The Woman Who Stole My Life

by Marian Keyes

  It was like being under siege. We sat and watched the ringing phone until Betsy jumped up and pulled the wire from the wall and said, ‘We need Auntie Karen.’

  ‘No,’ Jeffrey said. ‘We need Dr Taylor.’

  I was hugely surprised. Over four months since they’d first met, Jeffrey still bristled with hostility at the mere mention of Mannix’s name.

  ‘Ring him, Mom. He’ll know what to do.’

  So I rang him. ‘Mannix. I need you.’

  ‘Oookaaay,’ he said, softly. ‘Just give me a moment to lock the door …’ He thought I was ringing for phone sex. Our times together were so short and unpredictable that we took our chances where we could.

  ‘No, not that. How soon can you get over here? I’ll explain while you’re driving.’

  I let Mannix into the house.

  ‘There are photographers out in the street,’ he said.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I stuck my head out, then whipped it back in again. ‘What do they want?’

  ‘Three Happy Meals and a Maltesers McFlurry.’

  I glared at him and he laughed. ‘Photos, I’m guessing.’

  ‘Mannix, it’s not funny.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Hi, Betsy, hi, Jeffrey – is it okay if I close the curtains and blinds? Just until those people outside go away. So show me this magazine.’

  Jeffrey thrust it in front of him. ‘The woman who rang was called Phyllis Teerlinck,’ he said. ‘She wants to be Mom’s literary agent. I Googled her. She’s real. She has lots of authors. Mom knew about some of them. See.’ Jeffrey brought up Phyllis Teerlinck’s website to show Mannix.

  ‘Nice work,’ Mannix said. Jeffrey glowed a little.

  ‘You know what I’m thinking?’ Mannix said. ‘If one agent is interested –’

  ‘– others must be also. That’s what I thought,’ Jeffrey exclaimed.

  ‘Really?’ I was taken aback. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I was waiting to talk to Dr … to Mannix about it.’

  ‘You want us to find out?’ Mannix asked me.

  I was caught up in excitement and fear and curiosity. ‘Okay.’

  Mannix started clicking at his iPad. ‘Let’s try, say, five of the biggest US agencies.’

  ‘Don’t go to the big ones! Try some small, grateful ones.’

  ‘No!’ Jeffrey said.

  ‘He’s right. You might as well go to the best. What have you got to lose? Okay, here’s someone at William Morris who does self-help writers. Jeffrey, try cross-referencing the New York Times best-seller list with agencies. Focus on self-help writers. Where’s my phone?’ Mannix hit some buttons and listened. ‘Voicemail,’ he mouthed at me, then he spoke. ‘I’m calling on behalf of Stella Sweeney. She’s written the book that Annabeth Browning is reading in this week’s People. You’ve got thirty minutes to get back to me.’

  He ended the call and looked at me. ‘What?’

  ‘Thirty minutes?’

  ‘Right now, you’ve got a huge amount of power. We can play hardball too.’

  ‘Hardball?’

  ‘Yeah. Hardball.’

  We dissolved into laughter that bordered on being out of control.

  ‘I’ve another agency here,’ Jeffrey said. ‘Curtis Brown. They’re big and they have some self-help authors.’

  ‘Nice work,’ Mannix said. ‘Do you want to call them?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Jeffrey said, shyly. ‘You do it. I’ll keep looking for agents.’

  So Jeffrey worked through the New York Times best-seller lists, finding self-help authors, and Googling until he’d found the agent’s name and number, then Mannix placed calls and left ultimatums: return the call in half an hour or lose the chance to be Stella Sweeney’s agent.

  The man at William Morris was the first to ring back and Mannix put him on speaker. ‘I appreciate you reaching out to me,’ the agent said. ‘But I need to pass. The association with Annabeth Browning is not something I’m comfortable with in the current moment.’

  ‘Thank you for your time.’

  It was mad, but I felt upset. Less than an hour earlier I’d never even considered that I wanted a literary agent, but now I felt rejected.

  ‘Well, fuck him,’ Jeffrey said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Betsy said. ‘Loser.’

  The agent at Curtis Brown didn’t want me either: ‘The market is saturated with self-help books.’

