The Agency

by Ally O'Brien

  “I’m sorry. You know what I mean.”

  “I do, but think about it, Tessie. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “I think you just described it.”

  “Okay, so you give up more cash than I’m ever likely to see in my lifetime. That’s a huge hit. I’m not denying it. But look at the big picture. You still have Dorothy. You’ve got the TV and movie rights to sell. Cosima may have three books, but you’ll have everything else that goes along with those fucking pandas. That’s enough to get a line of credit from a bank if you need it, right? What’s more, you’ll have played it the way you always play it. With integrity, class, and an arse as hard as titanium.”

  I laughed. “You smoothie.”

  “Besides, it’s a moot point if Guy spills the beans, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there you go.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Oliver,” I told him. “I really do. I just don’t have the moral fiber to ignore a seven-figure payout that is rightfully mine.”

  “Just tell me you haven’t changed your mind about shagging Monsieur Droste-Chambers.”

  “No. I think Guy is bluffing. When it comes right down to it, I think he’d rather deal with me than Cosima. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”

  “Just remember what I said. You may think it’s the end of the world if you lose this deal, but it’s not. Believe me, I’ve been close enough to the end of the world to see it from where I was, and it has nothing to do with million-pound deals. The only thing that matters is whether you are true to yourself.”

  Damn him. I work so hard to keep a suit of armor around me, and Oliver has this annoying habit of knowing how to prick me so I bleed. I swirled the wine in my glass and didn’t say anything. I felt guilty, because he was doing his best to help me, and all I could seem to do for him was pony up a deal worth eight hundred stinking euros from the Czech Republic.

  He read my mind. “I suppose you haven’t heard anything about Duopoly in the UK? Or did they say no and you’re sparing my feelings?”

  “There’s no word yet, but I’m not giving up,” I assured him. “If your current publisher won’t bite, then we’ll shop it elsewhere. Don’t worry. We’ll do a deal. Keep writing.”

  I tried to sound optimistic. He could see through me.

  “I’m not concerned,” he said. “Now that we have the Czechs on board for Singularity, the Poles can’t be far behind, right? Soon I’ll be up to my balls in kolaches and pierogi. In fact, maybe I should skip writing in English altogether and switch to something in Cyrillic. I like languages that have lots of accent marks. We’re missing something in English without them.”

  That was the cynical Oliver. “It’s going to happen, darling,” I said. “Trust me.”

  I hoped I wouldn’t have to eat my words.

  “What about Tom Cruise?” he asked. “Any chance of him signing onto a movie deal? If it would help, I’ll become a Scientologist.”

  “I’ve been in touch with Felicia Castro. She’s the way in to Tom.”

  “And?”

  “We’re still talking.”

  Oliver blew a cloud of smoke at me. “Don’t treat me like a child, Tessie.”

  “All right, Felicia called me a cunt and said I had a better chance of bearing Tom’s love child than getting the book in his hands.”

  “In other words, I’m fucked.”

  “No, I’ll find a way around her.”

  Oliver nodded. If he doubted me, he was kind enough not to show it. I knew that I was his only hope. No other agent would touch him, not with the dismal track record of Singularity.

  The waitress brought the check, which I paid. Oliver had ordered a steak and chips and hoovered up the whole thing. I wondered how often he had a decent meal.

  “Here,” I said, sliding a small envelope across the table.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Call it an advance on my commission.” I had put one hundred pounds inside the envelope.

  Oliver pushed it away. “Forget it.”

  “Oh, don’t be so fucking noble, darling.”

  He shook his head. “You’re sweet, Tessie. Really, you are. But, like I told you, once you compromise your principles, you lose yourself. I can’t do that.”

  “This is not a compromise. This is a loan.”

  “It’s welfare.”

  “Oh, fine, you stubborn arse.” I took the envelope back.

  We both stood up. As I leaned forward, Oliver had a good look at the girls spilling forward in my blouse. Oliver looked at them with detached interest. He was gay.

