How Could She by Lauren Mechling

Author:Lauren Mechling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

17

You’re focusing on the wrong thing,” Cassie said, deflecting an aspiring writer’s question about whether Cassie planned to switch agents in light of her recent Hulu deal. “You should be asking Rachel how she writes characters that make you sob. The business stuff is boring.”

It was a little after six. Rachel had arrived at the Marriott in Chestnut Hill in time to throw her duffel on the hotel-room floor and wash the Chinatown bus off her face before the cocktail reception. The YAtopians had colonized Grimbles, a faux-British pub half a flight above the hotel lobby, with ornately patterned carpeting and gaudy chandeliers.

Cassie Burkheim was among the front rank of YAtopia participants–only two others, Lavinia Dallal and Emily Pike, would have their own Spotlight interviews. Lavinia and Emily weren’t even staying at this hotel in suburban Philadelphia. Cassie could have asked her publisher to put her up across town with them at the Four Seasons, too, but it wasn’t her style. Cassie had always had a bit of a mentor complex, adopting aspiring authors as if they were starving kittens. She was doing the rounds to promote her new book, Court of Mourning Star, and had invited Rachel to crash in her hotel room.

“You owe it to yourself,” Cassie had said when she suggested that Rachel tag along. “You’re about to have a big comeback.”

“How can I come back when I was never—”

“Will you stop with the past? You’re so close to all that being so far away. I’m telling you, all your books will be back in print by next Christmas.” Rachel had been sharing batches of her new project with Cassie, who said she was blown away. “You really should show face,” Cassie insisted. “The bloggers will love rediscovering you. Plus, room service.”

Rachel had been there barely ten minutes and was already ruing that she had to return home a day earlier than everybody else. There was little chance the writers whom she and Cassie were talking to were old enough to drink. They looked like goth babies in their all-black ensembles that covered everything but the tops of their soft, chubby breasts. It felt undeniably good, soaking up their rays of adulation.

“Rachel’s new book is off the hook,” Cassie said.

Rachel glanced down, trying to conceal her grin.

“I’m telling you,” Cassie went on. “The Maker scenes—”

“The Markers,” Rachel reminded her friend. She’d come up with the idea while coloring with Cleo. Magic Markers were not the most literary of influences, true, but the Markers scenes were shaping up nicely. Markers were celestial beings that protected runaway children. Their gifts came at great cost; they marked the destinies of others. After escaping a snatcher—a vagrant that came after vulnerable girls—Desdemona, who’d been Marked, returned home under cover of night to find her mother bawling. She would linger in the shadows and learn about her younger brother’s incurable illness.

“Can I take a selfie?” the shorter girl asked Rachel, who tried to think of something funny to say. All this flattery disarmed her, though, and the best she could come up with was “Of course.

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