After Letha told her mom to read the manuscript, Cassandra Day couldn’t wait to tell her agent about this unexpected development.
Natalie actually picked up the phone in Tim’s office and dialed half of Zoe’s number. Then she stopped and said to herself, Do I really want Zoe calling me every five minutes all weekend long asking me, “Has she read it? Has she read it yet?” Natalie hung up the phone.
Then she picked it up and dialed the number again. Zoe deserved some kind of a progress report. But she doesn’t need to know everything—bad enough that one of us has to worry the whole weekend.
“Zoe Reisman’s room at the Reisman residence, Zoe Reisman speaking.”
Natalie kept her voice low because her mom’s office was only about ten feet away. “Zoe? It’s me. The manuscript is here. It’s in my mom’s office.”
Zoe was excited. “Great! Is she going to read it? Did she listen to my message? Do you think she suspects anything?”
“I know she got your message, and she doesn’t suspect a thing. And I’m pretty sure she’s going to read it. So we’ll just have to see what happens next.”
“You know,” said Zoe slowly, “you could maybe help things along. You know, like pick up the envelope and say, ‘I wonder if this one’s any good’—something like that.”
Natalie smiled, but she talked in a serious voice. She wanted Zoe to calm down. “No, I think we better just let things move ahead on their own. If there’s no action in a week or so, then maybe you can call her again.”
Zoe did not like that idea. “A week? Are you crazy? A week is forever! If I don’t hear from her in three days, then I’m going to turn the heat up—way up!”
“Look, Zee Zee, relax. I’ve got to get off the phone now, but I’ll let you know if anything else happens, okay?”
Zoe said, “Hey! Maybe you could offer to read it for her—you know, help out around the office?”
“Zoe?” said Natalie. “No. No, no, no. Just be patient.”
“Yeah,” said Zoe, “easy for you to say.”
“No, it isn’t easy for me to say, Zoe. I want to know what she thinks about it as much as you do. But we’re just going to have to let it move along one step at a time, okay?”
There was a pause, and then Zoe said, “Okay. You’re right . . . I guess.”
“I’ll call you if there’s any news, I promise.”
“Okay,” said Zoe. “Bye.”
• • • • •
When they finally left the office at seven-fifteen on Friday night, Natalie could see the envelope from the Sherry Clutch Literary Agency sticking up from the outside pocket of her mom’s briefcase.
Natalie tried to think. She tried to decide what she was feeling. She couldn’t figure out if she was happy or scared or numb or what. Because what Zoe had said at the very beginning was true now. All of a sudden her mom wasn’t just her mom. She was her editor. Hannah Nelson would be the first person to read “The Cheater” in a professional way. Her own mom would be comparing Natalie’s story to all the other manuscripts she had read during the past five years at Shipley Junior Books—manuscripts written by successful, established, professional authors. Part of Natalie wanted to snatch that envelope out of her mom’s briefcase and toss it into a trash barrel. But it was too late for that. The day of judgment had arrived.
But that day wasn’t Friday. Friday night when they got home, Natalie and her mom went right out again and ate at a Chinese restaurant and then caught a late movie at the local theater—one of those British movies where half the actors wear fancy clothes and the other half look like beggars. It was a lively story with plenty of action and a little bit of romance, but Natalie couldn’t stay focused on it. Her mind kept wandering back to that envelope, still in the briefcase, sitting on a chair in the entryway of their loft.
And Saturday wasn’t judgment day either. In the morning they went grocery shopping, and then there was the laundry, and then they both spent two hours cleaning the loft from one end to the other. And then it was dinnertime.
Natalie went to her room to read after dinner, hoping that if she left her mom alone, she’d remember the manuscript. At about nine o’clock Natalie opened her bedroom door and walked softly toward the living-room area. Peeking from behind the big, leafy plants that framed the living room, she saw her mom. She was asleep on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, open magazine on her lap, bathed in flickering light from the muted TV.
Lying in bed later, Natalie tossed and turned. She thought about the heap of envelopes stacked up in Ella’s darkened office. For every envelope there was a person somewhere, and Natalie knew how each of them felt. Those people were out there tonight, sleeping in hundreds of different beds in hundreds of different towns in dozens of different states. Every day each person woke up and thought, “Maybe the editor will read my story today,” or “Maybe the editor will call me today.” Every day each writer wondered if the mail would bring a letter, maybe good news from New York City.