  “Are those for Darcy?” he asked me without a smile.

  I nodded.

  “You still haven’t told me who he is,” he said.

  I haven’t told anyone except Emma.

  “Believe me, Oliver, you don’t want to know.”

  I took a cab from Westminster to Piccadilly and had the driver let me out in front of the Athenaeum. I tried to put all thoughts of Guy, Dorothy, and Cosima out of my head, so that I could focus on the night ahead. Darcy and I don’t see each other often. One night of horny passion every few weeks was the most I could hope for. Even so, I was falling for him. As if my life wasn’t complicated enough.

  My father keeps an apartment in Mayfair that he uses during the week. He’s usually there only to sleep and eat breakfast; otherwise, he is at the newspaper’s offices every other minute of his life. On the weekends, he takes the train west to his farm in Somerset, and I have a standing invitation to use the flat for whatever rendezvous I may need to satisfy my desires. My father knows me and knows I’m my mother’s daughter. That is where Darcy and I have been meeting for the past year.

  All I wanted tonight was to freshen my makeup, dab on Jo Malone, open a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Rosé Brut, and allow myself to be ravished. Unfortunately, nothing is as easy as it seems.

  As I walked from Piccadilly up Down Street toward the inner circle of Mayfair, I passed a small Italian bistro on my left. Candlelight. Trendy pizzas. Very romantic. I glanced idly through the window and couldn’t help but notice Guy Droste-Chambers sitting alone at a table on the far wall. Guy is difficult to miss. He was staring into a bell-shaped glass of red wine.

  I felt a twinge of regret for this lonely, middle-aged man, despite the games he had tried to play with me. Then I saw a woman emerge from the ladies’ toilet and join him at the table. That was when I realized there was already another glass of red wine at the place setting opposite Guy. He wasn’t alone.

  I saw who it was.

  My heart left my chest and went running for the Tube. My breath was stolen away. The woman with Guy was the last person on earth I wanted to see with him.

  No, not even Cosima.

  Her name was Saleema Azah. She was a literary agent in New York. Once upon a time, going all the way back to college, she was my best friend. Now she was a self-declared enemy. We had done battle over clients for the last five years. She was my alter ego. My evil twin.

  I moved on quickly along the sidewalk before they noticed me outside, but my mind was spinning.

  For all I know, it was an innocent dinner, and it had nothing to do with me. Saleema had clients in the UK. No doubt Guy was the editor for some of her authors. But you know what they say about being paranoid: That doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

  I suddenly heard Oliver’s voice in my head.

  What’s the worst that can happen?

  6

  MY NEMESIS.

  I first met Saleema in New York when I was doing a term abroad at NYU, studying English and film. I had a hankering for saag paneer on a Tuesday night and found a restaurant called Bengal Star in the East Village. Saleema was there, too, and I recognized her from a class we were both taking on the films of Scorsese. We sat together, shared nan and pilau rice, and struck up a friendship. My favorite was Taxi Driver. Hers was Goodfellas.

  Saleema is DDG—drop dead gorgeous. She has jet-black hair,
wavy and full, that hangs halfway down her body. A tiny frame, never more than a hundred pounds. Thick eyebrows and huge brown eyes. A skin tone like cappuccino. After twenty years, she still seems ageless.

  Back then, she wanted to be an actress, and I was majoring in wine and marijuana. We both took the long way around to our careers. She made it into a couple of indie films, largely based on her willingness to flash her nipples and supple arse for the camera, while I played around with journalism and publishing. Her acting career peaked with a role as a murderous computer programmer in an episode of Law & Order. It’s still not easy to make it as a minority woman in acting, and she decided to quit rather than eke out a modest living playing bit parts. Saleema was already in New York, and she had an English degree and a PalmPilot full of contacts in the movie and TV biz. With that background, and looks to die for, she had the makings of a great agent.

