Page 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I don’t think you’ve been in my office since FDR was president!” VV says with a big laugh. “Please, please, have a seat.”

My parents turn to take a seat.

They nearly fall over the coffee table when they see me and Jess seated before them.

“What is going on?” my mother asks. “Is this another trick of yours, VV?”

“All in due time,” VV says. “I’m too old for tricks. And no one can pay my hourly rate anyway.”

My parents do not laugh or move.

“Please,” I say. “Have a seat. I promise this will all make sense in a moment.”

My parents look at one another and then, very slowly, take a seat in the chairs at each end of the coffee table, their eyes trained on us.

“Would you care for anything to drink?”

“I was originally thinking sparkling water,” my mother says. She continues to eye me and Jess. “But now I’m thinking hard liquor is the way to go.”

“I knew I liked you!” VV pours glasses of bourbon and sparkling water. “You always need a chaser,” she continues, setting the glasses before my parents, the jangling of her jewelry the equivalent of a trash truck.

“Thank you.” My mother takes a sip. “So, why did you ask us to meet after all these years? We could have handled everything over the phone. I feel like we’ve been set up.”

“Not at all. I thought it was time to mend fences,” VV says, taking a seat. “And, yes, I’ve been watching Yellowstone .”

My father finally cracks a smile.

“I thought it was best we take this meeting face-to-face,” VV says. “So did your daughters.”

“Why are we here?” my mother asks. “Why are they here?”

She doesn’t as much stare at me and Jess as she stares through our souls.

“Let’s start with your first question, Piper, shall we?” VV asks, her voice calm and shockingly diplomatic. “The manuscript I sent you.”

“I’m curious why you sent this manuscript to us ?” my father says. “You know it’s not what we publish. It might be something we’d consider in the future after we complete the acquisition of our first novel for Books with Flare, which will be in the works soon, and get a more solid foundation. We do need to move in a more commercial direction, if you can believe I’m saying that out loud. But, right now, I’m not sure we’re in a position to make an offer on this one, especially considering all of the competition for it.”

“May I answer your questions with a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Very Yellowstone , Phillip,” VV says. “When was the last time you read a book just for enjoyment?”

My parents look at one another and then give VV a curious look.

“Like you, the majority of time we read for business,” my father says. “When we discover a great new book, it becomes not only enjoyment but also the most incredible journey of our lives.”

“Was that your experience with this manuscript?”

“Yes,” my father says.

My heart somersaults.

“May I ask why?” VV leans toward my father, peering through her fun-house glasses.

“It’s a novel for a reader of any age who has ever loved and lost, and—even decades later—can feel that sting as easily as the first frost,” my mother says. “It’s about family rivalry, and how women—and sisters—can hurt one another but, ultimately, have one another’s backs.”

“It’s also about family on the shores of Lake Michigan, and that speaks to me even more personally,” my father adds. “For me, reading this novel was like coming home.”

“But, again, as Phillip said, I don’t think we’re in a position to buy without Marcus’s input and final approval,” my mother says, “and I don’t think we’ll have the financial firepower right now to match the other offers at auction.”

“What if I told you the author only wants to sell to The Mighty Pages?”

“What?” my mother asks. “Why?”

“Why don’t I let her explain?”

My parents look at VV, waiting for clarification.

“Aren’t you going to call her?” my mother asks.

“There’s no need,” VV says. “The author is right here.”

Everything moves in slow motion. The turning of my parents’ heads, trying to understand what is happening. The jangling of VV’s jewelry. How tightly my sister’s hands are clamped together. The ragged heartbeat in my ears. The formation of a final breath.

“The manuscript is mine,” I say.

Silence.

“I don’t understand,” my mother finally says.

“And I can never thank you enough for the words you just said about it,” I continue. “I think I’ve waited my entire life to hear them.”

“ You wrote this book, Emma? Why didn’t you just tell us?” my father says, looking baffled.

“Because we know,” Jess says. “ Everything .”

My parents look at us, faces contorted in confusion.

“I figured out GiGi was S. I. Quaeris. Jess and I found the safe in her office,” I say.

“And all the manuscripts, the flash drive that revealed GiGi was being blackmailed, everything,” Jess adds.

My mother leans back in her chair and takes a sip of whiskey. “I knew it would come out one day, Phillip.”

“We only kept it a secret to protect GiGi and both of you,” my father says. “It was GiGi’s sole wish.”

“I know,” I say. “But we found out something else.”

“Something you never knew,” Jess says.

“The man who blackmailed GiGi was Marcus Flare,” I blurt. “And he wants to destroy our family and take over The Mighty Pages as revenge for what we did to his family.”

My parents search each other’s faces and then the room, as if there might be hidden cameras and this was all a joke.

“No,” my mother says. “No. No. No. I don’t believe you.”

“Emma? Jess?” my father asks, his voice firm. “This sounds like a plot from a Harlan Coben novel. I understand this is a very unsteady time for all of us—our business, our family, our future—but I can’t understand why you would pull something like this.”

“We’re not pulling anything, Dad,” Jess says. “Please. I know it sounds insane, but you have to believe us. We’re your daughters. We’d do anything to protect you.”

“Would you?” my mother asks. Her words are as pointed as a bullet. “Emma, I know you don’t like Marcus. And I know you don’t like us being partners with him. I also believe you would do anything to get him in trouble to end our working relationship. But that train has left the station.”

Anger flashes inside me, but I swallow hard to keep my emotions inside. If I act like a child—which is what my parents expect—Marcus will win. Jess and I will be dismissed. All our effort will be for nothing.

