E.J.B

A sudden notice of consciousness awakens me as gray streaks of sun pierce my eyes. Good morning New York. Even though I'm still in the same time zone, I can never adjust myself here. I frisk down my covers until I find my phone. 7:08, perfect timing. No new messages or text, well, I guess it's still early. I rise from the heavenly bed and begin to make myself look like the next best-selling author.

Hot beads of water dance along my back. What will today bring, success or failure? But can one live without the other? I float off into thought until a phone call interrupts my train. I grab the phone from outside of the shower; it's Mari. Maybe I spoke too soon about it being too early. I answer with full shower jets roaring in the background. A low 7 AM voice creeps into my ear, which turned me on a little bit. We exchange good mornings as he wishes me a great day and knows that they will give the green light this time. Words continue to pass through my ears as I try to figure out how he would see my latest draft quality. The draft that I have been trying to get him to read for three weeks now. I avoid a potential argument and accept my good wishes. I know he wouldn't be on my line right now if I didn't leave him for real this time. I lie and blame it on my family's recent death, but it's the clinginess that isn't sitting well with me in actuality. Ever since my father was murdered, I honestly haven't had the desire to be kissed, caressed, or even touched. The feeling is like hives activating all around my body. To make him feel better, I tell him that I am thinking about changing flight and catching the red-eye back to Atlanta tonight. He persuades me to stay and to enjoy the city on the company's dime, which is a valid point. I finish my call and shorten my shower, not realizing time was inching closer and closer to 9 AM.

I pick out this deep burgundy dress from my travel bag with a navy blazer and matching pumps, a cute ensemble for a day in the city. An up-do felt suitable for the climate. March is no joke along the east coast. The rain, humidity, heat waves, more thunderstorms, random ass cold fronts, you get the whole shebang. I check the time once more. It reads 8:20; let's do it. I grab my portfolio, my bag, and zip out the door.

I decide to walk to the office instead of taking a taxi. Knowing NY traffic, I would be waiting for 30 mins to get down six blocks. One of the main reasons I won't move here. "It's where your home base is ... you should be close to us..." says the publishing company that has had me on draft lock up for two years now. I couldn't help but laugh as if they were joking. I've never been a fan of this city. The congestion, the consistent hustle, and bustle, not driving my vehicle with comfort?! Yeah, no thanks. I tell them that it will negatively affect my creativity, which is not a lie. I see the world differently from the outer circle of the United States. I don't have to be in a major city to do what I do. I can write anywhere, but I prefer it in Savannah.

It's been a long time coming. I'm finally back into a stable routine. Mari and I are on good terms. Together? No. My consistent trips to Atlanta don't help the situation either, so I guess I feedback into it. I am out of crucial writer's block. Usually, pain and tragedy are the fuel for my creativity. Never would I have thought that it would use me and then leave me an empty vessel. But who puts a limit on healing when it's your parent, right?

I approach 8th Ave. I think of the last time I was at the office. It was August 2016, the summer that will go down in the books for its iconic nature. I had just received my advance for a third book. I remember sprinting to the office and handed a white envelope that I was itching to open. I waited until I got in my taxi and tore it open, revealing a check for $20,000. I immediately redirected the taxi driver to Saks off 5th and bought my first designer bag, a 2016 Yves Saint Laurent Baby Sac De Jour. It's funny that two years, three drafts, and $20,000 less, we are here again.

Redrafting is not the problem when it comes to a publishing company accepting your latest submission; it's the content. I am a fiction writer, so it makes sense for my stories to be over the top when it comes to realistic and logistical plot points. I sit across three executives, two females, one male, all white, except for one, I think. She gives biracial, but it's that in-between shade that could be, "oh yeah, I know about my black parent's side of the family, but I prefer the Upper East Side." She's dressed in a black dress with a white blazer draped over her shoulders, very much early for the season. We exchanged eye contact a matter of 3 times within this 45-minute meeting. The other two have laid out a script to say. Glad we aren't writing for comedic television.

"Do you have any more samples that we can review while you are in town?" says the only gentleman in the middle of two silent women. Tom always has something to say about my work. It never just ends with the professional critique. These questions are foreign to me. A 2-year writer's block, and you are asking for extra samples?! Am I speechless?

