Page 3

“So let’s stay sharp, people,” William Pennington says as I pivot on my heel. Less than twenty minutes on the job and he’s already the perfect replica of his mother, droning on about razor-thin budgets and how he won’t hesitate to “prune us back” at the slightest error.

I lick the tip of my index finger and flick the current page over my paper clip. It’s not just any paper clip, mind you. Fourteen karats of antique rose gold intricately twisted into the shape of a sparrow, this oversize clip is the one Mom gave me on my first day in a “real job.” It’s the clip she herself used for over twenty years on her most promising papers and projects as chair of her department at Belmont University. One passed down from her own mother, who used it to keep her papers in place while fighting against health inequities among the poverty stricken as the first female surgeon in her state. And her mother who—I’m still a bit hazy on the details—apparently more or less ended the war.

You know, typical Cade-level stuff.

While I may not be shattering glass ceilings left and right like my ancestors, I have reserved the paper clip for only the most promising of stories out of respect for its heritage.

And now, with its golden wings clinging tightly to the papers, it is reserved for the story that is my own.

“Tonight is a big night,” Pennington continues.

I flip another page. I’m so close to the end my heart starts racing in step with my pace.

“The eight authors attending this weekend’s conference represent 46 percent of our sales. To lose their trust in us through our own performance is to potentially cost us one of our four imprints. We need them. But right now, Pennington authors are afraid. Most authors across the board, for that matter, are afraid. Tensions are high. The publishing world is more competitive than ever. People everywhere are wondering about the stability of their own jobs.”

“That’s hitting a bit too close to home for him, isn’t it?” murmurs Lyla.

“People want to know they are standing on solid ground. So when they get here, they’re going to be looking around for clues about the status of Pennington Publishing. And it’s absolutely imperative we give them nothing to worry about.” William Pennington levels his gaze. “Imperative. So, Marketing, get those displays looking perfect. Assistants, make sure they want for nothing. And editors, do whatever it takes this weekend to keep your authors happy. Whatever. It. Takes. If these authors want to spend two hundred dollars on dinner at Fleming’s Steakhouse, whip out the company card like we’re made of money. If they want to meet you at five in the morning this Saturday to spend the next twelve hours dissecting their next work-in-progress, you’d better be sitting in their hotel lobby at four thirty, perky and with a second cup of coffee in hand. I don’t care what you do so long as at the end of the weekend they get on their planes remembering Pennington Publishing as the most dedicated, engaging, stable publishing company giving 110 percent to ensure their books outsell any others in the market. I want them to come away from this visit incapable of thinking anything other than one word: perfectio—”

I reach the wall and pivot but then, in a blink, hear a rather peculiar sound from below.

It sounds like cellophane paper crinkling.

But that can’t be right, I find myself thinking as I turn my eyes toward the floor. After all, where would the cellophane paper be coming from? Who would bring cellophane paper into a meeting room? And why on earth would it be directly under my feet?

And then, in that nanosecond in which everything makes terrible sense, I feel it.

The lightning strike upon my ankle. My bones crackling as they grind against each other in ways the bones of no ankle anatomically should.

I look down and see my foot overturning, as if in slow motion, as the dagger of my thin black heel flips sideways on the plush red carpet. I throw my left foot forward, trying to stabilize myself, but in lunging only manage to land on Yossi’s heel in front of me before that ankle gives as well.

With both ankles collapsed I fall forward, heads and suits rising on either side of my periphery, the carpet rushing toward me—one gigantic pool of red. I throw my hands out just before my body hits the floor in a tangled mess.

The carpet burns against the side of my face, my arms, my shins. Dimly, I hear the sound of my pen landing and clicking off on the carpet a couple of inches from my face. Feel, to my fresh horror, the breeze on my backside where my skirt has flipped up and is now revealing the poorly chosen underwear I put on this morning. Of course this moment couldn’t have come during my cheeky bikini streak of 2019. Of course this had to happen when I’d pretty much given up the paranoia that this exact situation could one day possibly come to fruition. When I’d decided that nobody would ever need to cut through my clothes in a car crash. That there was never really going to be a moment in the dead of night when the fire alarm went off through the entire building and I was left stranded in the middle of the street in my granny panties making small talk with the neighbors.

And there was certainly no reason to fear I would trip on my own feet during an all-employee staff meeting and faceplant on the ground with my skirt flipped up.

Anyway, here I am.

Maybe the best thing to do now would be to play dead.

Yes, that seems like a good idea. After all, possums do it, and it seems to work for them. It’s even a biological method of survival. It’s innate. That really should count for something. Besides, nobody makes fun of people who pass out. It’s like a “Get out of jail free” card. You can tease behind closed doors all you want when somebody falls flat on their faces, but try that when the situation seems remotely serious, and you are a horrible, insensitive person.

That’s it, then. I’m going to have to play possum.

I’m just resolving to get comfortable on the carpet when a different sound filters through my brain. A much, much more devastating sound. The sound of flapping, like a hundred doves overhead.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no, no.

My eyes flit open, and there they are. Each leaf of my 234-page manuscript soaring through the air, freed from the golden paperclip that had hitherto clipped their wings.

Any thought of previous embarrassment dissolves, and springing to my knees, I snatch at the sheets of paper wafting down around me. Vaguely, I hear William Pennington in the distance continuing his speech as I reach between one man’s shoes for a few pages and clutch them tightly. Out of the corner of my eye I see Lyla making a grab for the ones scattered at her own feet.

Of all the moments . . .

My forehead starts to burn as I see staff around me leaning down, picking up sheets of paper at their feet.