Page 14 of A Storybook Wedding

“What? That’s insane. How can you say that?”

“It was all timing. The stars aligned.”

She squints at me as if I just shone a flashlight in her eyes.

“You didn’t hear about the nickname they gave me?”

“Literary Nostradamus?” she asks. “I heard it. Certainly beats CJ.”

I smile. “I think CJ’s a perfectly acceptable moniker.”

“Focus up, Professor PEN Award,” she says. “Finish your thought.”

“Now that’s a nickname,” I say.

“I can be surprisingly clever,” she retorts. “But I’m honestly trying to understand the point you’re trying to make. So”—she waves her hand—“on with it, please.”

I nod. “My book released the same week as the coronavirus made its first appearance in Washington. Do you remember that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And it was about a guy who worked for the Department of Labor who watched the state of work in America unravel as a result of a pandemic. Early reviews were like, It’s an interesting social commentary, but then it all started to come true. It brought the notion of ‘Life imitates art’ to a whole new level.”

“So you think if there hadn’t been a pandemic at that moment that you wouldn’t be famous?”

“Exactly,” I say. “And I’m not famous. In fact, I’m weeks away from being dropped by my editor.”

“Excuse my language, but I call bullshit—to all of that,” she says.

“I mean it. I can’t get it together to write my second novel.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I’ve pushed back the deadline a bunch of times.”

“Why?”

“Because lightning doesn’t strike twice. Nothing I write will be able to compare with the first book, and that had nothing to do with me. It was all a huge coincidence.”

“You really think that?”

“100%.”

“But you won a PEN Award.”

“So what?”

“You’re a big deal.” She blinks those giant night-bird eyes at me.

“Listen, CJ. I’m just a regular guy. You know I don’t even have an MFA, right?”

“Seriously?”

“I was a copy editor before the book took off. I’ve got a bachelor’s in English and a subscription to Grammarly. That’s about it,” I admit. “In fact, our workshop? It’s the first fiction workshop I’ve ever been in.”

“How is that possible?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It just is?”

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