Waterfalls (21 page)

“I don’t know yet,” Meredith said.

“And when do you think you will know?” Helen asked. “You’ve had the manuscript for well over a week, and as I said, we have another offer from Medina & Beckmann.”

“I know, Helen. Just give me two more days. I want to think about it. Can your client wait two more days?”

Helen let out an exasperated sigh. “Wednesday morning you will receive a call from me at eight o’clock sharp.”

“I don’t get to my office until nine,” Meri said with a playful chime in her voice. “Why don’t I call you?”

“If you don’t call by nine, I’ll call you,” Helen said.

“Okay,” Meri agreed.

“Fine,” Helen stated. Then, changing her tone, she said, “So how was your weekend?”

Meri told her about her dad’s forced resignation and how he had made the announcement from the pulpit on Sunday.

Helen fired up again. “See? That is why I am a nonpracticing Protestant. Things like that happen all the time in the church, and I can’t stand it. It’s so unfair to your parents after they’ve given their whole married life to that church. What are they going to do now?”

“They don’t know yet. There was some uncomfortable talk
about my inviting them to live here if they had to sell the house.”

Meredith expected Helen’s sympathy.

“That’s not such a bad idea.”

“Tell me you’re not serious, Helen.”

“Sure. Let your parents have the cottage in the woods. They can sit on the porch and watch little bunny Foo-Foo hop through your vegetable garden. And you—” Helen paused for effect—“you come to New York to get a real life.”

“I’m going to hang up on you now, Helen.”

“It’s a thought,” Helen said.

Before Meri could think of a witty response, the call-waiting click sounded in her ear. “I have another call. I’ll talk to you Wednesday morning.”

“It’ll be afternoon by the time you call, but to keep my client happy I’ll wait for you.”

“Good-bye, Helen.”

Meri was on the phone all morning with a string of business calls. When she took a break to get something to drink, it was almost noon. Then she realized she hadn’t checked her e-mail yet today. Since she normally had several messages, she decided she had better look right away. A memo was awaiting her from one of the editors at Terrison announcing a publications meeting the next morning at ten o’clock in Chicago. It was not the usual monthly meeting at which the acquisition editors presented their most promising projects. Shawn was calling this unscheduled meeting because he had found something he really liked and wanted to zip it through the committee immediately. Such meetings didn’t happen often. The company policy was that if the manuscript was great, it would be great a month later when the committee held its regularly scheduled meeting.

Meredith decided to take advantage of the opportunity. She went to work sending her own e-mail memo to the committee members stating that she had an urgent project and time would not allow them to wait for the June meeting. She faxed copies of the summary and proposal to all the committee members and then made a call to Helen.

When Helen’s voice mail picked up the call, Meri said, “Look how good I am to you, Helen. It’s not even Wednesday, and I’m phoning you. I put my neck on the line for this honey of a project, and I slipped it into an emergency pub meeting tomorrow. It has to get past this bunch anyway. I thought we’d take advantage of the situation to speed up the process. You may tell your client that I’m going to give this project my best pitch at the meeting tomorrow, and if they go for it, we can talk numbers tomorrow afternoon. Are you happy now? Oh, and by the way, something is still missing, and I intend to discover what it is and fix it as we go along.”

Meredith hung up and set to work doing her least favorite part of the job. She had to make up a budget sheet. What would the length of each book be? What would the paper cost be? How many books would be run in the first printing?

It took her all afternoon. She typed up everything and faxed it off to her associates so they would have the proposal first thing in the morning.

To Meredith’s surprise, when the conference call came the next morning, the committee wanted to discuss her project before Shawn’s. She sat back in her desk chair and listened to the others enthusiastically approve the project. Only one editor had a concern, and that was the timing of the release. Could they finish the books to launch them alongside the videos? Would the producer be willing to hold the videos, if need be, to get the books ready?

“I can find out,” Meri said. “The biggest concern I have is
that we find the right assistant or ghostwriter for this project. As I mentioned, it’s in screenplay form now, and some basic elements are missing for it to work as a book series.”

“Why don’t you ghost it?” suggested a voice over the speaker phone.

“Because I’ve never done ghosting before,” Meri said.

“I’ll do it!” a female editor offered. “I’d love to meet Jake Wilde and work side by side with him late into the night.”

“Me too,” another woman chimed in. “Maybe we could make it a group project for all interested female editors.”

A rumbling of spicy comments and some laughter sounded in the background. That was the part Meri liked least about these conference calls. She could never catch all the innuendos and side jokes. It especially bothered her today because the comments were about Jake. None of them knew he was a real person who embarrassed easily. They thought of him as an unattached movie star, which made him fair game. What would they think if they found out this icon had left a grape on her pillow?

“Let’s get back to the business at hand,” the managing editor stated firmly. “We are in agreement that you should proceed with this series, Meredith. Make sure you budget for the ghostwriter and have Jake’s agent contact the producer so we can work with them on the release of the books and videos.”

“Okay. Great.”

Shawn’s project didn’t meet with as much interest, and he was asked to put it on hold. When she hung up, Meredith realized how timely and unusual it was that Jake’s project was given the go-ahead so quickly.

Helen was, of course, delighted. She promised Meri a box of Godiva chocolates for all Meri’s extra efforts.

Meredith went to work on the project. In the busy days that followed, along with her regular workload, she championed and
babied Jake’s books through all the necessary hoops and loops. Helen remained their go-between until the day before Meredith was to leave for the writer’s conference in California.

She was in her room packing for the trip when the phone rang.

