Afterworlds (59 page)

*  *  *

At one end of the cavernous hall was the signing area, a cattle yard of stanchions guiding hundreds of people toward a long row of authors. Giant numbers hung above each aisle, lending a stamp of order to the industrial-size muddle of the crowds.

Debut author Darcy Patel, signing her novel
Afterworlds
, had been assigned aisle 17. She approached the signing area in the tow of Rhea, who had kindly stuffed the duffel bag full of free books into the nether regions of the Paradox booth. Darcy was wondering how many Paradox bags she could scam.

“There are self-pubbed romance writers on both sides of you,” Rhea was saying. “They’ll have long lines, but nothing crazy. You were supposed to be next to this former child actor signing his self-help book, but we managed to get you moved.”

“Because his huge line would embarrass me?” Darcy asked.

Rhea shook her head. “We just don’t like movie stars next to our authors. It’s distracting. Their heads are too big!”

She led Darcy behind a giant black curtain, into the setup area for the signings. Boxes were piled everywhere, and a fully loaded forklift whirred past as they made their way toward the rear entrance to aisle 17. Darcy was wearing the cocktail dress her mother had given her on that first day in Manhattan. The dress had always brought her luck, but it felt out of place here among the freight and scurry of backstage.

“Good news: your books made it.” Rhea pointed at a stack of boxes covered with Paradox logos and the words “
Afterworlds
—Patel.” “What kind of pen do you sign with?”

“Um.” Darcy tried to remember the sage advice that Standerson had given her last year. “Uni-Ball . . . something?”

“Vision Elite? Jetstream? I prefer Bic Triumphs.” Rhea was rummaging in her bag. “Take three of each, and a Sharpie for casts, show bags, and body parts.”

“Thank you.” Darcy meekly accepted the handful of pens.

“We’ve got five boxes to get through. That’s a hundred copies, give or take.” Rhea knelt and slid a box cutter down a seam of tape. The folds leaped open, revealing the familiar cover, which now wore both Kiralee’s and Oscar Lassiter’s blurbs.

Darcy knelt beside Rhea. A single advanced copy had arrived at apartment 4E a week ago, but it was staggering and wonderful to see her novel in quantity. The real books didn’t come out until September 23, four whole months from now, but these advanced copies were somehow more precious. Each was marked:
NOT FOR SALE.

“A hundred of them?”

“Yep. That’s about thirty seconds per customer.”

Darcy looked at Rhea. “Am I really going to have that many people? I mean, who’s heard of me?”

“A ton of people downloaded the galley. There’s buzz.” Rhea smiled. “And these are free, after all.”

Darcy swallowed. What if you gave away your books for nothing, and still nobody came?

The appointed time arrived, and Darcy found herself in front of the black curtain, perched on an unusually high chair behind a signing table. Rhea was at her side, stacking up copies of
Afterworlds
, and in front of Darcy stretched a line of people who actually wanted her signature.

But it wasn’t a very long line—maybe twenty-five people. Not a hundred, surely.

“Ready to go?” Rhea asked, and Darcy nodded dumbly.

*  *  *

The strange thing was, a lot of them had already read
Afterworlds
.

“I downloaded that galley the first day,” said a librarian from Wisconsin. “My teens just
love
anything with terrorism. Can you sign it, ‘Congratulations Contest Winner’?”

“Great first chapter,” said a bookstore owner from Maine. “But I was hoping there’d be more about the death cult. Those cults are a real problem, you know?”

“I love ghost romances,” said a blogger from Brooklyn. “Lizzie should have got with that FBI agent, especially after he died. Which was kind of her fault.”

There were more comments and suggestions, and much polite
praise. But already the reactions were so varied, and sometimes a little strange.

“There’s a sequel, right?” asked a bookseller from Texas. “Lizzie and Mindy should start solving other people’s murders. It would be so
cute
.”

Darcy smiled and nodded at everything that was said to her, signing her name with the new autograph she’d been practicing all week. The
D
was huge and sweeping, sprawling across the full title page, swelling with pride.

But signing here in this convention hall somehow had the feel of business, with none of the glamour, intensity, or love of Standerson’s events. Not that Darcy had earned such adulation yet, but part of her was impatient for actual teenagers to start reading her novel. These were gatekeepers. She wanted zealots.

