It was four years ago, I remind myself. Grow up, Nathan. I won’t throw away my career because I don’t want to talk to Kat.
“Well”—I bluster in what I hope comes off confident—“we wrote the first draft of Only Once in three months.” There. I spoke first. Surely Katrina will take her victory and deign to join the discussion.
She doesn’t.
“Three months,” Liz repeats. I hear the impatient undercurrent in her voice. She’s wondering the same thing. Where the hell is Katrina? “Then build in time for revisions, copyedits, promo. Honestly, I’ll bump another title and we could have this on our list for next year. But I certainly don’t want to rush you.”
“Katrina would like to do this quickly as well,” Chris interjects. “Two months is the goal.”
It wreaks havoc on my blood pressure. Is Katrina even on this call? What if Chris speaks for her throughout the entire process? It would be unbearably tedious, not to mention personally unpleasant. If I have to draft this entire book through Chris, I might finally discover the cure for my love of writing. I could become the investment banker my father wanted me to be.
“Well, we’re on the same page, then,” Liz confirms, the flint in her voice echoing my own misgivings. “I’d love to hear what Katrina and Nathan are thinking for the book’s premise.”
I pause—this would be the point for Katrina finally to enter the conversation. I give her a second. When once more she’s silent, something in me snaps. Clearly Katrina doesn’t care about this. Why she’s even doing the book is a mystery, but an unimportant one. I do care. Fuck investment banking. If Katrina won’t participate, I’ll lead. I’ll do the whole thing if I have to.
“Before Only Once came out, we were working on an idea centered on a young couple going through a divorce,” I say. It was one of the proposals Katrina and I put together for our follow-up to Only Once before our partnership imploded. It was a good pitch, despite being weirdly prophetic. I never expected to be divorced by twenty-eight. Melissa certainly didn’t.
“Yes, I remember,” Liz says. “Bringing divorce out of the midlife crisis. I liked it. I think we need more, though.”
I nod to myself. I’d thought the same. “Of course. We’ll”—I emphasis the word for one person, and one person only—“need to develop it. But I like the juxtaposition of young love, the honeymoon phase, with everything falling to pieces.”
“Liz—”
I sit up sharply. It’s the voice I was waiting for. Katrina sounds confident, urgent, the way she does when she’s grabbed hold of one of her genius ideas, or it’s grabbed hold of her.
It’s kind of perverse how Pavlovian my response is. I don’t react combatively, nor defensively. Instantly, I feel my mind wake up. I’m energized, hungry to put her ideas and mine together.
“I’d like to play with a formal device. Something with timelines, where we compare their early relationship to the present. What we expect to be juxtaposition will turn out to be similarity by the end.”
I process her words. I love the idea, obviously. Katrina’s incredibly gifted with conceptual frameworks.
Then I process the way she proposed it. Obviously, it’s a comment for me to consider, yet she said it . . . to Liz. It feels like the first move in some sort of chess game.
I immediately jot timeline framework into my journal. “Yeah, Liz,” I say pointedly. I’ll play. “We’ll interrogate the marriage of fact and fiction, the elements of each in every love story.” I feel the idea start to excite me, despite my irritation with Katrina.
“Liz, what do you think of the idea that breaking up is itself passionate, just like falling in love?” Katrina poses the question like it’s innocent.
“I think it’s fascinating—Liz,” I reply, catching myself. “I—I want you, Liz, to know that I think that.”
There’s wince-inducing quiet on the other end of the line. Liz undoubtedly understands exactly what’s going on. She hears her prodigal coauthors acting like children. “Well, you two certainly still work well together,” she finally says. I’m not sure how much of her comment is sarcasm. On the one hand, Katrina and I haven’t technically spoken to each other. On the other, I can acknowledge how instantaneously we’re sparking ideas off each other. “I like this, but you want to keep your readership in mind,” she adds.
I frown, not following. “We wrote an affair in Only Once. Now we’re doing a divorce. I don’t imagine readers will struggle with the jump.”
“Of course,” Liz replies easily. “You know why your readers loved Only Once, though. You write romance.”
I don’t reply, not wanting to encourage the idea. I proposed a break-up book. Then Katrina inserted a very good idea involving very minimal romance. The more Liz says, the more I see my break-up book filling up with stolen glances, brushing hands, tender embraces. Kissing.
“Even if the ending is bleak,” Liz continues. “It’s not like you gave your characters a happily-ever-after in Only Once. The story was full of longing, though. In this book, emphasize this passion you’re proposing. Find the romance.”
Find the romance. Find the romance with Katrina. Yes, I’ll just climb Mount Everest when I’m done.
“Right,” Chris speaks up. “Definitely. We have to deliver on the brand.”
I’m silent. So is Katrina. I’m not going to be the one to object, not if she won’t.
Jen jumps in, sparing us. “I think the most productive thing right now is to let Nathan and Katrina begin their process. Once they have more to work with, we’ll get back on the phone and figure out next steps.”
“Yes, of course,” Liz replies immediately. “Have you two planned your writing retreat yet? Where’s it going to be?”
I decide to hold the line right here. I’m not saying a damn thing. It’s on Katrina to field this horrifying question. The silence stretches, the phone line crackling with more than static. Finally, I win. “We haven’t discussed it,” Katrina says, her voice wire-sharp.
“I know you’ll have a wonderful time,” Liz says, and for the first time I wonder if my editor is not that bright. “Call whenever.”
“Thanks,” I reply.
“Bye, Liz,” Katrina says.
We hang up. It feels like retreating. I’m reeling from the conversation—Katrina and I just pitched the book we’re writing together without exchanging one word with each other. We haven’t even discussed how we’re writing the book. It hits me, we said we would finish the first draft in two months. While the difficulty of my working relationship with Katrina is very real, our deadline is very real, too.