Jane Bites Back_ A Novel - Michael Thomas Ford [20]
Kelly laughed. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s not the first time someone has thought that. You should see how many query letters I get addressed to Ms. Littlejohn.” He glanced at her suitcase. “Let me take that for you,” he said.
“Oh, I can—” Jane began.
“I insist,” Kelly said, flashing a smile that lit up his whole face.
“All right,” Jane acquiesced, blushing as Kelly bent to take the case by the handle. Stop behaving like a schoolgirl, she scolded herself.
She followed Kelly as he held open the door. “After you,” he said, and again she couldn’t help thinking about how dashing he was. A true gentleman.
They walked down a hallway lined with offices. Inside each one an editor sat at a desk, peering at a computer screen. Jane glanced at their faces as she passed by. They all looked impossibly young, not at all like editors in her time, most of whom had been men well into the second half of their lives who peered out at the world from behind thick spectacles, their eyes ruined from years of reading in inadequate light, and their fingers perpetually ink-stained and chapped from constantly turning the pages of manuscripts.
“Here we are,” Kelly said, entering a corner office. “Welcome to my castle.”
The room was not terribly large. A desk, piled high with folders and what Jane assumed were manuscripts, sat in front of a bank of windows that looked out on the street. The floor too was covered with stacks of manuscripts, and one whole wall was taken up by shelves filled with books. Jane, relieved to see evidence of the publishing world she had always imagined, felt herself relax.
“It’s not much, but it’s all mine,” Kelly said. “Please, have a seat.”
Jane took one of the two chairs across from Kelly’s desk. She looked around the room, trying very hard not to stare at him. “Do you have to read all of these?” she asked, indicating the mountains of manuscripts.
“My assistant reads most of them first,” he answered. “But I try to look at everything. I like to make decisions for myself.”
Jane wondered if her manuscript had languished among the paper, and how Kelly had come to rescue it from the crowd.
“It’s something of a miracle that anything gets published at all,” said Kelly, as if reading her thoughts. “Especially an unsolicited manuscript such as yours. May I ask why you don’t use an agent?”
“It never occurred to me,” Jane answered truthfully.
Kelly laughed, shaking his head. “I must tell you, it’s refreshing to meet an author whose sole goal in life is to be published. Most authors come in here and I can tell that what they really want is to be famous. I don’t get that from you, or from your book.”
She wondered what Kelly would say if he knew that she was already one of the world’s most famous authors, was in fact arguably the most popular writer of all time. And that she very badly wanted to be published again.
“Most of them want to be Stephen King or Danielle Steele,” Kelly remarked. “I don’t know when authors went from being storytellers to being celebrities, but more and more I think we cast writers rather than publish them.”
Jane was nodding as she looked around the office. Then she noticed a book resting atop a pile on the corner of Kelly’s desk. Her heart sank.
Kelly’s eyes followed her gaze. “Oh, that,” he said, sighing. “This is exactly what I mean,” he added as he held up a copy of The Jane Austen Workout Book. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? But I guarantee you we’ll sell a hundred thousand copies.” He looked at the cover and snorted. “Austen would roll over in her grave,” he said.
“Indeed,” said Jane, chuckling with relief.
“You’re British,” Kelly said.
“Pardon?” said Jane. She was still staring at the image of herself on the book’s cover.
“Your accent,” Kelly said. “It’s British.”
“Oh,” said Jane. “Yes, it is.”
“How long have you lived in America?” Kelly asked.
Jane laughed lightly. “It seems like a hundred years. My parents moved here when I was quite young,” she added quickly.
“I thought there was a British sensibility to your writing,” said