Page 20 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

I get into one of the elevators and press the button for the twenty-fifth floor. At the twenty-fifth floor, I get out and walk past a law firm and an architecture firm before finding Matterson and Cable Literary. Here we go. This is okay. This is totally acceptable behavior from one of their longtime clients. I forcemy mouth to stretch into a smile before pushing open the double doors and walking inside.

The receptionist, a boy who looks like a college freshman, looks up and says, “Welcome to Matterson and Cable. Do you have an appointment?”

“Um, no. I’m looking for, um, Toni Sumida?”

“Sure, of course, that’s great. Is she expecting you?”

I shake my head, and he opens his mouth, his face primed to give me a canned response, but I quickly add, “But I’m a client of hers. Jane Morgan?”

“Ah, a client. But you don’t have an appointment.”

“No,” I say again, wondering why the hell they hired this moron to man the desk.

“Okay...” He stretches out the “kay” so it’s more like “kayyyyyyyyyy,” like he really needs the entire office to hear thathey, you guys, look at this stupid client who’s come all the way here without an appointment!Then he sighs and says, “Let me just check real quick if she’s in the office.” He picks up the phone and dials a number while I turn around to give him some semblance of privacy. I take the chance to look around the office.

It’s a lot bigger than I expected, and a lot nicer as well. Half of it is an open-plan design, with private offices for the senior agents and an open space for the rest.

“Hi, Toni, this is Robin. I have a client of yours out here—a... sorry, miss, what did you say your name was?”

If I killed him it would be a favor to humanity. “Jane Morgan.”

“It’s Jane Morgan. Should I—oh? Okay. Mm-hmm. No problem.” He puts down the phone and leans forward. “She’ll come out in a minute. Okay?” he says in a tone that says:We’re done talking.

Wow, I really am not used to the sassiness of New York. Ihave no idea what to do with myself as I wait, so I take out my phone and try to look busy. Oh, look, there are exactly zero emails I need to answer.

I’ve been tapping on my phone for eight excruciating minutes when Toni finally comes out.

“Jane?” she says, and I look up to see a smiling face.

“Hi! Yes, it’s me,” I say, standing up quickly. Holy shit, it’s really her. My agent for the last three years. The woman who sold my last two books to Harvest Publishing, who edited my books and listened to my pitches and told me over and over again what a treat my writing is. I should probably hug her. But neither of us makes a move to bridge the polite gap between us, and then she holds her hand out at the same time as I hold my arms out for a hug, and there’s a moment where she realizes I’m coming in for a hug and quickly switches to hug mode, and Jesus Christ, why the hell did I go in for a hug? We end up giving each other an awkward, don’t-want-to-actually-touch-you hug, and then stand uncomfortably close to each other—close enough for me to see the fine lines on her forehead and around her mouth.

“It’s so nice to finally see you, Jane. Come, let’s go into my office.” She steps back and turns around before I can answer, and I get the feeling that she’s relieved to be walking away from me. But I’m sure I’m just being silly, because of course she’s happy to see me. We walk past interns and junior agents, and she leads me to a corner office and shuts the door behind me. She doesn’t offer me a drink. She gestures for me to take a seat across from her desk before settling into her luxurious seat. “So, Jane! What brings you to New York? Visiting family?” She doesn’t even finish the sentence before she glances over at her computer screen.

“Um, business, actually.”

“Oh?” She glances at me for a second before her attention ispulled back to the computer. “Sorry, hang on... give me just a sec...” She types something rapidly before forcing her attention back to me. “Right. So you were saying?”

It takes a moment to regain my bearings. “I was saying I’m in town for business. For SusPens Con, actually.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “SusPens Con? But that’s for suspense/thrillers. More commercial work.”

“I know, but I was hoping to attend because I’m thinking of writing a commercial suspense.”

“That’s—”

I can’t read her expression. It’s somewhere between a smile and a quizzical frown, like a politeWhat the fuck?She finally says, “That’s wonderful. Yeah, adult suspense has a very healthy market, so I think it’s a good, um, good move. Yeah.”

Who are you trying to convince?I want to ask her. Her hesitation is coming through painfully clear. She doesn’t think I could write an adult suspense. “I mean, I know it’s kind of different from what I’ve been writing...”

“Yeah, pretty different.” She holds up one finger and says, “Hang on, let me just pull up your file.”

My file? She’s only sold two of my books and she can’t even remember them? But I sit there, inwardly squirming as she squints at her computer.

“Okay, here we are. Right, your debut,Flowers That Grow in Moonlight, lit fic, right, sold for... here we go, $3,500.”

Yep, I know that. I don’t have to be reminded of it. It rankles that she has to be reminded of the details of my book deal. Aren’t agents supposed to remember this stuff? I bet if I wrote young adult, she’d remember. But no, I have to write lit fic, the least commercial thing anyone could write, maybe aside from poetry. It would have done well in the nineties, before YAdestroyed the entire market. With a sinking feeling, it hits me that the fact that she doesn’t remember probably does mean that it was always an intern or assistant who handled me.

“And your second book, also a lit fic,The Coldest Winter, sold for $2,300.” Her mouth stretches into a wince for a second before she recovers and turns it into a smile. Still looks like a grimace. When she looks at me again, I can see that what little interest she had has now faded. She takes a fifteen percent cut of my earnings, and fifteen percent of $5,800 is barely worth the paperwork. Worse, my advance has gone down after my first book, a sign that the first one didn’t perform as well as my publisher had hoped.

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