“Full disclosure: Wendy forwarded the manuscript to me. I read it yesterday in one sitting. ‘Blast Off, Roy Clarke!’—that’s the headline of the prepublication review I’m going to submit to Publishers Weekly. You really outdid yourself this time.”

Roy was horrified. Wendy had sent the bookstore man his possibly terrible new book?

“Shabba Ranks for your help, Claire,” he mumbled nervously in Cockney rhyming slang.

But Jefferson had already barged past him and into the library. He threw his arms wide and spun around in a circle. “I’m in the home of one of my favorite living authors!” he shouted exultantly before dancing out the French doors.

Roy hung back as more guests followed Jefferson outside. They knew who Roy was, even if he wasn’t quite sure he knew them, but they were either too intimidated or too rude to stop and introduce themselves.

He could not mistake the hairy, tattooed creature skulking past him and making a beeline for the food tables in the garden: Streko. Shy must have invited him. Well, he had nerve.

“Food’s over there. Drinks by the fence,” Roy shouted aggressively after him. “Take as much as you like, there’s plenty!”

The garden was large and had been designed and planted by a botanist from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, a former tenant of the previous owners. Two enormous rhododendron bushes, their leaves still green and shiny, divided the brick-walled space into thirds: a slate-paved patio area featuring a massive teak table laden with food; a grassy area where the drinks table was—large enough for groups to mingle, lounge on various weathered wooden benches, or duck behind an evergreen completely out of sight; and a potential vegetable patch, where the bonfire had been erected.

Gabby and Manfred had insisted that Wendy hire a caterer, even though Wendy wanted to order all the food from Full Plate and prepare it herself. “It’s not dinner,” she insisted. “Just nibbles and wine and beer.”

“That’s what caterers are for,” Gabby had advised.

Gabby and Manfred had been called away to LA by Enjoy! and Fleurt to cover Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Bonfire Night party in person. Wendy should have been annoyed that she hadn’t been called away to LA too, but in fact it was a relief.

Wendy’s nerves were fried. She’d stayed up very late last night trying and failing to read Roy’s book. It was either brilliant or awful, she couldn’t tell. Did it have to be set on Mars? Why not in Marfa, Texas? Or Lima, Peru? Was Mars a metaphor for something she didn’t understand? Roy had gone to Oxford. She’d only gone to NYU.