Parker It was her. Selina Chan, in the flesh. I stared up at the mezzanine as her eyes lasered down into me. She had one crimson-nailed hand curled over the rail and the other cradling a nearly empty champagne flute. Shadows the color of honey fell down the long lines of her throat, while a teaspoon of light pooled in the divot between her collarbones. Her hair was sw ept over one shoulder, a dark accent to her serious, delicate features. Time distended. We might have looked at each other for a second or an hour. Then the ghost of surprise vanished from her expression, and she looked away from me with a disdainful little turn of her head—and at that slight motion, such a powerful hatred pulsed through me that I felt as though my diaphragm had contracted. Arthur nudged me. “Parker? What’s up?” “Nothing,” I managed to say, but actually I felt like I was having a Joycean epiphany. For three years, I’d thought of Selina Chan as some force of nature, halfway between a celebrity and an omniscient literary god, but in reality, she was this: just some person, alone at a party in a well-cut jacket, who happened to have strong opinions. What gave her the right to ruin people’s careers? Had she ever even tried to write a book? What the fuck did she know? Arthur was eyeing my expression warily. “Let’s get a drink, all right? The bar’s over there.”
“Right. Cool.” I followed at his elbow as usual, trying to appear normal. If Arthur found out Selina Chan was here, that’d be his night down the drain, too. When Arthur left to check his coat, I knocked back the last of one old- fashioned and got another. No, I told myself, like I was my own disobedient dog. No, I wouldn’t approach her. I wouldn’t demand to know how she could have been more offended by High and Dry than by Christian Gatehead’s unreadable latest book. I was going to be a good little author who held his tongue and suffered in silence. It was occurring to me that this second drink might have been a less than brilliant idea when Arthur returned. “Okay,” he said, rolling up his shirt sleeves. Arthur did pretty well with women already, being tall, but he’d read somewhere that women liked it when men rolled their sleeves to their elbows, and now he did so with an almost pathological consistency. “Sarah and Brady are here somewhere. Want to find them?” “Sure, I just...” I scanned the crowd. Selina Chan could be leaving as we spoke, slithering back into her lair. I might never get this opportunity again. I made up my mind. “Sorry, man, I need some air. The subway got me motion sick.” “Oh, shit. Want me to—?” “No, don’t worry! I’ll catch up with you guys.” Outside, the cool air smelled of smoke, and a dozen people stirred on the sidewalk, cigarettes dangling from listless hands, drawing red shapes in the dusk. She wasn’t here. I retreated inside, moving faster. No sign in the ballroom or on the staircase to the mezzanine. If I’d blown this chance, I would seethe in bed for hours tonight. I’d wind up rereading her City profile for the hundredth time, hate-scrolling Google results for her name, looking for anything incriminating.
There was nothing to find, of course. She was too composed, too cryptic. She didn’t even deign to have social media like the rest of us she ep. On the mezzanine level, a group of familiar-looking authors were draped over the balcony railing. Spotting me, one of them murmured to her friend, amusement playing around her mouth. I plowed de eper into the mezzanine. This was Chan’s fault, too. Thanks to her, I couldn’t meet anyone new in publishing without wondering if they thought I was some talentless avatar of privilege who’d never worked a day in his life. I stalked down a deserted side hall and shouldered locked door after locked door. Then, suddenly, a door came open, revealing a long catwalk that spanned the back wall of the ballroom. At the far end, an exit stood ajar. I crossed the catwalk, head low in the shadows of the columns. When I peered through the crack of the exit door I found, of all things, a small library. Rows of books leaned against each other in tall walnut bookcases, and above, paired chandeliers hung from the ornamental molding. There, by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, an empty champagne flute glinting on a table to her side, stood Selina Chan, her head angled down at her phone. I pushed through the door. She looked up and saw me. She grew still and alert, like a lioness hunched low in grasses. For several long, silent seconds we stared at each other. Then she said, “I don’t think you want to do this.” “Do what?” She let the question hang, idiotic, in the air. We both knew why I was here. “I’m serious,” she said. “Don’t start this conversation. Walk away.” Her voice was exactly what I’d imagined: a cool, crisp alto. She seemed to use her tongue and teeth more actively than most people,
reminding me of a snake’s hiss, a cat baring its gums before it spits. On any other day, I might have taken her advice. But I could feel the liquor in my blood now, in my capillaries, rolling close to the surface of my cheeks. “No,” I said, st epping de eper into the library. “I think you owe me an explanation.” “The only thing I owe you is an honest evaluation of your books. That’s my job. And your job is to react professionally to reviews of your work, which means turning around”—she nodded to the door—“and leaving.” Something began to beat rhythmically in my gut. “You want to talk to me about professionalism after what City published this morning?” Chan dropped her phone into her purse with a casual flick of her wrist, then turned from the window to face me. Under the black satin blazer was a green dress that shimmered when she moved, and as the light played over her features I was disgusted to realize how attractive she really was, even more attractive than the evidently unphotoshopped picture on her City Magazine profile. How was this fair? Why was the worst person in the world allowed to look like this? “So,” she said, “you think my review was unprofessional.” “Completely.” “Okay. Tell me: What should I have done differently? Should I have lied? Should I pretend to enjoy every book I read? Is that what you want City Magazine to turn into?” “No. Come on. Obviously not.” “Then what do you want from me?” “I want to know what your real issue was with my books!” I said, my voice rising. “I’ve read your other reviews, and—” “What, all of them?” “Yes. All of them.” For the first time, Chan looked surprised. Her eyebrows flinched toward each other.
