“I think book sales generally have been slipping for everyone lately. It could be the time of year, or bad weather. It’s not just you, Phillip. We’ve seen it across the board with all our authors.”
“That’s because the publisher is doing a lousy job,” he grumbled.
“I don’t disagree with you,” she said calmly. She had a soothing way of speaking to him, which always made him feel better. She was intelligent and sensible. She listened to him, was honest with him when she didn’t agree with him, and championed his cause fiercely when she did. She was respectful of his enormous talent and was proud to represent him.
“They should have held the book back by a week or two, instead of dropping me into such a tough list. I’d have made number one a week or two later. That wasn’t smart of them.” She agreed with him about that too.
“It’s already on my list of complaints. I’m going to call them this morning. And I’m not thrilled with the cover for your next book that they just sent us. What did you think of it?”
“I hate it,” he said bluntly. “I already sent them an email about it. It’s dark and depressing, and it’ll get lost in the bookstores. It’s supposed to be our book for the holidays. No one is going to give it as a gift with a cover like that.” He sounded deeply concerned and she had been too, when she saw it. “I got an email from the publisher this morning. She said they’ll get back to work on it and send me something else when they have it.”
“Good. I’m relieved to hear it.” Hailey spent half an hour on the phone with him, and, as always, he was reassured by the time they hung up.
She called the editor-in-chief at his publisher after she spoke to him, and registered all of his complaints as well as her own. The editor agreed that they were valid. Hailey liked dealing with Phillip’s work. He was a terrific writer and a reasonable person, and a pleasure to work with. He never wasted her time.
She had another call from an author as soon as she hung up. Marianne Thornton was furious that her publisher had placed more ads for a rival author than they had for her latest book. The other woman’s book was higher on the list than hers, and she blamed the publisher. She was an author who was always unhappy about something. She complained so often that Hailey could sense that the publisher was exasperated with her, as Hailey often was herself. She had an endless list of gripes, and if her current book didn’t do well, it was always the publisher’s fault and never her own. She wrote mysteries and some were better than others. Her most recent one had been a dud in Hailey’s opinion, and it wasn’t selling well. Hailey tried to pacify her, and spent half an hour on the phone, which would have been better spent doing something else.
She had a call from a young author after that. She had run her most recent check from the agency through the washing machine by mistake and needed a replacement. Hailey told Julia about it and asked her to handle it with accounting. She was about to call another author who was late delivering a book that they had already gotten one extension for, and the publisher was going to be furious this time, when Felicity called her. Hailey didn’t like getting calls from home at the office unless it was an emergency, and she sounded curt when she answered. Felicity told her that Bentley’s school had called. He had just thrown up, and they wanted him picked up and taken home, which was a problem. Will was still sick and running a slight fever again, and Felicity didn’t want to take him out, and she couldn’t leave him at home alone to pick up Bentley.
“I can’t pick him up,” she said in her lilting Jamaican voice as Hailey glanced at her watch. It was almost noon, she had been on the phone all morning and had a mountain of work on her desk she hadn’t gotten to yet, new submissions and a dozen emails to answer from both writers and publishers. She’d been planning to work through lunch, but she had no one else to pick up Bentley, and it would take her longer to find someone who could than to do it herself.
“I’ll pick him up,” she told Felicity. She grabbed her bag after she hung up and told Julia she’d be back in forty-five minutes to an hour, then rushed downstairs and hailed a cab. She was at Bentley’s school in twenty minutes and had the driver wait outside. Bentley looked miserable when she got to him, and she had him in the cab with her in five minutes. They got to their apartment fifteen minutes later. She took him upstairs to Felicity, and then rushed back down the stairs, headed for the subway, and was back at her desk in under an hour. She grabbed an apple and a yogurt from the office fridge and took them back to her desk so she could answer her emails. They had doubled in number while she was out, and she spent the next hour answering them, and the rest of the afternoon going through the submissions on her desk. Two of them were from unpublished writers who wanted the agency to represent them. She handed their manuscripts to Julia and asked her to have a look at them and give her coverage on them, summarizing the stories and offering her opinion as to whether they were worthwhile or not.
She spent the entire afternoon dealing with minor but time-consuming problems. Most of her days were like that.
Francine had had a busy morning too. One of her biggest authors wanted to cancel a TV appearance on the Today show, two days before the scheduled date. Francine knew it would not only hurt her book, but would make the producers of the show furious and loath to have her on the show next time.
“I really think you should do it, Anne. The repercussions just won’t be worth it. The publisher is going to be pissed, and so will Today.” She spent an hour trying to convince her to go on, and finally did. She was an important author and a difficult woman, and Francine had to handle her with kid gloves.
She got two calls from writers who said they were going to be late with their books, which meant a call to two different publishers to try and get extensions for them. One publisher agreed and the other didn’t, so she had to send an email to the writer, telling her that the publisher had refused to grant an extension. As soon as she finished the email, she got a call from Tommy’s school. The assistant principal told her in an outraged voice that Tommy had hit a boy in school and gotten into a fight with him during recess. It turned into a schoolyard brawl, and they were sending Tommy home for a day since it wasn’t the first time, and they wanted him to go home and think about it. Francine knew he would be delighted to stay home and watch TV, but she didn’t think that was good for him.
“This is the third fight he’s been in, in just over a month. Is there something happening at home?” The assistant principal sounded concerned about him, and Francine was too.
“He says he’s not happy at school,” Francine said. “I’m not sure why.”
“He’s exhibiting very aggressive behavior, Mrs. Rivers,” the assistant principal said disapprovingly. “I was going to write to you and suggest therapy, some form of counseling. He’s clearly having issues. He kicked the water fountain after the fight today and left a dent in it. Destroying school property isn’t acceptable behavior either. We had to talk to him about it.” She hesitated for a moment, and Francine could tell that the woman had something more to say but was being guarded about it. “He says you’re never home. You come home after dinner and he and his sister have to fend for themselves. I do think counseling would be a good idea, for both of you. I can give you some names if you like.” Francine hated hearing what she had to say, that Tommy was so disturbed at the moment that he was getting into fights. And the school clearly blamed his mother for it because she worked late. Maybe therapy really was needed. It sounded like it to Francine, and she looked dejected when she got off the phone.