Meet Me in the Margins
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Synopsis
You’ve Got Mail meets The Proposal—this romance is one for the books.
Savannah Cade’s dreams are coming true. The Claire Donovan, editor-in-chief of the most successful romance publishing company in the country, has requested to see the manuscript Savannah’s been secretly writing. The only problem: she’s an editor for a different company, and their philosophy is only highbrow works are worth printing and romance should be reserved for the lowest level of Dante’s inferno.
But when Savannah drops her manuscript during a staff meeting and nearly exposes herself to the whole company—including William Pennington, the new boss and son of the romance-despising CEO herself—she has no choice but to hide the manuscript in a hidden room.
When she returns, she’s dismayed to discover that someone has not only been in her hidden nook but has written notes in the margins—quite critical ones. But when Claire’s own reaction turns out to be nearly identical to the scribbled remarks, and worse, Claire announces that Savannah has six weeks to resubmit before she retires, Savannah finds herself forced to seek the help of the shadowy editor after all.
As their notes back and forth start to fill up the pages, however, Savannah finds him not just becoming pivotal to her work but her life. There’s no doubt about it: she’s falling for her mystery editor. If she only knew who he was.
“Meet Me in the Margins is a delightfully charming jewel of a book that fans of romantic comedy won’t be able to put down!” — Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times bestselling author of Under the Southern Sky
Release date: February 15, 2022
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Print pages: 336
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Meet Me in the Margins
Melissa Ferguson
Pacing the back corner of the packed meeting room inoutstandingly uncomfortable heels, I move as silently as possible along the three feet of available aisle space between my begrudgingly accommodating coworker, Clyve, and the horde of beady-eyed osprey staring down at me from the vintage wallpaper. I frown at the eerily stenciled birds, like I always do whenever I’m called to the Magnolia Room. There is a pause between Ms. Pennington’s words, and I sense the need to nod with the others as I check my watch. Only 3600 steps for the day, and it’s already nearing noon.
I pivot dangerously on one thin heel and take a smaller, quicker step on the thick red carpet, all while slashing three words at the end of a paragraph. This is one of the benefits of being an assistant acquisitions editor at a publishing company more vintage than the eighties-styled jumpsuits circling back into fashion among teens. Editors here are constantly lugging around thick stacks of paper with pens behind their ears, jotting last-minute notes on authors’ manuscripts, looking harried.
In fact, at Pennington Publishing, you’d look noticeably off if you weren’t dragging around at least one manuscript to one of the half dozen meetings making up your day. Hence why none of the eyes in the rows ahead or around me so much as flicker as I flip from one page to another during this meeting.
Plus there’s the fact that I’m not an inch over five feet tall. And one of the benefits of not being an inch over five feet tall in a publishing house whose “conference room” is a converted living room of an old Victorian mansion is that half the staff has to stand, and I can multitask my heart out behind them without being seen.
And I do try to multitask. At least on good days when I feel one of those rare bursts of genuine motivation—or at least when my sister prods me until I give in. Because I am a Cade. Specifically, Savannah Cade. And the Cades are a pure breed distinguished by indefatigable energy, marked enthusiasm, and a dash of insanity. Seamlessly exceeding expectations is what we do.
It’s just . . . a little more challenging for me.
“Pennington Publishing has been a cornerstone of the nonfiction and literary fiction markets for over fifty years,” Ms. Pennington, CEO of Pennington Publishing, says, gripping the podium. Her eyes glint like the six candle-like lights on the antique brass chandelier hanging in the center of the room. “Why? Because Pennington doesn’t bow down to pressure. Because Pennington won’t conform by throwing away our high-standing principles for a mere dollar in our pockets. Here at Pennington, we actually believe in the content we produce as a means of evolving and fine-tuning the minds of our readers and the culture at large. Unlike other houses lining the grocery-store shelves with”—her nose wrinkles, as though she can barely handle spitting out the words—“commercial fiction as quickly as they can, Pennington works tirelessly to produce only the most curated, thoroughly vetted manuscripts worth printing on the page. Only the most curated, vetted manuscripts we believe the world needs to read.”
I raise a brow as I slash another word.
It’s a nice sentiment, but I don’t know if the whole world needed to have in their possession my latest edit: The Incredible World of Words: An Epistemophiliac’s Guide.
“And that’s why, despite the onslaught of crises thrown our way last year, Pennington Publishing will continue to be the foundational place readers and booksellers look to for the coming year. And it’s for that reason I want you all to give a warm welcome to the newest employee of our team.”
My pen slips on the underlining of a word. I lift my head. A new employee?
