“Okay. Whatever. I just got you that stuff because I feel for you . . . with Edgar and everything. I know it’s hard.”
I swallowed. My body felt achy and ragged from lack of sleep. And I was fast becoming annoyed. The pinpricks would be coming next. I considered a diplomatic strategy for throwing him out of the apartment. Technically, the Rankin Lewis Literary Agency employed my mother’s assistants, but in the past they had rarely showed their faces inside our home. They were harried, sleep-deprived, and bitter, running errands, delivering manuscripts, occasionally even shuttling me to appointments when the nanny couldn’t. They certainly didn’t give a shit about engaging me in personal conversation. This was new.
“Does that surprise you?” he said. “That somebody would take the time to find out what you like?”
Annoyance was now heading to exasperation. I folded my arms. “Don’t analyze me. Just because you know where I get my bagels and sushi doesn’t mean you know who I am.”
“I know,” he said. “But I have kept up with you. Read the articles about you and Frances. Read between the lines, I should say.”
“Weird. But okay, if that’s what gets you off.”
I was talking tough. Using my New York socialite smart-ass act to shut him up. But I knew it wasn’t going to work. He was smiling.
He spoke again. Softly. Confidently. “I know what it’s been like for you, Meg, being the daughter of Frances Ashley. I know what you’ve lived through, and I want to help you. You were just interviewing for a job with Omnia, the nonprofit up in Harlem, weren’t you?”
I froze. How did he know about that? Who had he been talking to? My mind raced, thinking of all the possibilities.
“They wanted your Rolodex, didn’t they?” he said. “So they could use you to fleece your mother’s friends.” He shook his head. “It must be fucking awful—to go through life always being someone’s daughter.”
The words felt like a slap.
“Who are you?” I said. “What do you want?”
“A guy who wants to see you get a little justice.”
“Speak English.”
He didn’t blink. “I want you to write a book about your mother.”
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 3
“Her best friend on the island is an American Indian girl named Cappie Strongbow. She lives with her mother, who does some work for us . . . when she’s able.” Delia wiped her hands on her skirt, finished with the paper moving. “Naturally, with the scope of her imagination, Kitten often pretends she’s Indian as well. You aren’t prejudiced, are you?”
Fay shook her head. “No . . . no, ma’am.”
Delia narrowed her eyes. “If she says she’s an Indian, she’s not to be contradicted.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’ve taught Kitten that all people are the same, no matter the color of their skin.”
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Seven
I burst into laughter, and Asa Bloch flinched. Which, I had to admit, filled me with perverse joy.
“A book?” I said, after watching him struggle for a second or two. “What are you talking about?”
He went to the desk and pulled out the chair. Scooted up to the keyboard and tapped something out.
“You know my mother’s password?” I asked.
“Mm,” he said and continued typing.
“Hold up a minute. I need you to stop. Just stop, okay?”
He peered around the monitor.
“Exactly how long have you been working for my mother?”
“Seven months and ten days.”
“And you came from . . . where, exactly?”
He sighed. “My résumé. Right.” He inhaled. “I was one of those kid geniuses that you hear about. Created a start-up when I was twelve that matched online tutors with kids who had learning disabilities. I probably could’ve sold it for a nice sum if my dad hadn’t been such an asshole and run the guys off with a list of crazy demands. Anyway. Undergrad at Duke. MBA from Georgetown. But ever since, I’ve been floundering. Searching for the right thing. I’m twenty-four, a Virgo, one hundred percent bisexual, and this is my third job.”
“First was the tutoring thing. What was the second?”
He looked me in the eye. “You know those young-adult novels about the Icelandic video-gamer kids?”
I nodded.
“I found that guy. The writer. I was interning at a top agency, which shall remain nameless, when he and I were both college sophomores. I told my boss that he would sign with them if I could be his agent, so she agreed. Made me a junior agent on the spot.”
“Pretty smart.”
“I thought so, until he turned on me. Right after I got him a book deal, he ditched me for the woman who ran the agency. Who promptly told me ‘things weren’t working out,’ and that was it. I was out of luck.”
“You didn’t make him sign a contract?”
“The agency did. Not me.”
He looked kind of pathetic, standing there with his frowsy hair and red cheeks.
“Go ahead and Google me,” he said. “I can wait.”
“No, it’s fine.” I waved my hand at him. “Go back to whatever you were doing.”
He leaned over the keyboard again.
“I pitched it to all the key people.” He was staring intently at the screen. “All of the major houses, the top editors in New York. They all want it.”
It?
“The book,” he said.
“Oh. Right.” I folded my arms. Shot him a withering look. “So, let’s back up here: you’re a former intern who got dumped by his agency, but somehow you’ve gotten in to all the top editors in New York to pitch a book? How exactly does that work?”
He shrugged. “A lot of them had heard of me.”
“Because of the Icelandic video-gaming guy.”
“Because of what he and that agent did to me. Publishing’s a small world. Everyone knows everyone. But you probably already know that. A lot of people heard about what went down. A lot of them think I got screwed.”
“So they had pity and took meetings with you?”
“No,” he said evenly. “They took meetings with me because they know I find stuff that sells.”
“Is that right?”
His eye had a gleam now. “Yeah. The first Iceland mystery book sold over ten thousand copies its first week. Your book could do that. Your memoir.”
My mouth had suddenly gone dry. “I don’t have a memoir.”
“You should. You can, if you want.” He laughed, then gestured to a chair opposite the desk. I didn’t move toward the chair. His eyes were shining like a deranged person’s. “Pelham Sound Books is interested.”
In spite of myself, my eyes widened.
“Melissa Greenwald, who is amazing, by the way.” He rattled off a list of titles I recognized. Bestsellers. “I’m thinking it’ll bring at least mid six figures, maybe more. Not that that means anything to you. But to some of us, that’s a lot, even fifteen percent of that. I mean, provided you agree to work with me.”
“Work with you?” I echoed.
“If you agree,” he repeated. “You’ll give these people, the publishers, the fans, what they’re dying for: a tell-all book about Frances Ashley.”