Chapter Twenty-three
The city inevitably turns to slush, to sludge, to dirty, filthy, brown, muddy, mucky water. The pristine drifts become puddles and pools that threaten to ensnare you, soak your feet all the way through to the skin, leaving a cloggy, wet sock clinging to you.
Snow in New York is just an illusion. It’s heaven-sent while it’s falling; it’s the devil and his minions the next day, and the next.
I hop across a puddle on the corner of Seventh Avenue on the way to the studio, my nascent song ideas tucked safely inside my purse, eager to hash them out with Owen. I scamper across the last stretch of puddle-infested sidewalk like a character in Frogger, then hop into a slice of the revolving door and upstairs to the studio. I pull my knit hat off, fluffing my hair a bit, and unwrap a scarf from my neck.
We work through the morning, coaxing out a whole chorus for “I’ll Objectify You.”
“Now write the rest of the lyrics,” Owen commands. “You’re leaving for Maine tomorrow, and your boyfriend is going to be here soon,” he adds, since Matthew is due shortly for another session for the story.
The story that will finally happen.
I hide out in an empty office at Glass Slipper for the next hour, then join them in the studio. Owen is talking again about Taryn, how they’re ticking along now, writing feverishly, both nearing the ends of their novels.
“I’m one chapter from being done,” Owen says and I’m jolted back to the moment.
“Did you just say what I thought you said?”
“You heard it here first, JB.”
“You’re gonna finish that sucker, really finish it, after three years?” I hold up my hand to high-five my brother. He smacks back.
“You know it. Hey, Jane, you’re almost famous. Could you introduce me to a literary agent?”
I laugh. “I don’t know any literary agents.”
“But you have to. You’re supposed to be connected.”
“You’re in the same industry as me!”
“But you’re the one everyone wants to suck up to. Don’t you know any book agents?”
“Let me get this straight,” I say, with a silly grin on my face because I’m happy for him even though he’s crazy. “You want me to introduce you to a literary agent I don’t even know for a book you won’t even let me see that you haven’t even finished writing?”
He nods.
“You’re nuts.”
Then Matthew chimes in. “I’ll introduce you to my agent, mate.”
“That’d be great,” Owen beams.
I shoot Matthew a curious stare. “You have a book agent?”
“Well, sort of.”
“I didn’t know you had an agent,” I say coolly. “I didn’t know you were writing a book either.”
“I wasn’t looking for one. But I had a call three weeks ago from a literary agent who’d been reading my columns.”
“That’s kind of a big deal to have an agent,” I say, mostly to myself it seems. Then Owen slaps the soundboard in excitement. “You have agents soliciting you, man. That’s a writer’s wet dream.”
“When were you going to tell me? I mean, us?” I quickly correct myself, waving vaguely at Owen and me. But I really mean “we” as Matthew and me. I’ve told him everything. I’ve opened my heart to him about all my struggles, all my challenges to write. But yet, I know so little about his job beyond the glimpses he lets me see into this article.
“Well, nothing has happened yet,” Matthew says, fidgeting with the edge of his notebook, barely able to meet my gaze. I’ve never seen him flustered before. “We’re merely tossing ideas around and discussing a possible book proposal for publishers.”
“What’s your book about?” I ask again in a firmer voice.
“Jane, there’s no book yet,” he says, in the distinctive tone of someone forced to backpedal.
“Well, what would this hypothetical book be about?”
He sighs heavily. “It would be about the music industry,” he says, as if it’s a confession.
“Anything in particular? Maybe indie music?” I offer, as if I am just throwing the idea out there, when I am praying that I’m wrong. Hoping that he’ll say the book is about something else. Because suddenly his interest in Sex, Drugs, and Updating Your Facebook Page makes a lot more sense. He wasn’t buying it for education. He was checking out the competition. He never said anything that night. He never mentioned why he was buying that book. Instead, he took me to his apartment and spanked me.
Holy shit. I’m such a f*cking fool.
