Must Love Books, page 9
“A lot can happen in six hours.” He handed her the receipt.
“I have made it through this conference alone for the last four years.”
Andrew picked something off his tie before looking back up, unimpressed. “That’s because your other authors suck.”
She laughed. She found she couldn’t look away from him, wondering what he might say or do next. He’d already gone so far off the usual script.
The elevator arrived. Andrew held the door open and motioned for her to get on first. It was a gesture she disliked ordinarily, but when Andrew did it, she didn’t mind.
They reached her floor first. She stepped off, turned around to face him. This was Andrew at the end of a long day, still proper in his suit and tie, but small signs showed the person behind the keynote speaker. His tie was off-center. His hair was disheveled, a few strands curling in ways they hadn’t this morning. The dark circles under his eyes hinted that he might be as tired as she felt. But he was smiling, dimples and all, and she hated that she could see it now, how charming he was. She remembered the Swedish professor, the way he blushed when Andrew talked to him. Thank god for Nora’s unblushable brown skin.
“Have a good night,” she said.
“You too.” She watched the doors close on him and his charm.
Alone in her hotel room, Nora pulled out the receipt and stared at the blue ink written in his scribbly, uneven hand. She entered the numbers into her phone and saved him as a contact. She wasn’t planning to use it, but she liked that it was there. Like a piece of him was hers.
Chapter Eleven
Nora was starting to take offense at how slowly time was moving. From her seat at the Parsons booth, she watched attendees drag their suitcases down the carpeted hallway. She checked the time again: five minutes to noon. Then it would only be two more hours before she could put Conference Nora to rest for another few months.
She ignored her growling stomach and focused on the fact that another minute had passed, bringing her slightly closer to two o’clock. More people dressed in their business casual-best wheeled suitcases down the hall in droves. A lunch session was starting. People tended to like free food, even if it meant listening to an hour-long panel. She wondered what food was being served, wishing she had time to abandon the booth to grab lunch somewhere. She checked the time again, then her email. Her Weber inbox showed a new message from Violet.
Great feedback on the proposal. That’s exactly what we needed.
She smiled, basking in the praise, and relaxed into her seat. It felt like a sign that she’d made the right choice, embarking on this shadowy Weber path.
Emily had sent the group a proposal about creating a culture of innovation. Last night, after dinner with Andrew, Nora went through the proposal, thinking back to every innovation-related manuscript she’d skimmed over the years. Sitting on her hotel bed, bleary-eyed but determined, she emailed the group some suggestions on how the book could be better fleshed out—sidebars, case studies, research about the link between diversity and innovation. And perhaps they might consider a chapter on fostering innovation for teams, considering the Wharton School’s research on the topic? Oh, they hadn’t read that? Sure, she could send it along.
Nora reached under her chair for the conference program and flipped through it. The lunch session happening in the next room was a panel on diversity and inclusion. A Parsons author, Vincent Cobb, was on the panel. The book he’d written for Parsons about designing surveys for the workplace had not sold well in the decade since it published. They’d only brought it to this conference in case he showed up looking for his book (which he did not, presumably out of shame)—and even then, they’d only brought two copies, so confident they were that it wouldn’t sell. Which it didn’t.
But if his new thing was diversity and inclusion, that could sell, especially because his bio indicated he had a long relationship with the association running the conference. If they could copublish the book with an association, they’d have a built-in audience—and built-in revenue, because associations were big on buying copies of their copublished books to resell. And that made Vincent Cobb an author with promise.
Despite the four hours of sleep she’d gotten the night before, Nora suddenly felt full of energy. She circled Vincent Cobb’s name and imagined approaching him and pitching the idea of writing a book for Weber. The thought didn’t make her squirm like the prospect of luring Andrew to Weber had last night—a good sign. No one at Parsons would notice if Vincent Cobb, forgotten backlist author, signed with Weber. She could do this.
While googling Vincent Cobb to see if he’d done anything else noteworthy, Nora spotted Andrew emerging from the lunch session a few doors down. She looked up as he approached, expecting to meet his eye for a quick nod while he passed. But he headed right for her.
“I stole you a lunch,” he said, glancing down at the two white boxes stacked in his hands.
Nora followed his gaze, then looked back up at him. He wore a friendly grin as he held an offering that once again challenged everything she knew about authors. “Really?” Her voice came out quieter, softer than she’d probably ever spoken to him.
He shrugged. “I just wanted to thank you for buying me dinner last night.”
“I didn’t, really. It was Parsons.”
“Well, I didn’t buy this either. Free meal for a free meal.” He lowered the boxes to Nora’s level.
It was all she could do not to stare at him, completely dumbfounded, as she reached over and took one. “From one freeloader to another, thank you.”
His expression grew serious as he surveyed the exhibit hall around them. “Do you need a break?”
“I—” She did, actually. It would be nice to not have to pull out her hastily written Back in five minutes sign and come back to a forlorn book-browser acting like she’d left them at the altar. “Okay, but just for a couple of minutes. Don’t sell books,” she added, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t touch the computer.”