And Natalie felt guilty. Her envelope wasn’t in a heap somewhere in a dark office. Her story was in the editor’s briefcase. The editor’s boss had assigned her story as homework.
Natalie sat up in bed and looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. She groped for the phone on her bed stand and punched the glowing buttons.
Zoe answered on the third ring, groggy and grumpy. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Zoe. I’ve got to tell you what happened.”
It took Natalie about two minutes to tell Zoe how her story found its way home with the editor for the weekend.
Zoe was wide awake now. “So she read it? Did she like it? What did she say when she finished it? C’mon, tell me, tell me!”
“Well . . . she hasn’t read it . . . not yet.”
“She hasn’t read it? So why did you call me in the middle of the night?”
Natalie hesitated. “Because . . . because I feel bad. I feel like the girl in my book. I feel like I’m a cheater too. All those other stories at my mom’s office, stories that she’ll never even look at? And here’s my story, and it’s all the way up at the head of the line. It just doesn’t feel fair. That’s all.”
“Not fair? Who said things are fair? It’s never fair, Natalie. You’re a great writer, and someone like me isn’t—is that fair? Is it?
“Well . . . no. I guess not,” said Natalie. “But you’re great at things I stink at.”
“Exactly,” said Zoe. “It all evens out. It seems unfair, but it’s not. Your mom is a good editor at a good publishing company, and someone else’s mom isn’t. Is that fair?”
“No . . . not really.”
“Of course it’s not fair. It’s just the way it is. Didn’t you have to work hard to write your book—just as hard as those other writers did?”
Natalie nodded as she answered. “Yeah, I did. I worked hard.”
“So do you know why your book is going to get looked at and some of those other ones aren’t? It’s because you are who you are, and your mom is who she is, and you worked hard to write a great book.”
Zoe paused to let that sink in. Then she said, “And there’s another reason your book will get published and most of those others won’t.”
Natalie asked, “Why’s that?”
In her best agent voice Zoe said, “Because you have a great agent, and those other schnooks don’t! Now listen, Cassandra. I’m giving you good advice, you hear me? You hang up now and get a good night’s sleep. And just stop thinking so much. You artists are all alike—thinking, thinking, thinking! Not to worry, darling. Zee Zee is going to take good care of you.”
After hanging up, Natalie felt better, but it still took her another hour to get to sleep.
And even after her lecture to Cassandra, Zee Zee lay awake doing some thinking of her own.
• • • • •
Then on Sunday it happened. It was late in the afternoon, and after finishing her math and English, Natalie settled into her beanbag chair to read about ancient Egypt in her social studies book. The chair was so comfortable, and she had stayed up too late the night before. The next thing Natalie knew, her mom was shaking her awake.
“Natalie, you won’t believe this! You know this manuscript Letha made me bring home? Well, I opened it up, you know, just so I could tell her I looked at it? And I started reading it, and it’s just . . . well, I couldn’t stop reading! It’s one of the best things I’ve read in a long time—and besides that, it’s even a school story! Isn’t that great?”
Natalie wanted to throw her arms around her mom’s neck and burst into tears. She wanted to say, “It’s mine, Mom! I wrote that! I wrote it for you, and I wrote it for Dad, and I’m so happy that you like it!”
But she couldn’t, so she didn’t. Instead Natalie gulped, and she smiled and said, “That’s great, Mom. So, it’s really good?”
Her mom nodded excitedly. “It’s got such a wonderful feeling all through it . . . I mean, it needs some work here and there, but this Cassandra Day—that’s the author—it’s her first novel, and for a first novel it’s terrific. I can’t wait for you to read it.”
And Natalie nodded and said, “I’d love to.”
But as she walked back to her workroom Hannah wished she hadn’t said anything to Natalie about the book. Because the strongest section of the book was the part about this girl and her dad.
Hannah worried about Natalie. Ever since she lost her dad, Natalie had kept much more to herself. She seemed happy enough, and she didn’t seem to need to talk about not having a dad, but maybe that was a problem. Hannah was glad that Fred made the effort to be part of the family, and she knew that Natalie loved him. But having an uncle who loved you wasn’t the same. Nothing could ever be the same.
Hannah shook off the fear. After all, she thought, isn’t that why I love my work? That’s the whole idea of a good book, right? It’s supposed to hit you where you live. That’s the point.
Which was easy for her to see as an editor.
But seeing it as a mom was a different story.