she’d adapted to Manhattan flawlessly. Her chic Bumble and Bumble haircut (done by a student stylist during her lunch break — I covered her desk at work) was none the worse for wear from the rain, and she had on the exact right shade of MAC lipstick (“buy drugstore mascara and powder, Shay, but drop real money on your lips”).
In the beginning, I represented something to Maggie. You could say that my parents belonged to the intelligentsia, but that word makes me uncomfortable. Money or no money, they traveled in circles with innovators, movers, and shakers. Maggie’s parents, and their parents before, worked with their hands and functioned in the practicality of the here and now. Whereas Maggie had lived in a dormer bungalow situated in a neighborhood filled with people who only drove into the city for the Rockefeller Center Christmas show or to consult with medical specialists, I’d grown up in a high-rise surrounded by writers, editors, and those who had the money to see that magazines, newspapers, and books got printed. Even my grandparents had been schoolteachers, professors, and artists. Maggie absorbed every story about being sent to camp at the artsy Usdan Center, and the noted personalities at the cocktail parties thrown at our Upper West Side apartment when I was a kid. Rough around the edges, Maggie tried to blend in with this kind of society. So it didn’t take long before she realized I’d been trying to blend in my whole life. We kept each other’s secrets. How much we needed each other went unspoken. Maggie was reared to be tough and hard, and I was reared to keep my failures under my hat. I loved her, temper and all, and she protected me.
“Thanks,” she said to the waiter as he handed her a linen napkin. She signaled to the waiter and whispered something in his ear. “Now then, I want to hear everything about your book deal. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Twins in success!”
“What?” I asked.
“You go! Then, I’ll tell you my news.” She beamed at me, eyes wide open.
“Right, about that. Well, Brenda said no.” I drained my glass, and held it out to a busser.
“What?” She spat, biting off the end of the word. “Are you telling me that she didn’t pick up The New Adult’s Guide to Making it in the Big City? That’s ridiculous!” Did she see your two articles in the Observer? How to Be an Adult at Work and How to Be an Adult at Weddings? Pure genius! Did you tell her that they’re thinking of making How to Be an Adult a regular column?” Her eyes blazed.
“Never mind,” I said. “You win some, you lose some.” I didn’t want to ruin our night out together with a pity party. Changing the subject would do me good.
“Anyway, how was your day, Mags?”
“It was, you know…” she tapered off and her eyes got really big. She was looking over my shoulder, shaking her head “no” in small, twitchy movements. I turned around in my chair, and caught the back of a waiter carrying champagne in a silver bucket, heading in the opposite direction.
“What was that?”
She shrugged.
“So what about your blog, Shay? The writing is solid and witty, and your timing couldn’t be more on the money. It’s so current.”
“To be honest, my blog hasn’t gotten much traction.”
“It still might. You’ve proven yourself with the book contracts Brenda’s given you. And for almost no money! After all those Dumbass Guides you’ve ghostwritten for her? The Dumbass Guide to Picking a College, The Dumbass Guide to Getting Him to Propose…You could write The Dumbass Guide to Writing a Dumbass Guide! Did you offer her the alternate title? Adulting? That’s so fresh! I can see the short-haired girls starring in the HBO series now! Why would she think twice about putting your name on a cover as sole author?”
“Well, the phone call didn’t last long…
“And after you swooped in, cleaned up that mess of a green smoothie book that that idiot personal trainer slash diet guru, slash cable TV personality couldn’t write? OK, tell me this: Are you getting your name on the book as co-writer or not?” She took a greedy gulp of water. I shook my head. I hated giving Maggie the disappointing news.
“Wait, what? Brenda, your agent, told you no on the phone? She didn’t give you the courtesy of delivering the news face-to-face?”
“Well, you know how busy she is,” I said, my face heating up. “To be fair, it was a quick conversation. I shouldn’t have called on a Friday.”
“She’s your agent! Evan would never treat me like that. You’re allowed to call her.” Maggie shook her head. “I’ve been saying for a year that you need to let me talk to Evan about you. He’s a big fan of Hank’s. I think that’s why he signed me, because I dropped both your names. He’d snap you up in a heartbeat.”
I shifted in my chair. The waistband of my skirt was bunching up from the dampness. “You know, Brenda’s been pretty good to me. Like she said, tons of writers would kill to do this ghosting.”
“Bullshit. How many people out there write as well as you? This should have just been done and dusted. Your proposal is brilliant. I bet she didn’t even read it. Does she know who your father is?”
“Probably, but we’ve never talked about it. I want to get a deal on my own merit. You know it wouldn’t count in Hank’s eyes if I got it through him.”
“That’s on you, not your father. He never said that. Look, first thing Monday, you need to just show up there and insist that Brenda pay attention to you.”
I snorted. “I can’t just barge in.”
“Yes, you can. Even if I have to drag you in by the hair, you are going to see Brenda Sackler on Monday. And she’d better give you the kind of book deal you deserve!”
Maggie finished the rest of her water and her shoulders relaxed. Thank God. I just wanted to move on and stop talking about books. Le Relais wasn’t where I wanted to be tonight, but it was wonderful to spend time with Maggie. Ever since we met on Day One as slave-assistants for HPC Publishing, we’d clung to each other. I found her in the copy room, cursing out a notoriously volatile senior editor who cut the line in front of her. She had her fist raised to punch him. The words “you’re fired” sat on his lips when I intervened to usher him out to the hallway. I “explained” that she’d just had a scare with an ovarian biopsy. The mention of gynecology and cancer will cow any man. Maggie appreciated that I’d risked my job for hers. That kind of loyalty meant something, and from that day forward, she had my back. It was just a matter of time before she forced out her dippy, model-wannabe roommate, and moved me in to our tiny, illegal sublet Hell’s Kitchen.
A busser appeared and set a basket of assorted artisanal breads before me. He must have read my mind. I was starving. “Can I get another vodka and soda, and can she have a dirty martini, up, three onions?” He nodded and glided toward the bar. I sighed with pleasure. My blood had begun to warm. The first drink did me a world of good, and another was on the way. Being out on a Friday wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, I was starting to enjoy myself.
“You never answered me. How was your day?” I asked, dragging a slice of dark, grainy bread through the modernist ramekin of herbed oil the olives were lounging in.
“My day? Hey, did you notice the cute guy at the bar checking you out?”
“What
