Page 53 of Bad Words

Juliette smiled at Parker. “Cryptic, isn’t she?”

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“You value your privacy,” Juliette said to me.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“We have that in common. I’ve looked around online, of course … It’s interesting, social media, but I think there’s something religious about the urge to confess yourself online. Not for me, ultimately. And I’m very choosy with press, for which I’m sure Coronation despises me.”

“What do you tell them?” Parker asked. “When they ask you to do interviews, I mean?”

She regarded him with curiosity. “Well, I tell them no.”

Parker laughed. “Right. Yeah. I should try that.”

I gave him a disbelieving look, but he seemed serious.

“You don’t enjoy interviewing?” Juliette asked.

“No,” he said. “I think I kind of hate it, actually.”

“Do you?” I said before I could stop myself.

Parker’s brows furrowed. “Yeah. Why?”

“Well,” I said, trying to file the edge off my voice, “press seems to come so naturally to you.”

His frown deepened. I knew what he was thinking: Play nice, Selina, this is Juliette Liao. But I hadn’t even meant it as a veiled insult.

“I’m serious,” I forced out. “You … you have a very relaxed manner with press. Like you get along with them.”

“Oh.” Parker’s frown faded into confusion. “Well, sure, I like meeting people, but the point of press isn’t to meet people, right? It’s to add something to my books. And I’ve never come out of an interview feeling like I’ve deepened or enriched anything I write.” He stirred his milkshake, the long spoon humming against the glass. “It’s like I go into a fugue state, and then a week later I have to reread what I’ve supposedly said, and it reads like some alien consciousness studied my life and gave an interview in character.”

Juliette chortled. I examined Parker’s profile. Maybe he was just playing modest in front of his hero, but for some reason I didn’t think so.

I remembered his jogging foot at our festival panel. The way he’d palmed the microphone from one hand to another. An excess of energy, I’d thought, of enthusiasm. Maybe not.

So? I thought, tearing open another sugar packet and snapping it into my coffee. Even if Parker Navarro wasn’t a media vulture, he was still the entitled man who’d demanded I apologize for daring to dislike his books.

“Do you ever feel that way after interviews?” Parker asked Juliette.

“No, I think our reasoning is quite different. I have no problem with what I say, but I do think excessive exposure distracts from my work.”

“Got it,” said Parker. “So you’re like Selina.”

I paused with my mug held an inch from my lips. “What?”

“That’s why you’re so private, right? Didn’t I read that somewhere?”

I hesitated. I didn’t think I’d ever admitted on the record that I thought a highly visible persona distracted from criticism.

“Well, yes,” I said eventually, lowering my mug. “With very rare exceptions, I think reviews are more meaningful when they’re not cluttered up with the reviewer’s biography. In an ideal world I’d be able to clear my background out of the room and focus on the book.”

Juliette swirled her wine and sipped. “I don’t envy critics. I would find it extraordinarily difficult to set aside my own taste.”

I crossed my arms on the table. “You wouldn’t have to, though. Your taste is still what makes your criticism.”

“And what is your taste? What do you like?”