“I asked her to judge the work for herself, and I guess she disagreed with you.”
“All you care about are the grades. You don’t give a damn about the quality of the writing. You won’t get anywhere that way. All you’ll ever write is junk. You’re pathetic,” he said with a look that told her how little he thought of her, or how jealous he was, or both. It was shocking to realize that he hated her for the way she wrote, which was a gift.
“By the way, how did that book turn out?”
“Which one?” He was puzzled for an instant.
“Blue Steel, by that new guy, Alexander Green.”
“It was superb. That’s writing of a caliber you’ll never reach, not like the crap you write.” He wanted to hurt her one last time since she’d dismissed him, for reasons he would never understand or admit to. She was on to him now. And he wasn’t throwing bombs at her anymore. He was throwing praise at Alexander Green, whose work he thought was “superb.”
“I’ll have to buy the book,” she said with an evil grin.
“Don’t bother. You won’t learn anything from it. You’re a kiss-ass, Alex, that’s the only reason she gave you the grades. You make me sick.”
“Maybe you should read Green’s last chapter again. It might help you finish your book. See ya.” She waved and darted up the stairs, as he stood staring after her. No one had ever treated him like that before, and surely no girl. He had no idea what she meant about his reading the last chapter again. He wondered if she had read the book. It sounded as though she had, which startled him. Otherwise, how would she know about the last chapter, where a struggling young writer steals someone else’s book, and murders him for it?
She told Bert about the encounter with Scott the next time they had lunch, since they weren’t working on anything for the moment. She was taking a break after finishing the last book. The reviews of her first book had been excellent, and the publisher said that sales for the first month had been better than expected. She was waiting to hear from Rose, who had sent Darkness and Hear No Evil to her publisher to make a two-book deal for her.
“Beware of writers, my friend,” Bert said to her as they finished lunch. “They’re a jealous lot, particularly men. They usually don’t want women stealing their thunder or their turf. You’re a hell of a woman and a hell of a writer. There are going to be a lot of angry men in your life,” he predicted. At least she had seen this one coming and had caught on to him quickly, before he did any real damage to her soul or her heart.
“I hope you’re wrong about that,” she said quietly, remembering what her father had said too. It struck her as sad suddenly that she had to publish her books pretending to be a man. Even her publisher didn’t know the truth, only her closest friends and her agent.
“I don’t think I am,” Bert said wisely. “You’re too good a writer for most men to be able to tolerate it, not another writer anyway. Go out with a doctor or lawyer, or a policeman. Stay away from other writers, Alex, they’ll punish you every time.”
“I don’t want that to be true,” she said sadly.
“But it is, my dear,” he said as he poured himself another glass of wine. They both knew he drank too much, but it never affected his work. “If you go out with writers, and worse, if you fall in love with them, they’ll try to steal your magic. But what you have to remember, always, is that they can’t. It’s your magic and it only works for you, on command.”
She thought about it after he said it, and all the way back to the dorm. That’s what Scott had tried to do, steal her magic, and maybe Bert was right. It couldn’t be stolen or borrowed, or tarnished, or used by someone else. It only worked for her. The magic was hers. The others had to find their own.
Chapter 10
Two things happened to Alex in the summer before her senior year at Boston College. Rose Porter sold her second and third books to the same publisher for twice the money for each book as Alex got for the first one. Alex was thrilled with the deal. The reviews on her first book had been excellent, sales better than projected, and the publisher was rushing to publish Darkness, her second book, in time for Christmas that year. And the third one, Hear No Evil, would be published the following summer. Rose hadn’t offered them her recently finished fourth book, since Alex and Bert wanted to polish it a little more. And Rose wanted to see how the next one did. If it was as successful as she hoped, she was going to ask for a lot more money on the next contract.
And the second thing that happened that summer was that totally by accident, through the creative writing professor who had raised her grade, she got a summer job in New York working for a major publisher for two months.
The professor called her and asked if she’d be interested, and Alex wanted the job. It was a different publisher than her own, and she wanted to learn more about the business. She discussed it with Mother MaryMeg that night, who encouraged her to do it, and she accepted the next day. It was an internship so the pay was minimal, but she had the money from her book deal, and still more than enough of what her father had left her, and she found a summer sublet in the East Village, a walk-up, to share with four other girls, and it was dirt cheap. It was going to be an exciting summer for her. She was between books at the moment, so she didn’t feel guilty taking the time away from her writing. Bert growled about it, and thought she should work on the outline for the next book, but finally agreed that it was a good idea, and it would be fun for her.
