beginning of all this, that I have to insist on being paid top dollar. And she’s right. “And I want a raise commensurate with the title.”
I cringe as I hear myself asking for money so directly. But I relax my shoulders the moment I hear Frankie say, “Yes, sure, fine.” I breathe out. “But I want confirmation from you tomorrow,” she continues. “And I want the photo shoot booked by next week.”
“OK,” I say. “You’ve got it.”
Before Frankie gets off the phone, she says, “I’m impressed, but I’m also pissed off. Please make this so good that I have to forgive you.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I will.”
WHEN I WALK INTO EVELYN’S office the next morning, I’m so nervous that my back is sweating and a shallow pool is forming along my spine.
Grace puts down a charcuterie platter, and I can’t stop staring at the cornichons as Evelyn and Grace are talking about Lisbon in the summer.
The moment Grace is gone, I turn to Evelyn.
“We need to talk,” I say.
She laughs. “Honestly, I feel like that’s all we do.”
“About Vivant, I mean.”
“OK,” she says. “Talk.”
“I need to know some sort of timeline for when this book might be released.” I wait for Evelyn to respond. I wait for her to give me something, anything, resembling an answer.
“I’m listening,” she says.
“If you don’t tell me when this book could realistically be sold, then I’m running the risk of losing my job for something that might be years away. Decades, even.”
“You certainly have high hopes for my life span.”
“Evelyn,” I say, somewhat discouraged that she still isn’t taking this seriously. “I either need to know when this is coming out or I need to promise Vivant an excerpt of it for the June issue.”