Adulation (31 page)

She didn’t answer him.

He tried again. “Please,” he beckoned, this time rubbing her back. And then, for a second, he could feel her body giving in, and he took advantage of it. He moved in closer and took her into his arms, and she let him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered repeatedly, stroking her hair. “I’m not good enough for you. I never was.”

“I’m sorry I hit you,” she said, her voice muffled. Her body felt tight and stiff, as if she was trying to prevent any more cracks in her exterior than she had already allowed.

“I deserved it,” he said. “And worse.”

She pulled away from his embrace, and he left her alone to finish packing while he waited for her outside and smoked two cigarettes. He had agreed to take her to the airport and wondered if he should call a car for her instead. Or had she called one after he left the room? Even if she had, it would never arrive in time. Poor Charlene was stuck with him.

They rode to LAX in silence until he pulled up to the terminal.

“Will I see you when you get back?” he asked. He found himself already wishing for it, genuinelyafraid that he’d blown it for good.

Charlene exhaled forcefully, like an exhausted sigh, before stepping out of the car. “Sure, Danny. Whatever.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Sunny Smith

G
EORGIE CAME INTO
 
the stockroom. “Here,” he said, and slapped the upcoming calendar of events on myworkstation. “Finally, your chance to redeem yourself.”

I looked at him quizzically; he gestured a nod to the calendar, as if to say,
 
see for yourself
. Ilooked at it. A date was circled in red, four weeks from today:

“SIGNING EVENT: DANNY MASTERS will sign copies of his new release,
 
The Danny Masters Best
 
script book.”

My heart leaped into my throat as I gasped for breath.

“How...?” No other words would come out. I looked to Georgie for an answer to the question healready knew.

“His publicist contacted me. He’s hitting every bookstore in the tri-state area, I think. I guess thepublisher really wants to push it, given his Oscar win. Anyway, thought you’d like to be the first toknow,” he said, his voice sounding glum.

“Thanks,” I managed to push out, and with that he turned and exited the stockroom.

“Holy shit,” I whispered and looked around at the inventory, as if waiting for one of the books torespond.
 
Holy shit shit shit!

I paced around the stockroom in a panic, butterflies fluttering frantically in my stomach as my heartpounded. Danny Masters was coming here.
 
Here!
 
To Whitford’s Books & Café in Huntington Village on Long Island. He was going to sign books, which meant that he’d be here for hours. It meant that we’d begetting extra shipments of his books, and I’d have to help set up. It meant there’d be local press coveringthe event.

Get a grip
, I silently told myself. It had been five months since our first meeting. Luc’s super-coolcut and color had long grown out (I’d attempted to touch up the color myself and wound up with splotchesof brown framing my forehead). If, by any chance, Danny got a glimpse of me, he’d never recognize me asthe same woman from outside the theater, the bitch who’d called him a jackass. And a failure. I wouldn’tbe dressed to the nines this time. No, I’d just be a forty-year-old bookstore employee doing her job.

He wouldn’t get a glimpse of me. He wouldn’t even know I was there.

And besides, I decided, I wouldn’t be there. At least not when he was.

Later that evening, Josh called from a hotel in Rhode Island. “So I heard your boyfriend is comingto the store next month—your
 
other
 
boyfriend, that is,” he teased.

I hated when he teased me, especially about Danny Masters. “How’d you find out already?”

“Georgie e-mailed me the schedule today. So are you excited?”

“I have to
 
work
 
that day. You know the preparation that goes into an event like that.”

“It’ll be the first time you show up to work in stilettos and a cocktail dress, I’ll bet!” he laughed.

That did it.

My grip on the phone tightened. “Shut up, Josh.”

“Oh, come on, Sun. It’s a joke.”

“It’s not a joke. It’s you taking advantage of something I told you in a moment of vulnerability. Just leave it alone, OK? I’m done with Danny Masters. I’m gonna do my job and leave when my shift is over. Game over. Move on.”

“Fine,” he said, audibly annoyed. “In that case, have you checked your numbers today?”

Lately he’d been just as obsessive about my e-book rankings and hourly unit sales as I was, but I’d been so busy at work that I’d not had a chance.

“Should I?” I asked.

“Unless you don’t want me to tell you that your books are listed in the top two hundred right now.”

I gasped.

I couldn’t help but think of the money first—my next royalty check was going to pass the thousanddollar mark. Holy crap. My second thought was that every sales unit represented a
person
 
who had just purchased one or both of my books. There was no getting around it now—I had a readership, a
following
.

“That is fantastic news,” I said to Josh. And then, more heartfelt, I thanked him. “None of this could’ve happened if you hadn’t given me so much support.”