Through the sliver of space between two elbows I see Ms. Pennington holding on to the podium with two strong hands as she looks down at her employees, her sharp blue eyes narrowed as if reading all our minds: Someone speak up. I dare you.
Slowly, a round of applause picks up around the room.
The thing is, the past few years have been hard on Pennington Publishing. Not just us, really. It’s been this way for most smaller publishers not yet swallowed up by one of the Big Five. Despite Pennington’s years of glory (of which Ms. Pennington is only too quick to remind everyone at every turn), it hasn’t been able to keep up with the solid chugging of the bigger, well-oiled machines. Pennington is a sailboat. A beautiful Pen Duick regatta cutter whose owner slides his hand over the rosewood, mahogany, teak, and other exotic tropical woods of the hull with pride while watching the vast white sail overhead billow in the sea-salt breeze. Intricately detailed. Unlike any other.
But still just a bobbing speck compared to the ocean liner charging through.
Which is why everyone inside these popsicle-green, osprey-ridden walls claps now like obedient penguins on cue at a waterpark show. It is why Terry in Accounts smooths down his Moby Dick Thar She Blows! whale-spotting necktie every five seconds whenever Ms. Pennington is in the room. It is why Lyla chucks her AirPods beneath her desk whenever we hear Ms. Pennington’s nails tap impatiently on the casing of a neighboring office door during one of her spontaneous “visits.” It is why I have to keep Band-Aids in my purse these days to handle the torment caused by these diabolical, aka “professional,” heels.
Because we are the ones left. The survivors of the great Pennington bloodshed.
“I’m aware that we have lost quite a few dedicated employees in the past calendar year. The 29 percent reduction in staff has been . . .” Ms. Pennington’s long, slim nostrils flare slightly as she breaks down the word into each clear syllable. “. . . chall-en-ging. Each one of us has been required to take on additional tasks.”
Her pitch heightens as she lifts a finger in the air. “But that is precisely why we will rise again beneath Mr. Pennington’s expertise.”
Wait.
Mr. Pennington? As in . . .
“A man whose experience of ten years in one of the most successful publishing houses in the world,” she continues, “will provide fresh insight and new angles.” Her eyes grow steely. “Helping us to prune when and where necessary in order to blossom for years to come. Mr. Pennington, we are thrilled to have you join us as VP and publisher of our most revered line, Pennington Pen.”
For a second, there is nothing but stunned silence as those seated in the front turn their heads and those sardined in the back crane their necks to see the man, melted into the audience just a moment prior, stand. My pen, forgotten in my hand, slides across the page, leaving a long streak of black.
“Ssssssuper.”
Lyla, sitting casually on the deep windowsill of the expansive window in front of me, rolls her eyes, revealing the glimmer of last night’s metallic eyeshadow.
Lyla is one of the many in Nashville whose long blond hair accounts for half of her body weight, whose circle of friends who know her real name grows smaller by the year, and who, like the Nutcracker, only really comes to life when the clock ticks some insanely late hour. Only instead of waking up to battle rats and tour children around some bizarre dreamland, she can typically be found down at the strip, perched on a beer-stained barstool, singing her heart out. Lyla is to Nashville what skinny waitresses in their twenties are to New York City. A dime a dozen, starry eyed to the bitter end, and positively certain their current day job to fund things like food and clothing is only a momentary pit stop on the road to freedom. And while you can see Ms. Pennington’s eyes twitching with desire to chuck Lyla and her laptop on the street just about every meeting, her cover designs and digital marketing are second to none. And I mean that. Second to none. She has literally rolled two full-time jobs into one.
“Well, at least someone can go tell Harry it wasn’t about his little run-in with Ms. Pennington over those galleys,” Lyla mutters—loud enough that several in the row beside her turn their heads. “Just some good old-fashioned nepotism.”
“Shh,” Jeanna Banks (Pennington Trophy division, six years) hisses before turning back around.
Harry—dear old Harry, who brought the same egg-salad sandwich to work every day for the past twenty-two years—got The Email four weeks prior. Nobody wants to get The Email. The last thing any employee of Pennington Publishing wants to receive is the email addressed to them with the subject line: MEETING REQUESTED.
I turn from the wall and pace back, and Lyla, with her apathetic, I-hate-these-meetings gaze, sweeps her eyes over my manuscript. As she does so, her face clears. She raises one perfectly arched brow. “Is that . . . ?”
“I promised I’d turn it in today,” I reply.
“Yeah, but . . . here?”
So this is what it feels like, being the one on the receiving end of a raised eyebrow.
