"I just don't see Clayton actually going along with Clarissa's side of the story," Jason, my editor, said. He was thirty-one years old with short brown hair and thick black-rimmed glasses like the kind that Drew Carey used to have back in the 90's. I guess that dates me. I thought about that while Jason continued trashing the character motive of my story the night after he sped through it without a second glance. "He has a history of seriously questioning the stories of victims who are claiming alleged sexual accusations, and yet he's surprisingly cool about helping Clarissa and Lindsey. It throws the whole thing off, Cindy."
"Okay, so you didn't like it?" I asked, crossing my arms. My black hair was done up in a knot and I wore a white blouse with the sleeves rolled up to my elbows. While I always love going into the city, Manhattan was colder than I wanted at the moment. I'd have preferred to just stay home in my apartment in Queens.
"No, I just couldn't get over the character motive. The whole story can't survive if that crucial part doesn't make sense."
"Clayton has been accused of being unfair to victims of sexual assault, overly questioning them, denying their claims, and providing counter evidence to their statements. That's what he's been accused of, but he's trying to prove that stuff isn't entirely true by going along with Clarissa. That leads to them finding the bodies of the twin girls."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." His eyes flared. "I don't buy it."
"What's to buy?" I was getting frustrated. "You wrote a science fiction story about a sloth leading a man to paradise, and you can't bite this story because I'm a woman and you don't like female writers."
"What?" Jason yelled, outraged. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! My book was science fiction, yours is crime fiction. That's a huge difference."
"Last female writer you read: go." I said, ignoring his statement.
"You." He said, adjusting his glasses.
I snorted through my nose. "Female writer you read for pleasure."
"'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova." He said matter-of-factly.
"That was thirteen years ago and you said you hated that book."
"It was slow, dry, and for a Dracula novel, not very exciting." He stated.
"It wasn't about that." I sneered. "If you couldn't find the beauty and romance in her writing about slipping for hours and hours into research over a subject through the libraries of Europe, you're just not going to get it."
"What does this have to do with anything?" Jason asked.
"What do you propose I do about Clayton?" I took a deep breath.
"Make him outwardly question Clarissa and her statement. Shake things up, get him in her parents' faces, asking them why they let their daughter out all night without keeping tabs on her. The whole rundown is just too... contrived, you know?"
"Because there aren't incompetent parents in low-income parts of town?" I asked. "I'm not being stereotypical, but you can't say these things don't happen. The book is already 140,000 words."
"I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying that if you want to sell this thing you should make that motive stronger and you should want to for Christ's sake. Forget the fucking word count." Jason said. If it all wasn't so damn... sexist. He didn't question Thomas McBain's crime fiction novel last week and that shit was filled with plot-holes. This small-town police department releases a guy from prison and they just give him a gun and start taking orders from him. Okay?
I didn't like Jason Chapman because it's like he was getting back at women in the publishing industry for the uprising of female writers. We were taking over and the traditionalists were getting snotty about it. Even if I did what he asked me to do-and I eventually would, of course-he'd find some other hang-up to put it on his back-burner while more interesting stories took priority.
I work for Endless Nights Publications in New York. I actually helped my friend, Stacey Willard, start the company in 2004 by publishing eight different novels under a variety of styles and names to bring a kind of synergy to the start-up of the company. We'd had a great editor named James Matthison, and he died of pancreatic cancer eight months ago. Pretty sad because James and I were really great friends.
Two months after the funeral, Stacey tells me to try my best to work with the new editor who wants me to rewrite all eight of those novels and questions my every idea. We took a two-person publication out of Stacey's apartment to a suite in an office building that could support enough work for thirty authors and growing, then this guy shows up thinking he's got a handle on everything that has been and should be. It bothered me. Stacey didn't have time to think about it, just heard me complaining every time we met. I'd thought about going to a different company, but didn't feel like the time was right.
Jason glanced at his watch. "I have a 9:30 meeting here in a few minutes, but if you want to meet me at the pub say 10:30, we can finish talking about it. Maybe a few drinks will get us some progress and you'll stop thinking I'm out to get you. You're a great writer, Cindy. I just think you should be better."
It took everything in my body not to say 'Fuck off'. I nodded, biting my lip to keep my own insane level of crazy from rearranging Jason's face and desk, and grabbed my coat before leaving the office. A mixture of depression and frustration swirled in my chest as I rode the elevator back down to the bottom floor of the building.
Not only did the guy toss the whole premise of my book, but now I was going to have to wait around for an hour at the bar because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I had a novel in my purse, but guess whose novel that was? Jason Chapman's second science fiction book that I'd been sipping through because it wasn't all that engaging. Maybe a female science fiction writer would know a little something about 'pace'.