She left for New York on June 28 to settle into the apartment, and on July 1, she appeared at Weldon and Small in a navy blue suit she had bought for work, and high heels, with her straight dark hair pulled back, and she felt very grown up. She was assigned to work for Penelope Robertson, who was the senior editor of their very lucrative romance department. She had wild curly red hair, swore like a sailor, drank coffee all day, which Alex had to bring her at a dead run, and smoked in her office although it was forbidden. The tension around her was palpable, everything was an emergency and a crisis, and Alex felt like she was working in a war zone, but she loved it. Her boss had a good sense of humor and treated Alex like she knew what she was doing, which she didn’t. She didn’t have a clue, but it made her feel competent and important that her boss trusted her to figure things out and threw her into the deep end of the pool, instead of making her just pour her coffee. And there was a flock of other interns there that summer, from a variety of schools all over the country. Alex liked her roommates, three of whom were students at NYU, and one, Pascale, was an exchange student from Paris. They all had summer jobs, and were in and out with their various friends during the evening.
Alex loved being in New York and learning more about publishing, and a completely different kind of book than she wrote. She had lunch with Rose Porter to talk about her recent book sale and the fan base she was building with her first book and its terrific reviews.
“You know, sooner or later, your publisher is going to want to meet you, Alex. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to keep them in the dark about you forever. I want to take you to the next level with your next contract, and for bigger money, they’re going to want to see who they’re buying. They tried to insist this time, and I wouldn’t let them. But I doubt we can refuse again,” Rose warned her. And Alex liked her editor, Amanda Smith, a lot, via email. Rose had taken her to lunch at Le Bernardin, which made Alex feel very important. It was one of the best restaurants in New York.
“Why do they have to see me? They have the books, they don’t need to see me too.” She was living in a bubble, and she liked it.
“There’s more to it than that. They’re starting to invest real money in you,” decidedly so with the last contract, “and I want them to invest more. They realize now that there’s a future here. It’s natural that they want to meet you.”
“I don’t know.” It was working for her and she didn’t want it to change. More and more, she realized how important it was for her readers, the public, and even her publishers to believe she was a man. An
d if she told the truth now about being a woman, her readers would feel betrayed. She was gathering momentum and an ever stronger readership, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that now, or ever. And she wanted the next two books to be even bigger successes than Blue Steel.
“Your publishers could get seriously pissed about it one day if you refuse to meet them. And there’s no way you can do publicity for the books if we’re hiding the fact that you’re a woman. And one day, you may need that to boost sales.”
“We’ll have to find another way to do it. Alexander Green writes the books, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but we may not be able to hold your publishers at bay forever. You’re on to a great thing here, with your own style and a powerful voice. It would come as a huge shock to everyone to discover that you’re a woman.” Not only that, she didn’t say, but a very young girl. “So how is New York treating you?” she asked with a smile. Alex looked adorable in her little navy suit, crisp white shirt, and long straight hair.
“I love it here.” She beamed at her. “It’s so exciting.”
“Yes, it is.” Rose smiled at her, feeling like her grandmother or a wise old aunt as much as her agent. She really liked Alex. She was a profoundly decent young girl, with good values, and her success wasn’t turning her head. She was very modest about her abilities, and Rose had suspected for a while that she would be enormously successful one day. She was willing to work hard, was amenable to editing, and had tremendous skill and dedication. The potential was all there.
“Would you ever want to live here?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if it’s too much for me. I love Boston, and living at the convent.” She had never expected it to be a long-term solution, but she had been there for almost seven years by then, it had become home to her, and the nuns like a houseful of mothers. “I haven’t figured out what I want to do when I graduate, except write, of course.”
“Eventually you’ll want more freedom and independence than you have at the convent.”
Alex nodded, but also knew she wasn’t ready for it yet. She felt safe at St. Dominic’s, although staying in the apartment in New York was an exciting adventure. “You should consider moving to New York after graduation.” It was still a year away and she had time to think about it.
“Maybe I’d be lonely here,” she said honestly.
“Not once you make friends, and you can always go home to Boston for the weekend.”
Alex had met several young men at the publishing house who had asked her out. There were boys in the internship program too, and her roommates had introduced her to their friends. She went out mostly in groups, with no official dates. The others were all looking for a summer romance, but Alex wasn’t. All she could think about were ideas for her next book. She talked to Rose about some of them, over dessert, and her agent liked them all, and thought she was heading in an interesting direction. She wanted to continue the character of the detective from her last book into the next one. She wasn’t ready to start on it yet, but she had made copious notes to show Bert when she got back to Boston. He was taking the summer off, and had called her once to say he missed her, and she told him she missed him too.
Alex was invited to New England for a weekend by some of her new friends, the Berkshires by one of her roommates, and to Greenwich, Connecticut, by a girl she met at work who went to Princeton. And she was invited by several people to go to the Hamptons, where young people she met had rented houses to share with a dozen friends, and took turns going out for weekends. She went away every week. She did no writing, just made notes for the next book.
And at the end of August, her boss was sorry to see her leave.
