By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(6)

Whenever she said this, she put on a bright smile, she threw conviction in her voice, and her audience was satisfied. But somehow, this time, her heart wasn’t in it. Maybe she’d done it too many times, maybe it was because she knew Josephine, at least a little, maybe it was because of what Gavin had told her the week before, but her words came out flat, almost angry.

Josephine winced. “Oof, that bad?”

Oh no. She had to recover from this. She didn’t want Josephine to think she was ungrateful.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that! It’s just—”

Josephine stopped her. “Yes you did. Come on, this is me you’re talking to.”

Izzy was surprised into laughter. Josephine grinned, too, but from the look on her face, Izzy could tell she really wanted to know the answer.

“I’m okay,” she said, after thinking about it for a little while. “There’s a lot I love about working in publishing. But it can be hard sometimes. For…a lot of reasons.”

Izzy could tell from the look in Josephine’s eyes that she understood.

“Yeah, it really can be.” Josephine gestured to the room. “When I started out, I was one of only a handful of Black people in these rooms. Now I’m one of maybe two handfuls.” She sighed. “I really thought it would be better by now.”

She felt so much more comfortable with Josephine than she did with Marta. If only…No, she couldn’t think that way.

Josephine took another sip of wine. “Are you getting good work to do? Marta has some great authors over there.”

Izzy nodded automatically. “Yeah, she does. But—” She swallowed. She needed to stop now. What was she doing, even thinking about confessing her feelings about Marta to anyone who wasn’t Priya? This industry was way too small for that. “I’m learning a lot,” she finished.

Josephine gave her a knowing look. “I’m sure you are,” she said. “Learning how to juggle very well, I bet.”

Izzy laughed. “Yes, absolutely.” She needed to shift this conversation—she’d probably already said too much. “Anyway, I don’t want to complain. I’ve had some really great opportunities.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” Josephine said. “Look, the first few years especially can be really hard in this business, but—”

Someone touched Josephine on the shoulder.

“Josephine, there you are. Leah Jackson is here, she’s looking for you.”

Josephine’s face lit up. “She made it! Fantastic!” She turned back to Izzy. “Isabelle, I have to run, but we’ll continue this later, okay? If not here, let’s get coffee or lunch when we’re back in New York. I’ll email you.”

Izzy nodded. “I’d love that,” she said.

She knew, though, that as much as Josephine might mean it in the moment, given how busy she was, the likelihood of her both remembering this conversation and then actually reaching out was slim to none. But then, Izzy wasn’t sure she could deal with another pep talk about how you just had to stick it out a little while longer, how Marta would have never hired Izzy if she didn’t see how talented and smart she was, how publishing could be a cruel business, but if you kept your head down and worked hard, you’d succeed.

Izzy turned away to go find Priya when she heard Marta’s voice.

“…the bane of my existence, you mean?”

Izzy stopped and took a sip of wine so she could pretend she wasn’t listening. What—or who—could Marta be talking about? She turned slightly, to see who she was talking to. Hmm, that was Will Victor, another one of the big-deal editors at TAOAT. Izzy pulled out her phone to give herself cover for eavesdropping.

“I can’t believe it’s been a full year since you’ve heard anything from him,” Will said.

Marta took a gulp of wine. “Well over a year! His agent gave me some bullshit about how hard he’s working, but I haven’t heard a peep from him, and haven’t seen a page—haven’t seen a word!—so I don’t believe any of it.”

Ahh. She must be talking about Beau Towers. The “bane of her existence” seemed strong—it wasn’t like Marta sent emails to him every two weeks that got ignored. Though Marta was the one who had committed to a seven-figure book deal for him. To be fair, Marta probably didn’t care about that—she’d just want the book.

“My poor assistant is probably tired of sending her little polite, cheerful emails to check in with him and his agent.”

Izzy hid a grin when Marta said that. She definitely hadn’t read any of Izzy’s emails to Beau in a while.

“It’s not even the blown deadline I care about,” Marta continued. “Please, I expected that from him—for people like that, a deadline is more of a suggestion. But it seems like there’s no path to ever actually getting a book out of him. I thought maybe being here in LA would mean I could beard him in his den, take him out for a drink and figure something out, but according to my assistant, he’s not even in LA! He’s holed up in some house in Santa Barbara! I don’t want to cancel the deal—all that would do is make him pay the money back, and I don’t care about the money. It’s not my money. I want this book, Will! But I’m stumped on how to make it happen, and you know I’m rarely stumped.”