Chapter 25 Melody Huber

CHAPTER 25 MELODY HUBER

2005

New York City

My role in this story is obvious: I’m the agent who saved The Very Last from the slush pile. I’ve recounted the events of that day a hundred times, at every dinner party I’ve ever attended. The price for my invitation. But usually I hold back, remove some of my favorite details—not everyone deserves to know everything. But here, now, I won’t hold back.

The day I discovered the manuscript, and subsequently Cate Kay, began as one of the worst of my professional career. I was thirty years old and had been in publishing, at the same literary agency, for all eight years since graduating from Brown. The first two I spent as an intern at Eloquence, then two more as an assistant, then the last four as the least productive agent in the agency’s history. Perhaps I’m exaggerating. But I don’t think so. In four years, I’d sold just five books. For context, one of my colleagues once closed two deals in one day, and the top agent sold twenty-one books one year. How was I so terrible at the job I’d wanted since I was a little girl? No idea.

It was the Thursday heading into Memorial Day weekend, which was the start of summer and when the agency world slows to a crawl.

“Why hello, Melody,” was how the founder of the firm, a sleek, gray-haired man named Dempsey Carroll, greeted me each morning, and he did so again on this one. He was chatting with the woman who runs the front desk, and I was just trying to get past them to my cubicle without having to look anyone in the eye. Being unable to sell in a selling business steadily erodes your confidence, and at this point my ego was in font size two. I assumed everyone around the office was equally embarrassed by my performance.

“Good morning, Dempsey,” I said without looking up. I was wearing a modest blue-and-white flower sundress that hit around mid-shin with a pair of basic flats. Everything about me back then screamed average. Because of the way Dempsey had greeted me—like every other day—I did not expect anything out of the ordinary. Looking back on it, I’m certain that all the other agents expected me to quit that spring instead of continuing to pull a paycheck during the summer doldrums. Some self-respect is what they believed I should have. As for me, I did have self-respect. I respected my self enough to continue getting paid for as long as possible. Especially since I worked hard, even if it wasn’t producing results.

On my way to my desk, as I did at the end of every week, I gathered the slush pile into my arms, which always made me look like a disorganized mailroom attendant, tan envelopes spilling every which way. I sat down and stacked all the mail into a neat pile. When I did this, I felt like a dealer at the end of a shuffle, tucking in every wayward card.

“Hey, Melody-girl.” Dempsey appeared suddenly by my side—and, before you ask, yes , I did hate that he called me Melody-girl , but when you can’t sell shit, you find it hard to accuse your boss of belittling you with his language. When I looked at him, he’d twisted his mouth into a strange shape, then said, “Hey, when you get a minute, come pop into my office.”

That’s not the kind of invitation you delay on, so I gave the slush pile one final tap, then said, “I can come now.” Reading unsolicited manuscripts was one of my favorite parts of the job, and I looked forward to gathering the pile each week and lugging them home. Going to garage sales was also my thing, that sense of possibility with each stop, and a slush pile tapped into the same energy for me. Luckily, none of my colleagues felt the same, so the wasteland of buried gems was all mine. That morning as I walked away from my desk, I glanced back at the crisply stacked manilla envelopes with longing. How much I’d rather be opening and reading them than following Dempsey Carroll into his bigwig office.

“Grab a seat,” he said, gesturing to one of the chairs as he did that annoying thing of half sitting, half standing against the corner of his desk. He smoothed his tie and folded his hands in his lap. (My first thought: Did he see that in a movie? My next: Oh, this isn’t gonna be good .)

Why couldn’t I sell anything? I was as confused as anyone. Reading was my favorite activity, and always had been. I was meticulous and had good taste. And yet, all the data would suggest I was in the wrong profession. I’d started to believe maybe I was, too.

Maybe , I’d started thinking in that last year at Eloquence, being a literary agent was less about the words and more about schmoozing and glad-handing, at which I would proudly admit I was terrible. Most days I spent entirely at my desk, reading, writing letters to authors I admired, following the trades, making lists. I loved it. My fellow agents spent their time out of the office, at endless coffee and lunch meetings with authors and editors.

I had never been popular. My eyesight was bad—a genetic thing—and I was fitted for those thick glasses that some babies have to wear, and as I got older the easiest way to explain who I became is to point back to that and say, “Now imagine her as a full-grown person.” During school lunches, I read my favorite book tucked into a bathroom stall, and even back then my mom would say, “Melody, shouldn’t you try to make some friends?,” which I now see as foreshadowing my early failures as an agent.

I remember looking at Dempsey with desperation. He could see the panic bleeding into my eyes, and he didn’t like it; it made him uneasy. I felt a surge of fondness for him in that moment, even though I was increasingly certain what was about to happen.