“You’ve been great, Alex,” she said as she hugged her. “Stay in touch. If you’re interested, I’m sure we can find you a spot for next year, after graduation,” and she would strongly recommend it. Alex had been an ideal intern. Her employer had no idea that she was a writer. “You’ll make a great assistant,” she said, and Alex thanked her. She had written to the professor who had suggested her for the internship program, and told her how much fun it had been, and how much she’d enjoyed it, and how grateful she was for the opportunity.
She was sad to see her time in New York end. She hitched a ride with Jack, a boy who was going back to BU and dated one of her roommates. They chatted all the way back. He’d been in the art department for two months, and was a fine-arts student. He wanted to paint portraits one day, but figured he’d have to get a job in advertising first to support himself. He said he had already sent his CV and portfolio to several large ad agencies in New York and Boston. He was hoping to graduate early, in January.
“What about you?” Jack asked her. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said vaguely. “I want to write.”
“Maybe you should look into advertising too. There are some great agencies in Boston. You could be a copywriter.” It was the last thing she wanted to do, and she was planning to start her next book as soon as she got back.
“I really liked my boss,” she told him, as they drove north to Boston and had plenty of time to talk. “She was pretty crazy, but nice to work for. She’s an editor of romance novels.”
“My mom and my grandmother love them.” He smiled at her. “They eat them up.”
“My dad and I used to read detective stories,” Alex said wistfully, thinking of him. She still missed him, particularly at special times.
“Have you read that new guy, Andrew Green or something? I forget what he wrote, but I hear he’s pretty good. My dad gave me a copy.”
“Alexander Green,” she corrected him. “Did you read it?” she asked, suddenly paying closer attention to him. It was a chance to ask someone her age what he liked about it or didn’t. Her very own market research, one to one.
“No, I didn’t have time all summer. They kept me pretty busy,” and he had met a girl he really liked, and spent all his nights with her. He had been dating Pascale, the French girl Alex roomed with, which was how Alex had met him, and he wanted to go to Paris to visit her over Christmas, if he could afford it. Maybe with his graduation money from his parents. Alex was disappointed he hadn’t had time to read her book so he couldn’t give her any feedback.
When they got to Boston, she directed him to St. Dominic’s, where he had promised to drop her off. He started to be impressed by the size of her house, and then realized it was a convent from the name over the door, and he looked shocked.
“Are you studying to be a nun?” She shook her head and smiled in answer.
“No, my dad died when I was fourteen, my mother died five years before that, so they let me live here. And now they’re my family.” He was intrigued by what she said and how at ease she seemed about it.
“Is it like an orphanage?” He felt sorry for her.
“No, just a convent where the nuns live. They’ve been really good to me for all this time.” It sounded weird to him, but she was a terrific girl, and he helped her carry her bags up the stairs and set them down in the main hall. Three of the nuns rushed over to welcome her home as soon as they saw her. Alex introduced Jack to them, and he disappeared a minute later. He liked her, and would have wanted to see her again if he hadn’t met Pascale in New York and fallen head over heels in love with her. But he wanted to be faithful to her now, and was hoping to get to Paris in the next few months.
—
The nuns were thrilled to have Alex home, and everyone stopped to talk with her during dinner that night. They wanted to know all about the job, the people she had met, her roommates, and if she liked New York and wanted to move there. She told them she didn’t want to go anywhere and was happy to be home, but it was easy to see she’d had a great summer, and had matured a lot. Mother MaryMeg thought it had done her good to get away from them for a while. Alex always returned from the dorm at Boston College like a homing pigeon, and they loved ha
ving her there with them, but one day she would need her own life, away from the nuns, and MaryMeg knew that day was coming. Alex didn’t want to think about it, nor did the sisters who loved her. Sister Tommy said over and over she had become her seventh child.
—
Alex met with Bert the first Saturday she was back in Boston. She showed him all the notes for her next book, and told him the direction she wanted to go in. He suggested a few changes, but not many, and she explained that she wanted it to be deeper, more psychological, and even more complicated than her previous books. The plot she had outlined so far was ambitious, but Bert thought she could handle it. He was happy to see her, the summer had seemed endless without her. He missed their conversations and Saturday lunches where he drank too much wine after they worked, and she scolded him about it. She knew him well enough now to do so and worried about him.
She started school two days later and was busy going to all her classes, meeting the professors, and organizing her work and assignments. She didn’t get a chance to work on the book until two weeks later, but she had set up a schedule that would allow her to do her schoolwork and write by staying up late and getting up early. It involved very little sleep, but she thought it was worth it. And it left no time whatsoever for a social life. She explained her schedule to Bert the next time they met, and he was concerned.
“Do you think that’s sensible? You’re only young once, you know. You need to leave some time for fun in there. This is your last year of college and your last chance to be a kid and kick up your heels and get away with it. You don’t have to be in such a hurry to get the book done.” It was her fifth book, a major accomplishment.
“But I want to,” she said seriously. The writing was what she loved most, and the work for school was her duty. Writing her book was all the fun she needed. She was singularly devoted with a burning desire to put words on the page and create a world of her own making.
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