Page 49 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

Because yes, to a certain extent it does depend on writing well, but that’s only half the battle won. It also depends on the “market,” though what the “market” actually is, no one can tell you. All they can tell you is that despite the “powerful prose” or the “riveting characters” or “exciting plot,” they still can’t buy your book because it’s just “not marketable.” And it depends on knowing the right people—being represented by the right agent. For the longest time, I was with Ruth Steinwell, a middling agent who doesn’t even live in Manhattan; she lives in Seattle and is a bored suburban housewife who thought agenting would be good for a laugh. She sold my debut YA for a piddling sum of money and told me it was about as good as could be expected, given “the market.” Ruth’s clients were all midlisters, all bored housewives who thought dabbling in publishing would be good for a laugh. I have nothing against these women, but they kindly need to move the fuck out of my way.

I didn’t want another Ruth for an agent. I wanted a shark. Because only a shark of an agent would be able to get me the kind of book deal I deserve, and only a shark of an agent would be able to prod and nudge and cajole my publisher into giving me the kind of marketing I deserve. (Everything.) We all know what I’ve been through—being attacked at my MFA program, marrying into Ivan’s family; something that I will get into in a bit. I’ve been through hell, am still living through it, and after enduring all of these things, I deserve everything, wouldn’t you agree?

Anyone with a heart would agree. But not Kurt, because all Kurt cared about was himself.

After months of exchanging raunchy phone calls and two cons during which we had sex and I pretended it wasn’t mediocre and was so overwhelmingly good that I cried a little, Kurt finally introduced me to his agent. Beatrice, oh Beatrice! The two of us combined were basically unstoppable. In less than one month after signing me on, she’d read and edited my latest manuscript. When she finally submitted it to publishers, her pitch was so incisive and so glowing that we started getting offers right away. She quickly turned down the bottom two, telling them that they’d offended her by coming in with an insultingly low number, which created even more of an uproar. By the time she set up my book auction, publishers were practically frothing at the mouth. The auction was swift and ugly in the best possible way, with editors going behind one another’s backs to make me promises of publicity while also bad-mouthing their competition. Finally, I was getting what I deserved—an all-out fight over me.

But Kurt had to go and ruin everything by declaring that he was in love with me (I suppose I couldn’t blame him) and that he was leaving his wife (wait) because unlike me, she didn’t fully appreciate him (oh no) and I would agree, wouldn’t I? Surely, I also wanted to leave my abusive, tyrannical husband (Ivan has never abused me in the traditional sense, but he might as well have, for all the shit I’ve had to go through).

When I told Kurt that no, I did not in fact want to leave my husband, he turned sour. Told me I was a brainwashed, abused woman, and that if I didn’t leave Ivan, he was going to go public with our affair. That was why Kurt had to die. That was why I had to lure Jane back into my life, because I needed a fall guy incase I didn’t succeed at making his death look like an accident. I didn’t want to have to use Jane like that, but needs must, and she’s the perfect fall guy, what with her history of violence (poor Antoine).

If you’re wondering about Antoine, the idiot ambushed me at the college formal, thinking he’d march into the dining hall to make some sort of grand announcement, to brand me as his. (Really, what is wrong with men?) I couldn’t let him ruin what I had with Ivan. I begged him to leave, which only made him angrier—You’re so afraid of that man, ma chérie. What has he done to you?—and so at the last, desperate second, I kissed him and then led him up to my room. I tried to placate him, I really did, but he insisted that I stay there with him for the rest of the evening. That just wouldn’t do. So in the end, the letter opener became the key to my freedom, the knife that fully severed Antoine’s grasp on me. And Jane, good old loyal Jane. I knew she’d help me. I almost laughed when she offered to take the blame for killing Antoine. I thought I would have to suggest it to her, but nope. Didn’t even have to hint.

I really think that Jane was quite happy to do it for me. Like Antoine and Kurt, she saw herself as my savior. I know she definitely saw herself as that when I came to her with my sad mommy story. That was hilarious.Oh, Jane, my mother is sick! I need money to pay for her treatment!Honestly, who in their right mind would fall for it? But this is Jane we’re talking about. My most loyal doggo. You know, I don’t actually know if Jane has APD. She’s a bit of an armchair psychologist, diagnosing herself like that. But whatever she is, she is definitely obsessed with me.

There wasn’t even a sliver of doubt in her mind when I told her my sob story. And I saw the look in her eyes when she suggested that I get close to Ivan. She was so pleased with herselffor coming up with the most obvious idea in the world. Good job, Jane. I got exactly what I wanted: Jane distracting Ani so that I could have some alone time with Ivan.

