“Lily,” Edith hissed, snapping Lily back to the present. “Can you please give everyone the handouts that we made?”
From Edith’s impatient tone, it was clear that she’d called Lily’s name more than once. Lily jumped out of her seat and proceeded to pass out the one-sheets she’d created, which included selling points for the book Edith wanted to acquire, along with the sales numbers of books with similar content. Once Lily finished passing out the sheets, she found her seat again, annoyed with herself. She was usually hyperfocused during any meeting, regardless of how boring. It was unlike her to be distracted this way.
“The sales for these comparative books are pretty low,” Christian Wexler said, sitting at the other end of the conference table. “I mean, honestly, Edith, who wants to read about Jane Goodall’s first assistant? The chimps are all that people really care about.”
“Can we do some sort of nonfiction photograph book of the chimps?” asked Tracy, head of Marketing.
Christian pointed at her. “Now that is a great idea.”
“And think about the distribution we could get at zoo gift shops,” added Randy, head of Sales.
Edith glowered at Christian. He was the big cheese now, but decades ago he’d been her father’s assistant. And once a month, he and Edith had a cheerful breakfast across the street at Maison Kayser, where they reminisced on the good old days. At least that was what Lily assumed they did. What she knew for sure was that at their last breakfast, Christian had encouraged Edith to acquire books with more modern topics because her imprint’s sales were steadily decreasing. Edith later told Lily that she thought Christian was jealous that he hadn’t inherited her father’s imprint himself. So began her conspiracy theory that Christian had it out to shut down Edith Pearson Books. In Lily’s opinion, Christian was smarmy and inconsiderate and often took credit for divisional achievements that he had nothing to do with. But Lily had to agree that Edith’s books were becoming more niche and obscure. Their marketing budget was getting smaller, and fewer people were willing to put in the extra effort to help Edith’s books succeed because she was so unpleasant to work with. Lily had tried to convince Edith to sign up books that talked about tech and global warming, and even dating apps—anything that might appeal to a wider audience. But Edith never listened. She thought Lily lacked vision.
In the weeks since Edith and Christian’s last breakfast, Lily had been applying to any children’s publishing position she saw, but it was like her applications were being delivered to a black hole. She’d even emailed a few children’s editors at M&M in an attempt to set up informational interviews. But it was the middle of summer. Everyone was on vacation or avoiding emails that weren’t urgent. She’d even emailed Francesca Ng, hoping they could finally get coffee after meeting at Marcus’s birthday party. But she hadn’t received a response from Francesca either.
“I am not a children’s book editor,” Edith said, fuming. “I don’t edit books with pictures of cute animals. There are people in the world who admire Jane Goodall’s work and who I’m sure would like to read a firsthand account from one of her assistants. That is who this book is for. We must be forward-thinking, like my father, Edward Pearson, always said.”
Christian narrowed his eyes. “Fine, but I can’t agree to your proposed advance. How about you and Lily come up with some new figures and we’ll take a look in a few days.”
And with that, Christian moved on to the next editor and book on the acquisitions agenda.
Lily followed Edith out of the conference room and the minute they were alone in the hallway, Edith burst into a volcanic tirade.
“Can you believe how he tried to embarrass me in there? A book with chimpanzee photographs! How could they even suggest such nonsense?! Tracy has never been very bright, but that idea truly takes the cake. Christian is trying to push me out of the company because he doesn’t understand that my imprint is about quality over quantity. That’s what this industry needs!”
Lily sighed and remained silent, walking quickly to keep up with Edith.
“And you, Lily, with your daydreaming in the middle of the meeting. You’d better stay sharp. Because if this imprint closes, you’ll be out of a job just like me.”
She shot Lily a warning glare, and Lily’s already-growing anxiety soared through the roof. It was just another stress to add to her life.
They took the elevator down to their floor and Edith stormed into her office, slamming her door behind her. Lily apologized on Edith’s behalf to her colleagues in Ad Promo whose work had been disrupted by Edith’s behavior.
Lily sat at her desk and massaged her temples. This day. When would it end?
“You left your papers in the conference room.”
Lily looked up to find Dani Williams leaning against the wall of her cubicle. Dani was a marketing manager who’d spotted Lily in the cafeteria on her first day at M&M and introduced herself immediately because she’d been glad to see another Black colleague in a sea of white faces. Dani was the type of well-connected person in publishing who had tea on everyone from assistants to vice presidents and was always attending one book party or another. She would often invite you to get lunch or drinks but consistently cancel at the last minute, and when you did manage to finally link up, you’d stay out with her until four a.m. and roll into work the next morning looking like a hot mess with a head-splitting hangover, while Dani emailed you at 9:01 a.m. saying, Last night was SO fun!!! Let’s do it again soon!!!
The last time Lily had gone out with Dani was when she’d attempted to hit on that guy with her bad joke about Coronas and pee.
“Hey, Dani,” Lily said, taking her forgotten stack of one-sheets. “Thanks for bringing this by.”
“Edith is in rare form today, huh,” Dani whispered. Her long silver braids hung past her waist. She tapped her matte-black stiletto nails against her notepad. “We haven’t seen each other in a minute. Let’s get lunch next week.”
“Yeah, sure,” Lily said, smiling, although she knew she probably wouldn’t see Dani again for at least another month.
“Okay, cool. But, girl, now that I’m here, let me tell you about this drama I overhead. Apparently, Christian’s new assistant got drunk in his office after hours and marked it down on his timesheet as overtime.”
“What?”
Before Dani could continue her story, Brian in Production popped around to her cubicle, startling them both. Two visitors in one day. A record.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” Brian said, and Lily immediately panicked. Brian, tall and pale with bright red hair, rarely came to see her unless there was an emergency. Like that time an entire print run of one of Edith’s books accidentally printed with the pages upside down. Trying to manage a crisis was already hard enough, but managing a crisis and Edith was nearly impossible.