On the day of her publication we go to three local bookstores so that we can see her book on the shelves.
Two don’t have it in stock.
The third has a single copy on a back shelf, far away from the displays and the large stacks by the registers of the books that the store is pushing hardest.
It’s easy to see that Love May Fail doesn’t even have a chance.
We throw a small launch party for Portia at the Manor, and I make sure we have books there for her to sign. All of our friends are incredibly enthusiastic and supportive, but Portia just doesn’t seem into it. The light in her eyes is pretty much gone.
Only a few weeks after Love May Fail hits bookstore shelves, Portia’s editor calls, saying she is leaving publishing for personal reasons, but that her colleagues will make sure Love May Fail gets a fair shake. Portia’s convinced that the poor early response after the six-figure advance is why her editor is leaving, even though her agent assures her that these things happen all the time in New York—both editors leaving houses and highly sought-after books failing to live up to the hype.
“So are we failing?” Portia asks.
“It’s a strange game,” her agent responds, which sends Portia even further south.
The publishing house stops communicating with her.
There are no TV or radio appearances.
Her agent’s e-mails become few and far between.
And I want to ask Portia how a business like this can work. How can you pay so much money for something and then not promote it?
About a month or so after Portia’s small launch party, once we have Tommy in bed, Portia pours herself a rather enormous glass of wine and sits down on the couch next to me.
“You can stop pretending,” she says.
“What?” I say, looking up from reading her novel for the third time.
“That you enjoy it.”
“But I do,” I say, and it’s not a lie. I still find it thrilling to hold a Portia Kane novel in my hand. Even a neon-green Portia Kane novel.
“I’m letting go of the whole writing thing,” she says. “It was a mistake.”
“You’re a good writer, Portia. With a different publisher, better marketing—”
“Everyone hated it. And then they cut their losses. I’ve researched it. Other writers have had the same experience. And now they say it will be infinitely harder to get another publishing deal because my first book lost them so much money. Every publishing house in the world will have access to my sales numbers, which are and will remain shitty. Couple that with my reviews, and there’s no point.”
I don’t know what else I can do to save my wife, so—even though I don’t believe it’s true—I say, “Well, at least you got a few thousand copies out there into the world. So that gives you a chance.”
“No one in publishing cares about a few thousand copies,” she says. “That’s nothing to them.”
“No,” I say, trying to be the man I admire. “But it’s a chance for Mr. Vernon to find your book and read it.”
I see her face light up for a fraction of a second as she sips her wine, but then she halfheartedly says, “Maybe,” and the light is gone again.
Time passes.
Mr. Vernon doesn’t contact Portia.
She throws herself into the writing of her next book, but the joy and enthusiasm are gone.
On the first night of June, the Crystal Lake Diner—the place where Danielle waitressed—catches fire. No one is hurt, but just like that a South Jersey landmark is gutted. All of the booths and the stools and thousands of diner customers’ good memories go up in flames. It’s a sad twist of fate losing a public place that you’ve shared with a community for your entire life. And it’s also one less link to Danielle—one less memento. The diner might as well have been in Portia’s backyard, as she grew up right down the street. It’s also like losing a time machine, because just walking into that place instantly transported many of us back to high school—late night fries after binge drinking in the woods.
“That’s where I reconnected with Danielle,” Portia says when she hears about the news. “And my reconnecting with Danielle led me to you and all that followed.”
“Yeah, so?” I say.
“It just seems like an extremely bad omen, doesn’t it?”
“Everyone got out safely, at least. That’s good, right?”
“I don’t know, Chuck. I just don’t know anymore.” She bursts into tears, which scares me. I mean, we’re all sad about the fire, but Portia sobs and sobs in my arms for almost an hour.
Six months after the publication date, Portia receives a devastating e-mail from her agent. There will be no Love May Fail paperback release. The sales were so low that the publisher has decided to disassociate its name from Portia Kane.
Right around the one-year anniversary of her publication date, something inside of Portia finally breaks.
She stops writing and begins to spend her days taking long walks and sitting on park benches, mindlessly feeding squirrels and pigeons.
She repaints (multiple times) every room in our new close-to-my-work home in Pennsylvania.
Volunteers a lot at Tommy’s new school.
Buys cookbooks and fattens me up with endless gourmet meals that would sell in the best restaurants in any major city in the world.
Bakes dozens of different pies for our neighbors.
She buys an old truck that looks remarkably like the one I had when we first met, and begins trash-picking furniture, refinishing the pieces in our basement, and selling them at flea markets. She barely makes a profit and doesn’t seem to get any joy out of the process, downing Advil for sore wrists and elbows at an alarming rate.