Page 60 of By the Book

“Are you joking?” my mom said. “It’s a very good deal, Dashiell. And it’s only one book. You’ll write others.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I shook my head.

“Kiddo,” my dad said, “they’re looking for breakout authors—”

“The answer is no.”

“I can’t believe this,” my mom said. “We practically kill ourselves to make this happen for you—and you made it a lot harder than it needed to be—and it’s not good enough for you.”

“Let’s pause this discussion,” Bobby said.

“It’s not that it’s not good enough,” I said. “If you want me to say thank you, then thank you. But I’m not doing it. I won’t do it.”

“All right—” my dad began.

“We’re handing you a contract,” my mom said. She held out her napkin like it was a stand-in for the paperwork. “Not just a contract. A bestselling series. This is your entire life, Dash. Everything handed to you in one easy package. You want to sit out here in that cavernous old mansion and play at being a sleuth with your friends? Fine. You’ll have the money to do that. You want to try another character? Another series? Fine. You’ll have the leverage to do that too. People try their whole lives to get an offer like this, and all you can do is sit there and stare.”

“Patricia,” my dad said.

“The ingratitude. The sheer ingratitude.”

“Dash and I are going to step outside for some air—” Bobby tried.

“It’s not ingratitude,” I said. My voice was trembling. My face felt hot. I was aware, the way I always was, of every eye in the restaurant turning toward our table. Of the feeling like a spotlight had landed on me. My heart thrummed in my chest. “I appreciate that you’ve tried to help me. I really do. I’ve tried to tell you before, but you don’t listen, so I’ll say it again: I want to do this on my own. It’s my writing. It’s my life. I am grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but it’s important that I do this on my own.”

“If you were going to do it on your own,” my mom said, “you’d have done it already. My God, Dashiell, I was two years younger than you when I won an Edgaranda Macavity. Your father had six books out by the time he was thirty, and all of them hit the bestseller lists. You’re not even going to have a finished draft by the time you’re thirty. What do you do all day, Dashiell? You don’t work. You don’t write. For heaven’s sake,you don’t even solve murdersfull-time. You waste your days on stupid, childish things, because you’re too scared to take a risk.”

“Come on,” Bobby said to me, and he stood, tugging on my arm.

I stood too, but I didn’t let Bobby lead me away from the table. I stared at my parents. My mom’s eyes glinted with the warm, golden light that escaped the caged bulbs. My dad had turned his gaze down, and he had one hand wrapped around the edge of the table.

“I’m sorry I’m not who you want me to be,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be that person. I spent a long time wishing I could be.”

“Dash,” my dad said softly, but he didn’t look up.

“But the fact that you don’t see how—howinvalidatingthis is.” I swallowed. My throat felt thick. My head was a hive of noise and sound and broken light. “It’s like I’m not even a person to you.”

“Here we go,” my mom said.

A laugh worked its way out of me. “I’m sorry, Mom. I forgot how much you hate drama. How much you hate anything that doesn’t fit neatly into the little dollhouse world you’ve made for yourself.”

My mom’s face was white except where little red embers burned in her cheeks. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”

“Of course. You’ve never had to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

“I don’t understand why we’re such bad parents—”

“Patricia,” my dad said, “let’s stop.”

“—for helping you to have a modicum of success in your life, Dashiell. I mean, my God, youwantto be a writer. Why can’t you be grateful that your parents want you to be happy?”

“You don’t want me to be happy,” I said. “You want me to be whatever it is you want me to be, and this is one more way of trying to make it happen. If you wanted me to be happy, you’dcare about whatIthought, about whatIwanted, about howIfelt. But you’ve never cared about any of that. It was always about you. Always about what was best for you. It took me a long time to figure it out, but you know what I realized eventually? You didn’t want children. You wanted a photo on the back of a dust jacket.”

Chapter 16

Even in August, the nights can be chilly on the Oregon Coast. The cool air felt good on my face as I strode away from the Breakwater, weaving a path through the evening crowds. It was the usual stuff you saw around here—a pair of elderly gentlemen in matching sailboat-print button-ups inspecting their shopping bags; a little girl squealing with delight as she got her face painted; a couple of paramedics I knew by sight, if not by name, who were checking on a florid-faced woman. A few times, when the timing was right and the sound of voices ebbed between the crashing waves, calliope music floated in the distance.

Bobby caught up with me before I got to the end of the block. He didn’t say anything; he just kept pace at my side.

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