“Right on both points.”
I expected a tirade forbidding me to see him again, an explosive ordeal that involved yelling and threatening—but she just went back to her computer. There was nothing further. She had a deadline to meet.
Graeme got busy on the final book of his series, and I didn’t hear from him much. I took it hard, imagining the worst until he’d call or email, assuring me he still loved me and no other. But meet-ups were fewer and much farther between. By my seventeenth birthday, I’d lost twenty pounds, bit my fingernails down to ragged stubs, and stopped menstruating from the stress.
And then the day came when I happened to catch him on a network morning show talking about the new baby he and his wife were expecting. He said the baby was a girl. They were going to name her Athena, after the main character in his books. The host congratulated him on his nomination for a prestigious award. It was the nudge I needed.
The night of the ceremony, at a swanky hotel, we met in an abandoned stairwell, and I broke up with him.
He didn’t take it well. Turned out he wanted me even when he didn’t want me. Which he demonstrated by grabbing my throat, banging my head against the wall, and biting my lip until it bled. He hugged me afterward. Cried. Told me he’d call me—and we’d go away somewhere, but right now he had to go—then he took a cab back to Westchester County with his pregnant wife. I never heard from him again.
Later that night, when I was sobbing on my bed, my mother asked me what was wrong. I said I had gotten in a fight with one of my friends. She told me to get up and wash my face, that I was being melodramatic. Then she went to her office to write.
That was the worst thing my mother ever did. She believed my lie.
“This is some seriously sad shit,” Asa crowed. “Your mother is the devil. And you deserve the Presidential Medal of Awesomeness. I kid you not.”
His speech was slurred, and, even though our connection was buzzy, I was pretty sure I could hear the clink of ice in a glass in the background. I felt a pang of envy. As far as I could tell, Doro kept nothing but sweet tea and lemonade at Ambletern. At that point, I would’ve killed for a glass of red wine.
“She really made the lawyer be your nanny?” he asked.
“Temporary nanny. Just for one summer.” Good old Burt, the tax attorney. “He played a mean game of poker.”
“Put that in. And did you really have to go home with one of your teachers over winter break because your mother was traveling?”
“Frances was on her third honeymoon. And, yes,” I went on. “When I was eight she did, in fact, take my security blanket while I was sleeping and burned it.” Jeez. Was he trying to make me sadder than I already was?
He took another noisy sip. “I’m dumbfounded, I really am. She was a spectacularly terrible mother. She’s lucky you didn’t murder her in her sleep. You’re truly an amazing person. And, you know, you’re a better writer than she is,” he added.
What a flatterer.
“I guess I’m passionate about my subject,” I said.
“Frances isn’t passionate?” he asked.
I sighed. I wished I didn’t have to talk to this guy. It was bad enough writing about all this stuff, but getting his commentary on every detail of my life was starting to really grate on me.
“She’s passionate about being famous,” I said. “Getting the right table at the right restaurant. About money and handbags and jewelry and shoes. But about her books? No, I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
“Put that in,” he said. “Put it in the last chapter, where you have the stuff about the birthday party and you showing up with the flowers and her favorite macarons, but she’s left to marry Beno?t.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Okay, moving on,” he said, brisk. “How much more of the childhood stuff you got?”
“I don’t know.”
“Like two or three chapters? Or ten? I mean, you could go deeper into college. But, frankly, I don’t know that we need more of the same. It’s all feeling kind of . . .”
“Kind of what?”
“I don’t know . . .” He was quiet for a long moment, then cleared his phlegmy throat. “A bit poor-little-rich-girl, I guess. It’s sad stuff, it’s just not shocking. We need more blood and guts, you know what I’m saying?”
I sat up. Ah, yes. Here we go.
“We don’t want people reading this and just feeling sorry for you,” he said. “We want them to feel outrage. If they don’t feel that, we lose them.” He cleared his throat again, delicately. “Can I ask you something?”
The alarm inside me clanged deafeningly. “What?”
“Is there any sex stuff? Like with the stepfathers? Did any of them ever, you know, step over the line?”
“Asa, God.” I held the phone away from my ear. “No!”
His voice came through the phone, thin and defensive. “Calm down, don’t be such a pussy. You know people are going to wonder about that kind of stuff. You know that’s what they’re going to expect.”
“I don’t give a shit what they expect. This is my story. My actual life story.”
“It is your story. But, look, I’m just saying what everybody else is going to say when they read it. If you don’t put in the sex stuff, they’re going to know you’re holding back.”
“There is no sex stuff.”
“Bullshit. Come on.”
I clenched my jaw.
“Meg?” he said slowly, his voice syrupy with supportiveness. “What about Graeme?”
“What about him?”
“What happened?”
“I already wrote what I’m going to write. And that’s all I’m going to say, except that you’re a dick.”
“That may be the case, but I’m a dick who happens to know you’re not telling the whole truth.”
This conversation was giving me a headache. My back hurt from sitting, and I felt like I stank with narcissism and self-pity. I was dying to get out of that room. I’d been cooped up for three days straight, only breaking for meals and sleep. Doro had left me alone, and, in a flash, I realized I was starved for human contact.
And not the kind Asa offered.
I could’ve used a slug of alcohol, some fresh air, and the sight of Koa’s chest in a T-shirt.
“Do me a favor and think about it,” Asa said. “In the meantime, send me the last two childhood chapters, and I’ll have Ethan go through it all. Then you can get started on the Kitten portion. That’ll be the second half of the book. You and Doro hitting it off okay?”
I could feel my jaw aching from all the teeth grinding. “I think so.”
“Does she trust you? Is she going to talk? I mean, really talk?”
“I don’t know, Asa. I’ve been locked up in my room with my nose in my computer. I haven’t spent that much time with her.”
“Well, two more chapters and then leave your room. And be friendly. We have to know everything.”