And there weren’t enough of them. Only twenty minutes into Darcy’s hour, the line trickled down to nothing. She tried to keep the last man talking, but he hadn’t even wanted a dedication, only a signature, and soon he was gone. For an uncomfortable moment Darcy and Rhea stared at each other, saying nothing.

“Crap. Should I just sneak away?”

“Of course not! Just don’t sign so fast. More people will show up. They’ll drift over from the other aisles.” Rhea smiled. “In fact, here’s two more.”

It was two of Darcy’s sister debs, Annie and Ashley. They wore matching T-shirts emblazoned: 2014!

“Hey,” Darcy called as they approached. “Sister debs!”

The smile crumpled on Ashley’s face. “My book got bumped till next spring. I’m not really your sister deb anymore.”

Annie put a comforting arm around her. “I told you, you can still wear the shirt.”

“I’m so sorry,” Darcy said. “But thanks for sending me
Blood Red World
. I loved how complicated the politics were. And those make-out scenes on Mars! Would low gravity really work that way?”

“I
hope
so.” Ashley was staring at Darcy’s pile of books. “How was your signing? You must have been mobbed!”

“Mildly,” Darcy said. “But everyone was really nice.”

“Your cover’s so great,” Annie said, picking up a copy of
Afterworlds
. “I love the whole roiling smoke thing!”

“Teardrops are the new black,” Ashley added.

“Thanks.” Darcy wondered if their covers were out. She hadn’t kept up with any cover releases in the last two months, nor had she ever pursued the promised interviews with Annie, or put anything else on her Tumblr. She was a bad sister deb, and felt a sudden need to make up for it. So she said, “I’m nineteen, by the way.”

“That was my guess!” Ashley began a dance. “Score!”

She looked so happy that Darcy didn’t point out that she had been eighteen back when the sister debs had laid their bets. Instead, she signed their copies of
Afterworlds
.

As they headed off, Kiralee Taylor and Oscar Lassiter came winding through the empty corral of stanchions.

“I’ve been told there’s some sort of Hindu death-god book available here?” Kiralee called. “Can such a thing be true?”

Darcy laughed. She hadn’t seen Kiralee in person since the blurb had been bestowed. “Very true, and it’s free for famous authors!”

“Having fun?” Oscar asked.

“I was. Then business tapered off.”

“More will come,” said Kiralee. “For the moment, you’ve got some stiff competition down the way.”

“You mean Big Head?” Rhea frowned. “My sister and I always hated his show.”

“Not him,” Kiralee said. She was wearing a mysterious smile. “And don’t worry, I’ve tweeted your august presence. Prepare to be positively
swamped
.”

Rhea slid Darcy a book, already opened to the full title page. For a moment, Darcy froze, the Uni-Ball Vision Elite a thick and clumsy thing in her hand.

“K-I-R—” Kiralee began.

“Hush!” Oscar said. “She’s
thinking
.”

This was only partly true. There was a glimmer of cognition in Darcy’s head, which might have been translated as,
Oh shit, I’m signing a book for Kiralee Taylor
. But really it was nothing but a buzzing in her ears.

The book splayed out before her was real. Kiralee standing there waiting for a signature was real. The rumble of the crowds and the smell of freshly printed and bound paper was real. Darcy Patel was a published author now.

“Well, this is a bit awkward,” Kiralee said a moment later.

“Ignore her,” Oscar said gently. “Take your time.”

And Darcy suddenly knew what to write.

Thanks for all the nightmares of red mud.

She signed it with a flourish, and then moved on to Oscar’s.

Writing is a lonely business, except for Drinks!

The two of them were very kind about what she’d written and, still kinder, they stuck around until the line built up again, attracting strays from the other aisles and a handful of Kiralee’s followers. Soon Darcy was signing again, careful never to rush, pausing to talk to everyone, at least until more people waited behind them. The line ebbed and flowed, until, quite suddenly, the hour was done and Rhea was packing things away.

“Great job,” she said. “Only a box and half left!”

Darcy was stunned. It hadn’t felt anything like seventy people, but her right hand was marvelously sore.

