“Until now.” Lil dropped Sadie’s hand and peered, sadly, into her face.
“Until now.”
She’d been gone nearly three and a half hours by the time she got back to the blank towers of Rock Center, and her assistant, Shelby, gave her a smug grin. Earlier in the month there had been a round of layoffs—the company had been bought, once again, by an even larger conglomerate—and while the other remaining assistants still appeared shell-shocked and submissive, wandering the hallways like schoolchildren, with manuscripts clutched to their chests, Shelby seemed to take his exemption from the executioner as further proof of his genius. He was a good assistant, Sadie told herself for the millionth time, but a bit of a jerk. “Val’s been looking for you,” he said, handing her a sheaf of pink message slips.
“Okay,” said Sadie. “I’ll go find her.” This meant the rest of her afternoon would be lost. Once Val pulled you into her office, there was no getting out. There would be no returning the thousand phone calls that needed returning (more now), no looking over the new chapters of that farm book, nor sitting on her small, hard couch and reading the new Peter Koren manuscript (why had Little, Brown not bought it at option? Or had their offer been too low?). She would take it home, as usual. What she wanted, really, was to lie down on that couch and take a nap.
Shelby shook his head. “She’s in a meeting. She’ll come find you when she’s done.” Ooooh, you’re in trouble, he seemed to be saying. Though this was not necessarily the case. Val sometimes came by to ask Sadie’s advice about yoga classes—she spoke often of her athletic pursuits, though no evidence of such could be seen in her physique—and gifts for her daughter.
A few minutes later, as Sadie began sifting through the rows and rows of email that had arrived in her absence, Val rapped at her half-open door, her plump face flushed with anxiety. She was dressed, as usual, in a pantsuit, the sleeves of her jacket pulling tightly over her upper arms, and her hair was freshly shaped into dated layers and waves, which crested stiffly above her shoulders. “You have a minute?” she said.
“Absolutely.” Sadie swiveled her screen toward the wall, so her eye wouldn’t be drawn to the flow into her inbox, and gestured toward the chairs in front of her desk. But Val ignored her and stood, rubbing one leg against the other.
“What’s going on with that New Economy book?” For a moment, Sadie had no idea what this could be. She did fiction, mainly; the occasional memoir. “Has the guy delivered?” Then, she realized: Tuck. Of course. She’d been expecting this conversation for months. Oh, God, not today, Sadie thought. She calculated the risks of lying, saying he’d turned in the first two chapters (as she’d been begging him to do for months and months). It was unlikely Val would ask to read it—she read nothing—but you never knew.
“No,” she said, inwardly flinching.
“Shoot.” Val dropped heavily into one of the two chairs facing Sadie’s desk and crossed her ankle over her thigh, a masculine pose. “Have you read the business section today?”
“Not yet.” Sadie never read the business section, though she knew she was expected to.
“First Media sold the magazine.” Val waved her hands around questioningly, then snapped her fingers. “Boom Time. To a private investor.”
“A private investor?” Sadie was Peregrine enough to know that this was highly unusual.
“Sort of. That Irina Walker person. Have you read about her?” Sadie shook her head, worried—as always with Val—that she should have. “She’s a socialite.” Val grimaced. “She bought a couple of art magazines last year and now it’s looking like she’s building a little conglomerate. She hired James Stewart as her editorial director.”
“Wow.”
“She’s starting a travel magazine. A smart travel magazine.” She tipped her head to her left shoulder and raised her eyebrows, as if to say We both know that’s an oxymoron. “So have you seen any chapters?”
“No,” said Sadie decisively. She had made her decision—honesty!—and she would stick with it. “But I have the samples.”
Val shook her head. “It’s late, isn’t it? A year?”
“No, no, no, no. Much less. It was due in June.”
“Seven months.” She picked a proposal off Sadie’s desk, glanced at it, and tossed it back. “Eight. Do you think he’s really writing it?”
“I do.” Sadie hoped this was true.
“Do you think he’s almost done?”
“I do.” This, she suspected, was not true.
“We gotta get this in now. We should be publishing this now.”
“You’re right.” To Sadie, a story in the business section didn’t constitute a major peg, but there was no point arguing with Val on this. Particularly since when last they’d spoken of the book, back in July, Val had said, “Do we really need this? That Yahoo! book is tanking. Maybe we should just cancel the contract.”
“Put some pressure on. See if he can deliver this week.” It was Thursday, so this seemed unlikely. “We can rush it through. They’re relaunching in June. Jim Lewis is editing. Walker’s got deep pockets.” She nodded significantly. “We can time it to coincide. In September, no one’s gonna care.”
“Okay.” Sadie nodded. “I’ll call him right now. From what I know of it, he’s really close.”
“Even if he’s not happy with it. He just needs to turn it in.”
“Right.”
Val looked at her watch and uncrossed her legs. “You doing okay?” she asked. “You seem a little tired.”
“I’ve just been a little overwhelmed. I’ve got a lot on the spring list.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot going on.” Sadie watched, with relief, as Val stood and started toward the door. “Ed Slikowski?” she said suddenly, turning back toward Sadie, whose heart began to beat sickly in her chest. She knows, she thought. Though how could she? “He’s on board with this? We’re not going to have any legal stuff?”
“He’s fine with it. He and Tuck are friends. Friendly. Yeah, he’s fine.”
“What’s he doing now? Did he start another magazine?”
Sadie shook her head. “He’s making a film. With Jonathan Davis. From the Times.”
“A film?” Val sometimes had trouble believing in the existence of media other than print. “How did that happen?”
“It kind of makes sense,” said Sadie, congratulating herself on her patience. “It’s based on a story he did a few years ago—”