An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(87)

“He didn’t.” Suddenly no one was making eye contact with me. “He told his agent.”

“His agent is at your agency?”

“His agent is Jennifer Putnam.”

A lot of things happened in my mind simultaneously, none of them good. I said, very slowly to Robin, who was doing his best to meet my eyes, “Jennifer Putnam is my agent.”

“She is also Mr. Petrawicki’s agent.”

“Continue,” I said, my voice sounding unfamiliar to my own ears. I didn’t even realize how angry I was until I heard it.

“She took him on shortly after you,” he said. “She was aware of the significance of the Carls before anyone else in the industry and felt that she had an obligation to scoop up related clients. I had a fight with her about it, I told her that his perspective was nasty and dangerous. She told me we weren’t in the business of deciding who was right and wrong and threatened to fire me and legally prevent me from working with you.”

“How long have you known about this?!” I almost shouted.

He could have explained, I could see he wanted to, but I hadn’t asked him to explain, so he just said, “Months.”

“Months,” I repeated. “So the whole time Putnam was trying to get me to do an in-person with Petrawicki . . . those months? An interview that was always going to have a better outcome for a professional debater than a twenty-three-year-old graphic designer? But what does that matter because either way the money was going into Putnam’s pocket?”

I was silent for long enough that Robin’s mouth opened to speak, but I cut him off, quietly now. “The months during which Mr. Petrawicki was dog-whistling his support of extremists who would go on to murder hundreds of people and try to murder me? But hey, gotta look out for the agency, so let’s just keep our heads down and serve our clients? Those months?”

“April, I’m so sorry, once I started not telling you—”

“GET OUT!” I screamed. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t crying. It felt like I should be crying, but there wasn’t anything but anger there.

Robin’s mouth pressed closed and his face contracted. It looked like he might cry, but he just stood up from the bed.

“If you need me—”

I interrupted coldly, “I’m sorry, I’m not being clear, you are fired.”

In the silence that followed, Robin turned and walked out of the room.

I wanted to do nothing more than curl up and go back to the Dream. Back to my dream that Carl had made just for me. But Peter Petrawicki had solved the sequence, and he had done it without the Dream, which meant that I could too.

“That was pretty uncool, April,” Andy said.

“What?”

“Robin has never done anything except help you. He’s been there all day every day for the last six months and he’s never even asked for a thank-you. And I’m not sure he’s gotten one either.”

“Never done anything except help me? Peter Petrawicki created a movement that tried to kill me. A movement that succeeded in destabilizing the whole PLANET, Andy! God, we don’t have time for this. They’ve solved the sequence, we need to figure this out.”

Andy sighed. Then he turned around and started walking out.

“Where are you going?” I asked, more accusatorial than I intended.

“I don’t know, April.” He turned back to me. “I’m going to leave. I don’t know if I’ll be excited to see you here when I get back.”

“Well, then I won’t be here,” I retorted.

He looked at Miranda and then he looked at me. “Have fun, you two.” The look on his face was something I didn’t think Andy Skampt would be capable of. It was corrosive, disgusted, and also very tired. He walked out the door.

I want to tell you that I understood this then, but I didn’t. I didn’t get it, that we had spent weeks on the road on that book tour, the three of us, and that Andy had suddenly stopped seeming like he was that into me. And that we were all working so much, so maybe I didn’t notice when Andy and Miranda had been spending more and more time together. That he was funny and smart and so was she and that Andy was afraid to make a move, probably because he had spent years perfectly aware that if he had made a move on me our friendship would have been over. And then I got lonely and bored one night and fucked it all up for him. But, no, I had no idea.

Miranda came over, her sympathy outweighing her discomfort, and sat on the edge of the bed.

“It’s just a very high-stress time.”

“It is more than that,” I replied.

She leaned over to wrap her arms around me, which of course made me feel horribly trapped.

“I need to call Maya,” I said stiffly.

Miranda sighed. “I understand,” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking tiny. She was older than me, taller than me, smarter than me, and terrified of me.

“Just about the sequence, she’s our expert. We can’t just let the Defenders win this.”

“OK, April.”

I knew she didn’t believe me, and looking back, she was absolutely right. I didn’t want to hug Miranda. I didn’t want to have a girlfriend. I didn’t need another thing to worry about. I did need to talk to Maya. But she was also a convenient wrench to throw into this relationship because throwing wrenches into relationships is what I did.