“Probably something on the demise of the big label, Internet marketing of music, the rise of indie bands and singers, how music gets made,” he says, casting his eyes down, looking away from me, anything and everything to deflect this conversation. He knows he’s been caught. He knows he violated my trust. He knows he should have told me.
“How music gets made,” I repeat slowly, shaking my head. “Anyone’s music in particular?”
“Jane,” he says, reaching out to place a hand on my leg. I react instinctively, pulling my body away. “Jane, it’s not what you think.”
It’s not what you think. If that’s not a line, I don’t know what is. “What do I think? That it’s about me? Is your proposal about me? Are you using this”—I gesture to the room, the studio, the three of us—“for your proposal? Are you using me for your proposal?”
“Well, yes. I mean no. No, I’m not using this. But yes, it would be part of the proposal. But it’s not hitting bookstores next week. It’s not as if it’s an unauthorized biography.”
“No, not that. Of course not. I wouldn’t warrant that.”
Matthew shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
“What did you mean then?”
“It’s only a little something, a few pages. Something I toyed around with yesterday afternoon.”
“Yesterday, was it?”
“Yes,” he answers carefully.
After Friday night at the club. After everything we said. Everything we felt. After I was so sure I was going to have to break up with him, and yet I couldn’t go through with it. And for what? I was right all along. I’d had this nagging doubt at the start that he was only flirty for the story, only sweet to get me to open up. But I pushed those fears aside and let him in, more and more every day, until finally I convinced myself that it was safe to trust again, that he wasn’t deceiving me, that I could let go of my old fears.
No wonder he made a big to-do about how there were no guarantees about the story. Because it wasn’t only a story. It was a whole goddamn book. And I fell for his routine, like I fell for Aidan’s “I’m straight” act, like I always fall for the hot guys. I fall first, ask questions later. And where does that get me? Feeling stupid. Again and again and again.
All my instincts told me to say no to the story, to protect my privacy, to guard my heart. Then he kissed me, and I started to bend. But I still told him no after the David Letterman show, and he kissed me harder, and told me he didn’t care about the story, he only wanted me. And I f*cking believed him. I believed him so much. Because I wanted to.
I was wrong to believe him.
I barely notice Owen, shrinking in his chair, suddenly feigning incredible interest in his soundboard, hitting a button to play back some bass. I grab my coat, then reach for my purse and sling it over my shoulder, glancing at my watch for effect. “I have to go get Ethan.”
I leave the studio, picking up the pace, race-walking to the elevator. I press the button over and over, hitting it harder and faster as if that’ll make it come sooner. Matthew’s right behind me, placing a hand gently on my shoulder. I step away.
“Jane, please don’t go. Let me explain.”
I turn to him, my voice already breaking. “You used me. It was all about the article, the book, everything. I told you not to f*ck with my heart, and you promised you wouldn’t, but you did it anyway.”
“Jane—”
I point a finger at him. “Because if you weren’t using me, you would have told me. Plain and simple. You had three weeks to tell me and you didn’t. All you wanted was access. You knew how nervous I was about the story in the first place. You knew how hard it was for me to trust a reporter. Not to mention to trust a man. But I did both. I let you in and I shared everything with you. I told you everything.”
He tries to talk, but I cut him off, my voice rising. “You gave me that whole song-and-dance routine about how you were on the up and up, you are aboveboard, you are fair, you are ethical. And then we slept together and you said it again, that you’re such a fair reporter. I thought you were different. I thought you were honest.”
I am shaking right now, deep, searing tears pierce my throat, big splashes of salty water threaten to spill from my eyes. Because right now, this is all my fears, all my doubts, crashing around me again. This is me believing in something so deeply and then finding out I was tricked.
“I swear. That’s not the way it is. You have to let me explain.”
“But you said,” I begin, then I stop myself. I cover my face with my hands. I can’t believe what I just said. The lines from my own hit song. Here I am living it all over again, but in a new, fresh way. I won’t do this again. I hop in the elevator, jamming the close button, holding up my free hand to make it clear he’s not to follow me.