Jane was so excited to be able to help me like that, so I decided to let her do it again. Serve herself up on a platter for Kurt’s death, should I need someone to blame it on.

I called Beatrice and asked her to have my author name changed from my pen name back to my real name. Pretty ironic, because the reason I used a pen name in the first place was to keep Jane away. After the whole thing with Antoine, I thought it best to simply disappear from Jane’s radar, just in case she got any funny ideas about coming clean or whatever.

Unfortunately, Beatrice told me that it was too late in the game to change my pseudonym. The book was already out, and that was that. Bit of a blow; I’d had higher expectations from Beatrice. But never mind. I took things into my own hands. I created social media accounts under my real name and connected it with my pen name. On every available outlet, I made sure that I was known as “Thalia Ashcroft, writing as May Pierce.” Whenever I had interviews or guest articles, I made sure I was known as “Thalia Ashcroft, writing as May Pierce.” I created a fakeNew York Timesemail account (if Jane had bothered to read the sender’s address properly, she would have seen that it says [email protected] and not newyorktimes.com) and sent Jane a newsletter with a doctored bestseller list that showed my name as “Thalia Ashcroft, writing as May Pierce,” knowing she would see my name and be so swept up that she wouldn’t pause to wonder why theNew York Timeshad bothered listing my real name. Then, having set my trap, I waited for Jane to turn up. The day of my panel at SusPens Con, I kept coming up with reasons to send Ani to the entrance of Javits. Itold her she should take selfies at the entrance, under the huge “Welcome to SusPens Con!” sign. I told her she should try the delectable coffee at the pop-up drinks cart near the entrance. All sorts of stupid reasons I came up with just to keep her there in case small-fry writer Jane couldn’t score a ticket to SusPens Con. And if that were to fail, I would’ve posted other events I would be at.

Honestly, I’ve kind of missed Jane after all these years apart from her. I missed that intensity of hers, the way she’d watch me in what she probably thought was a subtle way. There is literally nothing subtle about Jane. As Ivan’s wife in Indonesia, I was respected, even admired, but I wasn’t the object of anyone’s obsession, which is honestly quite offensive, if you ask me. I deserve to have rabid fans, to take up as much space as possible in people’s brains. Why not? It’s not like most people have anything better to think about. Might as well be thinking about me.

To be clear, I really didn’t want to do it. I begged Kurt not to go public with our affair, but he dug his heels in. It’s all those fucking love stories. They’d gotten into his head; he thought that like his dying female characters, I, too, was in need of a savior.

The thought of needing to be saved by a pathetic male like Kurt. When I pushed him off one of Montauk’s cliffs, he had felt so light, like a doll. Couldn’t even save himself, yet he thought he could save me. What is it about men that blinds them to their own mediocrity and allows them to think of themselves as heroes?

22

Jane

The cop interviewing me is wearing a name tag that says Howe. Midforties, small wrinkles around the eyes that deepen whenever I give her an answer that she thinks is a lie. Which is a lot of them, for some reason. Detective Howe thinks I’m lying, and I don’t know why.

“So you weren’t invited—”

“I was,” I say for the third time. “Thalia Ashcroft invited me here.”

“Right...” Those lines become stark. She obviously doesn’t believe me. “Okay, so Thalia invited you here, but you don’t know anyone else here?”

I shake my head.

“Kind of awkward, don’t you think? To be invited to a gathering of writers where you don’t know anyone else?”

We’re sitting in the living room, in an opposite corner of the room from Thalia and the cop who’s interviewing her. Siobhan and another writer are also there, though Siobhan I think has hadher interview; she’s just walking around and going, “Oh my god, can you believe it?” to anyone who will listen. The other writer, someone named Monday, I believe, is just staring out the window with a dazed expression, an expensive-looking shawl wrapped around her. The others are all being interviewed somewhere else in the house. No, I hardly know any of these people.

“I suppose. But Thalia said it would be fine, and it’s been so long since we saw each other, I guess we thought it would be a good chance to catch up.”

“Really? Huh.” She nods slowly, and my instincts are reacting, telling me I’m in very dangerous territory, but I don’t know why. I have nothing to hide, but somehow I feel guilty, I feel like a suspect. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Oxford. We attended the same MFA program. About nine years ago.”

She writes this down in her notepad. “And you didn’t have any contact with her between then and now?”

“No.”

I can practically feel the waves of disbelief radiating from her.

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