  Gelfman Schneider also passed – the Annabeth Browning association again. Page Inc. weren’t taking on any new clients at present. And Tiffany Blitzer would prefer ‘to not co-enmesh with Annabeth Browning, moving forward.’

  By the time Betsy plugged the landline back into the wall and Phyllis Teerlinck rang again, I was feeling very chastened and all set to agree to anything she wanted.

  ‘I hear you’ve been calling every agent in town,’ Phyllis said.

  ‘… Er … well –’

  Mannix took the phone from my hand. ‘Ms Teerlinck? Stella will speak to you in fifteen minutes.’

  To my shock, he disconnected the call and I stared at him. ‘Mannix!’

  ‘I’ve had a quick look at her boiler-plate client contract: her percentages are higher than the industry norm, her definition of “Intellectual Property” is wide enough to almost include your shopping lists, she wants thirty per cent on all film, television and audio-visual depictions, and she has an “in perpetuity” clause which means that, if you change agents, you still pay commission to her, as well as your new agent.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I didn’t fully understand everything that Mannix was saying but I understood enough to have a sinking feeling. This wasn’t real. No legitimate agents were interested in me. This whole episode was like getting one of those spammy emails that said you’d won a million euro, when they just wanted your bank details.

  ‘Is she a bad agent?’ Betsy asked.

  ‘No,’ Mannix said. ‘She’s obviously a very good one. Especially if she’s as tough with publishers as she is with her own clients. But,’ he said to me, ‘I can get you better terms.’

  ‘I can do it on my own,’ I said.

  But everyone knew I was a hopeless negotiator: I was famed for it. In work, Karen was responsible for all purchasing because I hadn’t the brass neck to haggle for discounts.

  ‘Let me do this for you,’ Mannix said.

  ‘Why would you be any good at it?’

  ‘I’ve had plenty of practice. I’ve cut a lot of deals to get Roland out of trouble.’

  ‘I say let Mannix do it,’ Jeffrey said.

  ‘I totally do too,’ Betsy chimed in.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ Mannix asked.

  Now there was a question. Not always. Not with everything.

  ‘I will commit you to nothing,’ he said. ‘I’ll make no promises on your behalf. But if you do decide to work with her, the conditions will be fairer.’

  ‘Let him do it, Mom,’ Jeffrey said.

  ‘Do,’ Betsy said.

  ‘… Okay.’

  Betsy, Jeffrey and I holed up in the sitting room and watched Modern Families while Mannix established a command central at the kitchen table. Now and again, in the gaps between episodes, I could hear him saying stuff like, ‘Seventeen per cent is killing me! I can’t go higher than ten.’

  I’d never heard him sound so engaged about anything.

  At some stage, Betsy tiptoed to the living-room window and took a sneaky look out. ‘They’ve gone, the photographers.’

  ‘Thank God.’ But there was a little part of me that was deflated. It was shocking how corruptible I was.

  After four episodes of Modern Families, which meant he’d been on the phone for more than an hour and a half, Mannix hung up and made a triumphant appearance in the living room.

  ‘Congratulations, you’ve got an agent.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘If you want one.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She came down from thirty per cent to seventeen on audio-visual rights, which means she
really wants you – that’s a lot of equity to give away. And on print she dropped from twenty-five to thirteen per cent. I was prepared to go to fifteen.’

  ‘Well, that’s … great.’

  ‘Still details to be ironed out, but it’s small stuff. How would you feel about her coming here in the morning?’

  ‘Coming where?’

  ‘Here. Dublin. Ireland. This house.’

  ‘Wha-at? Why?’

  ‘So she can sign you.’

  ‘God, she’s in a hurry.’

  ‘She’s had a pre-emptive offer from a US publishing house. She needs a watertight contract with you before you can do a deal with them.’

  ‘You mean someone is offering money for the book?’ I said, faintly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much?’ Jeffrey asked.

  ‘A lot.’

  At 7 a.m. the next morning, Jeffrey and I were straightening up the sitting-room couch, where Mannix had slept, when we heard a car door slamming shut.

  Jeffrey glanced out through the window. ‘She’s here!’

  Sure enough, a blocky woman, with short hair and a no-nonsense black skirt and jacket, was paying off a taxi driver. She looked like a Greek widow crossed with a bulldog.

  ‘She’s early,’ I said.

