Excuse me.”
I lifted my sleep mask to see three teenaged girls standing in the aisle beside my seat. “Yes?”
“Sorry to wake you,” said the girl with the lip ring and nearly waist-length braids. “But aren’t you Jo Wright?”
I wondered how she knew. Especially since I’d scraped my hair into a ponytail—hair that, in my author photo, was loose, sexily mussed, and honey blond.
But that photo had been taken before Will Price had destroyed my life, and I’d adopted my current regimen of heavy black eyeliner, all black clothes, and matching black hair dye.
“Uh.” I lifted the glass from the end of my seat rest. “Yes. Why?”
“I told you it was her, you guys.” The girl exchanged excited looks with her companions before turning back toward me. “You’re going to the book festival on Little Bridge Island, Florida, this weekend, aren’t you? I saw your name on the website.”
“Oh.” I was disappointed to note that my glass contained mostly only melted ice. “Yes, I’ll be doing a couple panels and signings there.”
I glimpsed a flight attendant at the end of the aisle observing my interaction with the girls with amusement. I looked meaningfully down at the melted ice in my otherwise empty glass.
The flight attendant nodded and slipped into the galley as one of the other girls—this one in exaggeratedly large horn-rimmed glasses—squealed, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it’s Jo Wright! I used to love your books!”
“Oh,” I said again.
I’ve always wondered how I’m supposed to respond to someone who says that they “used to” enjoy my books. Truthfully, it kind of hurt a little to be told by someone that they “used to” enjoy my work. It was nice that they used to, but painful to hear that they no longer did.
Was this how the cast of Friends felt every time someone came up to them and told them how much they “used to” enjoy their show? That had to suck.
Although not as much as it sucked to be me, because Friends earns a lot more in residuals than the animated Kitty Katz television series based on my books ever did.
“Thanks,” I settled for saying, and was relieved when the flight attendant slipped me a brand-new glass of vodka and orange juice, and took away the empty one. “It’s great to meet you. See you when we land!”
Then I took a long sip of my drink—number two, and just as delicious as number one!—and attempted to slide the eye mask back over my face to continue my nap.
“We’re going, too,” said the third girl, this one wearing a leather vest with fringe that reached almost to her knees. “We’re flying all the way from Manitoba just to be at the festival!”
I slid the eye mask all the way back up. Things were getting interesting.
“Wow,” I said. These girls’ parents had to be loaded. Flights from Canada to the Florida Keys in January weren’t cheap. My own, from New York City, had set the festival back almost two thousand dollars. I’d seen the amount on my ticket. “Manitoba. That’s impressive.”
“You know, the Kitty Katz series completely saved my life in grade six,” the girl in the glasses said. “Obviously I know your characters are only cats, but they were so much more than cats to me.”
“Lauren loves cats,” the girl with the braids assured me.
It was at this point that I noticed that the guy sitting in the window seat next to me had paused the movie he’d been watching on his phone and was now listening to our exchange. Not to sound like a snob, but he was a bit scruffy-looking for first class—cargo shorts, a Batman T-shirt (Dark Knight, not Lego, which in my opinion is the best Batman movie, but there’s no accounting for taste), with pale feet shod in flip-flops, along with a goatee.
Goatees are not my favorite, but my friend Bernadette says I’ve got to stop judging men who wear them just because my ex Justin did and he turned out to be a loser.
And of course, we were on a flight to the Florida Keys. My seatmate’s scruffiness could be forgiven. Everyone goes to the Florida Keys for pleasure, not business.
Everyone except for me.
“Jasmine’s right,” Lauren gushed. “I totally love cats. And reading. The Kitty Katz series was so inspiring to me that I decided I wanted to become a writer myself!”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? That’s great.”
“Thanks! In fact, I’m writing my own book.”
“She totally is!” Jasmine nodded emphatically enough to send her braids swinging.
“Great,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. My free drink!
“Girls.” The flight attendant approached. “We’re going to be making our descent into Little Bridge in a few minutes, so I’m sorry, but I need you to return to your seats.”
“Awwww!” The girls were not happy, especially Lauren. “I was going to ask for a selfie.”
“Well, you can get one with me at the book festival,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be better than one here on the plane? The lighting here is not exactly optimal.”
“I guess.” Lauren continued to look crushed—or about as crushed as a twelve-year-old with perfectly clear skin and rich parents could.
But if Kitty Katz had been her favorite series way back in grade six, Lauren had to be older than twelve. It was so hard to tell how old girls were these days. With all the makeup tutorials out there on YouTube, showing them how to expertly blend bronzer into those hard-to-reach crevices, most of them looked old enough to be in college, or even graduate school.
I felt a prickle of guilt over Lauren’s disappointment. She may only have “used to” like my books, but at least she’d liked them once, and she’d recognized me without my festival badge, the one I’d been urged repeatedly to wear in every communication from the library staff, so that I “could be identified as soon as possible” by the festival’s volunteers, whom I’d been told would be waiting for me at baggage claim.
“We can do a selfie now if you really want,” I said, in spite of all the glares I was getting from my fellow first-class passengers. They didn’t like having their sacred space invaded by teenagers from coach.
All of them except Dark Knight, my seatmate. He, I noted, was grinning.
“If you make it quick,” I added, for the sake of the unhappy travelers around me.
