“Good afternoon, Helena.” There is a hitch in her voice, as if she’s run to the phone, as if she hasn’t had all week to prepare for this call and set aside this time. Irritation blooms in my chest, a common occurrence on these calls. “I have four things to discuss.”
It took years for me to properly train Kate, to curb the agent’s tendencies for mindless chit-chat and pleasantries. In the beginning, she was more resistant to my expectations, but the first advance, the first bestseller, the first commission—that made her more pliable. It’s amazing what money will do to a person, the level of control it can establish. It’s made Kate my monkey. It made Simon my pet—the sort who doesn’t clean up his messes, the sort who marks his territory, the sort who bares his teeth and will attack your child if you don’t keep him on a tight enough leash.
Kate brings up a foreign offer first, my pen scratching out the terms under a neat heading with today’s date. I accept the terms, and we move on to the second item—a third reprinting of Hope’s Ferry. Wahoo. I sigh, and manage to make it through the third and fourth topic. She falls silent and I consider my next words, choosing ones designed to cause as little a reaction as possible.
“I’ll need you to close any open action items. I’m retiring.” Retiring, I decided over breakfast, would be the best way to put it. It’s sort of the same thing as death, as far as Kate is concerned. Both mean that my book production will stop. Both mean that I won’t be able to meet any outstanding deadlines.
There is a long silence, the sort that stretches over canyons, the kind that causes someone to pull the phone away from their ear and check the connection. When she finally responds, it is decidedly unimaginative, and I sigh at her predictability.
KATE
“Retiring?” Kate says dumbly. She spent the greater part of the last ten seconds trying to find a better response, one that Helena would appreciate, but the thought is so… absurd, that she can only repeat it. There is no way Helena Ross is retiring. Not when Marka Vantly is churning out a fresh bestseller every four months. Helena will write until her fingers fall off purely out of competitive spite for her rival. Besides, who retires at thirty-two?
“Yes,” Helena snaps. “It’s when people stop working.”
“I’m familiar with the term.” She pushes against the desk, her office chair spinning, the room a soothing blur of pale pinks and cream. “Why?” She closes her eyes when she asks the question, knowing—even as she utters the word—that it isn’t allowed. Rule #4 on Helena’s Rules for Kate is to Not Ask Personal Questions. A rule she’s broken before, the results always disastrous. She steels herself for the click of the receiver, the sharp cut of Helena’s voice, the dreaded ding of an incoming email—one full of stern admonishments about their agent/client relationship and its boundaries.
Instead, Helena only sighs, the lack of reaction as odd as her retirement announcement. “I need you to reach out to the publisher about Broken and let them know I won’t be delivering it.”
Kate’s eyes snap open, her teeth baring in the inhuman act of not repeating the woman’s words. She sits upright, pulling herself closer to the desk, using the moment to flip the calendar open, her fingers skimming over the dates until she gets to the neatly written words. Broken Due. A little over a month from now. Last week, when they spoke, Helena had been eighty percent done, and confident about her delivery. In their thirteen years together, Kate could count the number of times that Helena had missed a deadline on one hand. Her requested extensions had never been for more than a week or two, her personal rules as strict as the ones she had for everyone else.
But now, she isn’t asking for an extension. She is telling Kate that she wants to walk away from a publishing commitment, a book that has already been announced, pre-marketing in place, half of her seven-figure advance already in the bank, Kate’s commission way past spent. Non-delivery is a rare event in the publishing industry. For Helena Ross, it’s inconceivable.
She stands, every muscle tightening in preparation for battle. “Helena,” she says carefully. “What’s happened?”
“Stop being dramatic, Kate.” Helena’s voice is brisk, one that an elder would use with a child, despite Kate’s ten-year jump on her. “Call the publisher, wrap up my other obligations. If you can’t handle that task, I’ll find another agent who will.”
There is something else. Kate can feel it coming, something even bigger than the Broken news, a tsunami moving calmly toward the shore, preparation useless, her feet rooted in place, disaster eminent. She swallows, leaning against the edge of the desk for support, her fingers tugging at the double strand of pearls at her neck, fighting the urge to reach higher and pick at her lips. “I can do it.” Maybe she’s wrong, maybe there isn’t something else. Between retirement of her biggest client, and cancellation of a contract—maybe the bloodletting is over.
“There’s something else.” Three words Kate doesn’t want to hear. She drops her head and exhales. Whatever it is, she can handle it. She hasn’t survived thirteen years with Helena without becoming strong. The woman is a freakin’ wrecking ball of high-maintenance unpredictability.
“I’m going to write a new book. I’d like Tricia Pridgen to edit it.”
Of course she does. Tricia Pridgen is the hottest editor in publishing. When she wants a book, she gets it. And everything she publishes turns to editorial gold. #1 Bestseller, multi-print-runs, foreign explosions. But Tricia Pridgen won’t take a new Helena Ross. She doesn’t do romance novels. Hell, she barely does fiction. Her last novel was a collection of OJ Simpson interviews, perfectly packaged and still dominating the bestseller lists. Helena should know this, Helena has to know this.
“You want to walk from Broken, and retire, and write a new book to sell to Tricia Pridgen?” It is a bad math problem, the variables not adding up.
“Yes.”
Kate closes the calendar and tries to think, to work through the steps in this impossible equation. “Do you have an outline?”
“No outline.”
A relief, something to buy her a few weeks of time. “How long will it take you to finish one?”
“I’m not submitting an outline. Or a synopsis.”
She sighs. If Helena were anyone else, she’d think she was bluffing, that this entire conversation is a joke, a camera hidden in her bookshelf, her coworkers giggling in their offices. But Helena doesn’t, outside her novels, have a sense of humor. She doesn’t believe in anything that wastes time. There is no way she would spend—Kate glances at the clock—twenty-four minutes, on something that isn’t vitally important. “I can’t pitch without an outline. Especially without a synopsis. You know that. I could get away with that with Jackie, but not with Tricia Pridgen, who—by the way—doesn’t take romance submissions.”
“I know what Tricia Pridgen is interested in, Kate.” The words are a whip, one that paints the words NOT WORTHY in red blood across her face. Not Worthy to handle the Great Helena Ross’s submissions. Not Worthy to be the agent of romance’s hottest star. Not Worthy to ask personal questions, or to call on any day except for Wednesdays at 2:30 pm, or to issue opinions about Helena’s novels. Not Worthy to do anything except keep her mouth shut and obey.
“Then, please explain to me how you’d like me to sell this book without knowing a thing about it.” Kate uses her nicest voice, the one she reserves for when Helena is at her most difficult, a voice that—had she used it on her ex-husband—he might have stayed around a little longer.
“I don’t want you to sell it now. I want you to sell it in a few months. Once I… retire.” There is something funny about the way she says retire, as if she hasn’t grown used to the word quite yet.
A few months. Once I retire. A few months is too soon. Too sudden. The tsunami grows closer, and the foreboding feeling mounts. “How much will be done by then? How much will I have to use?”