Suzanne closed the door carefully, as wary of its ancient wood as of the publishing house’s history. She turned her back on the stone pillar and faced her colleague. “He used to say nothing would stop a publication date. Something’s happened to him.” She shook her head, not a strand of her bob out of place.
Tom tapped a foot rhythmically. “The System—it’s got him, at last. He’s protecting his arse.”
“It’ll hit our sales targets and cost his bonus. What a job, he must hate it.”
“He’s paid well.” Tom hurried away, his trainers slapping on the hard floor.
At the coffee bar, Suzanne spoke to a friend: “Two years I’ve spent getting our digital and print publications out on time—now this.”
Her friend frowned: “You’ll have to tell everyone; pull the launch event.”
Suzanne studied the froth of her cappuccino, its delicate sunflower pattern.
“How will the author take it?”
“Badly. It’s the pinnacle of his career, and he’s planned a big promotional campaign.”
“You’ll tell him?”
Suzanne dipped a spoon into the cappuccino and stirred until the sunflower disappeared.
Back in the open-plan office, she passed Tom and his two bean-pole assistants by the plastic yucca tree. He had angled his computer monitors to hide the screens.
He didn’t look up, but his right foot tapped.
Suzanne sat at her computer and stared at her phone. She needed to make the calls, warn people, and do it before Tom blurted rumours and the whole thing spun out of control.
She drafted messages, revising them again and again, rigorously avoiding the Send button. The moment one went, the rumour mill would start.
Instead, she made notes for her call to the author and his agent. Planning would help, but he was too much of a gentleman to raise his voice. What Suzanne feared most was the call he’d make immediately afterwards: to his golfing partner, the publisher’s chief executive.
The CEO fired her predecessor: a security guard with a cardboard box, no goodbyes, and bad-mouthing followed.
She searched for a letter she’d sent a month ago—evidence that she’d done the right thing. It was missing. She wasted an hour hunting, without success. How? Who?
Then she remembered something in the letter that would make Tom look bad.
Her stomach muscles contracted—not with anger, but with sorrow.
She left her messages unsent. Nobody should get bad news in the evening when they can’t respond. And maybe there was a way out of this mess.
Morning came. She’d slept badly, risen early, and cleaned the house to work off her frustration.
At her desk, her first task was to arrange a video call with the author and his agent. She tried to soften it. “The delay is not certain—not yet.”
He sat stone-faced while his agent asked the questions. The author’s only words were: “Thank you”.
Suzanne looked at the unsent messages to everyone else. She still did not send them.
Twenty minutes later, a friend of a friend warned Suzanne that the author had called the chief executive.
After an hour, Suzanne again stood with Tom by the pillar outside their boss’s office. “You…” His lips pursed, as if to swear. He paused, rephrased: “You knew! You knew all along, didn’t tell me, and let me make a fool of myself in there.” His ceaseless foot-tapping stopped.
She gripped the rail to the stairs. “No. I didn’t know he was being promoted. Neither of us did.”
“I meant, you knew he was testing us, looking for a successor—someone who’d protect the publisher’s reputation and the authors. Total rubbish. First rule is to protect your own back.”
Suzanne winced. “You think I want his job? Never. I’d hate it.”
The ideas and text for this story are mine. AI was used for research, analysis, editorial testing and image generation.