“And,” I barreled on, “you didn’t write about other people’s books like you wrote about mine. I want to know why.” In the small contractions of the muscles around her eyes, I could see her deciding whether or not to give me a real answer. I felt a pulse of impatience, hating her composure. The slight tilt of her chin. For a single bizarre moment, I imagined reaching out, disrupting the perfect swe ep of her hair. Finally, she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Bullshit.” She shrugged. “My reviews speak for themselves. Obviously you can hang pretty little sentences on every paragraph just because you feel like it, but don’t expect to earn my respect like that.” “I’m not trying to earn your respect!” “Fascinating. Then why are you still talking to me?” I set my empty glass on a desk with a clatter. “Maybe I want to know how you sle ep at night. Maybe I want to know if you ever take a single second to think about the actual people writing the books you read.” “Oh, here we go.” Chan snapped her purse shut, slung it over her shoulder, and stalked toward me. “Yes. Since you ask: I think about authors constantly. I think about what you say and how you say it. I think about what you wanted to accomplish, and how you failed to accomplish it.” She stopped feet away. Her eyes, as cold and dark as de ep seawater, utterly devoid of remorse, bored into mine. “I don’t do retractions. If you tracked me down looking for an apology, it’s not happening.” I’d never been a confrontational person. Growing up, I’d been the kid hiding in the back of the neighborhood bookstore, having slipped away from my parents’ dinner-table arguments, and well into my twenties I’d hovered around the fringes of every social circle, dancing out of my friends’ personal lives. The idea of me picking a
fight was ludicrous. But as I stood there, staring into Selina Chan’s eyes, loathing her with an almost nuclear force, I suddenly understood the appeal. In that moment I detested her in such a pure, uncomplicated, almost exhilarating way. It was an anger that gave me a clear vision of myself. No, I wasn’t a saint, but at least I wasn’t this: a condescending narcissist who apparently thought that being intelligent and beautiful gave you license to look down your nose at the rest of the world. At least I built things rather than knocking them down. “You must be such a miserable person,” I said, my voice shaking, “to get this kind of joy out of ripping people’s work to shreds.” “Joy? You think I got joy out of your books? I was assigned to them.” “But you could have said no to High and Dry!” “Oh, really?” Her voice grew brittle. “I’m guessing you don’t subscribe to City.” “Of course not.” “So, you read the articles with a paywall remover.” “Yes. I do.” “In which case, maybe you shouldn’t be shocked that the magazine’s up against a wall, and the writers can’t do whatever we want.” Chan made a noise of cold disgust. “Authors. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. You pretend to care about the rest of the literary world, critics, bookstores, journals, everything—but at the end of the day, all that matters to you is flying to ten-thousand-dollar residencies and getting puff pieces in the media and padding your sales figures.” “And you think that’s, what, fri volous? You think it’s shallow to care about being successful?” “Yes. Shockingly, I’d hope that authors would care more about literature than moneymaking.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Oh, my God, are you serious? Could your ivory tower get any higher? Authors have to care about moneymaking! Before I got that book deal, I worked two jobs and trying to get a hundred words on paper was like pulling fucking teeth. So, yeah, excuse us all for caring about our futures. Excuse me for wanting to ke ep writing novels instead of going back to bagging groceries and living paycheck to paycheck.” “You’re talking to me about paychecks?” Chan snapped. I’d finally struck a nerve. The mask slipped, her cheeks flooding with red. I felt an odd thrill, looking at the contorted shape of her mouth. “Is that a joke? The author with the seven-figure advance wants to make this conversation about finances?” “Yeah, Selina, I do,” I said with a kind of savage pleasure. “You’re the one who brought up money like it’s so far beneath you, when—sorry, what do you think the point of a review is? The whole exercise is to tell people where to put their time and money.” “Oh, please, tell me more about the point of criticism!” “I’ll stop telling you about the point of criticism when you stop telling me how to write a book.” “I’ll stop telling you how to write a book,” she said through her teeth, “when you write a good book!” She slammed her purse down on the table beside us. A lock of hair toppled across the side of her forehead. “How dare you stand there and act holier-than-thou about paychecks and profits when you, a millionaire, read the entire archive of my work by illegal download? Thanks to assholes like you, City has to answer to a bunch of venture vultures who haven’t read anything longer than an Instagram caption since high school. We’ve lost half our staff in the last two years. We can hardly buy the paper to print our magazine.”