  I made my way down the same path by coincidence, and so we found ourselves a few years after we first met in similar jobs on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Still friends. I made trips to New York a couple of times a year, and Saleema made an annual spring pilgrimage to the London Book Fair. We always got together for dinner. I stayed at her place. She stayed at mine. We were both good at our jobs, and we both had a solid roster of clients. She’s been with the Robinson Foote Agency for nine years, and she complains about it as much as I complain about Bardwright. In a different universe, we might have opened our own transatlantic agency in the wake of Lowell’s death, because we were as close as two attractive women can be.

  Which is to say, we were always one little mistake away from watching our friendship dissolve into a bitter feud.

  As it turned out, the mistake was mine. I admit it. I fucked up. I did a terrible thing.

  You’ll recall that I inherited my mother’s tendency of paying way too much attention to a certain part of my body. Look it up in the dictionary, and you’ll see it described as being “homologous” to the penis. I love that word, “homologous.” I’ve never seen it anywhere else. When I think homologous, I think clitoris. It wants what it wants, when it wants it.

  About five years ago, I visited Saleema’s office, which is on the sixth floor of the Flatiron Building, that wonderful triangular landmark in Manhattan. I was in the city doing the rounds of publishers, and from there, I had a West Coast swing planned to LA. Saleema was in the midst of a crisis, because People magazine had just released a scathing review of a memoir by one of her clients that had her at full boil. Me, I’m just glad that People still finds room for book reviews at all, in between their shirtless photos of Matthew McConaughey. Anyway, our dinner plans were shot to hell. Saleema said she could make it up to me, however, and she introduced me to another agent in her office, a blond god from Florida, former basketball player for something called the Gators, eyes so blue they were like a swimming pool in which you wanted to strip off your clothes and skinny-dip.

  Homologous, definitely homologous.

  Saleema called him a friend. That was all. A friend. She gave me no hint of any relationship whatsoever between them. His name was Evan.

  Evan asked where I wanted to have dinner, and I think I surprised him when I said the Carnegie Deli. When I get horny, I get hungry. That night, I wanted a hot corned beef sandwich six inches tall and a slice of cheesecake so thick you could rub it all over your body and still have some left for the next day. We ate like animals. We laughed. We talked about British politics. We went to a club. We danced. Okay, look, we all know where this is going. Evan proved to be as long as he was tall, and I spent most of the night under him, on top of him, and holding on to the porcelain edge of the bathroom sink. OMG.

  The next day, I couldn’t wait to tell Saleema. She couldn’t wait to tell me something, either. Fortunately, I let her go first.

  She and Evan were engaged. Surprise!

  And what did I think of him, anyway?

  Some surprises leave you almost speechless.

  Well, I said, with my stretched-out insides still aching gloriously, I think he’s just as DDG as you, and I’m sure the two of you will be very happy. Congratulations. Smile. Look to God and whisper, “Oh, shit.” You certainly do not tell your best friend that her fiancé failed to mention your engagement and spent the night rocking your world in more positions than you had previously tried in your life.

  Evan, Saleema, and I had lunch at Pastis that day, and I shot him daggers across the table whenever Saleema wasn’t looking. He was enjoying my discomfort, and I think he knew that I was still turned on by him, regardless of the fact that he was now forbidden fruit. I left town wanting to tell Saleema that her fiancé was a cheating bastard, but it was hard to make that message stick when the bastard was cheating with me.

  Now for my big mistake. That was still to come.

  Two months later, Evan called me in London. He was in the city and wanted to see me. Saleema wasn’t with him. I should have slammed down the phone, but I finally had a chance to slap his face and use every word in my dictionary of expletives. I could make him grovel. I could savage him. I could get my sweet revenge.

  So I met him at a pub in Bloomsbury.

  Okay, look, we all know where this is going. Again.

  I screamed at him. I slapped his face. Then I spent most of the night on top of him, under him, and braced against the wall of the lift in my apartment building. Thank God the thing is old and slow. The lift, I mean.

  Like I said, I don’t have the greatest track record of good decisions when it comes to sex.

