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“Yes.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a bit like… Agatha Christie. Murders and feel-good vibes.”
“Right, I almost forgot you were obsessed with true crime.”
“This isn’t really true crime. The crime is kind of incidental.”
“Tell me about the plot.”
So I do, lying there beneath our umbrella. I tell him about the lead detective and how she’d moved back to her hometown only to discover that her ex had been keeping secrets, and that the boy who’d teased her in high school had become her shut-in but attractive neighbor, and then a teen disappears, and—
Phillip interrupts me. “Is that the kind of stories you write?”
“I knew you would try to get that information out of me.”
“I’ll find out before we leave the island,” he says, putting his hands behind his head. “What are you in the mood to write next?”
I flip the book closed, committing the worst of all acts. Dog-earing. Maybe talking about it with him won’t be that hard. He’s been supportive so far, and… well, he’ll be a stranger again in just a few days. “I’m actually planning to write something inspired by this resort.”
His eyes light up. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Tell me about it.”
So I do. I talk about the people I’d seen—the arguing sisters, the rich couple on the beach, and all the theories I have for them. Phillip laughs at several of them and gives suggestions for others.
I don’t tell him about the mysterious businessman character, though.
“Is this the one?” he asks. “Will you try submitting it to a publisher again?”
I look down at the book in my hand, at the tiny name of the publisher on the spine. It’s easier to face than him. At least while I speak these words. “Probably not. I told you I failed at the publishing part. Now… now I’m not really sure it’s worth doing again.”
It feels easier to say out loud than I’d expected.
“Well,” he says. “People fail all the time.”
“They do?”
“Yes. That’s part of the game. You lose at times. But that doesn’t mean you stop playing. You go out again and again, and maybe next time, you win. And if you don’t, well… then, the game isn’t over, yet.” He turns to look at me. “How many publishers are there in the world?”
“I don’t know. Thousands? Tens of thousands?”
“Right. And are they all identical? Do they all have the exact same understanding of the publishing industry?”
I sigh. “No, you know they don’t.”
“Right. So another publisher might love your next book or the one after that. They might package them differently, market and sell them better.”
“They might, yeah.”
“Don’t let some stuffy editor who didn’t know how to sell your first book be the arbiter of whether or not you’ve got talent.” He leans back in the chair, head tilted up. His stubble has thickened into the beginnings of a decent beard. It makes him look older, somehow, and gruffer. But more relaxed, too. “If you decide a career as an author isn’t for you, that’s fine. But let it be becauseyoudecide it. Not someone else.”
I look at him for a long few moments. “You’re right. I mean, my first publisher doesn’t know everything. They never put any advertising dollars behind it, either.”
“No wonder it didn’t perform.”