I thought about how I was going to have to rewrite my book and how I was already done with the second in the series and had started the third. It sucks when that happens because they change the first book and then your notes, your characters, your settings: all of it is subject to change. What a tedious circle jerk writing can be at times. I shook my head and withdrew my phone from my purse. I hit Stacey's number from the recent calls list and waited for it to ring as I descended the sixty floors.
"Hey Cindy," she answered. "What's up?"
"Can we get a second editor, please?" I asked.
I heard Stacey sigh on the other end. "What happened this time?"
"He's overly critical of everything I do." The elevator doors opened and I stepped past someone getting on. I stuck my hand into the pocket of my tan overcoat as I walked through the glass front doors into the cold city streets. A hail of noise and gridlocked cars greeted me. I entered into the pedestrian traffic and made my way for the local Irish pub that we like to visit as a company from time to time.
"You gotta work with him, Cindy. He's one of the best in the industry and he's going out on a limb to take on all our clients as well as his others. He's put more time into your books than anyone else's in the last three months. Trust me, he's not hating on you. I talked to him this morning."
"But our last meeting was a disaster. I almost told him to fuck off." I said.
Stacey then hit me with a question out of the blue. It wasn't what she asked, but the way she asked it that took me by surprise. "When was the last time you got some dick, Cindy?"
"What?" I almost stopped in my tracks and would have if there weren't people right on my heels.
"Seriously." Stacy said. "Jason is just as worried about you as you are about him. You guys need to stop this stupid rivalry. He says he's tried extending olive branch after olive branch but you're just so stubborn."
"'I'm' stubborn?" I asked.
"You're the most stubborn woman I've ever met, Cindy." Stacey said. "And that's been true well before Jason showed up. Try to calm down and be open to Jason's suggestions. That's what editors are for. I gotta go. Keep it together, hun. I'll talk with you soon." She hung up.
I wanted to cuss as I put my phone away. It wasn't even the defense of Jason, it was what she asked me. It had been about two months since I got laid. Max had been on his annual winter book tour in Europe and wouldn't be back for another six weeks. No telling how much ass he'd been chasing while there and I was sure he'd taken at least one French woman to bed. He can't say no to French girls, especially since he's fluent in the language.
No, I hadn't gotten laid since he left and it was becoming a bit of a problem. I'd been happy when I finished my recent novel, ecstatic to have completed a project. I didn't have anyone to celebrate with and it had been a cold winter. I'd sooner just stay home and start a new project on a chilly Friday evening in New York, but this appointment with Jason couldn't be rescheduled. I thought about seeing if I could meet someone after we had drinks but that didn't sound safe. My open-mindedness to that sort of evening had dwindled to almost never.
I used to have one-nights all the time when I was in college and in New York for the first time in my twenties. Being thirty-six and married closes the door on those ideas. There are those Tinder apps now, but I've tried stuff like that. I just get spammed with dick pics and creepy race-play assholes. I don't mind a good dick pic, but I just end up looking at their bedroom or living room behind the dick and think about how messy they are. Jesus Christ, you can take a picture of your cock but you can't work a God damn vacuum? One guy's pants were filthy and it was literally like he had this fantasy that I-married Cindy Johnson-would go out of my way to come meet him and suck his cock and fuck him one day. Not in a million years my friend. Thanks but no thanks.
I entered the pub on the corner and pushed past people standing in the crowded aisles who were laughing and joking. I went up to the second floor to find that it was full as well. The third floor was much quieter, but still busy. I found a spot in the corner and broke out Jason's book. I ordered a Long Island Iced Tea from the server. Four kinds of alcohol makes it the most expensive drink to pitch to a customer from a bartender's perspective, but I wanted to get my buzz started before having to deal with Jason again.
Reading the words of his book, I waited for the romantic dashing type to come over and buy me a drink before dropping his number. It usually happened when I didn't want it to, but now it would've been ideal. I couldn't say for certain that I'd take the owner of that number up on his offer, but you never know. No one came. I got through a whole chapter of Jason's book before slamming it closed. I wanted to rake my fingers through my hair from frustration. It was so dry and slow for a science fiction book. Did he really think this was movie material, the intricate details of his made-up sci-fi political system? Maybe they'd skip past that in the movie and get right to the point.
I sent a few texts to Max that didn't receive a response. I almost never checked Facebook, but I had a message on the Messenger app. I was surprised to see my friend, William James Moore, from high school was in town this weekend and next weekend. He'd become a professional motivational speaker after selling his software company at the age of 29. Now he was all over the world doing seminars and showing people how to streamline their business processes. I wasn't really attracted to William, but once the tail end of my meeting was over I told him I'd let him know just so we could catch up.