All our lives it has been the other way around. Me, the rule keeper, the one staying tightly within the lines. Lyla, the free spirit. Smuggling in her diary—vibrantly pink and covered in hearts on the outside, secrets within—into middle school in seventh grade and holding it brazenly open during lunch period while I silently have a panic attack on her behalf. Lyla, gaily pitching in with the other seniors to fill up Principal Peterson’s office with orange cones during spirit week, all while I stand guard, listening to my knees quake.
“I have to send it in today,” I repeat swiftly. “I just need a few minutes to squeeze a last edit in.”
Out of the corner of my eye, a man steps up to the podium beside Ms. Pennington, and she shakes his hand.
Like they’ve never met before.
Like this isn’t the only human being standing before her with half her chromosomes.
I stifle a grin and keep on.
The thing is, everyone knows Ms. Pennington’s son got sacked from Sterling House three months ago. Everyone was on high alert the day we got the mass Pub News email. It informed not only the employees at Pennington but every reputable publisher, literary agent, film agent, and everyone else related to the industry down to the aspiring author tapping away in some basement that Sterling House’s newest editorial director was Jim Arrowood. Ms. Pennington’s beloved son had not simply been on furlough during the pandemic of 2020. He had been replaced.
The son of the Queen of Hearts had been tossed out of New York City and landed here, back in Nashville.
And now Ms. Pennington is patching up her son’s situation.
“Thank you for the introduction.” William Pennington clasps both sides of the podium, just as his mother did. His posture is as perfect as his mother’s, as though they both have rods attached to their spine. They look like a couple of penguins standing side by side in impeccable gray suits—the kind that are sleek and mind-numbingly dull and that few in this room could afford. His striking icicle-blue eyes—also the same as his mother’s—pierce the room. And like her, he frowns.
Gazes at us as if we’re juvenile delinquents trying to break out of the bus.
“I’m William Pennington. Some of you may remember me as a child.”
“Little Willy!” In the front, old Bernie Peterson (Pennington Trophy, thirty-four years) waves, and William, without smiling, nods curtly.
“I won’t keep you unnecessarily. Authors are now making their way to us for the conference, and we all know how imperative it is to prepare as much as possible. From what I’ve gathered, nobody wants a repeat of two years ago.”
I halt.
Great. Just grrrreeeat.
My stomach lurches, just as it always does at the mention of my first Librarians of America Conference and Exhibition—or, for short, LOA. I raise my manuscript higher to avoid anyone’s eyes.
So, I had done this tiny, innocuous thing of losing four hundred books and the entire set of promotional materials for my author, who had flown across the country for his signing. He’d ended up signing bits of scrap paper and bookmarks that were actually promotions for other authors and—in one incredibly uncomfortable moment—one man’s bulging bicep.
There’s a lot to remember for these big events. Not easy when you’ve only worked for the company a total of two weeks, okay?
4200 steps.
Maybe Ms. Pennington hadn’t specifically said who’d done it, I tell myself, moving my eyes from my watch and flipping a page. Maybe William had just been told the story in an off-handed way, like, “Yes, one of our employees—who turned out be quite bright, really, an invaluable employee during these harsh and trying times—had the unfortunate experience of being undertrained as a new hire, and, poor thing, she ended up having to . . .”
I half listen as I march on, my eyes scanning for any misspellings or glaring errors. There aren’t many, only one or two notes every dozen pages, which only fuels the inner fire hungry to run up to my office and email the manuscript right now.
Ms. Pennington wouldn’t fire me for a bathroom break, would she? I mean, yes, technically Donna got The Email two days after dashing to the bathroom with the stomach bug. But that was coincidental. Right? That had to have been coincidental.
And how many times have I edited this manuscript at this point? Two dozen times? Fifty times? A hundred? Whatever it is, it certainly feels like a thousand.
And that feeling, as I’ve told my own authors so many times, means it’s done. It’s finally ready. That’s the telling moment.
Or when the deadline hits. Whichever comes first.
“So let’s stay sharp, people,” William Pennington says as I pivot on my heel. Less than twenty minutes on the job and he’s already the perfect replica of his mother, droning on about razor-thin budgets and how he won’t hesitate to “prune us back” at the slightest error.
I lick the tip of my index finger and flick the current page over my paper clip. It’s not just any paper clip, mind you. Fourteen karats of antique rose gold intricately twisted into the shape of a sparrow, this oversize clip is the one Mom gave me on my first day in a “real job.” It’s the clip she herself used for over twenty years on her most promising papers and projects as chair of her department at Belmont University. One passed down from her own mother, who used it to keep her papers in place while fighting against health inequities among the poverty stricken as the first female surgeon in her state. And her mother who—I’m still a bit hazy on the details—apparently more or less ended the war.
You know, typical Cade-level stuff.
While I may not be shattering glass ceilings left and right like my ancestors, I have reserved the paper clip for only the most promising of stories out of respect for its heritage.
