said Edward hopefully. ‘You were out with William Morris and Trident last week. Anyone got anything interesting?’
Debs shook her head sadly, her long red curls swishing behind her. ‘Nothing guaranteed to fill a two-million-dollar hole in the P&L, boss.’
‘Brooke,’ said Mimi, smiling thinly. ‘You must have a young celebrity girlfriend we can work with. Miley Cyrus? What about that Bush twin who teaches kindergarten?’
‘I don’t know Miley actually,’ said Brooke, feeling her cheeks flush. Brooke knew she had the most unimpressive roster of authors of anyone in the room, certainly in terms of financial return. Brooke’s speciality was commissioning beautifully illustrated books and sweet stories aimed at the 7–11 age group. To even her own surprise, one of her books had just won the Carnegie Medal at the Bologna Fair, but, in terms of sales, which was all that counted in this cut-throat climate, they were all strictly mid-list. The really big hitters of children’s publishing – J. K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer – were the ones that had crossover appeal with the adult market.
Then suddenly Brooke thought of a female magician. Of course – the amazing manuscript she had rescued from the slush pile. She had taken what she had Belcourt and read it on the afternoon of the party to distract herself from the circus that was going on around her. It had been even better than she had hoped.
‘Actually,’ she said, tapping her pencil against her lip, ‘I have seen a manuscript that I think has real potential.’
‘Really?’ said Mimi sarcastically. It was no secret that Mimi didn’t think Brooke should be attending these meetings. ‘So give me the elevator pitch.’
Brooke always felt as if she was being interviewed whenever she spoke to Mimi. ‘It’s about a teenage female magician.’
‘Uggh,’ groaned Mimi, rolling her eyes. ‘Not another Harry Potter wannabe.’
‘Not at all,’ replied Brooke. ‘It’s more of a mystery novel. She solves an assortment of crimes over a trilogy of books.’
‘Who’s the author?’ asked Edward more graciously.
‘Eileen Dunne.’
‘Never heard of her,’ snapped Mimi.
‘No, she’s a first-time author,’ said Brooke hesitantly.
‘So who’s representing her?’
‘No one yet. Actually, it’s a slush-pile script.’
‘Enough said,’ said Mimi, holding up one manicured hand. ‘Now has anybody got anything else that might be of genuine interest?’
You are such an old witch, thought Brooke, feeling suddenly protective of the magician book.
‘It’s actually really very good,’ she said, interrupting Mimi. ‘Dark and funny, a young adult book that adults will buy as well.’
She turned and met Mimi’s glare. ‘I think we should give it a chance. The manuscript is completed; even better, it’s a trilogy, and the author has the second book almost finished too.’
‘We like trilogies,’ smiled Edward. He turned to his left. ‘Mimi, I think you should take a look at it.’
Her sigh was audible.
‘Very well. I suppose if it’s bearable we can pick it up for peanuts. She’ll think all her Christmases have come at once.’
Let’s hope mine have too, thought Brooke.
The Eton Manor School, on a quiet corner of East Ninety-Third Street, was a beautiful mansion with a quaint courtyard and functioning bell tower that had once been a Greek Orthodox church. Although the school was only twenty-five years, old, it had quietly become one of the most exclusive schools in Manhattan, challenging the old guard like Brearley, Chapin and Collegiate. Eton Manor did not pretend to have links to the great British boarding school, but with an austere British head teacher, it was the school of choice for the rich and fashionable who wanted a coed school where they could channel their inner Englishness.
As Paula pulled up in her Porsche, it was exactly eight fifteen a.m., right in the middle of the prime fifteen-minute window for the school drop-off. Paula ignored the bickering in the back seat of her two children, Casey and Amelia, for a moment, pausing to scout out the area, checking for anyone else in the school zone. Across the street she recognized the black Escalade belonging to Nicole Nixon, the wife of one of New York’s most successful record producers. A plume of exhaust fumes showed its engine was still running, and three giggling children were ejected onto the pavement. Noticing it was the Nixons’ nanny, not Nicole Nixon herself driving, Paula’s gaze moved on. Just to the side, Robyn Steel, who had a son in Casey and Amelia’s class, was parking her convertible Mercedes, the boy squashed in the back, her miniature schnauzer on the front seat, but otherwise it was fairly uneventful people-watching. It seemed today, more than ever, was a day for nannies to do the drop-offs: a harassed-looking Australian, English, and Filipino girls pushing Silver Cross buggies. Paula unloaded the children from the car and strode into the school’s courtyard, clutching the girls’ hands tightly.
‘It’s so great you’re taking us to school today, Mummy,’ said Casey, her eldest twin, looking up at her mother and smiling.
‘You know how busy Mummy gets in the morning,’ she said, squeezing her daughter’s fingers.
‘Why are you going to see Miss Beaumont?’ asked Amelia, always the more suspicious, guarded child. ‘Are you sure we’re not in trouble?’
‘Absolutely sure,’ smiled Paula.
Paula paused in the courtyard, positioning herself just below the head teacher’s office window so that anyone inside could see. Then she crouched down eye to eye with her girls and embraced them tightly. She watched them go, their blonde ponytails swinging from side to side under their felt berets, then straightened her Chanel jacket. She was ready to go to war.
‘Mrs Asgill, so good to see you again.’
Miss Fenella Beaumont, Eton Manor’s headmistress, extended a plump hand across the large walnut desk that dominated her office and settled back into her chair, smoothing down the heavy black robe she always wore over her blouse and skirt. She was a formidable-looking woman: tall with ash-blonde hair set on her head like a helmet, and a powerful speaking voice honed at the Oxford Union, Miss Beaumont having studied Classics at the university in the early 1970s. Paula was well aware that the school’s pupils and many of their parents wilted under her fierce gaze, but she had no intention of letting a pompous English spinster get in her way.
‘Thank you for making the time to see me,’ said Paula, giving the headmistress her sweetest smile. She was careful to conceal her true feelings here, but Paula had been absolutely furious when it had taken her a week to get an appointment with Miss Beaumont. They were paying ten thousand dollars a term each Casey and Amelia to attend Eton Manor. That was sixty thousand dollars a year, not including the hiked-up lunch fees, ballet classes, French tutorials, music lessons, and sundry ‘donations’ they paid on top. For that money, Paula had expected to see Miss Beaumont immediately. The teacher