Andrew shrugged, as though he’d never dream of it. “Of course not.”
She eyed him suspiciously, then closed the laptop just in case.
When she returned, Andrew was sitting at the booth, peering into his lunch box. “The lunch kind of sucks,” he said.
“Are you ever happy with the lunches you’re given?”
“At least there’s no avocado this time,” he said, darting a pointed look her way. He tucked the cardboard lid back into the box and stood. “Are you all set? Is there anything else you need?”
She eyed him, hesitating. She shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Do you mind if I listen in on the session for a minute?”
He tilted his head in the direction of the room. “Go ahead.”
“I’ll just be a minute.”
“Go wild. Take two.”
Nora hurried down the hall, following the sound of voices coming from the room. She slipped in quietly through the door. People sat at tables, cardboard lunch boxes in front of them. Only half were actually watching the panel; the others concentrated on their food or their phones. Nora crept to the back wall.
“Individuals typically don’t have the power to bring about change in an organization,” Vincent was saying. He sat between two panelists at a long table on the stage. He was a little older than his picture in the conference program showed; his black hair was graying now. But his wire-rimmed glasses—and even his pinstriped blazer, if Nora’s eyes were right—were the same as the ones in his picture. “That’s why we have an inclusion council. Ten people, different backgrounds, different departments. All leaders, or close to it. They meet four times a year to discuss the issues they’ve seen, and what’s been brought to them. They make recommendations to senior leadership for actions they can take to make the workplace more inclusive. We’ve found it’s been very effective. From the surveys we’ve sent—”
Christ, him and his surveys, she thought, slipping back out of the room. He’d better not send anyone to her booth to buy his boring survey book.
She returned to find Andrew eating a bag of potato chips and reading the conference program. He looked up when Nora drew closer.
“How was your minute?” he asked.
“Pretty good.” He was still watching her, like he expected her to elaborate. “Just seeing what’s what,” she added.
“Just trolling for authors, you mean?”
Nora’s breath caught in her throat. She studied him, wondering how he knew about Weber. But the glint in his eyes told her she was overthinking it. He clearly meant trolling for Parsons authors and didn’t see the need to specify.
Nora gestured for him to move out of her chair. “Believe it or not, you are not the only author in the world.”
As she settled into her seat, he bent his head back and tilted the chip bag, dumping the last of its contents into his mouth. It was the least dignified thing she’d ever seen him do. He grinned at her, crumbs lining the corners of his mouth.
“Judging from the way everyone was all over me at the Parsons office last month, I’d have thought I was,” he said through a mouthful of crumbs.
That was pretty accurate, actually. But she couldn’t blame Rita and Candace for fawning over their money-maker. She lifted the lid on her box: a ham and cheese sandwich, a bag of potato chips, a pickle spear, and a cookie. For Nora, who hadn’t counted on lunch at all, it felt like a feast.
“Don’t you have to get back to the session?” she asked, peeling wax paper off the pickle spear.
“I was just about to.” He leaned past her to get his lunch box, and Nora ignored the warmth in her face. He gave her a parting nod before turning for the hallway.
“Thanks for lunch,” she said.
“Thanks for dinner,” he called over his shoulder.
Nora bit into her pickle. As she chewed, she noticed chip crumbs on the table. Fucking Andrew, she thought, fighting back a smile as she wiped them into a napkin with a sweep of her hand.
She bent to toss the napkin into the garbage bin at her feet, and when she sat up, she spotted a woman heading for her booth. Nora slid the lunch box under her table.
The woman picked up books one at a time from a few different sections: nonprofit, leadership, human resources. She read the back of each one, then set it down and moved to another.
Nora didn’t like to bother people who were browsing, but this woman didn’t have the leisurely pace of a browser. “Can I help you find something?” she asked.
The woman looked up, fifth or sixth book in hand. “Do you have anything on corporate social responsibility?”
These questions used to terrify her, like spontaneous pop quizzes she could fail any time. Her first year here, she read Parsons’s catalog cover to cover on the plane and still couldn’t answer every book-browser’s questions correctly. But now it was different.
“This one is about developing employee volunteer programs.” Nora stood and plucked a book from the edge of the booth. “This one’s a little bit broader,” she said, picking up one of the books the woman had held earlier, “but it has a chapter on sustainable business practices.” She handed both to the woman, then returned to her seat to let her flip through them. She didn’t have to wait long.
“I’ll take both.”
Nora perked up and processed the order. She sat a little taller as she watched the woman walk away. Little interactions like this didn’t make up for the travel and long hours, but there was satisfaction in helping someone find the perfect book. If transactions at the booth could always be like this—one-on-one conversations instead of chaotic lines or unplanned signings—she might actually like conferences.
At two o’clock exactly, Nora leapt into action. Teardown took less time than setup, and within an hour she’d packed everything neatly into ten boxes of unsold books destined for Parsons’s warehouse. She watched the hotel staff cart them away. The hallway was fairly empty now, most booths packed up.
