Page 35

LONDON

ONE MONTH LATER

NATALIA

The night I walked out on Klaus and went to stay with Phaedra, she tried to pry out of me what had happened, but all I would say was, “I’m not wasting the rest of my thirties on another broken bird. Best of luck to the next girl.”

I knew the breakup could throw a wrench into the deep-dive article I’d been working on for over five damned months, but I kept things professional.

Most of it was written at that point, and I did my best to ensure there wasn’t a shift in tone.

I can’t pretend my heart didn’t ache every time I sat down to work on it, though, vividly bringing to life all the fantastic Klaus Franke qualities I needed to showcase.

Nefeli’s required “thirst trap” pics bewitched and haunted me when I penned the article’s cutlines.

His intense espresso-dark stare, focused in the gym, a sexy sheen of sweat gilding his skin.

That serious V of his brows as he chatted with colleagues in a meeting.

The charming openness as he led a factory tour.

And especially killing to me was the warm, candid snapshot of Klaus with a group of adoring children during a Jump Start event. So natural, like he was born for it.

Every sentence I wrote stung, but I knocked it out of the park. No one who reads those five thousand words will have any clue my heart is broken.

After turning in “Klaus Franke: Wizard of the Emerald F1 City,” I ask for a week of personal leave.

ARJ arranges to send Alexander to the first race after the August summer break, the Belgian Grand Prix.

I hole up in my flat in West Ham, working on a new project, though I do go into the office once to shoot an episode of ARJ Buzz —a “Spill-the-Tea Special,” focusing on silly season and all the wild rumors swirling around, driver lineups and general gossip, murmurs of feuds, alliances, offers, and swaps.

On the weekend before my return to the office, I email Nefeli two things: the first chapter of the book I’m working on and a letter of resignation.

She calls me in twenty minutes after I arrive on Monday.

“What the bloody hell is this?” she demands, pointing at her laptop screen.

“Uh, which thing?”

“Don’t be obtuse. The resignation letter. Am I to get our solicitors involved? I’ll remind you, you’re under contract.”

I sit across from her desk, and I think the look on my face changes her angle of approach.

“Don’t even try with the long puss, love. You know I have no heart,” she says with an indulgent half-smile. “If you need to avoid You-Know-Who now that your fling has run its course, we can work something out temporarily. But I can’t lose you.”

Her closing words—the same thing Klaus said the night I walked out—spur a wave of pain, and I have to pinch my leg to keep an impassive expression.

“I don’t want to sound like a jerk, playing hardball,” I tell her soberly, “but my contract says if I leave early, all I have to do is return my signing bonus, which I’m willing to do.”

Nefeli sighs, leaning back. “That bad, eh?”

“It’s not entirely the issue you think. Things are changing for me, and…

I’ve actually been questioning my career path all year anyway.

I want to try being closer to my family, and I need to work on this book.

” I sit up, eager to hear her verdict on the writing sample. “Do you think it has promise?”

By way of reply, she prods her keyboard and adjusts her glasses to peer at the computer screen. “I wish I could discourage you by saying it’s shite, but I fucking love it. Do you already have an arrangement with a publisher?”

I laugh. “Um, no . This is just a dream, currently.”

“Willing to put it all on the line for a dream?” She lifts an eyebrow. “I don’t know if I admire your pluck or think you’re daft.” She taps at her keyboard again. “But I’m chummy with someone at Abacus Books—history and memoirs and that. I’ll send this over if you’d like.”

“Holy sh—I mean, wow , thank you! Yes, please.”

“But upon one condition: You merely take a leave of absence for the remainder of the season, and in January give me the chance to coax you back. No resigning today. I won’t say you must return—I’m not a monster, contrary to popular belief.

You’ll have four months to work on your book.

Then”—she lifts her hands—“we’ll see if I can sweeten the pot. ”

We spend a long time talking things over. Nefeli, despite being a flinty old gal, has surprisingly sensitive and insightful advice about my career, my cautious beginnings of a relationship with Sherri and Jason, and even my broken heart.

I feel lighter when I leave her office. I’ve agreed to continue doing the ARJ Buzz segments remotely for the remainder of the season but make no appearances at the grands prix, letting Alexander take over for now. Next step: arrangements to move back to Kentucky.

