I hesitate. If my father knows that the insurance investigator was taking a prurient interest in what happened to me, his approval will evaporate.

“No,” I say. “That was all. It was a short meeting.”

* * *

The New York Times has turned me down.

So now my op-ed for the NYT is just an op-ed. Or rather, it is something I once wrote that will never see the outside of my computer.

“Send it to HuffPost,” suggests Moira. “They will publish literally anything.”

“That’s the problem. John Coetzee will be able to ignore a website that publishes literally anything. He wouldn’t have been able to ignore The New York Times.”

“Okay, but you could publish it in more than one place. Let’s say, HuffPost, Salon and Jezebel. The three of them together would be the equivalent of one op-ed in the NYT, wouldn’t they?”

I’m not sure they would. “Three left-wing websites with a reputation for wild-eyed feminism? Won’t that work like homeopathy? The more of them I published my story in, the weaker my argument would become.”

“I see what you mean. John Coetzee exists on a plane of importance that can afford to ignore websites. They are moths battering themselves against the invincibility of his flame. It’s the same with Jonathan Franzen.”

I told you Moira was a star-fucker. The big-man trope of modern publishing has hooked her and reeled her in. Her cheeks flush and her eyes glow as she imagines battering herself to flinders against the flame of John Coetzee’s magnificence.

“You know, you could go even more low-brow than Jezebel and Bitch Media,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about the kind of publishing that has no gatekeepers. The kind that will never turn you down, edit you, question your decisions, or invite you to reflect before pressing send.”

“You mean . . . vanity publishing?”

Moira laughs. “You are such a product of the academic establishment, Lucy. It’s not called that any more. No, I’m talking about putting your story out there as a blog and launching a social media campaign to publicise it.”

“So, John Coetzee, who would pay no attention to HuffPost, is supposed to be alarmed by my bloggings and tweetings?”

“He would be if they gained traction. No one is immune to a Twitter storm. Not presidents, not royalty, not celebrities, not academics. It’s the rolling stone that gathers all moss. Twitter storms have ruined lives. How do you think #MeToo got its momentum?”

“I’m not interested in starting a lynch mob. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life, not even John Coetzee’s.”