Page 14 of The Perfect Rom-Com

I shrug again.

Then, just as the cowbell-ringing conference girl leans over us to whisper it’s time to “move along” (a person whom he ignores entirely), he smiles.

Jack really smiles, for the first time. I’ve finally given him something to smile about.

Then he shakes his head like I pulled a good one over on him. Reaches out his hand fully now and, this time, pretty much grabs my hand and shakes it. “And let me guess. You could do better.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to answer.

“Very . . . unique to meet you, Bryony of Florence. Nice even. You’re plucky. I like that. I hope you and your very large manuscript spend some quality time together deciding which limbs to cut off. Perhaps I’ll see you next year—if, heaven forbid, I am forced to return to this place.”

I give up.

If “spend a year chopping up your beloved manuscript and then on the horrible off chance I’m here you can possibly see me at another pitch session” is the best I’m going to get, it’s time to call it. I’m not cut out for Jack Sterling. Or this conference, for that matter. Or clearly writing.

A gust of wind blows through me. This must be the feeling people have when they finally accept their own inevitable death. The small, very small consolation prize here is the knowledge that I did my best. I fought to the end. And at the very, very least, I was honest. I will go out with my dignity.

I smile back at him as I take up my folder and rise. “I like all my words, Jack. I don’t think there will be any cutting. And as for your client’s romance—”

“Amelia Benedict’s?” he adds with the tiniest flicker of “You know, the Amelia Benedict?”

“The one,” I continue with a nod. “Objectively speaking here and polite niceties aside, I could do better. For starters, drop the third point of view of the event director’s dog—it’s not cute; it just comes off as weird. Give the captain a second-in-command position so he has someone actually in charge who has the authority to tell him to cut the girl. Cut out 70 percent of the ‘supers’ and replace them with meaningful descriptors, and delete all references to Extellilango. It’s not a real place. It doesn’t sound like a real place. And if you are going to create a fictional place, you should at least make it sound remotely plausible instead of a location you’d find in Star Wars. But really, if she’s going for somewhere on earth that’s warm with volcanoes, she should just go with Punalu‘u Beach or Mosteiros Beach in the Azores, or Reynisfjara, Iceland. Personally, I’d go with Reynisfjara.”

He’s looking at me with incredulity again, and I add, “I teach ESL to adult immigrants and refugees—as I tried to explain with the Why I Wrote My Book page. I’ve learned something about their homes in the past fifteen years.”

Oh dear. The adrenaline that has fueled me the last fifteen minutes is fizzling out to a jittery end, and I find myself anxious to get out of here in the next ten seconds. Because in about ten seconds, I have no doubt that wherever I am, I will be slumping down under the full weight of defeat. Probably crying. Like a wind-up toy crumpled over in the corner.

And I’d really rather not be a slumped-over, weeping toy crumpled on the floor here.

His smile wilts a little as I let go of our shaking hands and pull back. “Anyway, take my card. Better yet, take a handful.” And like a claw machine game, I reach blindly in my bag and grab a handful of stragglers. Two or three business cards flutter to the table.

And with impending tears pounding at the doorsteps of my eyes, I give a tight smile and stride away as quickly as my heels can take me.

Just like all the other recruits here.

Who didn’t make it.

* * *

“And then what’d you do? Say that last part again. Slowly. You know what? Just start over. I wanna hear the whole thing. Move over, Jerry. I have critical news on the line!”

Never mind that Gloria is elbowing a bunch of lawyers in a hallway during an adjourned court session to hear my story. I’m sure the lawyers believe it’s genuinely important, too, by the way she’s acting. And in a small way, the unique mix of incredulity and pride in Gloria’s voice as I run through the details of my defeat four hours prior is at least a little soothing. A little balm for the soul after spending the past four hours wallowing in self-pity and humiliation as I packed up all the discarded pencil skirts and rumpled blouses littered around my suitcase and checked in online for my return flight to New York.

I dumped the rest of the business cards in the bin.

Over a hundred of my little faces smiling up at me from the trash can, beside the words in romantic italics: Fiction That Inspires.

What does that even mean?

Apparently, according to Gloria, this is all very, very sad but on the bright side, look at how brave I was! Who cares, according to Gloria, about this manuscript (I corrected her pretty quickly on that one), when just observe this wonderful life lesson! Bryony the Brave!

Bryony, the girl who could go back in time and tell that old group of childhood frenemies that no, she didn’t deserve to be treated like the punching bag of the group whenever they wanted someone to pick on and, ergo, she would rather play with no one at all.

Bryony, the girl who couldn’t put her foot down with her roommate at uni and say, “Look, Tiffany, I know you like having Brian over, but I’m right here. On the bottom bunk. And no, I do not want to go elsewhere at three in the morning.”

Even now Bryony, the girl who never quite had the gumption to tell the neighbor at the apartment gym, “Right, well, the thing is, I don’t want to move over from the treadmill to the elliptical just because you came in. I don’t care that you are training for a 5k. I don’t care that you have ‘5k’ tattooed on your bicep. I’m walking at a snail’s pace on my thirty-minute jaunt while on chapter 13 of my audiobook, and I like my treadmill.”

A ding rings out from my phone at the same time the elevator announces its arrival, and I look down before the doors open, seeing the Uber notification that my car’s waiting downstairs.