“Oops, two more. You sign, I’ll pack.” Rhea dropped a pair of books on the table and began to kick-slide the leftover box away behind the curtain.

Darcy looked up. It was Carla and Sagan.

“Where did you guys come from?”

“From our dorms, where we live,” Sagan said. “We decided to road trip down this morning.”

“Road trip!” Carla yelled. She was hugging a dozen books to her chest already.

“How did you get in?”

“Imogen weaseled us day passes from Paradox,” Sagan said. “Like, in case you needed friendly faces at your signing.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Carla said. “But the
free
is strong in this place!”

“Wait. Imogen got you in?” Darcy blinked. She hadn’t checked the schedule, but of course Imogen would be here somewhere. It was strange, how on busy days Darcy could go for hours without
noticing the missing pieces of her heart. But when memories did come, they hit all at once.

“Why the sad face?” Carla asked.

“She didn’t come to my signing.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Carla fumbled a book out of her hoard. Its cover was filled by a black cat, the eyes shining a familiar flame-red. “She’s busy down on aisle 2. That’s why we’re late.”

“Seriously?”

“We went to tell her thanks,” Sagan said. “And she had this
huge
line! It took us forever to get over here.”

Darcy pulled the advanced copy of
Kleptomancer
from Carla’s hands. She’d read the first draft almost a year ago, but had never seen the cover. “I forgot these would be here. Did I ever tell you how I—”

“Named that book?” Carla and Sagan said in unison, then burst into giggles.

“You guys suck.”

“Oh, really?” Carla snatched the copy of
Kleptomancer
back. “Is that why we haven’t heard from you lately.”

“I was madly writing. I got a whole draft done!”

“In a month?” Sagan said. “That’s, like, old-school Darcy behavior.”

“So what are your plans now?” Carla asked.

“Hang out with you guys, obviously. After the Paradox party.”

“Not tonight,” Carla said. “Now as in . . . the future. Are you going to Oberlin? Staying here forever?”

“Yeah,” Sagan said. “You never told us what you did with that lease renewal.”

“Oh,” Darcy said softly. “I kind of forgot about it.”

“So you get kicked out on July 1?”

“I guess so.” Over the last month, Darcy hadn’t focused on her apartment situation, or the future in general. The first draft of
Untitled Patel
had consumed her mind and soul, along with certain household details like laundry, cleaning, and paperwork.

“Smooth,” Carla said with a laugh. “I’m glad that living on your own has made you so mature.”

Darcy sighed. She’d tried hard to grow up a little in her time alone in apartment 4E. But maybe she was doomed to be forever adulthood-challenged.

She opened one of the books on the table. “How about, ‘From your loving high school best friend. Thanks for all the maturity advice’?”

“Sucks!” Carla and Sagan said in concert.

“You guys have to stop doing that. Talking together is creepy-twins.”

“I have an idea,” Carla said. “How about you write—”

“No! I have expertise in this now. This is my
job
.” Darcy stewed in silence for a moment, then lifted up her pen.

Without you guys, all that reading wouldn’t have been half as fun.

She wrote the same in Sagan’s copy.

“Time to saddle up,” Rhea said from behind her. “The next author’s waiting, and the party’s in half an hour.”

“Sorry!” Darcy leaped up from the seat. It belonged to someone else now.

“By the way, can we stay with you tonight?” Carla asked.

“Duh. See you later,” Darcy said, and handed over her keys.

*  *  *

The Paradox party was only a half-hour walk away, but it was a hot day, and the broad expanse of Ninth Avenue offered no shade at all. Darcy was sweating in her little black dress by the time she and Rhea arrived at the bar.

“Guinness, right?” Rhea asked as she headed away.

“Yes, please!” Darcy called after her. It was mercifully cool and dark here, but she was in serious need of a drink. The restaurant was crowded with Paradox authors and editors and people from marketing, publicity, and sales. All of them were important to her future, and most she’d only met for the first time today. Luckily, they still had their name tags on.

But she lingered at the edge of the crowd, not yet ready for more small talk after her hour at the signing table. Darcy found herself glancing at the restaurant doors, wondering if Imogen was coming. She wouldn’t spurn her own publisher just to avoid an ex, would she?