Page 55 of Rivals to Lovers
“It was the foundational book for me as a teen. The way it made me think about class and growing up … and obviously about family. I mean, did you know my first child is named Eliza?”
“Really?”
“I mean, of course it’s a bummer to name her after a character who offs herself, but you must admit she’s one of the best heroines in twentieth-century literature. So.” Elena put her elbows on the table and leaned closer. “Who are the authors? What are the adaptations like?”
“Funny you should ask,” Wes said, and he took a long, slow drink of water before he began.
Wes returned from lunch to a flurry of Slack notifications, more than half of them prodding for details on what Elena was looking for currently. He would certainly share what he’d gleaned, but he wouldn’t share the conversation they’d had aboutP&L, at least not yet. Wes’s boss, Jacob, knew that holding on to Estelle as a client would pay off in the long run; Jacob didn’t know in how short a time that run would begin. Before traveling to the Hill, Wes had given the portfolio over to Jacob to manage without explaining why. “Too much else on my plate right now,” he’d said. Wes hadn’t told him about his book being considered for adaptation. He wasn’t ready to share the details until everything was perfect.
It was time for Wes to find his own representation, though. He didn’t want to ask someone in his agency to rep him. A move like that would undermine his bargaining ability if they got to the bidding stage. He didn’t want to query anyone at Yuri’s agency either—he imagined how awkward that would be and shivered. He did know another agent from the time they’d both worked there who had moved on from that agency and respected the deals he had made lately. He glanced over the query he had typed up months ago with the barest hope of Estelle agreeing to consider his book and sent it before he could overthink it.
How the tables have turned,Wes thought. He spent the good part of the rest of the day refreshing his personal email and his professional email at the same time.
By the end of the day, two more editors had told Wes they would get in touch soon with a counteroffer for his client.Looks like we’re going to set up an auction, Wes said on Slack. Confetti emojis from his colleagues. He couldn’t imagine working as hard as he did with people he didn’t like as much. His colleagues worked second jobs and late hours to be able to do the work of representing books they loved. This business rewarded you if you were already successful or powerful in some other way.
He was preparing to FedEx his manuscript over to Elena, nestling it into the comfortable big brown envelope, when he stopped. He was keeping the project in hard copy to avoid having it on the record for now. She’d asked to have a sneak peek before she went on leave. Project FOMO was a real thing. There was always the next thing in this business. Someday he might be the next thing, and that thought thrummed through him.
But the specter of being called out at the gallery hung over him. Coming clean to Mo had been one of the hardest conversations he’d ever had. It was physically painful to show her the behind-the-scenes of his last few years. It reminded him of looking at the flip side of a tapestry and the mess of threads compared to the art on the front. No one bought a tapestry for the process, but for the final, front-facing product.
No matter what happened with the estate, it would be one of their projects, and giving Elena time to have a look before she went on maternity leave felt like such a small stitch in the overall artwork unfolding now. Still, he imagined how it would look, how it would feel, to tell Maureen about passing only his manuscript along to an editor.
He paused in the act of stuffing his manuscript in the envelope and looked around. There, on the table, was Mo’s old novel draft, the one that had gotten caught in the rain on the day she slept over for the first time. The pages were warped, accordioned in on themselves like ocean waves, but it was readable. Missing her this weekend, he had reread that first-kiss scene in the first chapter, thinking of her lips. He had mentioned Mo to Elena during their lunch, but he hadn’t said he had a copy of her draft. He shouldn’t send it over, since he wasn’t Mo’s agent. But also, he could imagine the betrayal if his project was selected and Elena bought it.
Maureen said that there was no future for them, whatever they were, if things weren’t fair. Fair it would be.
Without thinking twice, he shoved Mo’s manuscript in the same FedEx envelope. He printed a shipping label. His stomach was in knots, but that was probably because he was hungry, right? Wes made a quick salad and refreshed hisemails again—personal and business—with a news podcast running in the background. He could multitask, and in fact, sometimes he only multitasked. He worried that he couldn’t ever sit and focus on one thing. When he saw that the agent he’d emailed had responded, he single-tasked to free the salad from his throat. Choking required lots of concentration. The agent asked for a full copy of his manuscript. In the body of the email, he said,Okay, I need the full story of how this magic might actually happen, but your sample pages were great. Not going to ask what magic lamp you rubbed or what HomeGoods you bought it from, but if the rest of the manuscript zings like the first fifty, you’re signed.
