bed, long minutes of touching in the dark, everything a girl could want from a passion-filled, commitment-free affair with another woman’s husband. You’d think I would wrap my slender arms around his barrel chest, sink my face into his back, and close my eyes and dream my way to morning. You’d think there was not one more thing I needed from such a perfect night, and no way that even a master of romantic mistakes such as myself could screw it up.
But no.
We were spooned together. He was almost asleep. I was almost asleep. Which was when I said it. I don’t know where the words came from. Someone else must have taken over my body, like a character from Oliver’s book. It couldn’t have been me.
“I love you.”
Yes, it was me, after all.
Oh, fuck.
8
I’M GOING TO launch my own perfume brand. You know, like all the stars do. Still by Jennifer Lopez. Fantasy by Britney Spears. Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker.
Mine will be called Stupid by Tess Drake.
When I woke up, Darcy was gone. No note. No message on my voice mail. Just gone. I love you? Now that’s what every man married to a rich older woman loves to hear from his mistress. I’m not clingy or possessive, and I’m not prone to emotional overreactions every time I have an orgasm. So I must really love him. Why I felt the need to say so is a mystery. I probably just took a dagger and stabbed this relationship through its heart.
I was so disgusted with my lapse in judgment that I decided to go into the office and spend Saturday morning working on client matters in order to get my mind off Darcy and what he must be thinking about me. I like working in the office on Saturdays. It’s dark and quiet. No interruptions. I bring in a triple-shot Italian coffee from Caffè Nero, shut my door, and get more done in acouple of hours than I can get through in an entire day during the week.
You have to understand that the life of an agent is mostly about solving crises and soothing fragile egos. Somewhere in between, we do deals, but closing a deal doesn’t take nearly as much time as reassuring a blocked chick-lit writer that she still has God’s gift or explaining to a
Telegraph
reporter why my client compared the latest Galaxy award winner to a vile, steaming chamber pot evacuated into a crowded alley. Much of the time, I feel like that boy with his finger in the dike, plugging up holes as fast as I can while my clients burst through somewhere else.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my clients. Well, most of them. Many of them. It’s just that I am not the world’s most patient person, and spending an hour listening to Dorothy fret that the Italian cover of
The Bamboo Garden
makes the pandas look too thin taxes my will to live. However, I do it with a smile. “I understand,” I say. “You are totally right,” I say. “Let me look into that,” I say.
Usually, by the time I am done with one call, three more have gone to voice mail, and my BlackBerry light is flashing with nine more e-mails. That’s life during the week. Fortunately, the office phone doesn’t ring on Saturday, because there is a general assumption that no one in publishing works on the weekend. That’s mostly true. And good luck if you want to reach an editor on Friday afternoon, too.
I sipped my espresso. I went through my voice mails.
Still nothing from Darcy.
Nicholas Hadley, whoever he is, called again and urgently wants me to call him back. I pressed delete.
Dorothy Starkwell called “just to chat, my dear.”
When your most lucrative client calls to chat, you call her back immediately, but when I did, I got no answer. Dorothy has neither voice mail nor an answering machine and no e-mail account, so I have to try again and again when I need to reach her, because most of the time, she is either writing on notebook paper in a Tribeca coffeehouse or attending her animal rallies.
Frustrating, but you will never hear me say so.
Oliver Howard’s editor left a message, too. He is a
But no.
We were spooned together. He was almost asleep. I was almost asleep. Which was when I said it. I don’t know where the words came from. Someone else must have taken over my body, like a character from Oliver’s book. It couldn’t have been me.
“I love you.”
Yes, it was me, after all.
Oh, fuck.
8
I’M GOING TO launch my own perfume brand. You know, like all the stars do. Still by Jennifer Lopez. Fantasy by Britney Spears. Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker.
Mine will be called Stupid by Tess Drake.
When I woke up, Darcy was gone. No note. No message on my voice mail. Just gone. I love you? Now that’s what every man married to a rich older woman loves to hear from his mistress. I’m not clingy or possessive, and I’m not prone to emotional overreactions every time I have an orgasm. So I must really love him. Why I felt the need to say so is a mystery. I probably just took a dagger and stabbed this relationship through its heart.
I was so disgusted with my lapse in judgment that I decided to go into the office and spend Saturday morning working on client matters in order to get my mind off Darcy and what he must be thinking about me. I like working in the office on Saturdays. It’s dark and quiet. No interruptions. I bring in a triple-shot Italian coffee from Caffè Nero, shut my door, and get more done in acouple of hours than I can get through in an entire day during the week.
You have to understand that the life of an agent is mostly about solving crises and soothing fragile egos. Somewhere in between, we do deals, but closing a deal doesn’t take nearly as much time as reassuring a blocked chick-lit writer that she still has God’s gift or explaining to a
Telegraph
reporter why my client compared the latest Galaxy award winner to a vile, steaming chamber pot evacuated into a crowded alley. Much of the time, I feel like that boy with his finger in the dike, plugging up holes as fast as I can while my clients burst through somewhere else.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my clients. Well, most of them. Many of them. It’s just that I am not the world’s most patient person, and spending an hour listening to Dorothy fret that the Italian cover of
The Bamboo Garden
makes the pandas look too thin taxes my will to live. However, I do it with a smile. “I understand,” I say. “You are totally right,” I say. “Let me look into that,” I say.
Usually, by the time I am done with one call, three more have gone to voice mail, and my BlackBerry light is flashing with nine more e-mails. That’s life during the week. Fortunately, the office phone doesn’t ring on Saturday, because there is a general assumption that no one in publishing works on the weekend. That’s mostly true. And good luck if you want to reach an editor on Friday afternoon, too.
I sipped my espresso. I went through my voice mails.
Still nothing from Darcy.
Nicholas Hadley, whoever he is, called again and urgently wants me to call him back. I pressed delete.
Dorothy Starkwell called “just to chat, my dear.”
When your most lucrative client calls to chat, you call her back immediately, but when I did, I got no answer. Dorothy has neither voice mail nor an answering machine and no e-mail account, so I have to try again and again when I need to reach her, because most of the time, she is either writing on notebook paper in a Tribeca coffeehouse or attending her animal rallies.
Frustrating, but you will never hear me say so.
Oliver Howard’s editor left a message, too. He is a
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