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Chapter Fourteen
The victory party moved to Bibi and Nate’s apartment where they, along with the rest of the Syracuse University fans, celebrated their historic win over USC. The festivities lasted a lot longer than Nate had planned. Considering he had to prepare for his presentation the next afternoon, he thought it would be prudent to stay the night, but with the after-image of Anna’s face burned into his eyelids, sleep wasn’t something he was able to achieve.
Being the great host Bibi was, a steaming pot of fresh coffee was waiting for Nate as he compelled his groggy body to get out of bed. He stumbled into the kitchen, where he nearly collapsed on the counter stool.
“Not that I’m stating the obvious, Nate, but you look like one of the mummies we dug up on our last exhibition,” Bibi poured the coffee.
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As soon as she opened her door, Anna’s cell phone buzzed. She didn’t have to look at the caller ID to know it was Elaine wanting to hear all the details about her going to Nate’s presentation. Elaine was disappointed that Anna didn’t have that much to tell her since she had only spoken to Nate for a few minutes and that was only to set up the meeting in her office to discuss his book.“You didn’t tell him anything about your dreams, or that sketch you drew, or that you’re suddenly speaking and reading a foreign language?”“No, he would have thought I was a nutcase. I will say that after hearing his presentation on Vashti, I might really be interested in his book. That’s what I plan to discuss with him tomorrow and nothing else. We’re meeting at eleven.”Elaine sounded disappointed. “That sounds boring. Try to get a good night’s sleep.”“I doubt I’ll
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Janet buzzed the intercom to let Anna know that her eleven o’clock appointment had arrived. Usually when she met with an author, especially for a previously unpublished author, they would be accompanied by their agent, or agents depending on their representation. Obviously that was another policy that Nathaniel Braverman either wasn’t aware, or chose to ignore as he had done by directly dropping off his manuscript. If only he knew as much about the publishing business as he did about basketball, Anna thought. She was more concerned about his knowledge of Vashti than either of the other two. Nate followed Janet into Anna’s office, mouthing a silent “he’s gorgeous” to Anna behind his back before she turned to leave. Seeing Nate under the bright florescent lights, Anna could make out more details in his face than she’d been able to during their earlier two brief encounter
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Walking on their way back to the office, Anna was so deeply involved with her own thoughts, she could just barely engage in the continuing conversation with Nate. What he had told her at lunch about his experience in Iran was, on its surface, completely unbelievable, but then again, so was her ordering an item off the menu that wasn’t there and her seeing a waitress momentarily transform into a different person.Then there was the author himself. From the moment she met him at the basketball game, Anna’s body had reacted with alarmingly familiarly. Anna definitely knew the reality of lust at first sight, having taken advantage of that instant attraction on numerous occasions, but she was never convinced there was such a thing as love at first sight. No, that kind of deep, emotional connection was only what she read about in the hundreds of romance novel submissions. Unti
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Anna was on her third martini when Elaine finally arrived at the bar. “Sorry, I’m late. I had a last-minute response that had to be filed with the court first thing in the morning and I didn’t want to write it under a hangover cloud.” Elaine stole Anna’s drink, then signaled for the bartender to make two more. “So, tell me everything!” “We better order some food. Everything is going to take a few hours.” By the time Anna finished telling Elaine the full story about her lunch with Nate, Anna’s misreading the menu and having another Vashti vision, what he had told her about how he came to write Vashti’s Daughter, and Henry&rsqu
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The editors and assistants at Steine and Steine respectfully focused their eyes away from their boss when Anna arrived at corporate headquarters two hours late. Without greeting anyone, Anna walked swiftly from the elevator to her office and closed the door. A few moments later, Janet entered carrying a stack of phone messages in one hand and a large cup of espresso in the other, which she carefully put on Anna’s desk.“I know an all-nighter when I see one,” her assisted whispered. “Dare I ask, work or play?”“All work all night. I finally finished reading Dr. Braverman’s manuscript.”“And?”“And it’s well written for academia. I’m just not sure how well it’s going to sell, which is, of course, the true determination. But, I’ve already offered him a contract based on specs. He should be meeting with Arty any minute, then they’ll come up here for final con
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For the next several hours, Anna, Nate, and Arthur discussed the details of the publishing contract Janet had previously printed out before the meeting. The first ten pages were mostly boiler plate with the names of the principles, date and title of the manuscript filled in. The rest of the twenty or so pages spelled out the terms regarding copyright ownership, publishing rights, and the most important detail; advance and royalties.With any other literary agent, Anna could negotiate percentages for days, but she knew Arty trusted her, as she did him, so it made the process go by much more smoothly. Besides, it was Elaine who had drawn up the original contract agreements, so she was more than confident her company, as well as the author and his agent, was fully protected. Anna sat back and watched as Arty explained the terminology before his client signed his name on each line. Even though her attention
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For the next several days, Anna didn’t have a spare second to think about her Vashti fantasy, as her concentration was totally immersed in the reality of preparing for the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Although the event was open to the public for only two days, for the publishers and authors, planning began weeks in advance. Even those years when Anna wasn’t scheduled as a guest speaker for a discussion panel, her and her staff was busy deciding which titles to spotlight at the event, scheduling her author’s personal appearances, book readings, signings submitting all the necessary information to the FOB by the deadline and praying there wouldn’t be any embarrassing last-minute changes to Steine & Steine’s line-up. When she had just started at Beacon Press, Anna painfully learned there was nothing more damaging to an author’s career than disappointed readers, when one of their star authors was a no-show, the backlash from
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- Vashti's Daughter Acknowledgements and References
- Vashti's Daughter Epilogue
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty-Six
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty-Five
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty-Four
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty-Three
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty-Two
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty-One
- Vashti's Daughter Chapter Thirty