  The next morning, I felt guilty and sick as I let the hot water of the shower pour over my head. I swore to myself I would never see him again. My resolve lasted until he joined me in the shower. But that, I promised myself, was absolutely the last time. I don’t claim to understand the power he had over me, but certain men can make you forget everything else in the world. Including your friends.

  Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only tunnel into which Evan was driving his stretch limo. Saleema found out about his numerous affairs and broke off the engagement. She cried to me about it on the phone. I felt like shit. I could have confessed then and there that I was one of his conquests, but I knew that would be the end of our relationship, and I didn’t think it would make her feel any better to know that her fiancé and her best friend had both betrayed her together. You can say I was just trying to cover my arse, and maybe that’s true.

  I didn’t count on Evan being cruel and vicious.

  He sent her a break-up box with the things she had left in his apartment, but he included a little bonus. It was a beautifully carved miniature wooden tiger from Calcutta. Saleema had bought it as a present for me on her last trip to India and had given it to me in London. I had kept it in my apartment. I didn’t even notice that Evan had nicked it. Needless to say, Saleema got the message loud and clear.

  So did I.

  I don’t blame her for what she said to me. She was right. I deserved it. You can’t apologize and make something like that go away. I tried for months to make things right between us, but eventually I realized that for the first time in my life I had made a blood enemy. All the emotions between us had to go somewhere, and Saleema let them flow into hatred. Me, I don’t hate her. I feel nothing but regret. But I learned the stakes a year later when one of my best American clients dumped me and signed on with Saleema. My client was a recently divorced woman whose husband had cheated on her. Saleema made sure my client knew exactly what I had done with Evan.

  Two other clients followed that year. I really think Saleema would steal all of them if she could. However, it’s been a couple of years since anyone else has bolted to Robinson Foote, and I keep hoping that the fire of her vengeance has cooled a bit. Maybe she has other battles to fight. Maybe screwing me until I plead for mercy is lower on her list now.

  Maybe her dinner with Guy has nothing to do with me at all.

  Maybe.

  7

  I WAS NOT FEELING particularly horny or carefree whe
n I reached my father’s apartment in Mayfair. I checked voice mail and had the usual blizzard of messages, but none of them related to Guy or Dorothy. That made me feel a little better. The fact is, if Saleema had visions of using Guy to steal Dorothy away from me, she was going to have to stand in line. Loyalty goes a long way with Dorothy, and she is as committed to her relationship with me as she is to her editorial partnership with Guy. I really think I would have to commit murder before Dorothy looked for another agent; and even if she did, her first stop would undoubtedly be with Cosima and the team at Bardwright, or my friend Sally Harlingford, who have all been very good to her. I just don’t see Dorothy agreeing to bolt to a new agent and a new agency at the same time.

  Still, if that is Saleema’s plan, let her dream.

  I was early, so I got the flat ready for Darcy. I put on Nina Simone. I lit fragrant candles. I moved the champagne that Emma had ordered to an ice bucket in the living room. My nerves were still jangled, so I opened the bottle and poured myself a glass. Something about the bubbles soothes me. I undid another button on my shirt. I touched my skin with a damp fingertip.

  Okay, I was a little horny. And getting more so as the clock neared eleven. Darcy makes me very homologous. Even so, I was nervous about seeing him tonight. Saleema felt like a ghost, reminding me of past mistakes. You’d think I would have learned my lesson with Evan and become exceptionally cautious about dating men with outside commitments. You’d be wrong.

  Darcy is married.

  It’s a long story.

  I can tell you all the reasons why his marriage is hollow and why we are so good together, and you can tell me why none of those things matter. You’re probably right, but I don’t care. It’s not like I can blame this one on fate or say it was an accident. After all, I didn’t know Evan was engaged to Saleema when I slept with him. Not the first time, anyway. With Darcy, however, I marched into sin with my eyes wide open. Yes, yes, and my legs, too. That goes without saying. I knew what I was doing, and the little voice inside that said I was a fool was drowned out by the other voice that screamed, “Yes! Harder! Right there! Oh, God!”