Has no one else noticed? Am I the only one who’s seen her?
The store staff can tell something is wrong. Without consulting me, they rush the rest of the signing line along, reminding everyone to keep their questions short as it’s getting late. When we’re done, they don’t ask me out to dinner or drinks; they merely shake my hand and thank me for coming. The store manager offers to call me an Uber back to my apartment, and I gratefully accept.
At home, I kick off my shoes and curl into bed.
My heart races; my breaths are shallow. My brain buzzes so loudly that I can hardly hear my own thoughts, and I feel a tug at the base of my skull, like I’m withdrawing into and then away from my body. I can feel a panic attack oncoming—no, not oncoming, peaking; I’ve been low-key suffering an attack for the past hour, and I’m only now in an environment private enough to experience the full range of symptoms. My chest constricts. My vision fades to a pinprick.
I try going through the checklist Dr. Gaily taught me. What do I see? This beige comforter, stained on one side with my foundation and streaks of my mascara. What do I smell? The Korean food that I ordered for lunch today that’s still sitting out on the table because I was too jittery before the event to eat; the clean detergent scent of my freshly laundered sheets under my nose. What do I hear? Traffic outside, my own heartbeat in my eardrums. What do I taste? Stale champagne, since I’ve just noticed the half-empty bottle from this morning.
It all brings me back down a bit, but my mind is still racing, my stomach still curdling with nausea. I ought to stumble to the bathroom, should at least take a shower and wipe off all this makeup, but I’m too dizzy to get up.
Instead I reach for my phone.
I search Twitter for Athena’s name, and then my own, and then our names in conjunction. First names only, last names only, first and last names; hashtag, no hashtag. I search for mentions of Politics and Prose. I search for the Twitter handles of every bookstore staff member whose name I remember.
But there’s nothing. I’m the only one who saw Athena. All everyone’s talking about on Twitter is how brilliant the event was, how passionate and articulate I sounded, and how very excited they are to read The Last Front. My search for “June+Athena” yields only one new tweet in the past hour, written by someone I assume is a random audience member:
Juniper Song’s reading from The Last Front tonight was absolutely gorgeous, and it’s clear why she feels this book is a homage to her friend; indeed, as she spoke about her creative process, it felt as if Athena Liu’s ghost was right there in the room with us.
Seven
I HIT NUMBER THREE ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST THE following Wednesday. Daniella emails me with the news: Congratulations, June! No one’s surprised here, but I know you were anxious, so here’s the official proof. You did it :)
Brett follows up a few minutes after that. WOOOHOOO!
Emily in publicity puts out a blast on Twitter, which sparks a flurry of joyful tweets, Instagram posts, and DMs. Eden’s official account tags me in a tweet with that GIF of the two ladies jumping around over a bottle of champagne. JUNIPER SONG, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR!
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
This is everything I’ve ever wanted. We’d known from the preorder numbers that my hitting the list was likelier than not, but seeing the evidence printed in black and white sends me into paroxysms of delight. Here is my stamp of approval. I’m a bestselling writer. I’ve made it.
For a full half hour I sit at my desk, staring blankly at my phone as more congratulations messages trickle in. I want to call someone and scream all my joy into their ear—but I don’t know who. My mother won’t care, or she might only pretend to care, and ask inane questions about how the list works, which will feel worse. Rory will be happy for me, but she won’t understand why it’s such an achievement. The fourth name down my call history is an ex, attempting a booty call when he was swinging by DC for work, and I certainly can’t tell him. I’m not close enough with any of my writer friends that the news wouldn’t come off like a classless brag, and there’s no satisfaction in telling my friends who aren’t writers—I want someone who is in the know, who can really understand that this is a Big Fucking Deal.
It takes me a minute to realize that the first person I would have called, the only person who would have understood this news for what it was, and wouldn’t have reacted with petty jealousy or feigned support, is Athena.
Congratulations, I tell her ghost, because I can afford this generosity, because by now the disturbing sight of her at my reading has faded to the back of my memory, crowded out by my present, vicious delights. It’s easy, now, to chalk that vision up to nervous hallucinations; easier still to forget that it happened at all.
I tweet my news to the public instead. I write up a long thread about why hitting the list means so much to me, especially after the failure of my first book; about the long, painful slog in publishing that has finally, finally paid off. Not everyone becomes a bestseller overnight, I observe sagely. For some of us, it takes years of hard work and hoping and dreaming. I always hoped my moment would come. And here, now, I guess it has.
The infusion of likes and CONGRATULATIONS responses are precisely what I need to fill the void. I sit in front of my screen, watching the numbers tick up, enjoying that little serotonin boost every time I get another flurry of notifications.
At last I have to pee, which forces me to tear myself away from the screen. While I’m up, I order a box of a dozen cupcakes from Baked & Wired, one of every flavor they have on sale that day. When it arrives, I sit down on my floor with a fork and eat until it tastes good.
THE LAST FRONT HANGS ON TO THE LIST AT NUMBER SIX FOR ANOTHER week, and at number ten for the week after that, where it sits for an entire month. That means I didn’t hit the list by accident. I’m selling well, and selling steadily. Eden’s investment in my advance has paid off. I am, by every possible metric, a major success.
Everything changes. I’ve now moved into an entirely different class of writer. I receive a half-dozen invitations to speak at various literary events in the next month alone, and after attending a few, I find I enjoy them. I used to hate these events. Big author gatherings—awards ceremonies, conferences, conventions—are like the first day of high school, but even worse, because the cool kids actually are that cool, and there’s nothing more humiliating than being shut out of a conversation circle because your book didn’t sell enough copies, didn’t get enough marketing, or wasn’t critically acclaimed enough for everyone else to treat you like a human being. At one of my first literary conferences, I bashfully introduced myself to a writer whose work I’d loved since middle school. He squinted at my name tag, uttered the words “Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you,” and promptly turned his back on me.