By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(21)
He was still smiling. “We all need snacks in the middle of the night sometimes.”
She smiled back at him. “Yeah. We do. Especially after…” She stopped herself. Was she really so tired and frustrated that she’d been tempted to vent to Beau Towers of all people?
“Especially after what?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just a long day.” He was still looking at her, like he was waiting for her to say something else, so she kept going. “I still have to do all my other work while I’m here, which means I have to be up and working by six a.m. Pacific time, and someone at work today said something that…I’m still annoyed by.” She couldn’t tell Beau what Gavin had said about him, obviously. “It was just…a frustrating day. That’s all.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He still looked…pleasant, almost. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he wasn’t glaring at her either. Not the normal monstrous Beau Towers she’d gotten used to.
“Sure,” she said.
“What’s in it for you? This job, I mean. You deal with jerks at work, and from what I can tell of the rest of your job, it’s just a lot of pointless drudgery. You act like you believe these little cheerful stories you tell me once a day, and you seem so committed to this whole pep talk routine, but you can’t actually believe that ‘a book changed my life’ nonsense, right? What do you even do this for, anyway?”
His whole smiling and friendly thing had just been another way to make fun of her. How had she let him trick her like this? She was suddenly furious.
“I know this entire concept is foreign to you, but some people need to work for a living.” The expression on his face changed when she said that. He looked angry. Good. She kept going. “But even beyond a paycheck, some of us actually care about our jobs. I work hard at my job because I love books. I love everything about them. I love the way you can fall into another world while you’re reading, the way books can help you forget hard things in life, or help you deal with them. I love all the different shapes books come in, and the way they feel in your hand. I love seeing authors develop their idea from just a few sentences to a manuscript to an actual book that’s on the shelves, and I love the face they make when they see their name on a book cover for the first time. I love when readers discover books that felt like they were meant just for them, and they’re so happy and grateful and emotional that everyone in the room wants to cry, and sometimes they all do. Those books do change lives. I hope that answers your question.”
Izzy stormed out of the kitchen past Beau and ran back upstairs. When she got back into her room, she tore open the bag of chips. Why had she believed that smile on his face? Why had she thought they were sort of bonding down there in the kitchen, about snacks and being up in the middle of the night and whatever else? Why did she feel almost disappointed in him now?
As she ate her chips, she replayed in her mind everything she’d said to him. She’d been frustrated with her job for so long and had been on the point of giving up on it. But she’d just given Beau Towers a full-throated defense of publishing. And the wild thing was, everything she’d said to him had been the truth.
Those things she loved—those were the things she’d held on to during the hard times, the times when Marta had said something casually cutting, the times when she’d tried to speak up about something important and everyone ignored her, the times when she’d lost hope about her own talents and abilities as a writer.
That’s why she did all this. Because she wanted to shepherd the kinds of stories she truly believed in through the publishing process; she wanted to advocate for the kinds of authors who mattered to her; she wanted to really work with authors on their books and make them the best they absolutely could be.
Was she ready to give up on this dream? And was she ready to give up on the dream of being a writer herself? She hadn’t truly asked herself that.
Was it all worth it?
She had no idea how to answer that question.
She stared down at the bag of (wildly delicious) chips. Thank goodness she’d at least grabbed them on her way upstairs.
Izzy woke up the next morning, groggy and covered in crumbs. She immediately turned and grabbed her phone. She always had work emails by, like, five a.m. here in California—how did people live like this all the time?
She sat up with a jolt when she saw it was ten a.m. How did she sleep so late? Why didn’t she have any emails? Oh, right, today was Saturday. The good thing about publishing was that not even Marta sent emails before noon on Saturdays—or even, on most Saturdays, at all.
The house felt so still. So silent. It had been nice this week, to be away from her parents, from the office, where people were around her all day. But Michaela was the only person she’d really talked to all week; her short, weird interactions with Beau Towers barely counted. And now it was Saturday, and Michaela wouldn’t be around today or tomorrow. That meant she’d be all alone, with Beau Towers. She had to live through two full weekend days in this house with him and with no work to keep her occupied and no Michaela to talk to.
How depressing was it that she was sad that Michaela wouldn’t be there? As nice as Michaela was to her, she wasn’t really her friend; she worked for Beau Towers, after all.
She suddenly missed her parents, Priya, home. All she’d wanted at home was to have space, and now that she had it, there was too much of it. She felt…lonely.