Next to their messy desks stand a sofa (Ralph), several chairs (Poppy), and a farm bench scattered with embroidered cushions (Andrea). Ralph likes to surround himself with oriental furniture. Alongside his light table is a layout table where he occasionally does watercolors for our covers or makes copperplate prints with a hand-operated press. Poppy decorates her workplace with gothic objects and insignia, while Andrea stores manuscripts in scrupulously labeled Plexiglas containers surrounded by piles of books.

In the center of the room is the “atrium,” as we’ve named the large production table where the four of us work together on a book during the important prepublication stages, such as deciding on the cover, writing the blurb, and making the final adjustments before going to print. This is where Blue, our proofreader, sits when she comes in to check the galleys—the printouts of the typeset manuscript she must scan for any spelling and grammar mistakes. She plows through the pages while listening to Metallica or Berlioz at full volume on a gigantic pair of headphones.

Sam prowls around the office until he comes to the “trophy cabinet.” There, on shelves running along the big room’s long side wall, their covers facing outward, are all the books Realitycrash has published over the past twenty years. First editions, translations, special editions, reprints, and paperbacks.

Sam’s face lights up with delight and wonder. I catch myself blushing with pride. “We only publish speculative fiction. We aren’t big, but we are highly specialized. Two of our most successful titles are Schrödinger’s Cat and The House with a Thousand Doors. I founded Realitycrash at the age of twenty-four. I was a huge Michael Moorcock fan.”

Sam whispers, “The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius.”

“A Nomad of the Time Streams!” I shoot back.

Obviously enjoying our little joust, Sam counters with another Moorcock title, “The Eternal Champion.”

“I loved the Eternal Champions because—”

“They keep the multiverse in balance and make sure the parallel worlds don’t merge.”

We stare at each other, happy and surprised, and for a moment I’m thirteen again, a bookworm with a proclivity for subjects that remain largely obscure to others of my age. They read romantic novels, I read steampunk; they read Smash Hits and Just Seventeen, I read books by Ursula K. Le Guin about superluminal speeds and time theories. She gave me my maxim for life: “Truth is a matter of the imagination.” I had no one to share my exotic hobby with and would have given my right arm for a fellow reader like Sam.

We pick up our cups of tea from the tray and clink them gently, but alerted by the approaching click of lacquered high-heeled pumps, Sam spins around to be greeted by an incredible sight.

“Winnie darling, you haven’t given me any feedback on the cover design.”