Page 42 of Bad Words

“Trust me,” I said. “The petition’s dead in the water. She’s not interested.”

Lauren seemed satisfied. “Well, the team will be happy to hear it.” With a casual wave of her hand she summoned our waiter, who jotted down Lauren’s lemonade, my coffee, and an olive tapenade. Then she set down her menu and regarded me directly. “Parker, I have to apologize again for what happened at the festival. What an unfortunate blip.”

“Right. Um—yeah, it wasn’t ideal.”

“We were all relieved to hear that the panel went well, in any case.”

Making my napkin into incoherent origami in my lap, I tried to think of a diplomatic answer. Kristen had called the change “last-minute,” but how last-minute could it have been, with Selina’s and Christian’s names printed in the festival programs? Couldn’t my team have sent an email that morning, giving me the opportunity to cancel before I was standing twenty feet from the one person on earth who most despised me?

Lauren went on. “I heard there was a line down the aisle for your signing. Isn’t that right?”

“I … Yeah. That was great.” I heard the gentle reminder in her words, that Saturday had been a positive for the book, but the idea only made me unhappier. Just for the purpose of racking up a few more preorders, Coronation had thrown me to the wolves with no preparation. I was lucky that the wolf in question hadn’t made a point of ripping me to pieces.

It was deeply depressing, the idea that Selina Chan had acted more considerately on Saturday than the people who were supposed to be in my corner.

I was just mustering up the nerve to say something along these lines when Lauren said, “Parker, I know the past month and a half has been unusual, but your willingness not to back away from the spotlight really has changed the direction for High and Dry. I have some news to that end, actually.”

“You do?” I hesitated. “What is it?”

“We heard yesterday that Anna Delaney wants High and Dry for her February book club. They’d like you to sign eleven thousand tip-ins for a special edition.”

Shock whited out my conflicted feelings. “Oh my God. Eleven thousand—are you serious?”

“I am. I hope you don’t mind that we accepted on your behalf. I’m sure your hand will recover.”

I let out a stuttering laugh. “They can pulverize my hand with a hammer if they’re selling eleven thousand copies of the book.”

“That’s the spirit. I think.” The waitress returned with our drinks, and Lauren clinked her lemonade against my coffee. “Cheers, Parker. Well deserved.”

“Cheers, yeah. I don’t know what to say. This is … Wow.”

“Wow is right. And while we’re talking business—I wanted to discuss something else.” Lauren slid a paperback across the table, an advance copy with cover art of a decaying cottage door. HOUSE HEARTH HOME, read the title, and at the bottom:

from the author of Our Gods Our Heavens

JULIETTE LIAO

I grabbed up the book. “Wait, thank you. I love Juliette Liao.” She wasn’t the most famous author in the world, but Our Gods Our Heavens had been the best book I’d read in its release year, and I’d eaten up the half dozen books on her backlist with increasing outrage. Why hadn’t this woman been selling millions of copies since the 1990s? Why weren’t prize committees bowing at her feet?

“You’re a fan, then,” said Lauren.

“Huge fan.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I wanted to ask a favor. Juliette was supposed to do a launch event with Christian Gatehead just before Christmas, but Christian’s received bad news about his mother’s health. He’s leaving the city and doesn’t expect to return until January.” Lauren folded her arms on the table. “We’d love you to step in. I thought this might be a welcome change of pace from the publicity around the City feud.”

“Oh, man,” I muttered. If she was trying to bribe me into forgetting any hard feelings over the festival, she was doing a great job. “What date is the event?”

“Juliette is very particular about her publicity. The only date she gave us was December twenty-third.”

The waitress returned at that moment, giving me time to mull. My siblings and I were supposed to spend Christmas in Daly City with our mother, then New Year’s in Manila with our father and extended family.

No matter how much planning we poured into the holiday trips, they always wound up a mess. Christi’s kids complicated every meal, and Kevin always brought along some terrible new girlfriend, and Elena always brought along a more tolerable but weirdly codependent new girlfriend, and Justin and his wife inevitably fought on the first day, which irritated everyone else into a spiral.

This was always the time of year I felt happiest to be single. I’d spent two Christmases with my last serious girlfriend, and after the chaos of every event, I’d wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed together in gentle, mutual silence. But Kate—a resident in internal medicine, maybe overused to diagnosis and treatment—had wanted to pry out every discomfort of every day, as though reliving these things in minute detail would improve them.

“I understand if you have travel plans,” said Lauren.

“I do. I’m supposed to fly to San Francisco on the twenty-first.”