Page 68 of A Storybook Wedding

Today is New Year’s Eve. CJ’s done with her application to the Rising Star Program; she finished it last night. She’s been busy trying to convince me she needs an Instagram account stat, so I caved this morning and took a picture of her sitting in front of the window while the snow fell behind her. She looked peaceful but happy, intelligent as all get-out in those glasses but with a playful gleam in her eye.

I found myself becoming mildly jealous that the whole internet would get to see that photo, especially since I felt like the face she made was one that she saves only for me.

She wants to have the account up and running, along with two hundred followers, by midnight tonight when her query letters are scheduled to send. I don’t know what algorithms she’s studying (she definitely is, because that’s CJ), but if anyone can do it, she can.

As for me, I spend the morning leading my workshop. We review one student’s attempt at dystopia, only it’s set on the sun instead of on any other planet, and the characters’ chief complaint is something along the lines of, “Man, it’s hot here,” so I have a very hard time taking it seriously. After the break, I give my lecture on point of view, and we do a generative exercise where the students have to rewrite a scene in a variety of different POVs. While they write, I study my selection for my reading tonight, wondering if I’m about to make a colossal mistake with CJ by reading a piece so intimate.

My saving grace is that she’s married to me, so even if it turns out to be the wrong move, it’s not like she’s going anywhere. (At least not until January 4, when we all go home.)

Poor girl is a bundle of nerves today anyway. She’s really beating herself up about these query letters going out tonight. I know what that feels like—the rejection one experiences when trying to find a literary agent can make all other forms of rejection in life seem like a cakewalk by comparison—but I don’t think that I cared as much as she does. I was gainfully employed at the time and was a hobbyist writer, so every step I took down the path to publication was met with Wow, isn’t this cool? as its response, as opposed to the soul-crushing heartache that I worry will plague CJ every time someone passes on her work.

By dinnertime, CJ looks like she’s going to be sick, but of course she now has 312 followers on social media (after a long day of whatever one does to put up such numbers), so that’s a win in her book. She followed people until her phone died, evidently, but she plans to throw it back on the charger after my reading when we go back to our room and switch over to the laptop to find more people to follow. The girl has more nervous energy than even me. I don’t blame her though. Tomorrow, she will officially be out in the query trenches. I keep reminding her that tomorrow is a federal holiday, so even though the work will be out there in the world for twenty-five sets of privileged eyes to see, it won’t truly be under consideration until January 2, so she should allow herself the day to relax. It’s her thirtieth birthday tomorrow, and what a way to start her thirtieth year than with a whole shit ton of optimistic possibilities to daydream about.

I too am nervous at dinner. I don’t like reading—I don’t think any author really likes reading aloud—and I’m second- and third-guessing my selection. Unfortunately, I can’t come up with a better alternative, so I suffer through a plate of ironic lobster ravioli and leave it up to fate as to whether I will be healthy enough to read this evening. If the lobster does me dirty, as it did the last time I saw fit to consume the delicacy, then CJ will miss the opportunity to hear my literary pontifications via my narrator, Finn. However, if my digestive system does not launch a full assault on this meal and she can focus on something other than her new social media app for about fifteen minutes, it could change the course of our relationship forever.

So yeah. No big deal. No stakes or anything.

After the festive brownie sundae that CJ insists we must partake in, I head straight to the Spiritual Sanctuary to review my pages. The setup goes like this: Finn Stockton is an extremely successful musician. He’s traveled the world, played for stadiums of people, and even made the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. He’s had women—plenty of them, in fact—but with a regularity that has desensitized him to the potential excitement that “normal” people yearn to experience. Finn, like many young stars, is awash with money, power, and fame—the picture of success. But he doesn’t recognize all that is missing from his life until he meets Charlie Jones, his new opening act. She is strikingly beautiful, has more raw, natural talent than he could ever dream of having, and has a following that is negligible at best, but Finn’s producers at RCA Records believe that she’s got what it takes to be the next big thing. Only via his interactions with Charlie does Finn realize everything she’ll be giving up in the pursuit of commercial success and how, from the other side of the fence, it feels like maybe the sacrifice isn’t worth the reward. The excerpt for my reading begins in her dressing room just before the first time he hears her sing and follows her out to the stage, where Finn watches from the wings as she knocks him sideways with her transcendent voice.

As I look over the pages, sucking bits of brownie out of my molars, CJ walks into the sanctuary. “Mind if I sit?” she asks, pointing to the first pew.

“Please,” I say, trying not to notice the snowflakes melting into her hair. “How bad is it out there?”

“Eh. It’s really windy, and the snow’s coming down. But it looks so pretty that I don’t really mind it.”

“Maybe no one will come,” I say.

“And miss the chance to hear the great Nate Ellis read? In your dreams.”

“I guess we’ll see. I still have thirty minutes until this thing starts.”

“I don’t know why you’re torturing yourself up there at the podium,” she comments.

I shrug. “It’s not torture. It’s practice.” I crack my knuckles and open and close my fingers, stretching them out like a cat.

“You don’t need practice. You’re the best reader I know.”

I try to smile but it’s noticeably forced. She furrows her brow. “You seem extra nervous.”

“I feel extra nervous.”

“Maybe you should read to me,” she suggests.

“Just you? Here? Alone?”

“Yeah. Get the jitters out. I wouldn’t mind hearing your reading twice.”

And that does it. My nerves light on fire like a cigarette dropped on the ground at a gas station. “You don’t want that, believe me,” I say, searching her face, willing her to prove me otherwise.

She steadily holds my gaze, blinking only out of necessity. It’s that same look that she gave me the other night in bed, the one that’s been haunting my daydreams. All the blood rushes to my groin, but the podium keeps her from seeing it. My hands begin to sweat, and I wonder if my face looks as flushed as it feels. “

Try me,” she says.

“Okay,” I reply. “Just know one thing though. Words can have intense power, and once they’re out there, you can’t take them back. Words change things.” I pause, swallowing. “These words might change things.”

She nods. “Sometimes change can be good.” There’s not even so much as a hint of hilarity in her expression. Her resolute stare bores through my center.

I inhale, nodding, willing myself to read aloud.

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