Poles Apart (24 page)

I read it over twice. Actually, I read it over about a dozen times. A book. A
book
! What the hell was happening? I’ve always dreamed of writing a book one day. I think it’s the goal, implicit or explicit, of most writers. I was no different. My only regret, should I decide to proceed, was that my name would not appear on the cover. It could not. I sat very still, thinking, for what seemed like a very long time. I turned it over in my mind. I assessed the risks. I contemplated the rewards. I weighed my
options. I wondered what she meant by “put something on the table.” I vibrated with excitement. I raked my hair, sneezed twice, and burped once. Then I replied.

I hit Send. My stomach was tight, and little tingles radiated across my chest. I briefly felt as if I were occupying someone else’s body. A book. I had no idea what the offer might be. I knew a little about the book world courtesy of a few friends who were authors. But I didn’t even know how many figures might be involved in an auction-avoiding offer. But I was cool. I was calm. I could wait. I kept one eye on my email inbox and one eye … ah, who am I kidding? I fixed both eyes on my laptop screen
waiting for Sally Gifford’s response. It didn’t take long, though eight minutes staring hard at my screen left my eyes tearing up just a bit.

It seems that six figures are required to forestall a publishers’ auction. I was paralyzed for about seven minutes. Eventually feeling was restored to my extremities. But I let her wait. I took a shower – a long one. The trick of it is not to think too hard about
it, not to dwell on the gigantic payday that seemed to be coming my way. Just calm down. Apply shampoo, rinse, repeat. Don’t forget the conditioner, now. Okay, towel off, just as you have so many times before. Muscle memory kicked in and I dried myself off without straining any ligaments. Even though my bathroom was not equipped with grab bars, I managed to maintain my balance and stay upright even though I was at least mentally hoisting a briefcase bearing $250,000 high above my head like it was the World Series trophy.

I reached for my razor and then quickly put it back on the marble vanity. I just didn’t think wielding any kind of sharp object at that particular moment made much sense. But I did feel comfortable working my hairbrush and spent a few minutes coiffing my do. I sustained no injuries in the process other than a stinging eye courtesy of a small stray dollop of styling gel that got away from me.

My instinct of course was to reply to the email offer with something reserved and restrained like
“Sally, you have a DEAL!!!”
typed in 85-point font. But I decided I owed it myself to think it through and negotiate aggressively. This opportunity was unlikely to be coming my way again any time soon. Clearly, Sally was keen to ink some kind of a deal before the other houses leapt into the play. So I figured I had a bit of latitude on the advance. It took only two more emails to agree to the terms in principle. I squeezed an additional $25,000 out of Random House on the advance. We agreed on $275,000 and a deadline for the manuscript in four months. Holy shit.

I spent the next hour with their
IT
people leading me through some linked computer wizardry that seemed to satisfy the Random House leadership team that I was in fact Eve from the
Eve of Equality
blog.

Sally sent me a formal contract between “the
Eve of Equality
blogger” and Random House. I read it and understood the first sentence and the last, but had some difficulty fully understanding what the hell the middle twenty-three pages said or meant. I did my best not to look like an idiot as Sally and I exchanged three more emails that afternoon to clarify a few points (or really, a lot of points). By 1:30 p.m., I was reasonably satisfied with the offer – read, I was nearly overcome with excitement and spent several minutes jumping in my living room trying to touch the ceiling with my head. I couldn’t quite get the altitude I needed, but my head did hit the overhead light fixture once.

I printed off the final version of the offer and headed downstairs. If my stars were holding in the aligned position, she would still be there. The big doors were locked, so I knocked. I heard footfalls inside and the deadbolt slide across. Brawn opened the door and pretty well filled the entire space. I don’t think he was ecstatic to see me. The feeling was mutual.

“Yes, hello, um, Brawn, I think it is, isn’t it?”

“What do you want?” he snapped. “We’re busy in here.”

“Yes, well, I know Megan Cook was running a training session this morning for the wait staff, and if it’s over, and she’s still here, I really need to see her.”

“Everett?”

Brawn was doing to the doorway what the moon does to the sun in a total lunar eclipse.

“Megan?” I said. “I can hear you in there, but I can’t see you. Can we chat for just a minute?”

Mercifully, Brawn stepped aside and there stood Megan, dressed slightly more casually the morning after her first riot.

“Oh, hello. It is you,” she said. “I thought I recognized the voice.”

“Hi, Megan. I thought you might already be gone.”

