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“I’m coming,” I call through the door.

I’ve done it.

I’ve sent my manuscript, and that’s the thought I’m going to choose to hang on to, no matter what.

Celebration.

Chapter 5

I wake up just like I do every morning of my life, to the stomp-stomp-stomping of Olivia’s 5:30 a.m. sprint on the treadmill in her bedroom. You’d think I’d be used to the noise a year after moving in. Or better yet, you’d think I’d have had a clue as to what I was in for when I watched Olivia tear the wrapping paper off the treadmill last Christmas morning.

Anyway, here we are, a year later, and the first thought bubble still to form in my mind is, Why the heck couldn’t Ferris have bought her the quiet one? Followed shortly by another mental favorite: And it’s Saturday, Olivia. Can’t you sleep in, just once, on a Saturday?

But today new thoughts greet me, and with a jolt I sit upright, the memories and actions of the previous twenty-four hours lined up for me to reconsider one by one. It’s not a typical Saturday, and I have so many things to prepare for today. So many things to do.

The LOA conference.

Oswald’s signing.

The ARC room.

The manuscript.

Finding out who exactly tampered with my manuscript.

Last night I stayed up watching the movie with Olivia and Ferris. And even while I shed tears into my popcorn (unlike Olivia, who takes a firm stance against crying), my thoughts were also far away. Was it creepy Rem? He does lurk a lot around the building. But doesn’t he have that thing about heights? Wasn’t that why Pam championed moving his office to the first floor? Because he kept looking out the window and passing out?

What about Lyla? No, no, of course not. She’d never write those things. I don’t think she even knows how to spell the word sesquipedalianism.

Which, for the record, my mystery editor declared in one of their handy margin comments is something I do. And which, for the record, I most certainly do not. The insinuation that I would scour dictionaries to find obscure, five-syllable words to throw into my manuscript just to puff myself up is so laughable it’s insane. It’s farcical. It makes me repine for the days readers were erudite and could appreciate a well-chosen word . . .

Okay, it’s a tiny bit true. But nevertheless, it’s a good true, not a bad true. After all, there’s nothing wrong with fine-tuning a paragraph, and frankly, I work in a building full of people who are smarter than me. I need the big words. People prize the people who pull out the big words.

Could it be Giselle? Ha. Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s outsourcing her own editing to some unpaid college intern in the back booths of some salty saloon, let alone voluntarily reading someone else’s manuscript.

And the more I thought about it, all the while munching on my popcorn, the more furious I became. What right did this mystery editor have to read my manuscript? Munch. What sort of crazy person would walk into someone else’s room (okay, even I know that’s stretching a bit), plonk down on the rug, and proceed to tear someone else’s manuscript apart? Munch. It’s narcissistic. Munch. Sadistic. Munch. They probably loved seeing my manuscript in disarray, sheets out of order and piled on the floor. Munch.

I mean, it’s not like what I do for a living. I get paid to edit. I get asked to edit. My authors want me to edit. And most important, I’m kind.

These are the thoughts that transfix me two hours later as I sit on a barstool in the kitchen, manuscript in front of me, frowning at a sentence in Oswald’s latest. A bit aggressively I underline a paragraph, then scribble the words in the margins in my untidy handwriting: I’m not understanding the point of this paragraph here. Clarify.

I bring the coffee mug to my lips, then set it down.

Please, I add.

See? I’m kind.

“Still in your jammies?” Olivia hustles to the fridge and opens it up. There’s a stack of twenty meals neatly lining the left-hand side of the refrigerator. She pulls one out. “I thought you had to go to work today.”

“I do. But I don’t have to be there until nine. And . . . seeing as I couldn’t sleep”—I lift my eyes from the manuscript to give an accusing look to the back of her head—“I’m getting some work done before I go.”

“Oh?” Olivia’s damp ponytail swings as she turns her head. She looks at me with fresh eyes, as though there’s hope for me after all. “What a good use of time. Where’s the conference?”

“Music City Center.” I feel a rush of anxiety as I say it.

Claire Donovan will be there. For the first time in a year, we’ll be in the same building. She’ll be busy at her own Baird Books tent, I’m sure, but we could run into each other. Probably will run into each other. I could probably even “happenchance” bump into her. But then what will I say?

Oh, hey, Claire. Have you read my manuscript in the last twelve hours?