The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara
Nineteen
I find his social media profiles. All with the same photo, all of them just promoting his books. No email address listed anywhere, no nothing.
Then articles in newspapers and magazines. Most of them talk about his books, have reviews or news. People Magazine, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune. None of the articles are recent. The latest one is from early 2016 from what I can tell. He’s mentioned in passing. There’s a photo that basically everyone republished of him and an attractive young woman. Arm in arm at an awards ceremony. The caption says, “Ethan and Isabella Delphy, March 2016.” She’s grinning; he’s again sort-of-smiling. Or maybe that’s how he smiles.
She’s in a long, light blue dress, and he’s wearing a two-piece dark suit, and compared to her he seems tall. She’s much younger than him. Maybe early twenties.
I can’t help but stare at how fancy she is. For what it’s worth, they look like a match. At least in the way they dress. I look down at my jean overalls and I don’t need to see myself in the car’s mirror to know my hair is a mess—let’s call it a ponytail. I would never look this good, even if I had to go to the Oscars. The whole ‘I clean up nicely’ doesn’t apply to everyone.
He’s facing the camera. With that beard and the fancy glasses, he looks like one of those guys in aftershave commercials. For some reason, I pictured all Carmel men to be the full ‘T-shirt, flip-flops, sunglasses, and tousled hair’ package. I hope that’s how Max is.
Alisa texts. It’s a screenshot of a webpage. A two-month book tour for June After Midnight that starts in less than three weeks; on my birthday, to be exact. The first stop is Carmel by the Sea, then SF, LA, Phoenix, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charlotte, Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC, Hartford, Boston, Portland, Chicago and Seattle.
She calls me.
“OK, so here’s what I have so far. Max is most certainly a friend, which confirms what we knew. I found some mentions of how he uses his social circle for inspiration.”
“I saw that too,” I say.
“I also found a press release. They’re making a movie for one of his books and he’s set to leave for New Zealand right after the book tour I just sent over. He’ll be gone for a while.”
“He can go to Antarctica for five years for all I care. He can probe the penguins for stories, see how that goes.”
“Are you OK?” she asks.
“Fine. Just having a bit of a meltdown.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“The whole idea of this book, parading my feelings out to the world, unnerves me. I don’t want to find out the truth at the same time a million other people do. I deserve better.”
“That’s why I’m trying to get you his email and the book. Try to calm down, please.”
“I’m calm,” I say, while having a very public tantrum in the middle of the Upper East Side. And on a Sunday no less. I’m taking this very well…
“The only reason I told you about the book tour and the movie is that it might be harder to get answers from him once he’s on the road. But, that’s over two weeks away; plenty of time.”
“Plenty,” I repeat.
“Wait,” she says. “Just got a reply from his agent’s assistant. She says he can be contacted directly via his author’s website. And if it’s related to movie rights blah blah and translation rights et cetera, we should contact X and Y. Unrelated. OK, so go to his website.”
“I was just there and didn’t see an email. Let me check again. I’ll put you on speaker.”
“OK.”
I go back to his website and click on every button and link until, finally, at the bottom of his ‘about’ page, which is a rehash of the Wikipedia info, I see a basic contact form.
Want to get in touch? I might not be able to answer each and every message, and even if I do reply, it might take me a while to get to it, but here it goes.
And then the form is a three-field thing: name, email address, message.
“I found a contact form, not an email address.”
She groans. “It’s better than nothing and I know how much you hate waiting. It’ll buy us some time while I continue trying to get an actual email address for him. As an alternative, you can reach out to him via social. I’m sure he’s on there.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say and then stop. “What should I write in the form?”
She snickers. “Say who you are and tell him you met a man in Carmel last year and you don’t know his name and you’d like to get in touch. Ask if he can send you Max’s real name and his email address or something. Keep it short and simple.”
“That makes sense,” I say, feeling like I’m about to hyperventilate.
“OK, OK, I’ll talk to you later.”
“You call me the minute he replies, OK?”
“Don’t hold your breath. I don’t think Mr. Important checks that mailbox too frequently.”
“You never know,” says Alisa.