“I’m going to sit here and treat you like shit all day,” I said, sounding a lot more like Jake than myself. “You signed the author who clearly stole—not influenced, my first book. You failed to tell me about it when it first happened, stopped reaching out to me, and now you want to call me out of the blue and sit down with me for a cordial conversation? Do you honestly expect me to let you?”
“Enough!” She cut me off, her face beet red. “Enough, Gillian. Don’t you think I was hurt, too? Don’t you think I cried about it as well?”
“The tears must’ve dried up pretty fast, since you signed her to your agency.”
“I did not.” She glared at me. “That was a misprint. My partner signed her, but she was new at the time and she had no idea about what she’d done until after the contracts were signed. I would never have done that to you.
“But ignoring me for all these years and sending me generic holiday greetings was okay?’
“You either have a very distorted memory of what happened or you sincerely want to hate me,” she said. “I emailed you all the time. You stopped answering me. I called you every day for months and you didn’t pick up once, so of course, I stopped. You needed time to get over it, I figured, but I never stopped fighting for you, Gillian.” She looked genuinely hurt. “I’ve sold the rights to your first book in several countries. I’ve sent excerpts of it to magazines whenever I thought it would be a good fit, and I still have your unclaimed royalty checks in my desk drawer. I’ve mailed you the notices repeatedly, but you haven’t answered one in years.
I stared at her.
“I told you from the very beginning that I would never quit on you, that I believed in you, no matter what, and I do not deserve to be talked to like that. Ever. How would you feel if that pilot you’re dating talked to you that way?”
“Upset. Wait...” I paused. “How do you know about him?”
“Good question.” She smiled and pulled a folder from her bag. “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about today. But first, I want you to look at this.” She slid the folder to me. “It’s a book deal. North American rights only, so you would retain all foreign rights and you’d be able to sell those as you want.”
I stared at the file, not wanting to open it. The state of publishing was even worse today than it was back then. No one new received more than a couple thousand for an advance these days.
“What’s the advance this time?” I asked. “Seven dollars?”
“Close.” She sipped her tea. “Seven figures.”
“What?”
“See for yourself.”
I immediately flipped the folder open and read the top sheet.
There it was in black and white: A two million dollar offer for North American rights to some book I’d never written or even mentioned.
“What the hell is Turbulence?” I asked.
“Your blog posts.” She smiled. “I’ve been following you from the beginning. You’ve got about one hundred thousand words of material to work with already.”
What the ... “You’re KayTROLL?”
“Yes, very nice to ‘meet’ you in person. Well, again. Now, if you’re interested in taking this deal, you’ll have to change the—”
“No, no. no.” I interrupted her. “That was you leaving all those rude-ass comments all this time? Following my sex-life? Saying things that you knew would hurt my feelings?”
“First of all, you decided to blog about your sex life. I didn’t force you. Second, are you really going to sit there and talk to me about hurting someone’s feelings?”
“You once wrote “You’re a slut,” in the comments.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I said that you were ‘behaving’ slutty—which you were. Big difference.”
“You said I needed to grow the fuck up.”
“You did.” She smiled again. “And from what I’ve been reading over the past few years, you have. But if we’re going to discuss things we’ve both said, didn’t you once call me a “Backstabbing Bitch,” amongst other things, on your blog? And also, for your never published Times article?”
I sighed.
“I think we can both be mature and throw the mean comments under the bridge now. Don’t you think?”
“Yes...”
“Good. Now, back to this deal. In order for it to work, you’d have to turn eighty percent of the blog posts into more of a narrative. You can keep ten to fifteen of your favorite ones and have them printed as is, and you may have to do a few male-point-of-view chapters. It’d have to be super-fast, and you’d have to something unique with the chapter headings to separate the blog posts. Maybe airport gates—A1, A2, et cetera, for chapter headings? It would just have to be something non-chapter like, because they’d like to do an advanced publication for this.”
I leaned back in my chair as she continued.
“You should know that every editor I pitched this to wanted an immediate meeting, and I was as discreet as I could be. Before I could even suggest an auction, Penguin put this deal on the table and their promotional teams are already salivating to go the extra mile. What do you say?”
My mind was still spinning, my heart was still racing. “I need time to think about it.”
“What? Which part exactly needs to be thought about?”
“The part where the guy I fell in love with is in the story, the part where I’ll be putting him and our relationship out for the public. I know we’re over now, but—” I paused. “I’m still in love with him.”
“Understandable.” She nodded, lawyer-like. “You can change his name, distort a few of the facts. The deal is packaged for you to have creative freedom. It’s meta-fiction.”
“I just...” I shut the folder. “I’m honored, Kimberly. But this is way too fast. Thirty minutes ago, I despised you. Fifteen minutes ago, I tolerated you.”
“And now?”
“Now, I regret the way I’ve thought about you all these years.”
“It’s water under the bridge.” She leaned forward, tapping my hand. “Take all the time you need to think about this.”
