The Beginning
“I think Aphra needs more backbone,” says the Editor. Théo looks at the Editor’s smart camel coat, draped carelessly off the back of the Editor’s Scandinavian desk chair.
“What do you mean?” Théo asks.
“I mean, look.” The Editor flips through the manuscript like a professional poker player shuffling cards. “Here. ‘She spends so much time crying. It seems like her tears would run dry after so long.’” The Editor looks up at Théo.
Théo is quiet for a moment.
“I think you can be strong and vulnerable at the same time.”
“Of course. The problem is, she’s not strong at all. She’s a rebel, isn’t she? She kills her warden and breaks out of the Enclave before chapter one. You tell me that she does that, but you only show me…” The Editor checks a sticky note on the front page. “Well, I’ve counted thirteen different mentions of crying. She thinks about her dead boyfriend almost constantly. And even with the new love interest… Uh, Llewellyn” The Editor smiles, to soften the blow. “It’s just not very romantic.”
“I think – I mean, the whole point is that she’s traumatized.”
“But she loves him, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah. She’s supposed to.”
“She doesn’t act like it. It’s definitely very clear that she’s traumatized. But she’s thought of her dead boyfriend in two different sex scenes, and both times it’s made her have to go off and cry.”
Théo keeps looking at the camel coat. She fancies that she can see some black cat hair on the lapel.
“It’s just a bit much. Aphra just doesn’t ever seem to learn anything,” says the Editor. “She careens from one catastrophe to another. She just seems to accumulate more and more things to be sad about.”
There is a polite knock at the office door. The Secretary opens it a crack, and tells the Editor that the next author is here for their meeting. The Editor gets to her feet and closes the marked-up manuscript, before handing it to Théo.
“She needs to develop. No one could go through what she went through without getting some spine.”
Théo nods and allows herself to be shown out.