Page 5

“Well,” he said hesitantly, “that’s not exactly true.”

Annie gave him a look. “I know. I owe you one more book.”

Finnegan raised his palms. “All I’m saying is, a lot rides on your decision. You’ve sold nearly fifteen million books and have an ever-growing fan base. One generation gets followed by another and then another. Those Sandra Boynton board books never go out of print. Look atLove You Foreverby Robert Munsch. Came out in the eighties, continues to sell a shitload every year, and still will long after we’re dead and gone.”

He inwardly winced at his choice of words. Not the kind of phrase you wanted to use with someone who’d had the kind of year Annie Blunt had had. If she’d taken offense at his language, she did not show it.

Finnegan pushed on. “You’re in that league. Your books are timeless. There’s no reason people will stop buying them.”

“They’ll have to be content with the backlist,” she said. “There just won’t be any new ones.”

The next Pierce the Penguin book was in the spring catalogue. The division’s entire budget had been built around it. But Annie had not delivered, hadn’t so much as sketched out a single page. To be out by May, the book would already have to be in-house.

Finnegan leaned back in his chair and took in the room around him. “This was where we had our first meeting, when I acquiredPierce Goes to Paris. Nine years ago.”

The Gramercy Tavern was barely a thirty-minute walk from Annie’s place on Bank Street in the West Village. More convenient for her than for Finnegan, whose Langley House Books office was way up Broadway near 60th. Langley, a division of one of the biggest publishing conglomerates in the world, had the better part of the twenty-third floor.

Annie wasn’t about to admit her editor might be right about going mad in some small town. She’d never lived anywhere but New York, unless you counted that month she’d spent in Paris when she was twenty, doing the whole becoming-an-artist thing. She’d grown up in Brooklyn, had first lived on her own in a dingy apartment not far from the Guggenheim, then a slightly less rat-infested place in SoHo while she attended the School of Visual Arts on 23rd Street in Manhattan where, in an animation class, she met John.

John.

Fellow nerd, best friend, around-the-clock support system, love of her life.

When unimaginable success hit, she and John and, before long, Charlie, moved into their Bank Street brownstone. John Lennon and Yoko had lived on that street once. Sid Vicious even died there. Talk about a neighborhood with character.

Yeah, New York was in her blood, its taxi fumes in her lungs, even if more of them were going electric. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of change.

Picking up on Finnegan’s observation that they were back where it all began, she said, “And I probably don’t look much different than I did that day.” She half raised her arms, showing off her shapeless knit sweater. She glanced down. “These might be the same jeans.”

“It’s one of your charms. You’ve never let success go to your head. You almost bailed on the Newbery Awards because you didn’t wantto get glammed up. I almost wish youhadskipped it. I could have accepted the award on your behalf.”

“John talked me into it,” she said, smiling sadly at the memory. “When I came out of the bedroom in that Dior gown he asked who I was and what I’d done with his wife.”

Her eyes wandered the room.

“You’re not liking the halibut?” Finnegan asked. He pointed to the mostly untouched piece of fish on her plate. “Send it back. Get something else.”

“It’s fine.”

“Really. You were going to get the chicken. Send it back and get the chicken.”

“I don’t want the chicken. But I wouldn’t say no to another one of these Garden Gimlets.”

She indicated her cocktail glass. She’d already had two. Finnegan waved a hand in the air, caught the eye of a waiter, pointed to Annie’s empty glass, and nodded. The waiter nodded in return. Message received.

“There are two women at that table over there who’ve been looking this way,” she said. “Christ, don’t turn around.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Annie said. “People sneaking glances, whispering. Even Charlie’s dealing with it at school. Kids teasing. Asking him if he’s taking flying lessons.”

Finnegan grimaced.

“I’m no A-list celeb,” Annie conceded. “Not even C-list. But I do get recognized occasionally. I want to go where no one knows me.”

“So take a break. Three months, six. A year. Whatever. Whenever you’re ready, we’re here. No pressure.”

“I can pay back the advance for the next one.”