Page 2 of Bad Words

“Absolutely not.”

“But if I just—”

“Parker! No. You don’t say anything to these people.”

“But they have no idea who I am! They’re making up this idea of who I am!”

“It doesn’t matter. This is beneath you. There’s always been an element of complete idiocy in the culture. Repeat after me: It doesn’t matter.”

I splayed my hand against the wall of my apartment, the fresh paint squeaking under my fingertips. The response of the reading public seemed to matter a lot, actually. It mattered because I’d bought an apartment in North Brooklyn three weeks ago, when I was confident I’d have a steady income from writing, instead of, potentially, no writing paychecks for the rest of my life. It mattered because people were making assumptions about my parents, who had felt embarrassed enough when I’d paid off the mortgage on my mother’s house, and then on the soup-stained one-bedroom where my father had lived in the two decades since their divorce. That was the truth about my “family money,” and the truth, as far as I was aware, mattered.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, keeping my voice low and controlled.

“Correct,” said Bill. “Look, Parker, in some ways you’re lucky. These things are essentially unserious, but they can get nasty.”

“Nasty? And this is, what, fun and enjoyable?”

“No, of course not. But one critic who doesn’t like your style? You have to expect that if you write anything remotely interesting. What counts is that she didn’t go ad hominem.”

“I’ll write her a thank-you card.”

Bill barked out a laugh. “It’s tough, I know, but you’ve got to ride this out.”

So I sat back and watched the City review smash its way into the far corners of the internet. That was the Selina Chan effect. Two years ago, one of her raves in City had skyrocketed a future Booker Prize winner out of obscurity. On the flip side, her vicious pans induced this sort of instant backlash, like the recoil on a shotgun. You’d have thought she was some longtime titan of criticism, but in reality, she was only a couple of years older than me.

I began to feel a furious clench in my stomach at the sight of her headshot, an unrealistically flattering picture that some photographer had probably tweaked for hours in Photoshop: Chan with her arms folded on an enormous desk, wisps of black hair escaping from an artfully messy topknot, dark eyes set deep above high cheekbones, her mouth exactly symmetrical and unsmiling.

And, one by one, the rest of the critics followed her lead. “Bloated and exhausting,” they said. “Fails to justify its own existence.” In the end, the book I’d labored over for six years became a once-in-a-century flop, slinking in at number eighty-seven on the USA Today bestseller list for a single week before disappearing. I’d cost my publisher millions.

Still, I had two things that most writers didn’t: time and money. When I’d finished spending full days in bed and half joking about jumping in front of a train, I opened a new journal, and two years later, Lauren bought my next manuscript, High and Dry, for fifteen thousand dollars.

Obviously I’d asked Coronation not to send a copy to City. Still, sometimes, in weak late-night moments, I’d imagined Selina Chan reading High and Dry. I pictured her sitting in a Chesterfield armchair in some underlit mansion, turning pages with that uncrackable expression. I imagined her realizing that, to her shock, she loved what she was reading.

I fantasized about the rave she’d write, whose cool, precise sentences would admit how wrong she’d been about me. She’d write that I was in fact a once-in-a-generation talent, possibly a genius.

Then I reminded myself that I had better things to do than fixate on one smug, overpowered member of the literati, and I went back to loathing every atom of her being.

“Parker?” Arthur said. “You okay?”

I barely heard him. I’d sat down on our sofa and was staring through the window, watching the park across the street with its laughing families. The autumn light suddenly felt thin, as though each sunbeam were gliding down the length of a spiderweb.

“Hey.”

The concern in Arthur’s voice brought me back to myself. One look at the way he was approaching me, edging along the border of our rug with slow, cautious steps, and I knew he was mapping out strategies for the next weeks, shortlisting friends to invite me out, planning tactful questions about whether I’d taken my medication. He might even try to cook for us, a sign of real catastrophe.

“Yeah, no, I’m okay,” I said quickly. “Thanks.”

“You sure? Don’t get depressed over this, Park. She’s not worth it.”

“I’m not depressed. I’m just…” Outside, the yellowing oak leaves trembled. I pushed myself to my feet. “I’m kind of pissed off.”

“Really?” Arthur sounded pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah.” I strode to the kitchen and began wedging groceries into our overfull fridge. “I mean, she didn’t have to do this. She—she could have ignored the book. Right?”

“Right.”

“So why is she still punching down at me?” The freezer wailed as I forced in a sleeve of plant-based burgers. “Did I murder her in a past life?”