“Melody, kiddo,” he said. (Again, I was thirty years old.) “This just isn’t working out the way we wanted.” He stopped there, hoping this was enough, hoping that I’d fill in the rest for him. A pen was nestled in a groove on his desk, and he lifted it. This seemed to provide him comfort. I felt like I’d swallowed an ice cube that was slowly melting its way down my throat and into my stomach, freezing me from the inside.

Back then, my entire, meager existence was dependent on being a literary agent. I’d moved to New York after one summer home in Chicago, and in those many years I’d made only one friend—a girl I’d gone to college with who happened to live in the same terrible building as me and whom I met up with about once a week so we could both tell others we “had plans” and thus convince ourselves that we were thriving in this lonely metropolis. If Eloquence fired me, not only was I out of a job, and money, and a reason to stay, but I was also out of the only professional field for which I’d ever thought myself qualified.

Staring at Dempsey’s sad, sad eyes, I realized: He probably wouldn’t write me a letter of recommendation, either. My stomach was cold. I looked at the ceiling. I was going to have to move home and become a librarian. This was the backup plan that my subconscious had concocted years ago, but that I never allowed myself to form into a full thought… until right then. A librarian in my hometown. I didn’t want to imagine it. Bookworm life was for me, but I’d hoped New York would transform me, Anne Hathaway–style, into the most urbane version of myself.

“We’re going to give you a week of severance for every year you’ve been here.” He sounded proud of himself for this. Eight weeks of my embarrassingly low salary.

And that’s how the principal agent at Eloquence fired me without actually saying the words. Of course, most things in life are conveyed without using precision, which is why I loved books so much. The people in them were scared and rarely said what they meant, but the best authors used words like swords to slice through it all.

Dempsey stood and so did I, mirroring his movements so I could get out of this sticky moment.

“You don’t need to stay the day, obviously.” Dempsey was in the doorway now, gesturing toward my desk. I was now also in the doorway, and that’s when I saw the stacked brown envelopes and the rest of the items on my desk, mostly just junk. Those manuscripts would be my going-away present.

“Do you need any help with your things?” Dempsey was biting his inner lip, and though social awkwardness was my calling card, even I could tell the correct answer to this question was no. “I’ll be fine,” I said. A few minutes later everyone saw me leave with that final slush pile, and nobody tried to stop me; if anything, they were probably relieved that I was clearing the mailroom floor one last time. I took this as tacit agreement that the manuscripts were now mine.

Picture me in my shoebox apartment in a Hell’s Kitchen walk-up (fifth floor), the apartment so small the bathroom door only partially opened before it hit the sink. Now picture me at the round table in the kitchen, enough surface area for a single plate and a glass. Or for a stack of manuscript envelopes, which were in front of me that night. How much hope did I have for this last set of diamonds in the rough? More than was justified. Of the five books I had sold, none were from the slush pile, though I had found three clients from it and was hopeful for their futures.

More than once that night, I wondered what I was even doing opening this mail: If I found something amazing, I no longer worked for Eloquence. But I kept opening, kept reading, kept hoping, kept telling myself I would cross that bridge if I came to it, which I probably wouldn’t.

When people have asked me, over the years, to explain how I discovered The Very Last , I don’t think of it as a moment; I think of it as the final scene in a long movie, one that began with me in the back seat of every car ride I took as a kid, buried in some book. A world exists where I leave those envelopes on my desk at Eloquence. This version of my life is not difficult for me to imagine; I have pictured it every day of my life since. Am I the most successful literary agent in the world, or am I one everyday decision from becoming a librarian in Cook County? I am both, always.

Seventeen, the number of manuscripts in the pile. I counted them before opening any and pulled one aside, as if it were a tarot card. My chosen one.

The first ten manuscripts I opened were all bad in the same way, and I dropped them on the floor at the base of my stool. I had six manuscripts left in the stacked pile, and the one “special” manuscript that I’d separated and propped up like a picture frame against a (garage sale) lamp.

My guess is you’ve assumed this envelope held Cate Kay’s manuscript. It didn’t.

I finished my dinner (microwaved), sat back down on the stool, and took a deep breath. I had only a few envelopes left, and savoring each was paramount. I lifted the next one and looked at the return address: Cate Kay. Crazy, but I remember thinking that was a great name, and my interest was immediately piqued. The address was local to New York, a law firm somewhere near Columbia University. I carefully slid my finger under the flap, then tenderly removed the pages, like they themselves were the work of art. First, the title page.

And then, that first propulsive sentence: With time, Samantha Park would become a legend. Okay, I thought to myself, strong start; I’m interested in how this woman becomes a legend.

I kept reading. In the background of my mind, hope began swirling, even as I told myself to calm down, that the story would likely crash and burn. The premise was ambitious. It was unlikely that an unknown author could pull it off and stick the landing. But by the final paragraph of the first chapter, I was hooked.