  From upstairs came the sound of Betsy squealing, ‘She’s here, she’s here.’

  I went to the front door. ‘Phyllis?’

  ‘You’re Stella?’ She rumbled her carry-on wheely bag up the tiny little path.

  I didn’t know whether to shake hands or offer a hug but she saved me the trouble.

  ‘I don’t do physical contact,’ she said. ‘Too many germs. I wave.’

  She raised her right hand and flashed the palm, like she was doing a single jazz-hand. Feeling a bit foolish, I did the same.

  ‘Let me take your bag.’

  ‘No.’ She practically shoved me away from it.

  ‘… Come into the house. This is my son, Jeffrey.’ Jeffrey was standing in the hall; he had put on a white shirt and a tie for the occasion. ‘No hand-shaking, Jeffrey,’ I said. ‘Phyllis likes to wave.’

  Phyllis did her jazz-hand and Jeffrey did the same. They looked like they were greeting each other in a science fiction film.

  Betsy came bounding down the stairs like a golden Labrador, her hair still damp and fragrant from her shower. ‘Don’t be so silly,’ she said. ‘I have totally got to hug you.’

  She draped herself all over Phyllis Teerlinck, who said, ‘If I get the flu, you get the blame and the doctor’s bill.’

  ‘You are hilaire!’ Betsy said.

  ‘Would you like a lie-down?’ I asked Phyllis.

  She looked at me as if I was insane. ‘Get me some coffee and a place we can talk.’

  Then her focus moved past my face and over my shoulder – she’d seen something she liked: Mannix had emerged from the kitchen.

  I turned to have a look – he was so sexy I could hardly believe he was mine.

  ‘You must be Mannix,’ Phyllis said.

  ‘Phyllis?’ They checked each other out, like a pair of prizefighters about to enter the ring. ‘No physical contact, I hear?’

  ‘I might make an exception for you.’ She was unexpectedly flirty. (And as Betsy said later, ‘I thought she was like totally lady-gay.’)

  ‘Why don’t you all go on into the sitting room?’ Mannix said. ‘I’ll make the coffee.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I was pitifully grateful. Mannix doing even the smallest domestic thing made my heart flutter. To see him boiling the kettle in my kitchen made me believe that there was a future where these things were normal.

  In the sitting room, the table was set with plates and napkins. ‘Baked goods!’ Phyllis said.

  ‘Mannix got them.’ He’d gone out at 6 a.m. to the all-night garage and bought bag-loads of croissants and muffins.

  ‘You mean you didn’t bake them for me?’

  ‘Well, I would have, but …’ I hadn’t baked in, like, ever.

  ‘Mom,’ Betsy said, gently. ‘She’s totally joking.’

  To my surprise, Phyllis Teerlinck didn’t have a list of food allergies as long as her arm. She ate a muffin – ‘Damn, that’s good.’ She ate a second, followed by a third, then she produced antiseptic hand-wipes from her bag and wiped the crumbs off her mouth. ‘Where’s that guy with the coffee?’

  ‘I’m here.’ Mannix had appeared.

  ‘You went to Costa Rica for the beans?’

  Mannix surveyed the detritus on Phyllis’s plate. ‘You eat fast.’

  ‘I do everything fast,’ Phyllis said. Again with that flirty overtone. ‘So let’s parlay.’ To me, she said, ‘You want these kids here?’

  ‘Anything I do affects them.’ I was mildly defiant. ‘Of course I want them in on this.’

  ‘Cool your jets, I only asked. So!’ She produced a sheaf of paper from her bag which I guessed was a printout of my book and she waved it about. ‘We could go a long ways with this. Drop ten pounds and you’ve got yourself an agent.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Yeah, we need you a little thinner to make you promotable. TV adds ten pounds and all that blah.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Details, details.’ With a swipe of her arm, she dismissed my evident concerns. ‘Get yourself a personal trainer, it’ll be all good.’

  ‘It will?’ I didn’t like the direction this was going in.

  ‘Hey, relax, it’ll be great. So first we need to fix the terms between you and me. You got the revisions?’ She’d been emailing through contract amendments until her plane had taken off. Mannix had printed out the final document and it sat in the middle of the table.

  ‘You’re good with the changes?’ she asked.