"So let me get this straight; what is the issue with the 3rd draft? I thought you all agreed on the ending being altered to fit more of a universal understanding of death rather than relating it to my personal feelings towards the specific death. Am I missing something?"

Hairs raise in their backs as my words set off alarms within their senses. Tom backtracks. "Oh no, no no, what I am attempting to say is that we have read your latest drafts, and we love it. We feel as right now, with you being so heavily focused on healing from this personal episode in your life, that maybe it would be best to let you hold on to it and move forward with something else in your archives. I take a short but patient pause to make my next words less hard than they sound in my head. I couldn't sugarcoat anymore. "And if I don't have anything else?" Tom takes a hard gulp of guilt saliva to tell me, "Well, with your lack of drafts and content, we will have to drop you from your contract with no severance." No, now I'm speechless. No words, all movement. I politely stand up from my seat, grab my Y.S.L. bag from the floor and place it on the table. I put on my blazer, one that is in the right season. "Well, it was a pleasure working with you all."

I make my way toward the door. "We look forward to seeing the progression of your work, Ms. Montgomery." I stop at the foot of the door. Tom didn't say that. I look back to see homegirl's hazel eyes staring me down. She hasn't said anything to me this whole hour-long meeting. As I swing the door open and strut through the hall, I chuckle as if the meeting went in my favor. Did she think that was cute? Acceptable? Like I'd rather her has said nothing at all. How many books has she written in her mulatto lifestyle? 

DING! The elevator notifies its presence. The doors open to a tall gentleman standing in the corner of the metal box. A brother, 6'3ish, brown skin with an expensive taste in drip. I walk in and stand in the opposite corner. "Floor?" He asks. "Lobby... please." He lightly taps the button, and the elevator descends to the ground. As much as my mind was still trying to process the fact that I was just fired, I couldn't help but stare at the gentleman. Besides his attractive essence, he only had a laptop and a little black notebook with a pen attached to the front hardcover. He must work here. An author? Executive? Assistant? I couldn't put my pen on it. You'd you think being signed to a predominantly white publishing company for four years, you'd know your fellow signees, especially if they are cocoa butter brown as he is.

The elevator stops, and the doors split to a meeting of people that flood the box, leaving no space for him or Jesus Christ himself. The gentleman pushes through the crowd of people and steps off the elevator just before the doors close. We descend. Well, there goes my distraction from reality. I never was a fan of crowded spaces, especially with strangers. Before another thought could escape my synapses, we land on the lobby floor, and the congestion releases from the metal box. As I make my exit, I see a black book face down on the opposite corner of the elevator. I pick it up and try to remember the floor that the man got off on. The doors begin to close. I halt them and go to the receptionist's desk. 

A good samaritan duty is the first thing you do when you get dropped from your publishing company. Ha! I get to the desk to find the young receptionist quite occupied with her FaceTime call on the clock. I interrupt. "Hi, um, yes. I am an author for Fredricks Publishing; I found this book in the elevator. A gentleman dropped it while he was leaving." She spins her eyes in the back of her head as if I had given her a seizure or something, strike one. "Okay, ma'am, why didn't you give it to the man?". I swallow my initial thought that would have been overtly rude but would get my whole point across. "I was unable to get it to him. I found the book after the fact when he had already left." She rolls her eyes once more in agitation, strike two. "Well do you know the man's name, ma'am?" My resting bitch face becomes present as if she didn't just hear me say that he was a stranger in the elevator. How the hell am I supposed to know his name! Before I could find a rebuttal with a smart-ass remark, I open the book for a name. The inside of the cover is blank. I flip to the next page and see the initials E.J.B.

I flip for more to find scribbled smudged black writing, a list to be exact printed on the 4th page—a list of names stricken out along the margins, except for one.

Madison Oglethorpe

Alyssa Masone

Felicia Reynolds

Winter Montgomery

I shut the book harder than expected. "Did you find the name, ma'am?" she asks impatiently. "Yes! Yes, I did. Apologize for the inconvenience." I turn around and exit the building. I walk to the corner of 8th Ave and stop. I open the book again and flip through the rest of the pages, empty. I flip back to the first page and look at the initials to figure out who the hell is E.J.B. and why the hell is my name in their book!