Read Online Boundaries by Elizabeth Nunez - Free Book Online Page B

and let her parents have her bedroom.
    She spends the day moving books from her bedroom into the den, washing the linens at the laundromat three blocks away, making the beds. She cleans the stove and refrigerator, mops the kitchen floor. The room facing the kitchen, which is painted off-white, serves as both dining room and living room. In the dining room are two chairs and a small table; in the living room, on either side of a glass-topped coffee table, are two brown leather armchairs and a matching leather couch with decorative pillows on either end. Colorful prints and posters on the wall are a perfect balance for the browns and beiges in the apartment. Anna dusts, she vacuums, she polishes. By late afternoon, her apartment is thoroughly clean. Her parents will arrive in six days, but tomorrow she must return to work and she will not have time to prepare her bedroom again, so tonight she will begin sleeping in the den. She makes one final inspection. Her apartment is attractive, better than most she has seen. She was foolish to panic at the thought of her parents staying here. Paula is right: they will be proud of her, or should be. She owns the apartment, and the neighborhood is fashionable. Or becoming fashionable.
    At work the next day she calls Bess Milford. She tells her she has good news and bad news. The good news is that the salespeople are excited about her novel. They think it will sell well.
    “And the bad news?” Bess Milford asks.
    “You may not like the cover,” Anna says. Anna faxes the cover, and, as she predicted, Bess Milford blows up. “I thought writers had input about their covers!” she yells angrily into the phone. It is clear she means to implicate Anna.
    Anna reminds her that she signed a contract giving the publisher the rights to market her novel.
    “Aren’t you the bigwig at Equiano?” Bess Milford sneers. “Do something!”
    Anna says she’ll try, but she’s not sure that whatever she does will make a difference.
    “The cover is a lie,” Bess Milford says, her voice terse with indignation.
    Anna knows her author is right but she also knows her salary is paid by the company that has decided on the cover for the novel. “It’s a poster, Bess,” she hears herself saying. “It’s an ad to draw readers to your novel.” Her words fall back on her ears. She is a hypocrite. She is trying to pacify Bess Milford with the very lie Tim Greene thought would mollify her. Anna had resented his patronizing solicitude and can imagine that Bess Milford resents hers too. Yet she does not want to raise her hopes. Tanya Foster makes the final decisions for the company; Anna cannot override her. She tells Bess Milford she will do what she can to change the cover. “Let’s see what happens,” she says.
    Later she busies herself answering e-mails, avoiding contact with Tim. She knows he’s in the office. She hears the rustle of papers and the swishing of the wheels of his desk chair, back and forth in the cubicle adjoining her room. Her door is open and the sounds filter in. What work can he be doing? Anna does not know. He is an assistant editor assigned to her but she has not yet given him books to edit.
    Tanya calls. She wants to see Anna in her office. She does not say why. Anna hangs up the phone and walks down the corridor.
    “Sit, sit.” Tanya indicates the chair facing her desk and gets straight to the point. “I’ve given Raine’s books to Tim.”
    Anna sits down and composes herself. She folds her hands tightly on her lap.
    “I thought you’d like that. I know how you feel about Raine’s books.”
    Books like Raine’s are not the ones she wants to edit, but books like Raine’s are the ones that pay her salary.
    “I know you didn’t like editing her books,” Tanya continues when Anna does not respond.
    Anna crosses her legs. “What about B. Benton?”
    “I’ve given B. Benton to Tim also,” Tanya says. “Tim has a feel for those books, if you know what I mean.”
    Anna