This was all a bit rich coming from someone who, I’ve since researched, has a novella in which Dr. Jane Black travels back in time and conducts a forensic investigation on the murder of a dinosaur. But witty comebacks are capably served by both hindsight and Google, and given I had neither at the time, I could only respond with an unacademic glare.
“You know, what you want is a one,” Alan rolled on, oblivious to my bristling. “Or a five, obviously. Because you can use both for publicity. A two, blah, that’s just bad news. But a one: that’s a history-making calamity. People will be inclined to check it out just to see how bad it is.”
“This may surprise you, Alan, but you’re not making me feel any better.”
“You know Wyatt Lloyd rejected my first manuscript four times before he agreed to publish it?” That did, actually, help my spirits a little. “It’s all part of the game.”
“You got McTavish-ed?” A female voice joined in, speaking as its owner slid in beside Alan. She’d been looking at me when she spoke, which meant she’d also seen the review. “Ernest, right?”
I nodded.
“I’m Lisa.” (Not to brag, but nailed it.) “You’re the other writers, I assume? I’d rather not sit with the guests.”
“Nice to meet you. Juliette.” Hands were extended and taken.
“Pleasure.”
“Alan . . .” Royce waited just a little too long in hope of recognition. “Royce.”
“Oh, the gory autopsy guy. My mum reads your books.”
This is another of those publishing compliments: I wouldn’t subject myself, but someone I know reads you.
“I prefer to think I write novels about socie—”
“McTavish-ed?” I moaned. “Oh God, it’s so bad it’s a verb. Has anyone not seen it?”
“Don’t worry,” Lisa said, “the only people who read reviews are—”
“—everyone on this train.”
“You’re not the only one to get a review, man,” Alan said, as if it were a competition. “He gave us all one, you know.”
“Really?” The hope in my voice was pathetic, that my misery might be shared.
“Well, he didn’t give us all one, he gave us all a review. Everyone on the program. Gave me a four.” He held up a correcting finger. “But it reads like a five.”
“Maybe his finger slipped,” Juliette said quietly.
“What did he say?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Just one word, same as you: Splendid.”
“Maybe Ernest has had enough of the review talk,” Lisa interjected. Her eyes gave me an apology.
“Oh, come on. As if you don’t want to talk about yours?”
She looked at the table. “I really don’t.”
“Five stars!” Alan held up five stubby digits in Juliette’s face. “‘Tremendous,’ wasn’t it?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s weird.” Juliette had picked up my phone and clicked through a few pages. She offered it back to me for a look. “His profile is completely inactive. He’s literally never reviewed anyone until this morning, and then he reviewed the five of you. All at once.”
I saw on McTavish’s profile that he had indeed only made five reviews ever, and they were all from this morning. Lisa Fulton’s only published book, The Balance of Justice, a legal drama from twenty-one years ago about a car thief who’d been sexually assaulted by the judge presiding over her case, had five stars, accompanied by the word Tremendous. Alan Royce’s Cold Skin: Dr. Jane Black #11 had four stars and the word Splendid. So far so accurate. S. F. Majors’s upcoming book, Dark Stranger, the psychological thriller that Juliette was currently reading, had a three-star rating and, again, a lone word: Overblown.
“He’s ranked us,” I said before I even checked Wolfgang’s rating. It was, as I’d anticipated, a two.
“Heavenly,” Juliette recited from beside me.
“Reads like a five,” I said. Heavenly was a strangely complimentary word to use on a two-star review. Unless the context was: I’d rather die.
“I doubt Wolfgang’s seen it,” Lisa said. “Literary writers don’t brood online quite so much as we do. I wouldn’t tell him if I were you.”
Juliette and I nodded in agreement. You didn’t need the approval of strangers when you had awards laurels. Wolfgang wrote books that didn’t apologize or cater to readers, as if to say: if his works are too difficult for you (and they were for me), that’s your fault.
“It’s not exactly a fair ranking though, is it?” Alan preened, turning to Lisa. “Five stars? Come on.” He realized he was the only one laughing and folded his chortle back into his mouth. “What? You’ve always been his favorite.”
Lisa looked like she was about to hit him, before Juliette cut in to defuse things. “It’s not a competition. It’s not even a critical opinion. It’s just one man sitting at a keyboard, trying to mess with you—which you’re all falling for, by the way. It’s meaningless.”
Just so you know, it’s not exactly meaningless. I write this because that’s what I thought at the time, and, even now, writing it all out again—although for different reasons—I maintain this position.
“Doesn’t bother me,” Alan finally agreed. “He can give me a one for all I care. The blurb’s way more important than an online review.”
“He’s giving you a blurb?” I got the emphasis all wrong in my surprise, and Alan physically reeled.
“And what do you mean, exactly, by that?”
I backtracked. “I thought McTavish didn’t blurb is all.”
“He doesn’t.” Alan now had the smug look of a child with a secret. “Unless he owes you a favor.”
The arrival of food cut him off from elaborating further, and we moved away from the comparison game. I ate quickly. Unlike the train itself, I didn’t have forty thousand liters of social fuel, and I feared I’d used too much too early dealing with Wyatt Lloyd’s chattering and Alan Royce’s ego. I wanted to get back to my cabin and try to enjoy myself again, even though Lisa struck me as someone deserving of getting to know a little better.
“I really liked your book,” Lisa said as we stood up to leave. “About what happened on the mountain. Very respectful. What are you working on now?”
If respectful strikes you as a word not often used to describe me, you’d be right. She was talking to Juliette. I felt a rush of shame. I’d been so worried about fitting in that I hadn’t even given a thought to how Juliette might feel not being on the program, or how she deserved to be treated as a writer in her own light, and not just my shadow, which Lisa had just done. I said seven writers, remember?
“Oh,” Juliette said, “I’m tossing up between a few bits—”
“Waiting on her next adventure,” I said, squeezing her hand.
“Something like that.” I can tell you with the benefit of hindsight that Juliette’s smile was forced, though I didn’t clue into it at the time.
Still, Juliette, warmed by Lisa’s compliment, was cheerful on the walk back to our cabin. I was more contemplative, dragging my feet and trying to get my head around the morning. Not just because of McTavish, and the review, and the blurb, and Simone’s camaraderie with him and Wyatt, and the general indignation that four writers at a table can’t resist competing, but because Alan Royce’s notepad had annoyed me.