“Good!” I spat. “The type of trash you’ve been publishing, I can’t wait until you go under!” Chan’s sudden silence was unnerving. The redness receded from her cheeks as she considered me. The quiet hummed in my ears. She smoothed the stray lock back from her forehead, then twisted her hair up into that shining bundle at the back of her head. The motions of her long pale fingers, the crimson shine of her nails, the gleam of the light on her hair seemed calculated and hypnotic. “You want to know my problem with your books, Parker?” she asked, soft and scathing. “Look at what just came out of your mouth. No, you don’t want City to go under. You’d have been thrilled if we gave you a rave. But you’ll say anything, do anything, to get a reaction.” She took another st ep toward me in her dangerous-looking high heels. We were barely two feet apart now, eye to eye. I could see the thin, jet- black curve of her eyeliner. “That’s spineless,” she hissed. “Noncommittal. Just like your books. They have no guts, no loyalty to anything, there’s a void at the center. God, I can’t stand people who refuse to put anything on the line.” Face burning, I scrambled for a rebuttal, but to my humiliation, she was right about City. I’d read the magazine since I was a teenager with pretensions, acting like I understood their poetry, imagining my work in their pages someday. I’d wanted so badly for them to like me. I’d wanted everyone to like me. In that moment, with a sickening plunge of my stomach, I wondered if that was the only thing I’d ever wanted while writing. Selina Chan lifted one red-nailed finger and jabbed it into the center of my chest. A wave of heat issued out from the point of contact. “People like you,” she said, “pretend to want real critics. Serious readers. But it’s all for show. If anyone dares to dislike your precious novel, your
darling little self- indulgent doorstopper, then surprise, surprise! We suddenly turn into unqualified gateke epers. And you’ll blame us for your problems. And you’ll stand back and wave in a future where the only ‘reviewers’ in the world are people getting backdoor payments from publishers to recite pitches for books they haven’t read.” She leaned so close that I could feel her breath on my cheek. “If you want the critical equivalent of an upvote, Parker, go the fuck back to the internet and filter for five-star reactions. It’s not my job to like you.” And with that, she stalked out of the library and slammed the door behind her. Parker 8:20 PM Hey man, so sorry to flake, but I’m heading home. The motion sickness didn’t get any better Arthur 8:21 PM That suuuucks. Get some sle
Ep I can pay for your Uber since you only came to this bc of me? Parker 8:22 PM Oh, no, really no need for that lol. Tell Sarah and Brady hi for me :) hope you all have fun : D Arthur 8:25 PM We will, see you tomorrow! When I woke up, nothing about the night seemed real. Who had that man been, that author who’d stormed through a party to yell at his generation’s most prominent critic? Surely I couldn’t have done something that reckless, that impulsive. I couldn’t even blame the alcohol. When I rose from my bed, I discovered that I had no hangover. The world felt sun-touched, like some knob had turned to increase the brightness of everything around me, but my head was clear, my body relaxed.
As I washed my face and showered, I marveled at how good, exactly, I felt. Every motion in the mirror looked calm, confident, as I folded my glasses, pressed in my contact lenses, and tapped out my antid epressant. Chan had gotten the last word, but hadn’t I said what I’d meant to say? I’d even dug under her skin. That was the most satisfying memory: her face reddened, her mouth twisted. Maybe I’d never wanted restitution, or an explanation. Maybe I’d only ever wanted to make Selina Chan as angry as I felt. I returned to my bedroom and picked up my phone from my bedside table. That quickly, every drop of calm evaporated. I had eighty-six notifications. A text from Bill at 7 AM that said, Call me. Arthur had linked me a video at three in the morning with the single word, Dude. My heart began to drum. I loaded the video, which had been posted last night around ten o’clock by an account whose username was a twelve-digit string of random numbers. Walnut bookshelves. Glittering chandeliers. Selina Chan and I were standing feet from each other, my fists balled and shoulders straining, her face tilted disdainfully toward me. I was snarling at her, “You must be such a miserable person.” “Oh my God,” I choked out, checking the timestamp. The video was six minutes long. This person had seen nearly the whole thing. I called Bill in a nauseated trance, pacing, careening, from my bathroom door to the window and back. The hangover had hit, pulsing behind my temple. As the phone rang and rang, nightmarish brightness throbbed around me. “Parker,” came Bill’s gravelly baritone. The climax of Mahler’s fifth symphony cascaded behind his voice. “I was just going to give you
another call.” “I’m so sorry. It was so stupid. I shouldn’t’ve—” “Sorry? Why are you sorry?” I stopped midpace, wondering if I’d misheard. “Because I wrecked my career by confronting Selina Chan on video?” To my amazement, Bill laughed. “Parker, you’re behind the times. Read the reactions and call me back. And The New York Times wants to talk to you.”