“I’m not trying to be ungrateful, but I think I deserve to know why one of the most famous actresses of all time would pluck me out of obscurity to be her biographer and hand me the opportunity to make millions of dollars off her story.”
“The Huffington Post is reporting that I could sell my autobiography for as much as twelve million dollars.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Inquiring minds want to know, I guess.”
The way Evelyn is having so much fun with this, the way she seems to delight in shocking me, lets me know that this is, at least a little bit, a power play. She likes to be cavalier about things that would change other people’s lives. Isn’t that the very definition of power? Watching people kill themselves over something that means nothing to you?
“Twelve million is a lot, don’t get me wrong . . .” she says, and she doesn’t need to finish the sentence in order for it to be completed in my head. But it’s not very much to me.
“But still, Evelyn, why? Why me?”
Evelyn looks up at me, her face stoic. “Next question.”
“With all due respect, you’re not being particularly fair.”
“I’m offering you the chance to make a fortune and skyrocket to the top of your field. I don’t have to be fair. Certainly not if that’s how you’re going to define it, anyway.”
On the one hand, this feels like a no-brainer. But at the same time, Evelyn has given me absolutely nothing concrete. And I could lose my job by stealing a story like this for myself. That job is all I have right now. “Can I have some time to think about this?”
“Think about what?”
“About all of this.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. “What on earth is there to think about?”
“I’m sorry if it offends you,” I say.
Evelyn cuts me off. “You haven’t offended me.” Just the very implication that I could get under her skin gets under her skin.
“There’s a lot to consider,” I say. I could get fired. She could back out. I could fail spectacularly at writing this book.
Evelyn leans forward, trying to hear me out. “For instance?”
“For instance, how am I supposed to handle this with Vivant? They think they have an exclusive with you. They’re making calls to photographers this very moment.”
“I told Thomas Welch not to promise a single thing. If they have gone out and made wild assumptions about some cover, that’s on them.”
“But it’s on me, too. Because now I know you have no intention of moving forward with them.”
“So?”
“So what do I do? Go back to my office and tell my boss that you’re not talking to Vivant, that instead you and I are selling a book? It’s going to look like I went behind their backs, on company time, mind you, and stole their story for myself.”
“That’s not really my problem,” Evelyn says.
“But that’s why I have to think about it. Because it’s my problem.”
Evelyn hears me. I can tell she’s taking me seriously from the way she puts her water glass down and looks directly at me, leaning with her forearms on the table. “You have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here, Monique. You can see that, right?”
“Of course.”
“So do yourself a favor and learn how to grab life by the balls, dear. Don’t be so tied up trying to do the right thing when the smart thing is so painfully clear.”
“You don’t think that I should be forthright with my employers about this? They’ll think I conspired to screw them over.”
Evelyn shakes her head. “When my team specifically requested you, your company shot back with someone at a higher level. They only agreed to send you out once I made it clear that it was you or it was no one. Do you know why they did that?”
“Because they don’t think I—”
“Because they run a business. And so do you. And right now, your business stands to go through the roof. You have a choice to make. Are we writing a book together or not? You should know, if you won’t write it, I’m not going to give it to anyone else. It will die with me in that case.”
“Why would you tell only me your life story? You don’t even know me. That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you.”
“What are you after, Evelyn?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“I’m here to interview you.”
“Still.” She takes a sip of water, swallows, and then looks me right in the eye. “By the time we are through, you won’t have any questions,” she says. “All of these things you’re so desperate to know, I promise I’ll answer them before we’re done. But I’m not going to answer them one minute before I want to. I call the shots. That’s how this is going to go.”