Wes smiled, attaching the manuscript to the reply with the note,Here’s hoping it zings. And no promises on its placement, but let’s say it’s got a 50/50 chance.
The FedEx driver knocked on the door, and Wes handed him the package containing his and Mo’s books. It was hard enough to imagine a future with Mo, and he hadn’t allowed himself to think that far ahead. Feelings got hurt in relationships every day, but even bigger feelings got trampled on in publication. Comparison was the thief of joy, right? So how could they keep any amount of joy in their relationship when they had only met because they were in direct, constant comparison with each other’s work?
The only thing he could do was level the playing field as much as possible, even if that meant keeping the fact that he was doing so to himself for the time being. Who knew what Estelle would even say? Maybe, ultimately, no one would get the go-ahead, and he would never have to mention this happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mo
Anna sent Maureen three ideas for wedding hair—for Mo, not for herself. For months, Anna had known that she wanted a chignon with loose curls woven in with daisies. Anna too had received bouquets of daisies from their father when she was a grumpy teenage girl, and now the simple white blooms would make up her bouquet, the definition of simplicity and country charm. Mo loved seeing Anna’s ideas for the wedding come together, and now that she had realized what a horrible sister and maid of honor she had been, she went about course correcting. She was grateful for having worked so many weddings over the years. After all, coordinating caterers and DJs was part of her day job. Anna seemed so grateful that Mo had to remind her that making a spreadsheet was easier than checking dilation on a dog—at least the DJs spoke the same language as you, and at least you could tell the caterers when to arrive, unlike a puppy.
Mo skimmed through the wedding hair pictures, feeling for the first time that she was a set piece in the wedding. Shewas being forced to care about updos again for the first time since prom when part of her wanted to straighten it and let it be. She emailed her sister back.Thanks! I’ll take a look.
The wedding was in two weeks, and she had a lot to do between now and then that had nothing to do with her sister’s nuptial bliss. Wedding season was in full swing at work too, two each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with cleaning and reorganization of the layout between each event. Sloan brought Mo takeout between the two weddings on Saturday when she realized she’d forgotten to eat anything, planting a quick kiss on Mo’s cheek and staring around at the wreckage from the first event. It had been a relatively small affair—only a hundred people—but the bride had chosen an Alice in Wonderland theme and at one point the flower girls had tossed hundreds of cards (all hearts) around the entire space. They must have been formerly used in a casino and bought secondhand, because they all had hole punches through them. Mo wondered if anyone had considered that someone might have to collect hundreds of cards afterward. It was fifty-two-card pickup times fifty.
The burger helped, thankfully, and at least her blood sugar was level by the time she had to move the eight-tops and place the next set of silverware.
She got home around one in the morning on Sunday, the second wedding having moved on to the bars once the bride and groom left. No official theme for this wedding, just “wealth.” Custom macarons in the wedding colors had been stacked nearly to the ceiling. The couple had hired a band she recognized from her college album collection, and during the dancing portion of the event, after clearing most of the tables, Amy and Mo mouthed the song lyrics back and forth, using serving spoons as microphones.
Those were the moments she liked the job—especially when it was only her and Amy, after dinner service was complete and before they had to clean up vomit in the bathrooms.
The apartment was quiet when she got back, and Mo tumbled into bed, exhausted. She hated that she had to have an alarm set for the next day—at the ungodly hour of eight—but she would survive.
She didn’t even get to sleep until eight, though, because Mackenzie perched on the edge of her bed with pancakes the next morning. “You need a full and balanced breakfast today,” she said. “I can sense it.”
“You sense it?”
“Okay, Sloan did a tarot reading for you, and she said so.”
Mo yawned and sat up. She took the tray from her roommate and cut a piece of pancake. She took a bite. It was homemade, not from the box. It wasn’t as good as the savory crepe that Wes had made for her weeks ago, but it was sweet and fluffy. “Thank you for this.”
