Chapter 3 Moments in Between

The first time I walked through the stone archway on Thirty-Fourth Street and rode the chrome elevator to the seventh floor, I knew Strauss & Adder Publishers was special. The doors opened into a small, white-shelved lobby lined with books - both their own and beloved others - with weathered leather chairs inviting you to sink in, open a novel, and lose yourself in the words.

Strauss & Adder was a small but powerful New York publisher, specializing in adult fiction, memoirs, and lifestyle nonfiction. Think self-help, cookbooks, and how-tos, but they were best known for their travel guides. If you wanted to find the best restaurants tucked away in distant cities, you looked for the little mallet hammer logo.

I could've done publicity anywhere and probably for more money, but no tech firm or PR hellscape could offer the magic of free travel books or the smell of aged paper in the halls lined with guides to Rome, Bangkok, and Antarctica. I didn't want to write books myself, but I loved the idea of some long-forgotten guide waxing poetic about old cathedrals and lost gods, and how words could make you ache for places you'd never been.

The office was an open floor plan, bright and white, framed by floor-to-ceiling shelves. Everyone had half-walled cubicles filled with colorful odds and ends. Mine was closest to my boss's glass-doored office - supposedly private, but no less public than hearing Juliette sob about her Romeo-Rob in the next cubicle over. (Fuck Romeo-Rob.)

At least even in their tidy glass offices you could see them dissociating at 2:00 p.m. on a Monday with the rest of us. And yet here we all were, because if we all loved one thing, it was books. I managed to send out a few interview queries by the time Nancy came back to the office.

"The dessert was really fantastic," she said, walking over to return my credit card. She, like the rest of design, was banished to the glum, cobweb-filled corner of the floor where CEOs were wont to stick their mushroom-growing artsy people. At least three of the designers had to start taking vitamin D supplements, it was so dark back there. "So was the chef."

"Hate that I missed it," I replied.

Nancy shrugged and handed me back my card. "You kind of ran right into him, actually."

I paused. The man with the strong grip. The warm, solid chest. "That... was him?"

"Absolutely. He's a gem. Really sweet-oh, say, did you end up saving your author from airport hell?"

"Of course," I replied, pulling myself out of my thoughts. "Was there ever any doubt?"

Nancy shook her head. "I envy you."

That made me pause. "Why?"

"Whenever you need to do something, you just go for it. Straight line. No hesitation. I think that's why Dave likes you so much," she added, a bit quieter. "You're an Excel spreadsheet to my chaos."

"I just like things the way I like things," I replied, and Nancy proceeded to tell me about what I'd missed at the restaurant-apparently, someone from Faux had come to the chef about a book (Parker Daniels, Dave guessed), as had Simon & Schuster and two imprints at HarperCollins and one at Macmillan. There would probably be more.

I gave a low whistle. "Dave's got steep competition."

"I know. I can't wait until this is all he starts talking about," Nancy deadpanned. She checked her smart watch on her wrist and groaned. "I should probably return to the cave. Movie tonight? I think that rom-com with the two assassins who fall in love is out?"

"Can I take a rain check? I'm still unpacking," I said, and Nancy handed me the receipt from lunch before disappearing into the darker part of the floor. I slipped into Monique's office to drop it off - but she wasn't there.

Most higher-ups, including Reginald Strauss, decorated their offices with family photos and travel memories. Monique's walls, though, were filled with pictures of her posing with celebrities at book launches and red carpets, her shelves stacked with awards where most people kept gifts from grandchildren. Every time I stepped inside, I pictured myself in her orange chair, living a life like that.

Suddenly, the glass door slid open, and Monique Adder - glamorous as ever - swept into the room. "Ah, Lola! Happy Friday, as always," she said, sharp in a black pantsuit, floral heels, and her blunt-cut gray bob clipped neatly back.

When Monique entered the room, she owned it. Conversations stopped. Heads turned.

As brilliant as she was magnetic, Monique had started in a lowly SoHo PR firm, fielding telemarketer calls and clipping tabloid rumors. Now she was co publisher and director of marketing and publicity, running campaigns for some of the biggest names in publishing. She was an icon. The person everyone in the business wanted to be. The person I wanted to be - someone with a plan, with goals, and the tools to make them happen.

"Happy Friday, Monique. I'm sorry I took a long lunch," I quickly said.

She waved her hand. "It's perfectly all right. I saw you handled Adair Lynn's little airport snafu."

"She's really having the worst luck on this tour."

"We'll have to send her some flowers once she gets home." She opened a drawer and pulled out a bag of chocolate-covered almonds.

"Will do. I put a lunch expense on the account," I added, setting the receipt and credit card down on the desk. She took a look at both of them and curled an eyebrow. "Dave's after an author for a nonfiction project."

"Ah. Almonds?" She offered me the bag.

"Thank you." I took one out, sat down in the creaky chair opposite of her, and updated her on the afternoon's happenings-the booked podcast interviews, the revised itineraries, the newly confirmed bookstore events. Monique and I worked like a well-oiled machine. There was a reason everyone said I was her second-in-command-and I hoped to be her successor someday. Everyone figured I would be.