By Any Other Name(56)

In the meantime, I’ll handle the rest.

Up at the podium, Patrisse’s clicker isn’t working, so the PowerPoint presentation stays stuck on the previous slide—the glossy, fully designed cover for a new book called The Bed Trick. It’s one of Emily Hines’s big summer titles, and the in-house buzz is buzzy.

When Patrisse finally advances the slideshow, the contrast is stark. All of Peony’s upper management division now stares at a white screen with simple black font that reads only:

CALLAWAY TITLE AND COVER TO COME.

My stomach drops. My thinking had been that this is Noa’s eleventh book with Peony. We are literally pros at publishing Noa Callaway by now. Our robust Callaway marketing and publicity plans are well-oiled machines, tweaked only slightly each year, based on the content or theme of the new book. I’d hoped I could ride on Noa’s previous coattails today, even with little actual material to show the team.

That might have been true . . . if this book weren’t already almost six months late. I see now the doubt in my colleagues’ faces. I see they fear the worst—about the manuscript, and about my role in publishing it.

I feel them turning to look at me. Even Meg is grimacing. When Alix was editorial director, we always had a title, a fantastic cover, and an edited manuscript by the time sales conference rolled around.

I’ve delivered sales conference materials for all four of my other titles on our summer list. I’ve approved the plans for the books of my entire team. I am not an abject failure! Only a failure with the one book that everyone’s actually counting on.

Aude had been horrified by the paucity of Noa Callaway materials I’d given her to distribute before today’s meeting. She’d muttered in French for half the morning. I kept hearing the word disgrâce. Maybe Aude should have become Noa’s editor—maybe she’d have excised the manuscript from him already.

“We know Lanie will get the manuscript out of Noa . . . eventually,” Patrisse says at the podium, and the room laughs uneasily. “Until then, we’re moving forward with our standard, successful plans for marketing Noa’s books across all platforms. Let’s consider this a developing story, shall we? Unless Lanie has news for us?”

My chair squeaks as I stand up. This wasn’t planned, but I can’t walk out of my first sales conference as an editorial director looking like I don’t know what’s going on with our company’s biggest book. I’ve been running through my conversation with Noah on the Gapstow Bridge for weeks. I remember everything he said.

“We have a working title,” I announce on a whim, locking eyes with a suddenly perked-up Sue. “Two Thousand Picnics in Central Park.”

I know as soon as it’s passed my lips that it’s a knockout title. There are murmurs in the conference room.

“I can run with that,” Brandi, our cover designer, says, making notes in her tablet. “With Callaway’s name on the cover, it sells itself.”

“It’s going to be a very special book,” I promise the room. “It’s a love story spanning fifty years. And the characters?” I smile, picturing Edward and Elizabeth holding hands across their picnic table. “They’re incredible.”

“When are we getting the manuscript?” Sue asks, knowing I can’t dodge the question in front of the whole company.

“May fifteenth,” I say as confidently as I can. Just in time to keep my promotion.

“You’re certain?” she asks. “That’s already pushing our production schedule to its limits. If we have to move to fall, that will change the budget considerably—”

“It would be a nightmare,” Tony from finance calls at the back of the room.

“You’ll have it,” I vow. My heart is racing. I sit back down.

As Patrisse moves forward to the next slide, I pull out my phone under the conference table, and compose the email I’ve been reluctant to send.


From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: April 13, 11:51 a.m.

Subject: Edward and Elizabeth


Are they finding their way?


From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: April 13, 11:57 a.m.

Subject: re: Edward and Elizabeth


I was just about to write to you!

They’re coming to life.

Could we talk through the character arcs? I’d love your thoughts before I get too deep.



I pore over the twenty-seven words of Noah’s email. Exclamation point after the first sentence—always a good sign! And he doesn’t seem bothered that I breached our agreement and made contact. But “before I get too deep,” suggests that he’s not yet deep in the writing. Just how un-deep is he? Ten thousand words? Two fifty? And the use of the word love . . .

After sales conference adjourns, I race back to my desk, pick up the phone, and dial Terry, telling myself I will not take any of her guff today.

“Hey . . .”

It’s Noah’s voice. It sounds softer. Or is this just the way he speaks on the phone? It’s our first time.

“Oh,” I say. “Hi. I thought I’d have to go through Terry. You’ve never answered this phone before.”

Is he in his office? At that desk? Looking out at that view of Central Park? What’s he wearing? What’s he drinking? Does he have writing snacks?