When Nora reached the top of the escalator, she spotted him standing in the hotel lobby—graying black hair, glasses, ratty pinstriped blazer.
Vincent Cobb had never met Nora. His book had been published before Nora’s time, and he’d never written another. She would get to introduce herself to him as an honest-to-goodness employee of Weber.
As she shook Vincent Cobb’s hand, preparing to ask if he’d ever considered writing a book with Weber, she saw Andrew smirking at her from across the room. His knowing comment about trolling for authors came back to her. She couldn’t help it—she extended her arm out, low to her side like she was just stretching, but she innocently raised her middle finger.
Andrew broke into a laugh. Nora focused all her attention on Vincent then, listening to him talk about inclusion initiatives. When Vincent reached into his wallet for a business card, she let her eyes dart back to Andrew once, just to check. He was still there, though now he was looking off to the side, like he wasn’t paying her any attention. But his quick glance in her direction betrayed him. This time, it was Nora who smirked.
Chapter Twelve
Friday morning found Nora at her desk, jet-lagged and yawning while her inbox loaded two days’ worth of unread emails. She spotted a message from Andrew, sent that morning. She scrolled past the many unread emails in her inbox and clicked on his.
Hi Nora,
It was great seeing you at CEF. Thanks again for dinner. You were kind enough to remind me that I hadn’t signed the contract yet. I’m reviewing it now and should be in touch soon.
Thanks for your patience!
Andrew
The tone was oddly formal for someone who stole a lunch for her. She wasn’t sure why he’d recapped their dinner conversation, but another glance at the email explained it. He’d cc’ed Rita.
The next email was just from Rita to Nora:
Way to go! I can’t wait to hear how the conference went!
Rita dropped by later that morning to thank Nora for moving the contract along and ask about the conference. Nora gave an abridged version of what happened. It didn’t seem necessary to mention Andrew’s failed foray into book sales.
Once her inbox was mostly in order, Nora checked her voicemail and sighed as soon as the message played.
“Hi, Nora, this is Henry Brook. I took a look at the tip sheets you sent me, and I wanted to go over a few things. Can you call me back ASAP?”
Of course he was the type of person who said things like ASAP. Of course he wanted to communicate by phone. And of course after the two hours she spent last week, looking up each book in their antiquated content management system and downloading its tip sheet, he wasn’t done with her.
Feeling confrontational, Nora picked up the phone and dialed his number.
“Nora, hi! Thanks for calling me back!” He had a cheerful, friendly voice that took her by surprise.
“You’re…welcome,” Nora said, stunned into confusion by his cheer.
“Thanks again for the tip sheets. I just had some pointers for next time.”
“Next time?”
“For your future edification,” he clarified without clarifying. “A lot of the way this description copy is written…it’s pretty dry. There’s no hook.”
Hook?
“It’s…internal marketing copy,” Nora said. “No one outside of Parsons sees it.” And I didn’t write it, she wanted to add.
“I know. But it’s what the copywriters read when they’re writing the copy that goes on the back of the book. You see how it works? There are levels to this. If there’s no hook in the internal copy, how can you expect what’s on the back of the book to be any good?”
With every word he spoke, Nora’s face contorted more and more into confused spite. She blinked several times, took in a breath, let it out.
“Right,” she said.
“I made some edits to the tip sheets for the books coming out next year. Can you enter them into the system?”
“You didn’t make the edits in the system?” Nora meant to ask it innocently—curiously—but she couldn’t hide the quiet sigh lurking beneath it.
He chuckled the chuckle of someone with far too much confidence. “Normally my assistant would take care of this, but I’m between assistants right now.” It was hard to believe, truly. “But take a look at my comments. It might be a good learning experience for you.”
Oh, to have the ability to vomit through a telephone receiver.
Nora ended the conversation by responding to his every word with a series of patient hums that weren’t quite grunts, just enough to indicate that she heard him without giving him something else to latch onto and explain to her.
The conversation with Henry Brook was enough to put her in a prolonged state of annoyance, striking her keyboard at full force with every edit she entered into the system. But a text from Beth helped Nora forget him for a few moments.
How was the conference?
The text brought a smile to Nora’s face at first. She missed her post-conference ritual of rolling her chair to Beth’s cube to complain about everything.
But Nora soon realized, as she drafted and deleted possible replies, that she had no idea how to share that she’d gone out to dinner with an author Beth called daddy Santos.
She decided on a one-word reply: Unexpected?
Beth replied instantly with a row of question marks, leaving Nora to once again figure out a response.
I had dinner with Santos.
But that alone wasn’t unexpected. No use playing it coy. Nora added the murkier parts she was still trying to decipher.
Also he worked the booth for a bit.
Also he gave me his number.
Also he brought me lunch the next day.
She bit her lip and waited. Beth sent two texts in a matter of seconds.
