“A documentary?”
Sadie shook her head. “A feature. Set in Silicon Valley. Sort of social satire. About a software company—a little company, you know, where all the employees are twenty—that’s taken over by a big multinational.” She paused. “He directed a Lotion video last year.”
Val shrugged. “Who’s backing it?”
“I’m not sure.” Sadie knew exactly. She feared appearing to know too much about Ed. And, yet, she also wanted Val to understand that he wasn’t, say, tooling around in his backyard with a video camera.
“Hmmm.” Val leaned against the doorjamb and folded her arms across her chest. “You think something’s going to happen with it?”
Sadie nodded. “It’s likely.”
“Good. I was thinking for a while we were going to have to cancel this one.” She laughed. “’Cause no one cares about Ed Slikowski anymore, right?”
Sadie sighed. “In a certain realm, they do. Tech people. And they buy books.”
“Do they?” She tipped her head to the left again and yawned. “Don’t they just buy video games?” Then, with one brisk movement, she stood upright. “Well, let’s just get it in.” Trust me, Sadie thought, no one wants this book done more than me.
After Val left, Sadie shut the door, settled into her phone posture—chair swiveled to face the window, arm leaning on the short wooden bookcase that adjoined her desk—and began dialing. Tuck didn’t pick up at home, nor did he pick up his cell. On the first, she left a calm, firm message—“I need you to call me back when you get this”—but on the second she abandoned her reserve. “Listen, my boss wants to publish this now. I need to show her some chapters or she’s going to cancel your contract. Which would mean you’d have to pay back the first third of your advance. I need to see something right away. Whatever you have.” Kapklein wasn’t at his desk, either, and his assistant, maddeningly, wouldn’t put her through to his voice mail. “I need to talk to him today, okay?” “Well, I don’t know if he’ll be back—” Sadie slammed down the phone before the girl could finish. This was Kapklein’s fault, too. He was too busy writing his own book—some idiot thing about training to ride the rodeo, which never would have sold if he hadn’t been an agent—to pay any attention to Tuck.
The question now was whether she should talk to Lil. She’d tried—and largely succeeded—to avoid the subject with her, though Lil, of course, would have been happy to spend hours, days, discussing it. If she told Lil what was going on, Lil would certainly (happily) put pressure on Tuck—even if only to get him to call her back, which would be a start—but Lil would call her every five minutes asking for updates, and weigh in on edits and all sorts of other things that she didn’t know enough about (which was a possibility even if Sadie didn’t bring her in at this particular juncture), and grow bitchy and morose if all didn’t proceed exactly as Lil thought it should, which it most likely would not, since she seemed to think the book would shoot up the bestseller list and make a million dollars and so on. And perhaps it would (though probably not), but Sadie wouldn’t know until she read it.
Before she could come to a decision, the phone rang and she snatched it up. “Hey,” came Lil’s voice. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Um, nothing,” said Sadie, before she could think better of it. “I’ve got to get some reading done. I’m swamped.”
“Do you want to meet Beth and Emily for a drink?” She laughed. “And me. Maybe Dave. Emily called him.”
“Sure,” said Sadie hesitantly, glancing at her couch. It was four o’clock. Could she manage to nap for an hour without Shelby walking in on her?
“Is six okay?”
“Six is great.”
“We were thinking Von.”
“Von is great.” No, she would say nothing about Tuck. Not now, not later.
“And I haven’t told them.”
“Great. Thank you. So, I’ll see you at six.”
“Okay.” Lil made a clicking, hesitant sound. “Also, I have a question for you. What would you think about—”
“What?” Sadie was beginning to lose patience.
“Nothing.”
“Okay.” Sadie laughed. “Listen, I’d better go. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
At four thirty, Sadie grabbed her bag and coat and fled, with barely a nod to Shelby—Fuck it, she thought, I’m his boss; if I need to leave, I’ll leave—with a half-formed plan to call Michael from her cell phone—and say what?—then sit down somewhere and read before meeting up with the others. In the elevator, as she wrestled her coat on, she realized she’d left the Koren manuscript sitting on her desk. No, no, she wouldn’t go back. Definitely not. It could wait until the weekend.
The trains, already, were mobbed and overheated, moisture condensing on the windows. She emerged, sweating through her sweater and coat, at the corner of Houston and Broadway for the second time that day. A horrible corner, where tourists crossed the street in thick, shuffling swarms, headed for the gigantic shoe stores that lined the blocks above and below Houston, or the even more gigantic chain stores between them, the same as those in the suburbs, but somehow made more glamorous, better, by their location. She was surprised—as she always was in the winter months—to find that it was already fully dark, though the air, she thought, was slightly warmer than it had been. Or at least the wind had slowed. It felt good, actually, against her hot cheeks. She unwrapped her scarf and headed south, weaving between the stalled tourists, who lingered in groups, consulting maps or lighting cigarettes.
At Prince, she headed east, combing the familiar shop windows: the Tibet shop, the shop that sold Tintin paraphernalia, Sigerson Morrison, and the designer consignment shop where all the salesgirls were bored and fussy. When she was a kid, these streets had been filled with bakeries and cheese shops and pizza places and private clubs where men in undershirts played billiard and indoor bocce ball and pinochle. But now everything was chic and spare, all the storefronts lined with steel and glass, their interiors filled with wispy chiffon dresses and slender-heeled shoes, the first signs of spring. At each one, she paused and considered going in, throwing off her heavy coat and pinching skirt and slipping on the layers of pale silk, though they weren’t really her style—too formless, too muddy in color (Rose always cautioned her away from neutrals). And come spring, she might be wearing maternity dresses anyway.
And on she walked, down Mulberry, past the bakery that kept odd, mysterious hours and the new, overpriced kitchen supply shop, then west on Spring, and south again on Mott. In the window of a shop on Broome, a mannequin stood clad in a long-sleeved maroon dress with a deep V-neck, a broad belt, and a soft, fluttering skirt. That would look good on me, she thought. Then, to her inexplicable dismay, she saw it: a tiny bump protruding below the wide sash. A maternity shop. Cleverly disguised as an elegant little boutique, with exposed brick walls and wide oak plank floors, but a maternity shop nonetheless. Why not, she thought, and sucking in a little breath, she pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside, the heels of her boots clacking ominously on the wood floor.
Gingerly, she fingered the silks and cottons on the sparse racks that lined the western wall. Opposite, a very pregnant blonde modeled a red sleeveless dress, running her hands up and down her stomach, which was frighteningly vast. “Do you think it’s too big?” she asked the salesperson in an imperious tone that Sadie immediately pegged as uptown.