“Do you really mean that, or does that phrase still mean the same thing as it did years ago?”
“Of course, it does.” She put her hand on her chest, laughing. “You’ve got until the end of the week.”
GATE C40
JAKE
Present Day
Penguin Acquires $2M Rights to Meta-Fiction Account of Elite Airways Stewardess’ Steamy Affair with Pilot
—The New York Times
I stared at the black and bold headline—wanting to believe the words were some type of joke, but the accompanying article held no humor.
Gillian Taylor, formerly published as “Taylor G.” was quoted as saying, “It was a very turbulent affair that occurred between the two of us. And yes, we did risk a lot by being in some of the places we were together. But through the ups and downs, I fell in love with this man and I wouldn’t change anything about the experience for the world. Well, minus our own personal ending in real life, of course.”
When asked if the subject of her novel had any fucking idea about what was happening, any idea about the fact that she was about to tell this story, she gave a short, “No comment.”
I couldn’t even finish reading the article in its entirety, not when I managed to make it through her short bio that detailed her previous time in publishing. Time she didn’t even think to share with me on the night I told her everything.
Everything...
Here I was, once again, reading about someone’s actions in my life via the ink of the press instead of getting the words in person. Once again, I was used and quickly betrayed, and someone I actually loved became another disappointment. Just like everyone else.
GATE C41
GILLIAN
New York (JFK)
I took a cab to Jake’s apartment around three in the morning, my heart unable to stand being ignored by him for another week. As the driver carele
ssly sped across the city streets, my anxiety rose with every click of the running meter.
“You alright back there?” the driver asked. “You like you’re about to vomit in my car.”
“I’m not going to vomit in your car.”
“You better not.” He eyed me through the rearview mirror. “I’ll have to charge you double for that. No, triple.”
I let out a sigh and kept my head turned toward the window, attempting to focus on the sight of Manhattan instead of my emotions.
When the cab finally pulled up in front of The Madison, I handed the driver a couple twenties and rushed right up the steps.
“Wait a minute, Miss.” Jeff held up his hand, not opening the door for me. “How may I help you tonight?”
“I’m here to talk to Jake.”
“I don’t know a Jake.”
“Mr. Weston, Jeff,” I said. “You know who I’m talking about. I need to see him.”
He gave me a sympathetic look and slowly shook his head. “He put you on his ‘Not Welcome’ list.”
“What?”
“You’ve been on it for weeks. I’m not supposed to let you in, and you’re actually banned from the property. Would you like me to arrange another cab for you?”
I was silent. I wasn’t even sure what to say.
Near tears, I took a couple steps back, but Jeff began to open the door for me.
“Hurry up,” he said, looking away and giving me a chance to rush inside.
I headed straight for the elevators, using the key Jake had given me to get up to his floor—hoping like hell it still worked. When the car began to move, I breathed a sigh of relief.
With every floor that passed, I attempted to calm my nerves, but it was no use. By the time I arrived to his level, I was an even bigger mess of emotions.
I walked over to his door and knocked five times.
No answer.
I knocked five more times, a little louder.
No answer.
I kicked at the door a few times—saying his name, and Jake finally answered, wearing nothing but a pair of lounge pants. Looking as if he’d just gotten out of the shower, water from his hair dripped onto his bare chest, and the familiar, intoxicating scent of his body wash wafted toward me.
“Thank you for finally answering the door,” I said, noticing the imprint of his cock through his pants.
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me.
Clearing my throat, I glanced behind him, noticing the television in the living room was on and blaring loudly. “Am I bothering you and someone else on a late-night date right now?”
“What the fuck do you want, Gillian?”
“I want to talk.”
“Are you sure about that? Perhaps you mean you want to write.” He sounded angry, but I could see a world of hurt in his eyes.
“I just want to talk to you. Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Well, can you step out here so I can—”
“Record it? Tape it? Use it for Turbulence Part Two? Or will the second novel have a different name?”
“I’m really sorry, Jake, and I really tried to tell you that night,” I said softly. “I told you it was important.”
“You told me it could wait.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You knew damn well something like that shouldn’t wait. Was that your motive all along? Was all this shit just a fucking project for you?”
“No, it wasn’t. I promise. I signed that deal when we weren’t talking for weeks, when I thought we were truly over. I don’t reveal anything specific about you. I don’t state your name anywhere and I—”
“You didn’t have to.” He clenched his jaw. “You didn’t have to give details about shit, Gillian, because guess what? Now you’ve got HR sitting every employee down and asking about how often we all fuck in-flight. What happens when they discover the other relationships that actually have substance? For the people without FCEs or million-dollar-book deals? What happens to them?”
“Nothing. It’s being marketed as meta-fiction.”
“Is that a new synonym for bullshit?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“And I said I didn’t care.”
“You’re not going to give me the chance to explain?” I wiped away a tear. “You’re just going to let what we had go? This is supposed to be love.”
“It was never love.”
“It was love the moment you gave up everyone else for me.”