“I’m off in about twenty minutes. We just finished the session.”

“How’d it go?”

“Fine. I probably didn’t even need to meet with them. They’re all pros and already knew about the new regs.”

“Um, I wonder if you might be able to do me a very quick favour? I swear it’ll only take a few minutes.”

“And here I thought ‘I owe you one’ was just a harmless, meaningless figure of speech,” she replied, but she smiled when she said it.

She waved me into the big room and over to a table on the edge of the dance floor. Brawn didn’t exactly look welcoming but he made room for me to slip by him. Megan and I sat down.

“Okay, what have you got?” she asked.

I’d brought with me just the actual clauses of the contract and not any of the up-front pieces that named the book or outlined the advance and royalty structure. I already understood that part of it.

“Well, it looks like I’m about to sign my first book deal,” I
started. “It’s all still very confidential at this stage, but I wondered if you would mind casting your legal eye over the contract. It’s supposed to be a standard, boilerplate publishing contract, but I just want to be sure.”

“A book deal! That’s fantastic! Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot. It’s a little overwhelming.”

“What’s the book about? Is it a novel or nonfiction? What’s the title?”

“Oh, geez, I’m sorry Megan, but I signed an
NDA
, so I’m bound to keep all of that confidential. Sorry. When the book comes out, you’ll have one of the first copies.”

She looked skeptical. I wasn’t surprised.

“Please, just have a look at these pages and tell me if anything seems out of place. I’d really be grateful.”

She took the pages and started reading. I found myself watching her closely. Her hair was tied back in a rather severe, ultra-professional-looking arrangement. Even amidst all the truly beautiful women moving about the interior of
XY
, she held her own. And then I chastised myself for making that observation in the first place.

“Random House. Big name,” she said without looking up, and kept reading.

It took her about five minutes to scan the contract provisions.

“Where’s the rest of it?” she asked.

“I’m not permitted to share those sections under my nondisclosure agreement. But I understood the other passages.”

“Okay, then,” she said, putting the papers back into their proper order and laying them down on the table. “Look, I’m no contract law expert, nor have I ever advised on a book deal. But this seems quite straightforward. Random House gets worldwide ebook and print publishing rights, not just in North America. They also have the audio book rights. But you retain the film,
TV
, and stage rights. You get an accounting of sales and royalty payments each year in November and in May. They also get first right of refusal on your next book. They owe you ten copies of the book when it’s printed. Other than that, it all looks rather run-of-the-mill. Congratulations.”

She handed the paperwork back to me.

“What a relief it is to know that I’ve retained the stage rights,” I said. “Broadway beckons.”

She smiled.

“I’ve got a flight to catch.” She rose from the table.

“Megan, thanks so much for helping me with this. I appreciate it,” I said as I stood up, too.

She handed me the contract.

“No worries. Thanks for getting me safely off the street last night,” she replied. “By the way, I was up a good part of the night thinking about what you said, you know, about my job.”

“I didn’t say anything about your job,” I protested.

“Yes – yes, you did.”

“I have no memory of that,” I said. “Um, I was wondering if maybe you might want to get together again some time when
you’re back this way? Maybe have dinner or coffee, or dinner and coffee?”

She looked at me for a few seconds, thinking it through, I guess. She might have been a tad surprised at my overture – a reasonable conclusion given that I was downright shocked I’d just asked her out.

“Hmmm, interesting,” she replied, still holding my eyes with hers. “Why not? I’ll be back early next week – Monday afternoon, in fact.”

“Monday night it is,” I said. “Thanks again for the once-over on the contract.”

I slipped out the big front door and back up the stairs to my apartment.

No, I don’t know what came over me, what possessed me – perhaps some kind of a stroke, or maybe a minor aneurism. It’s a mystery I cannot fathom. Clearly, it was not enough that I’d written an incendiary post casting wholly justified aspersions on Mason Bennington. It was not enough that Candace Sharpe had pushed tens of thousands of her fans to read said negative post about Mason Bennington. It was not even enough that the very powerful and dangerous Mason Bennington – you know, the guy with ties to organized crime – was royally pissed at whomever had written the post in question. No, all of that was not enough. I had to go and ask Mason Bennington’s attorney out on a date. Good thinking. Made total sense. Brilliant idea. I made a mental note to donate my brain to science when I died – which might
be sooner than I’d like – so that we might learn why my normally well-functioning mind would simply shut down and permit such inexplicable decision-making.