“Meredith?” the rich voice asked.

“Yes?”

“How are you? This is Jake.”

She sat on the edge of her bed, crumpling her stack of blouses and not caring a bit. “I’m doing great. How about you? I hear from Helen that everything we’ve done so far in negotiations has been okay by you.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s all fine.”

She wondered if that was a hint of nervousness in his voice or if it was the poor phone connection. Meredith tried to relax and keep the conversation light. “You caught me in the middle of packing for this conference. Are you ready to go?”

“It’s practically in my backyard, you know, so that means I don’t have to pack the way you do.”

There was a little pause.

“It sounds as if it’s going to be a good conference,” Meri said. “Are you teaching some workshops? Or are you the keynote speaker for one of the dinners and I should know that already?”

“I’m only doing one workshop,” he said. “I still haven’t figured out why they asked me to come. I’m a novice myself in this field.”

“Yes, but a famous novice, and I’m sure that counts for something.”

Again, a pause.

“How are the videos coming along?” Meri asked. “I haven’t talked to Shelly lately. She was keeping me updated on your plans to film at Camp Heather Brook. Is everything still on schedule?”

“More or less. We’ve run into some difficulties with our cast.”

“Oh?”

“We need a Maiden of the Waterfall,” he said. “We had an actress all set, but she received a better offer and left to do a film in Spain. So we’ve begun some of the studio work, and we have the film crew in place for the next month and a half. I’ll feel better when we have all the parts cast.”

“I can’t imagine how much work that must be,” Meredith said, walking over to the dresser, where she balanced the phone on her shoulder and started pulling out her shorts to see if any of them would be worth packing for Los Angeles.

“It’s a lot,” Jake agreed. “But you’ve been doing a lot on the book end of the project. When Helen sends me updates I’m amazed at how much goes into book production. Thanks for all your hard work.”

Meredith smiled. “You’re welcome. Thanks for thanking me. It seems those are words editors rarely hear. I appreciate your saying something.” She wasn’t sure if she should bring up her concerns about the missing element in the books. Helen hadn’t indicated that she had said anything to him. Still, was it fair for him to think that everything was fine the way it was?

“I was wondering,” Jake said, “if you had some free time during the conference. I’d like to have a chance to talk with you about the books.”

“Sure,” Meredith said. “I think it would be good if we could talk through a few things up front. As Helen, I’m sure, told you, we’ve hired a terrific ghostwriter who has had experience in transforming screenplays into novels.”

“Yes, that’s what Helen said.”

A pause. This time Meri waited for him to speak first.

“So, we’ll get together, then.”

“Yes. That will be good.”

“Maybe we should set a time,” Jake suggested. “If this is like other conferences I’ve attended, time can get away.”

“Good idea. I guess evenings would be the most open time.”

“Evenings are fine.”

“How about Tuesday evening?” Meredith suggested. “My workshop ends that day at four thirty.”

“I won’t be free until around seven,” Jake said. “Would you mind if we met in the hotel lobby a little after seven? I’ll treat you to cheesecake.”

Meredith smiled. He must have remembered she liked cheesecake.

“Sounds scrumptious,” Meri said. “A little after seven in the hotel lobby.”

“Great.”

A pause.

“Well,” Meredith said, not sure why he wasn’t ending the conversation, “I’ll see you then, unless we run into each other before.”

“Okay.” Jake paused again. “I just thought of something. It might be a little easier, you know, if I could pick you up in front of the hotel. If I come in …”

“Good thinking,” Meredith agreed. She could see him being swamped by autograph seekers in the lobby. The two of them might never make it out for cheesecake.

“I know that’s pretty tacky, asking you to wait out on the curb.”

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t bother me. I’ll be there a little after seven, then.”

“Terrific,” Jake said. He sounded relieved, as if he had just asked a girl out to the eighth-grade dance and, beyond all his wildest hopes and dreams, she had agreed to go with him.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days, then,” Meredith said brightly. “Thanks for calling.”

“I suppose I’d better let you get back to your packing.”

“It’s a monster of a task. I’m not used to dressing up much. That’s one of the perks of working at home; slippers and a robe go a long way as career apparel.” Meredith giggled at her own comments.

Jake laughed with her. It seemed he had been waiting for Meredith to give him something to chuckle about. But his laughter lasted much longer than necessary for the silly comment she had made.

“I suppose I should ask since you’re on the line,” Meredith said, “what’s the weather been like?”

“Warm. Some hazy afternoons. It’s cool at night, but not cold. Mostly low eighties, I’d say.”

“It’s been raining here for a week straight,” Meredith said, peering out her bedroom window. In the waning light of dusk, the rain was still coming down steadily. “I’m looking forward to sunshine.”

“It’s been nice here,” Jake said.

Again they each waited to see who was going to speak next or suggest they end the call. Meredith took the initiative this time. “I’d better get back to packing. I have an early flight in the morning.”

“Okay,” Jake said.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Tuesday,” he repeated.

“Bye.”

“Good-bye, Meredith.”

She hung up and smiled, savoring the sound of her name on his lips.
This is pretty promising. Sure, it’s a business meeting, but he wants to get together. He initiated it. He even thought of the cheesecake! Of course, we both understand up front that he is allowed no tingles
.

She giggled. “That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a few myself, does it?”

M
eri put down the phone. Humming softly, she went through her stack of shorts, trying to decide which ones she would be willing to be seen wearing in public. The black linen ones had potential. Now, what shirt would she wear with them? And the bigger question, what would she wear Tuesday night? A summer dress maybe.