Page 6 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

I’ve stayed quiet far too long. Thalia is still looking at me with an expectant smile, so I quickly say, “Uh. I write fiction. A bit of poetry. You?” I add, shifting the conversation back at her. I’ve read that this is how normal conversations go. One person asks a question; the other one answers and fires back another question. Back and forth, a verbal game of tennis that most people seem to find so natural but often leaves me lost and exhausted.

“Same,” she says. “What sort of fiction do you write?”

Stories about death. Stories where good people are forced to do bad things. And then find that they actually enjoy it. “Um, everything, really. I dabble in this and that.”

“Still trying to find your voice,” Thalia muses. “Yeah, that’s how I feel too. I’ve tried writing both lit fic and genre, and I haven’t quite decided where I feel most authentic.”

Stop. Staring.

It’s impossible not to, though. Not when she’s speaking my truth. Authenticity is so hard to come by, and it’s what I’ve always strived for in my writing. It means everything to me, because I can’t be authentic anywhere else but on paper.

“I’m really hoping the program helps with that,” she continues. “Maybe it’ll help both of us find our voice, huh? I bet your voice is really special, Jane. Powerful.” Her eyes meet mine, and I can’t look away. I wonder what it would be like to lose myself in them, to plunge my fingers into the golden silk of her hair and feel her skull underneath my skin, only a thin layer of bone separating my hands from her brilliant, perfect mind.

4

Present Day

South San Francisco

Her website is beautiful. Clean and elegant, all of its focus on her book.A Most Pleasant Death. What a title. I read the description, which teases my skin into gooseflesh.

Marie and Sylvia used to be the best of friends. The kind of friendship that only comes once in a lifetime. It’s just too bad that Marie had to move away, making the two friends drift apart. But when the two are reunited years later, they pick up right where they left off. Marie is now an Instagram star documenting her every move. Sylvia is quickly absorbed into Marie’s frenetic, glamorous world of yacht parties and exotic trips. She even starts becoming Insta-famous herself. Everything’s wonderful, or is it? When Marie gets involved in a shocking scandal, Sylvia quickly becomes trapped in her best friend’s mess. The fans turn into trolls, with many ofthem lobbing death threats at both Marie and Sylvia. As everybody’s obsession about Marie grows to a fever pitch, Sylvia has to go back to the past and discover the true reason why Marie had to move away so abruptly all those years ago, and what her supposed best friend is hiding.

No matter how I keep reminding myself to breathe, I keep losing my breath.The kind of friendship that only comes once in a lifetime.Now I’m no longer squeezing the mouse so hard. In fact, my hand is shaking. I snap the wristband a couple of times and try to control my breathing. It’s us. I know it’s us. She’s written about us.

SHE WROTE ABOUT US!

The words flash in my head like one of those casino machines when you hit jackpot and it lights up with the accompanyingding-ding-ding! Us! She wrote about us! Flashing in neon lights, on off on off. Us! All these years, she, too, hasn’t managed to leave me in the past. This is Thalia trying to get me to come back to her. This is a love letter written to me.

I try to get my breathing back under control as I click on her About page, but I don’t know why I bother because there’s a huge picture of her, and by god, she is perfect. Her hair is a shade lighter than it was in Oxford—an icy blond instead of the honey I was used to. It suits her, just as early thirties suits her. She’s lost the baby roundness of her cheeks, and her cheekbones jut out in a way that makes me swallow, a way that I’m sure most runway models would kill to have. Her eyes are the same though. Impossibly large, ringed with heavy lashes and looking somehow innocent and yet knowing at the same time.

Thalia Ashcroft, writing as May Pierce, is the author ofA Most Pleasant Death. The psychological suspense novelsold at a competitive seven-house auction, and its film rights sold at a five-studio auction before being won by Sony Pictures. Director Ambrose Wells and Oscar-nominated actress Margaux Thomas are attached to the film, which is reported to start production next summer. The book is due out in August of this year.

Her bio tells me next to nothing about her, but holy shit, her debut is a big book. A lead title. Those two words—“lead title”—are what most writers lust over. Every year, thousands of books are published by traditional publishers, but most of these books are midlisters—books that will only get the minimum backing and publicity, if any. Only a small handful of all published books are what are called the “lead titles,” and these are the books that get everything—front placement at bookstores, magazine and newspaper ads, radio, TV, and online interviews with the author, pitches to Oprah’s and Reese’s book clubs in the hopes that they might pick these books out of the endlessly high mountain of books submitted to them every month. In other words, “lead title” is mecca for us writers. I’ve never even dared to dream about getting lead status at a Big Five publishing house. Not I, midlister at a small indie press who writes flaccid lit fic that nobody reads. Literary fiction is highbrow, often difficult to read because every sentence is full of hidden meaning. Virginia Woolf. Toni Morrison. Authors who don’t make it easy for the reader; we’re not here to spoon-feed the masses. In the past, I had dreams of being one of the great lit fic writers of my generation, but ever since I lost Thalia, I’velost whatever magic touch I had that made my writing shine. My teachers and classmates at Oxford used to celebrate my work, but now, after I’ve released two lackluster books, none of them ever bothers to respond to my emails. I have been forgotten.

In the News section of Thalia’s website, I see that her cover reveal happened inEntertainment Weekly—yet more evidence of her publisher splashing out on her. I scroll further down and find the Publishers Marketplace announcement back when she got her book deal.

Denise Hazuki of Story House has bought, in a seven-figure deal, at auction, Thalia Ashcroft’s debut adult suspense,A Most Pleasant Death. Pitched asGone GirlmeetsThe Best of Friends, the story follows a married couple after the husband goes missing, triggering an investigation of his seemingly perfect wife and the mysterious best friend who has recently reappeared. Agent Beatrice McHale brokered the deal for North American rights.

Seven figures. Holy shit. I’d been expecting six figures, but this. This is out of this world. Most of us only ever dream of six figures. I spend time lurking on several writing forums, and the threads that discuss dreams and goals only ever have people posting about how they dream of one day getting a six-figure book deal. And even then, usually you’d get other writers snarking back and saying stuff like, “Keep dreaming.” Us writers are a petty, insecure bunch. But the point is, no one has ever dared to say, “I wish I could have a seven-figure deal one day.” You’d get laughed out of the forums.

But here she is, after a nine-year disappearance—not even atrace of an update online—screaming back into the public sphere with a unicorn deal. I can’t help but laugh a little. That is SO Thalia.

I go to her Contact page and my mouth turns into a desert. A contact form. My fingers hover over the keyboard. I don’t know if I can do this. What would I say?

Hey, it’s Jane. I know you wrote about me. About us.

No.

Hiii, it’s Jane! It’s been forever!

No.

How are you? It’s Jane. I’ve been looking for you ever since—

No.

I can’t write to her through a goddamned contact form. I’ve imagined us meeting again a thousand different ways—most of them cheesy meet-cutes like reaching for the same box of cereal at the same time or crashing into each other on the sidewalk, our bodies slamming and recognizing each other before our minds catch up. Not a single one of my dream scenarios had me reaching out to her over a clinical contact form—Contact Me! I love to hear from my readers!

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