“Hold on. I said that I couldn’t change the policy for you. I didn’t say that your chances of getting published under our banner are hopeless.”
Holy crap. Is she serious? Wait, I don’t want to get my hopes up only to get burned again. I have to be cautious. “Okay, I’m listening. I’ve got to be honest though, it sounded pretty hopeless a minute ago.”
“Cormac’s a brilliant copy editor and has a great eye for what’s marketable and what isn’t. While I think he’s completely off base about your work, I’m not going to write his opinion off completely. I sent a copy of the book to Cynthia while she’s in Europe. She feels the same was as I do—we both love it, and we think it’s very marketable to women these days.”
“But that third vote?”
“Is a problem. But not necessarily a problem that can’t be worked around. When we have a 2-1 split in favor of a book, we have a built-in waiting period of one month before we have our official vote. That way, it gives the dissenting partner—in this case, Cormac—a chance to reconsider their position in light of how the other two partners feel. Usually they reread the book, or speak to the author again, and we often have heated internal discussions among ourselves to see if we can sway the third vote. Sometimes it goes the author’s way and sometimes it doesn’t. It all depends.”
Great. So my future in publishing is at the whim of that arrogant—albeit really good looking—man. Why do I keep going to that in my head? I’m so mad at him I swear steam is going to come out of my ears like one of those Looney Tunes episodes, yet I can’t stop thinking about how good looking he was—or how tall—or how. . . stop it, Tori, the guy was a jerk, who cares what he looks like?
“Okay, so I’ll get my official ‘no’ in a month, then?”
“You never know,” Elissa tells me. She’s still giving me the sympathetic eyes, almost like she knows her partner is a hard-headed man who isn’t going to change his mind easily. “Cormac is what you saw of him, but he’s also a good man. I promise. I wouldn’t have gone into business with him otherwise. He can be convinced, it just might take a little creativity on your part.”
I know that she’s just trying to make me feel better, but it’s not working at all. The month waiting period is nice enough, but based on how severely Cormac reacted to my book, I know which way this is going to go. So instead of just getting rejected outright, licking my wounds, and moving on, now I have to wait to get the answer I know is coming anyway. One thing I do know—it isn’t Elissa’s fault.
“Thank you,” I tell her, putting my hand over hers. “For everything. Thanks for listening and for trying. Not everyone sees my vision.”
“As a woman in this industry, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to make someone see your vision. You have to shove it in their face, even if they don’t want it or don’t like it at first. Sometimes that’s the only way for people to take you seriously.”
Shove it in their face. Interesting thought. Now, if only I could figure out a way to actually do it.
Tori
The Next Day
When I need to lick my wounds—and they need some serious licking right now—I always go to the same place. Actually, place is the wrong word, because the location doesn’t matter. It’s more accurate to say that when I’m hurting badly, I always go the same person. She’s about to answer the door now.
“Mom!”
I give her a hug just like the one I gave her the first time a boy broke my heart—his name was Adam, I was twelve, and after he told me that I was ugly I gave my mom a hug like the one I’m giving her now. And just like that one, I held on for dear life, as though letting go might result in me getting sucked into some kind of vortex I might never escape from.
And just like that day, my mom told me to man the hell up. “Baby, you know I love your hugs more than anything else in the world, but you’re cutting off my circulation.”
“Sorry. I needed to squeeze.”
“Something must be bad, you haven’t squeezed me that hard in a very long time.”
“I haven’t had to. But today I need a good one. You could have squeezed me back, you know?”
“I needed to assess the situation first. Your squeeze was about a seven.”
“You rank my hugs?”
“Only the ones like that—the panic ones that come without any words. I rate those and decide if you need a squeeze back.”
“And seven doesn’t make the cut?”
“Eight and above. You were close, but not sad enough for me to break your ribs like you almost broke mine.”
Here’s the thing about Mom—she’s like two different people. Maybe that’s where I get it from. When she thinks I need it, she can be the warmest, kindest, most understanding person in the entire world. I’ll give you an example. That time when Adam called me ugly, my mom let me cry on her lap until I ran out of tears. She didn’t ask me a bunch of questions, or tell me it was all going to be okay, she just let me empty my tear ducts like I needed to. Then she got up, made me my favorite tea (and yes, I was that kid who had a favorite tea), and then let me fall asleep on her lap. When I woke up and told her the story is when she gave me her other side—the hard-ass feminist who didn’t let me cry any more, but told me that I didn’t need some dumb boy to make me feel pretty. My two moms. I guess they helped raise two Tori’s.
“Damn, I thought I was sad enough for a little love.”
“You always have my love, baby. But I’m sure whatever it is you can tell me about over some coffee, because I need some before my class this afternoon. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Oh no, they gave you the undergrads again?”
“Let’s just say that I might be at your place later looking for my own squeeze.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry.”
Mom’s a professor of psychology. She has the distinction as being the oldest woman ever hired for a tenure track position at the university. She started this process late, but leave it to Mom to grind through, taking names and kicking ass all the way to her newly minted Ph.D. But she’s still the low woman in the hierarchy, so for the past three years she’s had to teach undergrad Introduction to Psychology courses, and she can barely handle it.
“They’re just so immature. It’s like I’m a high school teacher.”
“You basically are,” I tell her. “I mean, think about it. Those kids are three months removed from going to their prom, for God’s sake. It’s no wonder they giggle when you talk about anatomy and human sexuality.”
“Please, don’t remind me.”
I almost had a Ph.D., just like Mom. Only, to her disappointment, I didn’t follow through with it. I’m what you call ABD—all but dissertation. I did all the course work, but I never actually wrote my dissertation. See, once upon a time I thought I wanted to be an academic, to follow in my mom’s footsteps and be a professor. I lasted all but one semester before I realized that it wasn’t for me. Teaching a few undergrad classes while working on my degree taught me two things: one, teaching wasn’t for me. And two, I was good in front of people. It was the second thing that led me to a career path that my mom still doesn’t totally understand.