Rory was already feeling exhausted and overwhelmed with information and the fact that everyone in this office seemed to look like a cutout from the latest Vogue was not helping the matter, as she followed one of the front desk administrators, wearing 4 inch heels, in her dark sneakers and an oversized cardigan, through the long glass-walled hallway of the Brick Publishing house.
"Hi, my name is Karen Gibson, I'm one of the editors here" a petite woman greeted Rory as she stepped through the conference room door.
"Rory Gil…," she began, correcting, "Rory Huntzberger-Gilmore, very nice to meet you," shaking her hand.
The reaction on Karen's face changed from welcoming to hesitant within seconds.
"Huntzberger? Did I hear that correctly?" she asked.
"Yes, you did. I got married recently, I just had my documents sorted out a few days ago," Rory explained. She could understand their confusion - after all she'd sent in her proposal as a Gilmore and the Huntzberger name was indeed well known in the field.
"Right," Karen said, clearly thinking it over. "We'll get right on with discussing your book, which I found fascinating, but I do think before we start I will need to go grab the editor-in-chief into this meeting just to be sure, would you excuse me for just a moment" she said, leaving Rory sitting alone in the glass-walled conference room.
Rory pulled out her phone and texted Logan: "Brick just freaked out about the Huntzberger name. She went to grab the editor-in-chief. Anything I should know?"
While she waited for a reply, seeing Logan begin typing and then stopping and then typing again, she glanced out through the glass observing the discussion that went on with Karen and the older man who most likely was the editor-in-chief. Their body language spoke of vigilance and confusion. Surely if they wanted to call the meeting off they would have done it already? She tried to calm herself and poured herself a glass of water that was placed on the table.
"They are competitors of the HPG essentially. They might have you sign some non-disclosure agreement if they do sign you. Just make sure you send it to Colin before you sign anything," Logan texted.
Rory took a sip of water, and swallowed it quickly as she saw Karen and the older man returning, closing the door behind them.
"Mrs. Huntzberger-Gilmore, welcome to the Brick," he greeted, adding, "my name is Jonathan Brick, this is my family's business."
"Lovely to meet you," Rory rose to greet him.
"So what brings you here? I see you've sent us a book proposal," Jonathan asked, taking a seat.
"Well I have been working on my book for a few months and I am looking for an unbiased publisher," she explained.
"And your connection to the HPG is what exactly?" he inquired further.
"My husband, well I suppose we own some of their shares, but he is no longer employed with them. So there is no other connection," Rory explained.
"Alright, then the situation isn't too complicated I suppose," he said, sounding relieved. "I was beginning to think this might be a conflict of interests, but if the connection is indirect, especially to you, then we might be able to work something out," he added.
"I honestly didn't anticipate this being an issue," Rory replied.
"Well, it's a highly competative business, we must always take precautions with things like this," he said. "But you must realize that by publishing under that name will certainly draw a lot of attention, which will boost the numbers significantly, and that is excellent news for all of us," Jonathan said a moment later.
"I actually haven't considered whether I'd like to publish under my full name or use an alias. I could go see myself going with Gilmore or even Hayden, my father's name, if needed. While I want the book to do well, I am not too interested in drawing too much attention to my personal life," she replied, stroking over her bump that tingled.
"Alright, this is something I recommend you think about, because this will likely influence the type of contract we make. We're talking significant differences," he suggested. "So, I suggest you talk about the book with Karen in more detail first, but we expect you to figure out these things before we sign anything," Jonathan added.
"Alright, that I can do," Rory replied.
"Karen, please continue," he said, adding, "it was a pleasure meeting you," to Rory.
"As I said, the book was fascinating," Karen began, continuing to go through a lot of the same aspects they did at Antrim Books, yet here she felt a significantly better connection.
"How did it go?" Logan asked, as Rory returned home and landed onto the couch. He handed her a apple-kale-banana smoothie he'd just made.
"If it wasn't for the whole weird reaction to the name, I'd be jumping from joy," she sighed, before taking a sip. She was indeed starving again. "Instead of molding the book to their format, they were actually willing to give me a lot of decisive power. Karen was really nice, we got along great, definitely would prefer Brick to Antrim at this point," she added.
"Sounds promising," he said. "So what did they actually say about the name?" he inquired curiously. He understood the intrigue - he would've asked several things if someone with the last name Brick had walked into one of the publisher's belonging to the HPG, but he was curious to what the Brick was actually thinking.
"They asked what my involvement in the HPG was and I explained that other than shareholding there was no current involvement, which is true. And then Jonathan Brick just went on about how selling it with the Huntzberger name would be a really good marketing trick and it'd get a lot of media attention. He said I need to decide which pen-name I was going with before they draw up the contract because it would likely make a difference in the conditions," she explained.
"So essentially they are offering you the standard contract as Gilmore or something more exclusive as Huntzberger but on the condition that you'll go through with the media charade and probably agree to some extra conditions," he commented insightfully.
"That's what you would do if you were in their shoes?" she asked.
"Pretty much. If I had a smaller company, still trying to find their position, I might actually be too afraid to sign you altogether, but Brick might actually see it as a way to flaunt a little," he added.
"I am not sure how I feel about all the media attention frankly. You've lived with it, I know nothing about that," Rory hesitated.
"Well there really is no guarantee there won't be any publicity issues with an alias. Part of selling the book, especially if it is non-fiction, is selling the author, and that will mean people will want to learn about you, and hiding the connection altogether might prove impossible, unless we both change our names completely," he replied.
"Agh...," Rory grunted, not believing how she hadn't thought about these things before. "I'm too tired to talk about this, too tired to think about this. Can we just do this another time," she sighed.
"No rush, nothing needs to be decided during this weekend," he said. "Want to watch 'Guardians of the Galaxy'?" he suggested a second later.
"Only if you order Indian food," Rory negotiated.
"Now that is just unfair, you're outnumbered," he replied smilingly, reaching for his phone.