“I didn’t know about this,” I yell at him. “I swear.”
I grab my phone. Ness’s grandfather stares accusingly at me. His image takes up half the front page of the Times, practically everything above the fold. The headline says: “Part 2: The Grandfather.” I check the byline, and there’s my name. It’s the piece, word for word, nothing changed. The very piece I told Henry he couldn’t run. I find him on my speed dial. Henry picks up after the second ring.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asks.
“What is this?” I shout at him. “You promised me.”
“I’ve been trying to call you for two days.”
I think of the flights, being in the sub, the island, all the emails from him.
“You promised me,” I say. “I’m working on the story of a lifetime, Henry, and you’ve just fucked it up.”
“It wasn’t me,” he insists.
“You run the paper!”
“I don’t own it. Jesus, Maya, have you been following this? Your piece has gone nuts. The board’s been all over me wondering why the second story hadn’t run yet. I’ve been trying to buy you time—”
“Why not run the one on his father, then? How did they even get this one? How did they know about it?”
I hear Henry take a deep breath. I get out of bed and walk through the closet, try the door to the bathroom. It’s locked. I can hear the shower running. I go back to the bedroom as Henry explains.
“We sent the files off to the printer last week, remember? The story was running when you went home that night, which was when I got a call from Wilde’s agent and then you-know-who. So the story was in our system. Someone in the office must’ve tipped someone on the board to let them know it was here, that we already had it. I swear to you, Maya, I did everything I could. This was going to run yesterday. I stalled as long as possible. They were going to fire me and run it themselves if I refused.”
I cradle the phone with my shoulder while he’s talking and pull my shorts on. I don’t want Ness to see me naked. Whatever I thought I was doing with him, whatever the last two days were, it’s obviously over. I’ll be another picture on the wall. I wonder, idly, if maybe some of those women hurt him instead of the other way around, if I didn’t have that completely backwards as well.
“Maya, you’re not going to like this—”
“Jesus, Henry, what?”
“They’re making me run his father’s piece tomorrow, and the piece on Ness for the Monday edition.”
My thoughts go immediately to Holly. Those stories will always be out there. Forever. And I can tell from Henry’s voice that there’s no stopping them. It’s a done deal.
“What if I quit?” I ask. “Can they legally run them if I’m no longer at the Times?”
“Yes,” Henry says. It’s the first time he hasn’t doubted that I’d do it. “I’m guessing this puts a dent in whatever you’re working on up there?”
“Yeah, that’s toast.” I put him on speaker and pull my shirt on. I look at the rumpled bed. Was I even the one who slept in it? Was that me in a goddamn submarine? On a private jet? On an island? Nothing makes sense. A voice from New York has dragged me back into the real, and out of wherever I’ve been. I pick up the phone and take it off speaker just as the shower door slams shut in the bathroom. “Listen, Henry, I’ve got to go. I’ve gotta see if I can make this right.”
“One last thing,” Henry tells me. Ness steps out of the bathroom and gets dressed in the closet, doesn’t glance at me. I’m torn on whether I should run to him, throw myself on my knees, explain what happened, tell him it wasn’t my fault—or if I should let him cool off.
“Whatever this did to your current story,” Henry says, “you should know that this series is a big deal right now. I’ve got a dozen requests from major media who want to interview you, and book publishers want the rights to this. We have a few Hollywood studios talking to our legal department right now. You’ve got the book rights, but we might move ahead with the film stuff, while the iron is hot.”
“Please, Henry. Don’t do anything until I get back to the office.”
Ness looks at me as I say this. He’s pulling his running shoes back on, is wearing blue jeans and a button-up.
“It’s out of my hands,” Henry says.
I hang up in disgust. Ness strides from the closet and through the bedroom, into the breezeway.
“Let me explain,” I tell him.