And now, with its golden wings clinging tightly to the papers, it is reserved for the story that is my own.
“Tonight is a big night,” Pennington continues.
I flip another page. I’m so close to the end my heart starts racing in step with my pace.
“The eight authors attending this weekend’s conference represent 46 percent of our sales. To lose their trust in us through our own performance is to potentially cost us one of our four imprints. We need them. But right now, Pennington authors are afraid. Most authors across the board, for that matter, are afraid. Tensions are high. The publishing world is more competitive than ever. People everywhere are wondering about the stability of their own jobs.”
“That’s hitting a bit too close to home for him, isn’t it?” murmurs Lyla.
“People want to know they are standing on solid ground. So when they get here, they’re going to be looking around for clues about the status of Pennington Publishing. And it’s absolutely imperative we give them nothing to worry about.” William Pennington levels his gaze. “Imperative.So, Marketing, get those displays looking perfect. Assistants, make sure they want for nothing. And editors, do whatever it takes this weekend to keep your authors happy. Whatever. It. Takes. If these authors want to spend two hundred dollars on dinner at Fleming’s Steakhouse, whip out the company card like we’re made of money. If they want to meet you at five in the morning this Saturday to spend the next twelve hours dissecting their next work-in-progress, you’d better be sitting in their hotel lobby at four thirty, perky and with a second cup of coffee in hand. I don’t care what you do so long as at the end of the weekend they get on their planes remembering Pennington Publishing as the most dedicated, engaging, stable publishing company giving 110 percent to ensure their books outsell any others in the market. I want them to come away from this visit incapable of thinking anything other than one word: perfectio—”
I reach the wall and pivot but then, in a blink, hear a rather peculiar sound from below.
It sounds like cellophane paper crinkling.
But that can’t be right, I find myself thinking as I turn my eyes toward the floor. After all, where would the cellophane paper be coming from? Who would bring cellophane paper into a meeting room? And why on earth would it be directly under my feet?
And then, in that nanosecond in which everything makes terrible sense, I feel it.
The lightning strike upon my ankle. My bones crackling as they grind against each other in ways the bones of no ankle anatomically should.
I look down and see my foot overturning, as if in slow motion, as the dagger of my thin black heel flips sideways on the plush red carpet. I throw my left foot forward, trying to stabilize myself, but in lunging only manage to land on Yossi’s heel in front of me before that ankle gives as well.
With both ankles collapsed I fall forward, heads and suits rising on either side of my periphery, the carpet rushing toward me—one gigantic pool of red. I throw my hands out just before my body hits the floor in a tangled mess.
The carpet burns against the side of my face, my arms, my shins. Dimly, I hear the sound of my pen landing and clicking off on the carpet a couple of inches from my face. Feel, to my fresh horror, the breeze on my backside where my skirt has flipped up and is now revealing the poorly chosen underwear I put on this morning. Of course this moment couldn’t have come during my cheeky bikini streak of 2019. Of course this had to happen when I’d pretty much given up the paranoia that this exact situation could one day possibly come to fruition. When I’d decided that nobody would ever need to cut through my clothes in a car crash. That there was never really going to be a moment in the dead of night when the fire alarm went off through the entire building and I was left stranded in the middle of the street in my granny panties making small talk with the neighbors.
And there was certainly no reason to fear I would trip on my own feet during an all-employee staff meeting and faceplant on the ground with my skirt flipped up.
Anyway, here I am.
Maybe the best thing to do now would be to play dead.
Yes, that seems like a good idea. After all, possums do it, and it seems to work for them. It’s even a biological method of survival. It’s innate. That really should count for something. Besides, nobody makes fun of people who pass out. It’s like a “Get out of jail free” card. You can tease behind closed doors all you want when somebody falls flat on their faces, but try that when the situation seems remotely serious, and you are a horrible, insensitive person.
That’s it, then. I’m going to have to play possum.
I’m just resolving to get comfortable on the carpet when a different sound filters through my brain. A much, much more devastating sound. The sound of flapping, like a hundred doves overhead.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no, no.
My eyes flit open, and there they are. Each leaf of my 234-page manuscript soaring through the air, freed from the golden paperclip that had hitherto clipped their wings.
Any thought of previous embarrassment dissolves, and springing to my knees, I snatch at the sheets of paper wafting down around me. Vaguely, I hear William Pennington in the distance continuing his speech as I reach between one man’s shoes for a few pages and clutch them tightly. Out of the corner of my eye I see Lyla making a grab for the ones scattered at her own feet.
Of all the moments . . .
My forehead starts to burn as I see staff around me leaning down, ...
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