The Agency Read Free

gets signed and the publisher coughs up the money. Unless your name is Nora Roberts or Dan Brown, writing isn’t likely to buy you a yacht to race around the Isle of Wight.
    “Did you tell him that we got turned down in France, Germany, and Holland?” Emma asked me.
    “I don’t tell writers when publishers say no,” I told her. “They can’t handle it. Better to wait until someone says yes.”
    “So do you want me to e-mail Oliver with the Czech details?”
    “No. See if he can do dinner on Friday night. Pick someplace nice. I’ll pay. Oliver could use something other than a bacon sandwich for once.”
    “That’s nice.”
    “Speaking of Oliver, what’s the word from Tom Cruise?”
    Emma’s red lips curled into a snarl. “Felicia called.”
    Felicia Castro is Tom Cruise’s agent and business manager. Unless you know Katie, there’s really no other way to get to the Man witha proposition for a movie idea. However, I pissed off Felicia about two years ago because I passed over one of her clients who was desperate to option a number one bestseller, in favor of a series buy with HBO at twice the price. Not a tough choice. But Felicia screamed at me that we had a handshake deal, which wasn’t true, and she swore I would never sell so much as a Weetabix commercial to any of her clients from that day forward. And she’s been as good as her word.
    The trouble is that Oliver Howard’s first book,
Singularity,
was absolutely written for Tom Cruise. Anyone who reads it can see Cruise in the lead role. If I do nothing else in this life, I want to see Tom Cruise take that book and make a movie out of it. It’s not like the guy needs to buff up his box office bona fides, but this would be his
Shawshank Redemption,
the one everyone remembers in a hundred years.
    Another confession:
Singularity
was a huge bomb. I sold the UK rights, and we couldn’t move ten fucking copies off the shelves. Oliver didn’t earn out even a quarter of his measly advance. I know it happens that way, and that’s why, as agents, we try not to fall in love with the works we sell. But I thought
Singularity
was absolutely mind-blowing amazing, and I still think Oliver ought to be the hottest literary author since Thomas Pynchon.
    So far, though, I am a cheering section of one.
    “What did Felicia say?” I asked.
    “Mostly, she called you a cunt,” Emma said.
    “Well, fuck her,” I said. I knew what Felicia wanted. If I lay down naked in front of her desk, let her paint the words “I am a lying bitch” on my chest, and then paraded that way through Leicester Square, maybe she would take my proposal to Cruise. But I wasn’t about to do that.
    I just didn’t know how else to get
Singularity
in Tom’s hands.
    “What else?” I asked.
    “Sally Harlingford wants to know if you can do tea on Monday at Fortnum’s.”
    “She read my mind,” I said.
    Sally runs her own agency, and she’s been a friend and colleaguefor years. I wanted to pick her brain about my big idea. She knows what it’s like to go it alone. By the way, tea at Fortnum’s is our own little code for pinot noir at the Groucho. On our bad days, we like to head out for an early drinkie.
    Emma leaned forward with a knowing smile. “Also, Darcy sent me an e-mail.”
    “Ah.”
    I felt a lovely little spurt of arousal between my legs.
    “He wonders if you can meet him late on Friday night.”
    “Tell him yes, I can.”
    “I thought you’d say that,” Emma replied, giggling. She loved being the secret go-between for my affair. I never communicated with Darcy directly, and his name, of course, isn’t Darcy. But Emma and I are both suckers for
Pride and Prejudice,
even if Emma’s dream Darcy would look more like Sienna Miller.
    “Eleven o’clock at the apartment in Mayfair?” I said.
    “I’ll tell him.”
    “Order in some champagne, will you?”
    “Of course.”
    My week was looking up.

3

    I PACKED A SMALL BAG in my apartment on Friday morning. Nothing much. I