Page 13 of Trip Me Up
5
SAM
I stampedmy boots on the mat just inside the café and ran my hands over my sleeves to sluice off some of the water. I peeked inside my tote bag, which I’d shoved under my jacket.
“You okay, Bilbo Baggins?” I whispered.
The bag shook with the force of his waggly butt.
“Good. Me, too.”So far.
I scanned the café but didn’t see Heidi or Dr. Martell yet. My stomach unclenched a little as I chose a table far away from the group of laughing teenagers and close to a window and the white noise of the pattering rain. Maybe they wouldn’t show. What could we have to talk about, anyway? I’d signed the papers, just like they’d told me to do.
The door opened, and I looked up, but it was only a couple, their hands in each other’s back pockets. They took seats in the opposite corner, near the teenagers. I’d give Martell and Heidi fifteen minutes. Wasn’t that the rule for professors? He was always on time, so it’d never mattered. I checked my watch and tossed a dog treat into my tote bag. Bilbo Baggins crunched it with his tiny teeth.
Ten minutes later, Heidi walked in, shaking out a black umbrella. When she spotted me, she smiled, sharp, and strode to the table.
“Samantha!” She held her arms wide.
I stilled for her hug and let her make loud air-kisses near both cheeks. Where I was going with my Ph.D., there’d be no air kisses. No cafés. Just my quiet lab and Bilbo Baggins waiting for me at home.
She waved over the server before taking a seat on the other side of the round table. After we placed our orders, I blurted out, “Where’s Dr. Martell?”
“He doesn’t need to be here for this. Our discussion today involves only you and me.”
I swallowed. “Do you have everything you need? Do I need to send you the manuscript in a different format? Or, um, spellcheck it?” Not that CASE ever made spelling errors. But I didn’t know anything about book publishing. The few academic papers I’d worked on with Dr. Martell had involved a lot of fussiness around format and grammar, which was one of the things we were—had been—trying to ease with CASE.
“No, no.” She tinkled out a laugh and waved away my questions like she’d shoo away a fly. “We need to talk about promotion.”
“Promotion?” My brain churned to find context for the word but came up empty.
She pressed her lips together as if she were trying to hold back words and a smile at the same time. Her eyes sparkled. “We’re sending you on a book tour next spring.”
My brain scrambled again for purchase but slipped on the nonsensical words. “A…a book tour? And you needmeto go?”
“The book can’t go on tour by itself.” Her laugh tinkled again like breaking glass. “Readers want to meet the author.”
“But I’m not—” Dr. Martell knew my reading struggles, so he’d pointed out the clauses in the contract that had specified the consequences for breaking the confidentiality agreement. And since I’d donated my trust fund when I’d turned twenty-five, I didn’t have the cash to fight anyone in court. Nerves clawed up from my stomach into my throat, making me whisper. “I’m not the author.”
Heidi’s glittering eyes turned lethal. “Of course you are, Samantha. Your pen name will be printed on the cover. You are Sam Case.”
The server returned with our mugs of coffee, and I cradled mine in my hands to hide how they trembled. “What do I have to do?”
She turned down the flame in her eyes. “We’re still working out the schedule. I’d estimate a dozen cities over three weeks. Most of the events will take place in bookstores. You’ll do a book talk, then a signing.”
“A book talk?” I didn’t have anything to say about books. My lungs had forgotten how to work. I was drowning right there in the café.
Her eyes widened. “I almost forgot to tell you the best part! You’ll have a tour partner, Niall Flynn.”
That shocked my lungs back into action. “What? But I—”
“Niall happens to be a Happy Troll author, and he’s coming out with a new book this spring.” She slipped a hand into her designer tote and pulled out a thick hardcover. The cover did look familiar, an illustration of a pointy-eared person wearing a deep green cloak and sitting astride a snow-white horse. A long sword gleamed at his side. I took a few seconds to decipher the title at the top.Secrets of the Wood Elves.“You read this one, right?”
“Oh. Shit.” Of course I hadn’t read it. I’d never try to read anything that thick. Not anymore. I’d just loaded the file into CASE. Was she trying to punish me for it? How awkward was it going to be when I showed up on tour and said,So, hey, your book helped create this novel I totally didn’t write, but let’s pretend I did?
As if she could read the thoughts on my face, she said, “Don’t worry about Niall. I’ll take care of him. Just remember the NDA. It’d be better if you didn’t talk with him about”—her gaze darted around the coffee shop before she whispered the end of the sentence—“A.I. His father’s Paul Swift, the creator of the Swiftphone, you know.”
I’d met Paul Swift a few times at the events Mother dragged me to. Tech people orbited him like planets trapped in the sun’s gravitational field. No wonder Niall was so vibrant. His father was, too.