“I did that so I could fuck you again. It had nothing to do with loving you. I hardly knew you.”
“You wanted to.”
“Is this what you came over in the middle of the night to do?” He wasn’t giving in. “Talk in circles? To keep running around each other until one of us gives up?” He held up his hands. “I give up. Now, what?”
“I’m not going to beg you to see what’s right in front of you, Jake.”
“You don’t have to, Gillian.” His voice was cold. “It’s very clear what’s currently in front of me: The past.”
My heart dropped.
“Now, if you would kindly get the hell away from me, and return to your adoring flock of fans who actually buy into the bullshit you’ve spun about us, I think you’ll be a lot happier in the long run.” He slammed the door in my face, and it took everything in me to resist the urge to knock on it again and force him to open it right back up. To hold off from storming inside and making him listen to me, but I held back.
I needed to let go of this for good.
We were finally done.
GATE C42
JAKE
Dallas (DAL)
I took a seat in the makeshift Personnel Office at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Marriott, noticing that unlike my previous experience here, there was no blue-suited witness, no files stacked all over the desk, and no digital recorder waiting to collect my every word.
There was only a red-haired woman with glasses sitting across from me, looking as if she’d been conducting these sessions far too long.
She adjusted her frames and clicked her ballpoint pen. “Good afternoon, Mr. Weston.”
“Good afternoon.”
“Could you take a look at the paper in front of you and read the first few lines aloud, please?”
“Sure.” I picked it up. “Elite Airways does not, under any circumstances, condone interpersonal relationships between any of its employees. If any employee is found to be involved in such a relationship, he or she may (depending on their position within the company), be subject to suspension, transfer, or termination.”
“Thank you.” She slid me a different sheet of paper. “Now, for the record, I am aware that you have an FCE and are nearly incapable of being fired for any reason. That said, so far, I’ve asked every pilot who’s scheduled to fly out of this city this week a certain list of questions, and I have to travel across the country over the next few weeks to ask hundreds more. So, please don’t take the following line of questioning personally. Did you, Jake Weston, ever have interpersonal relations with Gillian Taylor?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“Then I guess it has to be a no since I don’t know who that is.”
She raised her eyebrow and flipped open a folder. “Miss Taylor flew with you on numerous trips, Mr. Weston. During her last few months here, your schedules actually aligned thirty percent of the time. I’m not attempting to imply anything. I’m just asking if—”
“I said I have no idea who the fuck she is.” I glared at her. “Can we move on?”
“Fine.” She glared back, pressing the issue even further. She slid me a copy of an employee witness report. “Is this your signature? Confirming that you did see a passenger treat her inappropriately, upon landing at Houston, during a repositioning flight?”
“It looks forged.”
“There’s a video tape on file of you signing it.”
“Was I under duress at the time?”
“Mr. Weston,” she said, crossing her arms. “Did you confirm that you saw Gillian Taylor being treated inappropriately or not?”
“I did.” I relented. “Although, she wouldn’t be the first flight attendant I stood up for.”
“Actually, she would be.”
Silence.
“In all of your years as a pilot for other carriers, you’ve never vouched for any of your peers. Only Miss Taylor. Quite an interesting fact, isn’t it?”
“Only if you have a distorted definition of the word interesting.”
“Why would you vouch for her, Mr. Weston? And why did you vouch for her over something so simple? Were you jealous?”
“This is your attempt at not implying?”
“It’s my attempt at giving you a chance to be honest with me.” She looked me right in the eyes. “When I pulled your file a few minutes ago, I noticed that you updated it weeks ago. You listed a new emergency contact, one by the name of Gillian Taylor. Her phone number and address are actually identical to the ‘Gillian Taylor’ we’re currently discussing. Any idea how her name and your signature got there?”
I took the form out of the folder and quickly signed my name next to the “Never had any contact with Gillian Taylor” and “I understand the employee relations policy” boxes and stood up. “Is that all you need from me?”
“Yes.” She shook her head as I handed her the paper. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Weston.”
“My pleasure.”
GATE C43
GILLIAN
PENGUIN PUBLISHING’S UPCOMING RELEASE, TURBULENCE, ENJOYS DIZZINGLY HIGH PRE-ORDER SALES, EBOOK & PRINT
—USA Today
SOON TO BE RELEASED TURBULENCE REVEALS THE FALLACIES IN ELITE AIRWAYS’ NONFRATERNIZATION CLAUSE, REVEALS SEX IN-FLIGHT
—Flying Quarterly
PILOTS DECRY THE LOGISTICS OF “IN-FLIGHT SEX” IN UPCOMING NOVEL, TURBULENCE
—CNN
TWO PILOTS ADMIT TO HAVING SEX IN-FLIGHT AT LEAST ONCE DURING CAREERS, SAY ‘TURBULENCE’ COULD BE ACCURATE
—MSNBC
TURBULENCE, AN EROTIC ROMANCE, REACHES SOARING ALTITUDE ON BESTSELLERS’ CHART FIRST WEEK OF RELEASE