Chap­ter 22

“How did you remain so con­fi­dent? So stead­fast in your resolve?” I ask Eve­lyn.
“When Don left me? Or when my career went down the tubes?”
“Both, I guess,” I say. “I mean, you had Celia, so it’s a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, but still.”
Eve­lyn cocks her head slight­ly. “Dif­fer­ent from what?”
“Hm?” I say, lost in my own thoughts.
“You said I had Celia, so it was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent,” Eve­lyn clar­i­fies. “Dif­fer­ent from what?”
“Sor­ry,” I say. “I was… in my own head.” I have momen­tar­i­ly let my own rela­tion­ship prob­lems seep into what should be a one-way con­ver­sa­tion.
Eve­lyn shakes her head. “No need to be sor­ry. Just tell me dif­fer­ent from what.”
I look at her and real­ize that I’ve opened a door that can’t real­ly be shut. “From my own impend­ing divorce.”
Eve­lyn smiles, almost like the Cheshire Cat. “Now things are get­ting inter­est­ing,” she says.
It both­ers me, her cav­a­lier atti­tude toward my own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. It’s my fault for bring­ing it up. I know that. But she could treat it with more kind­ness. I’ve exposed myself. I’ve exposed a wound.
“Have you signed the papers?” Eve­lyn asks. “Per­haps with a tiny heart above the i in Monique? That’s what I would do.”
“I guess I don’t take divorce as light­ly as you,” I say. It comes out flat­ly. I con­sid­er soft­en­ing, but… I don’t.
“No, of course not,” Eve­lyn says kind­ly. “If you did, at your age, you’d be a cyn­ic.”
“But at your age?” I ask.
“With my expe­ri­ence? A real­ist.”
“That, in and of itself, is awful­ly cyn­i­cal, don’t you think? Divorce is loss.”
Eve­lyn shakes her head. “Heart­break is loss. Divorce is a piece of paper.”
I look down to see that I have been doo­dling a cube over and over with my blue pen. It is start­ing to tear through the page. I nei­ther pick up my pen nor push hard­er. I mere­ly keep run­ning the ink over the lines of the cube.
“If you are heart­bro­ken right now, then I feel for you deeply,” Eve­lyn says. “That I have the utmost respect for. That’s the sort of thing that can split a per­son in two. But I wasn’t heart­bro­ken when Don left me. I sim­ply felt like my mar­riage had failed. And those are very dif­fer­ent things.”
When Eve­lyn says this, I stop my pen in place. I look up at her. And I won­der why I need­ed Eve­lyn to tell me that.
I won­der why that sort of dis­tinc­tion has nev­er crossed my mind before.

ON MY WALK to the sub­way this evening, I see that Frankie has called me for the sec­ond time today.
I wait until I’ve rid­den all the way to Brook­lyn and I’m head­ing down the street toward my apart­ment to respond. It’s almost nine o’clock, so I decide to text her: Just get­ting out of Evelyn’s now. Sor­ry it’s so late. Want to talk tomor­row?
I have my key in my front door when I get Frankie’s response:
Tonight is fine. Call as soon as you can.
I roll my eyes. I should nev­er bluff Frankie.
I put my bag down. I pace around the apart­ment. What am I going to tell her? The way I see it, I have two choic­es.
I can lie and tell her everything’s going fine, that we’re on track for the June issue and that I’m get­ting Eve­lyn to talk about more con­crete things.
Or I can tell the truth and poten­tial­ly get fired.
At this point, I’m start­ing to see that get­ting fired might not be so bad. I’ll have a book to pub­lish in the future, one for which I’d most like­ly make mil­lions of dol­lars. That could, in turn, get me oth­er celebri­ty biog­ra­phy oppor­tu­ni­ties. And then, even­tu­al­ly, I could start find­ing my own top­ics, writ­ing about any­thing I want with the con­fi­dence that any pub­lish­er would buy it.
But I don’t know when this book will be sold. And if my real goal is to set myself up to be able to grab what­ev­er sto­ry I want, then cred­i­bil­i­ty mat­ters. Get­ting fired from Vivant because I stole their major head­line would not bode well for my rep­u­ta­tion.
Before I can decide what, exact­ly, my plan is, my phone is ring­ing in my hand.
Frankie Troupe.
“Hel­lo?”
“Monique,” Frankie says, her voice some­how both solic­i­tous and irri­tat­ed. “What’s going on with Eve­lyn? Tell me every­thing.”
I keep search­ing for ways in which Frankie, Eve­lyn, and I all leave this sit­u­a­tion get­ting what we want. But I real­ize sud­den­ly that the only thing I can con­trol is that I get what I want.
And why shouldn’t I?
Real­ly.
Why shouldn’t it be me who comes out on top?
“Frankie, hi, I’m sor­ry I haven’t been more avail­able.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine,” Frankie says. “As long as you’re get­ting good mate­r­i­al.”
“I am, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, Eve­lyn is no longer inter­est­ed in shar­ing the piece with Vivant.”
The silence on Frankie’s end of the phone is deaf­en­ing. And then it is punc­tu­at­ed with a flat, dead “What?”
“I’ve been try­ing to con­vince her for days. That’s why I’ve been unable to get back to you. I’ve been explain­ing to her that she has to do this piece for Vivant.”
“If she wasn’t inter­est­ed, why did she call us?”
“She want­ed me,” I say. I do not fol­low this up with any sort of qual­i­fi­ca­tion. I do not say She want­ed me and here is why or She want­ed me and I’m so sor­ry about all this.
“She used us to get to you?” Frankie says, as if it’s the most insult­ing thing she can think of. But the thing is, Frankie used me to get to Eve­lyn, so…
“Yes,” I say. “I think she did. She’s inter­est­ed in a full biog­ra­phy. Writ­ten by me. I’ve gone along with it in the hopes of chang­ing her mind.”
“A biog­ra­phy? You’re tak­ing our sto­ry and turn­ing it into a book instead?”
“It’s what Eve­lyn wants. I’ve been try­ing to con­vince her oth­er­wise.”
“And have you?” Frankie asks. “Con­vinced her?”
“No,” I say. “Not yet. But I think I might be able to.”
“OK,” Frankie says. “Then do that.”
This is my moment.
“I think I can deliv­er you a mas­sive, head­line-mak­ing Eve­lyn Hugo sto­ry,” I say. “But if I do, I want to be pro­mot­ed.”
I can hear skep­ti­cism enter Frankie’s voice. “What kind of pro­mo­tion?”
“Edi­tor at large. I come and go as I please. I choose the sto­ries I want to tell.”
“No.”
“Then I have no incen­tive to get Eve­lyn to allow the piece to be in Vivant.”
I can prac­ti­cal­ly hear Frankie weigh­ing her options. She is qui­et, but there is no ten­sion. It is as if she does not expect me to speak until she has decid­ed what she will say. “If you get us a cov­er sto­ry,” she says final­ly, “and she agrees to sit for a pho­to shoot, I’ll make you a writer at large.”
I con­sid­er the offer, and Frankie jumps in as I’m think­ing. “We only have one edi­tor at large. Bump­ing Gayle out of the spot she has earned doesn’t feel right to me. I’d think you could under­stand that. Writer at large is what I have to give. I won’t exert too much con­trol over what you can write about. And if you prove your­self quick­ly there, you’ll move up as every­one else does. It’s fair, Monique.”
I think about it for a moment fur­ther. Writer at large seems rea­son­able. Writer at large sounds great. “OK,” I say. And then I push.