As I walk to my office, my heart stirring with real optimism for the first time in weeks, Alexander leans out of his doorway.

“Evans! A word, please?”

When I go in, he’s holding a handful of papers, which he extends toward me. Confused, I take it, looking down to see the first page of my book project— Faded Sunlight: A Mother’s Nightmare in a California Women’s Prison .

“How did you get your hands on this?” I demand. “Did Nefeli give you a copy?”

“She sent it to me last night, yes.”

“Why?!”

He tips his head, sardonic, and leans casually on his desk.

“Because I’m Mummy’s special boy. You needn’t get stroppy—I called you in here to heap praise upon you.

That”—he points at the pages I’m mashing in one fist—“is fuckin’ brilliant.

And I know you still essentially loathe me, but I’m a solid writer, and…

I’d like to offer to beta read. I have a good eye with critiques. My comments could be useful.”

I’m about to deliver a Hell, no when he holds up a hand and adds, “Let me rephrase that: I’m more begging than offering. Your writing is a delight, and I’m already invested enough in the story that if I have to wait a year or more until you publish—which you certainly will—I’ll go mad.”

I inspect him with a moody squint. “Hmm. Considering that ‘negging’ thing you always do, I can’t imagine your crit comments being helpful.”

“Give me a chance. I’ll do the first chapter, and if you hate my style, you need never send me another word. But I promise, I’m good at this.” His tentative smile is boyish. “I’d like to be friends, and make it up to you, what a pain in the arse I’ve been this year. Truly.”

I smooth out the pages and cautiously hand them over. “Just one chapter. But you’d better not be doing this to clear the runway for asking me out again, because the answer is a permanent no.”

“On my honor.” He taps the little stack square and sets it aside, taking a pencil from his desk and jotting something at the top of the first page.

“And condolences on things not working out with Emerald’s TP.

I know he’s dishy .” Alexander punctuates the assessment with a roll of his eyes.

“Besides, I’ve… set my sights on someone new.

I’ll plague you no longer with my affections. ”

“That poor thing, whoever she is,” I tease, backing into the open doorway. “Somebody should warn her.”

“Cruel woman.” Alexander lobs the pencil in my direction, and I slip around the corner.

Heading to my office, I think about the book project, and where it might go. The opening paragraphs—which I’ve been over so many times they’re all but tattooed on my brain—unfurl in my mind’s eye:

When Sherri McNeil was a 1980s teenager in Kentucky, resentful of a world that felt too small to contain her big dreams, she never expected life to contract around her further, as it did over the next decade.

But months after meeting Jason Evans—a rural country boy with Hollywood looks and charm—she found she’d traded her little home in Lexington for an even more suffocating one in an unincorporated South Kentucky town.

The baby, unexpected but loved by the nineteen-year-old parents, made the rented clapboard house feel all the more crowded.

Seven years later, Sherri spread her wings and flew west to L.A., hoping to free her family from the limited future she envisioned for them in a map-dot hamlet with one stoplight, two fast-food restaurants, and four churches.

The moment the door of her prison cell shut behind her, she thought, If my life gets any smaller, I may disappear entirely.

And to her seven-year-old daughter, she did.

KENTUCKY

SIX WEEKS LATER

Opening the lines of communication started with an email while I was still in Hungary, but Sherri had to convince me before I’d pick up for a phone call.

The next hurdle was video calls. I almost put the kibosh on that after the first one because it freaked me out how she kept bursting into tears and saying, “It’s just so good to see your face! ”

By the time I flew home in early September, I was cautiously ready to attempt in-person family stuff.

I asked Auntie Min to give me a few days to acclimate and manage the jetlag, plus get my feet under myself emotionally, post-breakup.

Then I agreed to muffins and coffee—a one-hour commitment.

Next we did dinner, a backyard barbecue.

The week after that, Minnie and I went to visit at Sherri and Jason’s little rental, a half hour away.

The “excuse” for interacting has been the book project.

Sherri is taking online college courses in writing, world history, and algebra.

During our second phone call, I asked her if maybe we could collaborate on telling her story.

She was initially skeptical that anyone would want to read “a biography about a regular person who made a lot of mistakes,” until I showed her examples of some fantastic popular memoirs.

I asserted that books like this incite changes in the world, expanding readers’ perspectives on controversial subjects.