  ‘Um, yes, except you didn’t deal with clause forty-three,’ I said.

  ‘Which one is that?’ Like she didn’t know.

  ‘Irish rights. I’d like to keep them.’

  She gave a sly laugh. ‘You’re feeling sentimental and I’m feeling generous. Have them, have them.’

  She took the bundle of pages, crossed out clause forty-three, initialled it, then slid the contract and the pen towards me. ‘So sign it already.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘It feels momentous?’ Phyllis said. ‘Yeah, go on, take a moment. But it’s not momentous. It’s only stuff.’

  ‘You’re a bit of a joy-robber,’ Mannix said.

  ‘Just keeping it real.’

  I scribbled my name at the bottom of the document and Phyllis said, ‘Congratulations, Stella Sweeney. Phyllis Teerlinck is your agent.’

  ‘Congratulations, Phyllis Teerlinck,’ Mannix said. ‘Stella Sweeney is your client.’

  ‘I like him,’ she said, to me. ‘He’s good.’

  ‘I’m here all week,’ Mannix said. ‘Try the chicken.’

  ‘So, you said a publisher was interested …?’ I asked.

  ‘Blisset Renown. You’ve heard of them? The publishing arm of MultiMediaCorp? There’s a deal on the table for twenty-four hours. They do not want a bidding war. This is a one-shot-only go.’

  ‘How much …?’

  Last night, on the phone, Phyllis had told Mannix it was ‘A lot’, but she wouldn’t name an actual sum and we’d spent a long time speculating about what ‘A lot’ really meant.

  ‘Subject to conditions,’ she said, ‘six figures.’

  Betsy gasped and I heard Jeffrey actually swallow.

  ‘Low six figures,’ Phyllis said. ‘But I think I can get them up to a quarter of a million dollars. Life-changing, right?’

  ‘Cripes, yes.’ In a good year, I made forty grand.

  ‘I could put it out to tender to all the big houses,’ Phyllis said. ‘But the Annabeth Browning factor is risky. She might be good for this book. She might blow it up in all our faces. Impossible to know. Think about it. And while you’re thinking, tell me what’s the relationship with you guys?’ She meant Mannix and me. ‘Are you married?’

  �
��Yes,’ Mannix said.

  ‘Okay. Good.’

  ‘Oh! But not to Stella. To another person.’

  ‘Okay. Not good.’

  ‘Not bad either,’ I said, quickly. ‘We’re both getting divorced.’

  ‘So what’s the delay? Do it now.’

  ‘We can’t,’ I said. ‘This is Ireland. You have to be living apart for five years. But we’re as good as divorced. Ryan and I have agreed on everything – money, the kids, all of it. So have Mannix and Georgie. And we’re all friends. Great friends. I mean, Ryan hasn’t met Georgie yet, but he will love her. I mean, I love her and I should hate her, right? Fabulous-looking ex-wife, well, soon-to-be ex …’ My voice trailed away.

  ‘So what’s it to be, guys?’ Phyllis said. ‘Blisset Renown? Or you take a chance on the unknown?’

  ‘I have to decide now?’

  She leaned forward and said into my face, ‘Yes. Now.’

  ‘I need more time.’

  ‘You haven’t got more time.’

  ‘Stop this,’ Mannix said. ‘You’re bullying her.’

  ‘Tell me about the publisher,’ I said to Phyllis.

  ‘His name is Bryce Bonesman.’

  ‘Is he nice?’

  ‘Nice?’ Phyllis sounded like she’d never heard the word before. ‘You want him to be nice? Yeah? Then he’s nice. Maybe you should meet him.’ She had a little think. ‘What time is it in New York?’

  ‘Three a.m.,’ Mannix said.

  ‘Okay. Let me make a call.’ Phyllis hit a couple of buttons on her phone. ‘Bryce? Wake up. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. She wants to know if you’re nice. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha.’

  She hung up and said to me, ‘Can you go to New York?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘What’s today? Tuesday? Then Tuesday.’

  My head was reeling. ‘I haven’t got the money to go to New York on a whim.’

  Phyllis was contemptuous. ‘You don’t pay! Bryce Bonesman’s guys pick up the tab. For everything.’ She waved her arm expansively. ‘The kids are invited.’