“Wouldn’t have been anything to support were it not for those novels of yours. It all starts with you and your talent, Sun.” It sounded like more manager-cheerleader-speak, although I detected something else in his voice too. Not  pride, but validation. Maybe I’d not been appreciating him all this time. Maybe I never had. It was hard for me to let any man all the way in.

“Next time I’m on the island, we’re going to celebrate,” he said. And then he shocked me. “I love you, Sun. You know that, don’t you?”

It’s not that we’d never said the words to each other before. We exchanged
 
I love you
s following sex or an intimate moment. Always in person. But this time they carried a fragility with them. If I didn’t catch and hold them, they could shatter into a million pieces.

“I love you too,” I said after I caught my breath. It was as if I’d realized it for the first time, as if I was finally seeing
 
him
 
for the first time. He was a good man, a good leader, and a good father who, despite that questionable first impression, loved his kids. I didn’t have to see him with them to know that.

Maybe I had taken this relationship for granted. Maybe Josh was giving a lot more than I’d previously assumed. Maybe he wanted more.

“And I think it’s high time I met your kids,” I added after a beat.

This time he was taken aback, judging by the delay in his response.

“I think so too. And they want to meet you. How about next Saturday? My son has a soccer game.”

“I didn’t know there were spring leagues,” I said.

“Rare, but yeah, they exist.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Great,” he said. “I can’t wait. But I intend to see you before then to celebrate your latest achievement.”

I smiled in anticipation. “You’d better.”

I got dressed up for my dinner date with Josh—skirt, heels, makeup; I even managed to make my hair lookgood. Lately I’d been trying to make an effort to use the long-abandoned New York wardrobe. It took meback to my elementary and junior high school days, when my mother distinguished “school clothes” from “play clothes.” In present-day terms, my work clothes were the ratty ones, and play clothes were the niceones, the Sunday best. And yet I still couldn’t help but feel like a dress-up doll, my preferences more

aligned with blue jeans and tapered long- or short-sleeved T-shirts. But the right accessories could even make those look one step above casual.

Josh looked exceptionally handsome in a tailored black suit with a crisp white shirt and no tie. He picked me up at my apartment, surprising me with a single rose, and was a gentleman through and through, escorting me and opening doors and seating me at the table. Perhaps he’d taken notes from the Cary Grant movies we watched together.

We perused our menus. “Get anything you want, Sun,” said Josh. “Sky’s the limit.”

“Shouldn’t I be treating you?” I asked. “After all, I’m the one makin’ the big bucks now.”

“True. Pretty soon you’ll be getting into the premier restaurants without a reservation. You’ll be wearing sunglasses indoors and have mineral water shipped to your beach house from overseas.”

The waiter delivered our drinks, and then we ordered. Josh tasted his cabernet. “Seriously, though, Sunny. What are your plans?”

“My plans?”

“You’ve got two books in the top two hundred. I guarantee that they’re going to go higher, and the others are going to follow fast. You’re on your way.”

I sipped my wine. “I don’t know. It’s all so surreal to me. I haven’t really given it much thought.”

“How could you not?”

The question made me feel self-conscious, as if there were something wrong with me. Rather than respond, I changed the subject to more mundane things: baseball and movies and other people’s books. He didn’t seem to be fully attentive.

It didn’t take long for our food to arrive.

We took our first few bites in silence, until Josh put his fork and knife down. “Listen, I know we’re not supposed to discuss work, and I so shouldn’t be telling you this—”

“So don’t,” I cut him off; something told me that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was not good.

He ignored me. “Whitford’s is in trouble. The Trinket is the only thing keeping them alive right now, but it won’t be enough. We’re talking store closings.”

“Whoa, wait—
my
 
store is closing?”

“We don’t know yet which stores are getting the axe. But if it’s yours, it could be as soon as a year from now.”

I sat and stared at him, shocked speechless. I couldn’t fathom my life without Whitford’s. It waslike being told a friend or close family member had six months left to live,  or that I was about to beevicted from my home. Where could I possibly go?

My appetite abandoned me, and I pushed my plate away. “For chrissakes, Josh, why did you justtell me that?”

“Because I think you need to start planning an escape route. Your job may not be here much longer.”

“I...I don’t know what to say,” I stammered. “When will we know? How am I supposed to keep this a secret? And how long were they planning to keep it from us? They’ve been painting a very different picture in the newsletter.”

“They’ve been placing all their bets on the Trinket.”

“Still, it’s not like them to be so corporate and secretive,” I said, feeling somewhat betrayed.

“But they are,” he argued. “They’ve always been a corporation, despite their mission statement. And you’ve got to start thinking like a corporation too. Especially since you are, in a sense. You’re your own publishing company now.”

“That’s crazy, Josh,” I said, although I wasn’t sure what I was referring to—the idea that I was a corporation or that Whitford’s was in trouble.