SHELF LIFE

CHAPTER SEVEN

From: nash@thegildedpage.com

To: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

Subject: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

Ivy —

Attached is the spreadsheet for the shared budget line items — printing, the rental tent, the sound system for the readings. I split it 60/40 in your favor since you're doing more of the physical labor (the beanbag nook alone looks like a weekend of manual labor I did not sign up for).

Let me know if the numbers look right.

— N

From: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

To: nash@thegildedpage.com

Subject: RE: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

Nash —

The numbers are fine. The 60/40 split is generous and also faintly insulting, like you think I can't do math. It's splitting the tent cost that's the issue — why do we need a tent that seats 200 people? Nobody has ever gotten more than 40 people to a reading in this town, including the year we had an actual Pulitzer finalist, who I will remind you got rained on because I refused to pay for a 200-person tent then either.

Also for the record, the beanbag nook took an afternoon, not a weekend. I don't know what kind of manual labor you're picturing over there but I'd like to hear more.

— I

From: nash@thegildedpage.com

To: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

Subject: RE: RE: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

I was picturing you personally wrestling a couch-sized beanbag through a doorway while muttering something Shakespearean and vaguely threatening at it. I stand by the visual even if the timeline was wrong.

Tent's negotiable. I'll call the rental place tomorrow and ask about a 100-person option — middle ground, in case this is the year the naval-thriller guy finally gets his crowd. I believe in him.

Also — it's 11:40pm and you're emailing me about tent capacity. Do you not have a life, Bennett, or is this just how you flirt with your business rivals?

— N

There was a long pause before Ivy replied to that one. Long enough that she got up, made tea she didn't drink, sat back down, reread his message four times like it might rearrange itself into something less charged, and then typed and deleted three different responses before landing on one that struck the exact tone she was aiming for, which was unbothered, casual, definitely not affected by the word flirt appearing in an email at 11:40 at night.

From: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

To: nash@thegildedpage.com

Subject: RE: RE: RE: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

I have a very full life, thank you, most of which currently consists of emailing you about tent capacity at midnight because SOMEONE decided a rain-drenched Pulitzer finalist was an acceptable outcome three years running.

Also, for the record, if this were flirting, you'd know. I have a system. It involves significantly less spreadsheet math.

— I

From: nash@thegildedpage.com

To: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

Now I need to know the system. This feels like relevant business intelligence given our ongoing collaboration.

Also I looked it up — it wasn't three years running, it was two. The first year it was sunny and the Pulitzer guy just sweated a lot, according to the Willowbrook Gazette archive, which I have apparently started reading for fun, which says something concerning about what this town is doing to me.

— N

From: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

To: nash@thegildedpage.com

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

You read the GAZETTE ARCHIVE. For fun. At — checks clock — whatever hour normal people are asleep at.

I'm not telling you the system. Some things a business rival doesn't get to know. Maybe if the tent situation resolves favorably I'll reconsider.

Go to bed, Calloway. Some of us have a naval-thriller reading to save from the elements.

— I

From: nash@thegildedpage.com

To: ivy@betweenthelinesbooks.com

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Festival budget line items (boring, sorry)

Going. For the record, I had a genuinely terrible time hating you for the first two weeks of knowing you and I'd like that noted somewhere official.

Goodnight, Ivy.

— N

Ivy read the last one twice, then a third time, sitting alone in her dark kitchen with a cold mug of tea and a phone screen too bright for midnight, and did not reply — not because she didn't want to, but because she didn't trust what she'd say if she did, and some feelings, she was learning, needed a night to sit before you let them out into an email chain with a subject line seven RE's deep.

She closed her laptop. Marmalade, unimpressed by the emotional weight of the moment, jumped onto the counter and knocked a pen to the floor with great purpose.

"Don't," Ivy told the cat, for the second time that week. "Don't you dare look smug at me right now."

The cat, predictably, did not listen.