Lauren gasped with delight and quickly hunched down beside my seat. “Say Kitty Katz,” she cried, holding her phone high above both our heads.
“Kitty Katz.” I smiled up at her phone. She’d decorated the case with stickers of a Korean boy band. These girls really were adorable.
CLICK.
“All right, girls,” the flight attendant said, clapping his hands. “That’s enough. It’s time to go back to—”
But the girls weren’t ready to go anywhere.
“Are you doing a panel with Will Price?” Jasmine asked.
I almost choked on the refreshing mouthful of screwdriver I’d just taken. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Will Price,” Jasmine said. “You know, Will Price, who wrote When the Heart Dies? He’s going to be at the festival, too.”
“Um, no.” I shook my head with enough force to cause the end of my ponytail to swat Dark Knight in the shoulder. “Sorry,” I said to him, because of my hair.
“No problem.” Dark Knight was still smiling, watching my exchange with the girls like it was a lot more entertaining than his movie.
To the girls, I said, “No. I mean, no, I’m not doing a panel with Will Price because Will writes adult novels and I write children’s novels. And also, Will isn’t coming to the festival.”
Jasmine blinked at me with her perfectly made-up eyes. “Yes, he is.”
“No, he’s not.” I smiled at her to show that I meant her no ill will. I don’t usually argue with children—I’m actually rarely around them, except for my super’s daughter, Gabriella, who takes care of my cat, Miss Kitty, for me when I’m away. But I had been assured multiple times by my agent on this point, and Rosie was never wrong. “Will Price isn’t attending this festival. I know he owns a house on Little Bridge Island, but he’s in Croatia right now, on the set of the film of his latest book.”
His latest piece of sentimental garbage was what I wanted to say, but I didn’t, because it’s rude to bad-mouth a fellow writer’s work (out loud), something Will Price had evidently never been taught, since he’d felt free to bad-mouth my work to one of the most highly circulating newspapers in the world.
“No.” Jasmine was holding firm. “Will does have a house on Little Bridge. Well, technically, a mansion on a private island off the coast of Little Bridge. And he was in Croatia filming the movie version of his latest book, The Moment—”
“Oh my God.” The girl in the vest looked like she was about to have an out-of-body experience right there on the plane. “You guys. The Moment is my favorite Will Price book of all time. When Johnny finally tells Mel the truth—that he’s loved her from the moment he first saw her—and that the reason they can never be together is because he’s the one who—”
Lauren punched her friend in the arm. “Cassidy, stop. God, spoiler alert! Some of these people may not have read it yet!”
Most of the people in the first-class cabin looked as if they had no interest in reading anything by Will Price. Most of them looked much more interested in their alcoholic beverages, and in the girls returning to their seats so that they could finish those drinks in peace before we began preparations for landing and the flight attendant took them away.
“But I guess Will is back, or, like, on his way back,” Jasmine went on, “because he posted to his fans this morning that he wouldn’t miss the island’s first book festival for anything.”
What?
I closed my eyes. No. This was not happening.
Except that it was.
Great. Freaking fantastic. So Will Price was going to be at this book festival. Despite Rosie’s promise, I was going to have to see him—not only see him, but probably be in a room with him, and even have to talk to him.
Kill me. Please kill me now.
“I. Am. So. Excited!” Cassidy’s out-of-body experience was turning into divine ecstasy along the lines of Saint Teresa’s. “Now I can get my copy of The Moment signed! And maybe ask Will to sign my chest. You know he’s hetero, right? And single.”
“Ugh, gross, Cassidy.” Lauren looked offended on behalf of her friend. “He’s, like, old.”
Cassidy grinned. “Not too old for me.”
Great. How super for her.
I, however, was going to drown myself. As soon as the plane landed, I was going to walk out of the airport and fill my pockets with stones and then wade into the ocean and drown myself like Virginia Woolf.
A stern male voice rang out, startling all of us and causing me to fling open my eyes.
“Okay, girls. That is it.” The flight attendant had had enough.
Ignoring the girls’ cries of protest, he shooed them back to their seats, then returned and firmly closed the curtain separating the first-class cabin from coach.
“I’m so sorry about that, Miss Wright,” he said to me, sounding like he meant it.
“Oh, please. It’s fine.” I gave him an It-happens-all-the-time smile and wave.
But of course, it didn’t happen all the time. It used to happen all the time, but not anymore. Not since so many readers of Kitty Katz, Kitten Sitter—which at one time had been the number one bestselling book series for tweens, an animated television series (on cable), and even a feature film (straight to streaming and DVD)—had grown up and started flocking to Will Price’s stupid, depressing books and even stupider, more depressing movies.
I downed the rest of my drink then lowered my eye mask, leaning back against my headrest. What was I worrying about, anyway? I wasn’t going to have to see Will Price. Rosie was right: All I had to do was give my speech, do my signing, maybe take a dip or two in the hotel pool—hey, it was January and below freezing in New York; it was seventy-five and sunny on Little Bridge Island—collect my ten thousand dollars, and go home.
And maybe . . . just maybe . . . I might even try out this famous Little Bridge tropical breeze I’d heard so much about, and see if it gave me the inspiration to write Kitty Katz #27.
Everything was going to be fine. Just fine. All I needed to do was have a pawsitive attitude. That’s what Kitty Katz would do. With the right attitude, Kitty always says, everything will be purr-fect!
Right?
