“It’ll be okay,” Spike said.
“No, it won’t,” Melanie Joan said.
“So the classy romance lady used a few curse words.” I gave her a little punch on the arm. “Your fans aren’t going to abandon you for that.”
“She’s right,” Spike said. “Lay low for a few days, everyone will have forgotten about it.”
“No, no, no,” Melanie Joan said.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “What are we not getting?”
She twisted one of her rings around, a large, impressive emerald. “There was a lot more to the comment than I remembered writing,” she said.
Spike looked at her. “What do you mean by ‘a lot more’?”
She cleared her throat. “I…apparently shared some observations about Book Babe’s sex life.”
“You slut-shamed her?” Spike said.
“To the extreme,” Melanie Joan said. “This is stuff I could never imaginethinking, let alone typing.”
“Did you use the c-word?” I said.
“Repeatedly,” she said.
“Oh,” I said.
“As both an epithet and a body part,” she said.
“Oh,” Spike said.
“I never use that word. I’ve never…put together sentences like those. I don’t know what’s happened to me.”
“I’m sorry, Melanie Joan,” I said.
“I’m getting trashed by all the reader accounts on TikTok. My name is mud on both X and Bluesky. It’s something both sides can agree on. I’m…I’m canceled.”
“There must be something you can do,” I said.
“I posted an apology,” she said. “But the responses were so…well, it obviously didn’t do any good, so I took it down.”
“Have you talked to your editor?”
Melanie Joan cringed visibly. “He wants to meet with me today. In his office,” she said. “Do you know the last time my editor asked to meet with me anywhere that wasn’t a Michelin-star restaurant, with him footing the bill?”
I winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I brought this on myself.”
Melanie Joan stood up. “You’re right, Sunny. I’m asking too much of you,” she said. “If I’m canceled, I’m canceled.” She put on her hat and started toward the door. Rosie woke up, skittered toward her, and nuzzled her leg. Melanie Joan knelt down. She patted Rosie on the head. “I do wish human beings were as forgiving as dogs.”
I’m not going to lie. It pained me.
I tried to imagine Melanie Joan Hall without the cheering audiences at her appearances, without the book-signing lines that went on for blocks. I tried to picture her without her fans. It was surprisingly sad—like imagining someone losing her life partner, her children, her best friend. After all the disastrous relationships she’d endured, Melanie Joan’s readers were her one constant—and as far as I could tell, her only real source of love.
Melanie Joan opened Spike’s office door and closed it softly behind her. I could feel a knot in my stomach.Melanie Joan Hall, without her fans.Spike and I looked at each other.
“Better hurry if you’re going to catch her,” he said. “You know how fast that woman moves.”