I watch my father watch me. He knows my soul. He knows his mother, and all she endured. In his eyes, I know he knows. I know he believes us.

“How do you know?” he finally asks. “Once more. With every detail.”

Jess and I go through the entire story again, detail by detail—how we found out, what Marcus said to me, how we planned this ruse, the faux manuscript he sent to them and why VV worked so hard to get my manuscript to auction.

“To save The Mighty Pages,” Jess concludes.

“To save our family,” I add.

My parents are again quiet.

“Marcus Flare,” my mother says. “Very clever. Very evil.”

“That’s why he didn’t want us to read the rest of The Magician’s Assistant ,” my father says.

“Believe me, you don’t want to,” VV says in a deadpan, grabbing her whiskey and taking a sip.

“He wanted to ruin us from the outset,” he adds.

“But we’re DOA, Phillip,” my mother says, her skepticism turning to panic. “We’ve invested everything into Books with Flare. He was going to be our savior, but we trusted the devil.”

“He has first right to buy The Mighty Pages if we fail,” my father mutters. “He knew that all along. That’s why he pushed for it. How could I have been so stupid? We fell for his plan.”

“But we have a better one,” Jess says with a smile.

She explains what we have planned next.

“I want The Mighty Pages to publish my novel,” I say. “For free.”

“With all the buzz it has right now going to auction, I can spin this into a big story in the trades with Jess’s help,” VV says. “Then when it’s published, whatever it sells will be pure profit after your initial investment and overhead to print, ship and conduct your marketing and publicity campaigns. I know that could be significant at first, but you would have no advance to recoup. And the breakout potential for this is huge.”

“But it’s not what we publish outside of Marcus,” my mother says uncertainly.

“No, but it’s what you need to publish,” I press. “Especially once we change Books with Flare to the new imprint Jess, VV and I have in mind.”

We tell them.

“God, we’re good!” VV crows. “And I promise to send you the best manuscripts for it.”

“You know,” my father says, “we actually started The Mighty Pages for the right reasons. And the wrong ones, too.” He looks at his hands as he continues. “We wanted to do things differently and give voice to authors who we believed weren’t being heard and given an equal chance of being published. Your grandmother was a trailblazer in literature, and I personally wanted to honor that and create a diverse list of authors, stories and books. And I think we succeeded and were far ahead of the publishing curve. I also felt if I got in the game, I could stay in it until I could rectify what happened to her. That’s why I wrote my most recent novel, Emma. I became fascinated with the game of baseball because of her. It’s the only sport that doesn’t have a clock attached to it. The game isn’t over until the last out.”

My heart is in my throat.

“I still need to be convinced,” my mother—always my mother—says. “If we weren’t in such financial straits, I would never have agreed to publish commercial fiction with Marcus.”

“Always such a literary snob, aren’t you, Piper?” VV says. “I think the whiskey is already kicking in. Sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” my mother says with a wicked laugh.

“No, I’m not,” VV says.

“Mom, why don’t you try to think of this new endeavor…like GiGi’s garden?” Jess says.

“I’m not following,” she says.

Jess continues. “Hydrangeas bloom from old wood. They are the classics of a garden. Hardy. Reliable late bloomers. Long-lasting. That’s what you’ve always tried to publish. The new imprint would be like the peonies in GiGi’s garden: the flowers everyone wants to bring inside their homes the moment they bloom because of their beauty.” Jess nudges me and then smiles at our mother. “A garden requires both varieties to make it through the season.”

“You should be the writer,” I whisper.

“I had some help.”

My father perches on the edge of his chair.

“But, Piper, you cannot deny that we’ve also been elitist in our thinking that anything commercial, like romance, would not be well received critically and undermine our aura of only publishing literary fiction. Every house at the time was publishing blockbusters. We thought we could build a mighty list from smaller titles. It worked for a while. But then publishing changed, and our egos got in the way. Our stubbornness to expand our list was rooted in the fact that we could not write those types of books well, and I, especially, was envious of how easily it came to GiGi. She was one of a kind. She wrote simple stories that spoke to people’s hearts.”

My mother sips her whiskey in silence.

“Your grandmother was a gifted writer,” my father continues. “And so, so driven not only to write but also to protect her family and give us a life that was free of the grief and worry she dealt with every day. We needed to publish commercial fiction because we were losing so much money, and Marcus knew that. I believed that if we were successful, we’d have an imprint where our commercial list could receive the critical acclaim it often lacks and help fund a literary list that needs to find a bigger audience. As you just said, Jess, we need to tend a garden for all tastes and seasons.”

“Sometimes we forget why we read,” my mother says as if to herself. “Sometimes it’s to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while. Sometimes it’s to travel to a place or time we never will. Sometimes it’s to get angry or more informed. And sometimes it’s simply to escape, smile and be offered a little bit of hope so it’s possible to go on in this world. Your novel reminded me of that, Emma. I, too, need that, and so do many readers. And if that’s a start in the reeducation of Piper Page, so be it.”

“Mom.”

That’s all I can say.

“And we are so proud of you,” my father says to me. “Your grandmother is smiling from heaven.”

“Now, we need to go through our plan for Marcus,” Jess says. “We only have one chance.”

As Jess is talking, I receive a text from Gin and Juice.

BINGO! it reads in caps. WE GOT HIM!

A stream of texts appears, and I smile.

“Remember,” VV says, “that any plan to kill Marcus must include wearing garlic and a crucifix around your neck.”

“What if we don’t succeed?” my father asks.

VV stands and opens the door to her office.

“Leo!” she calls. “We’re going to need a bottle of something strong! And a wooden stake!”