Chapter 7 - A Seven-Figure Knockout
Meredith’s face lost every ounce of color. Her mouth fell open, her chin trembling as if she had just been slapped across the jaw.
"What... what did you say?" she whispered, her voice shrinking to a frail, horrified squeak.
"Dr. Robert Harrison," Erin chimed in, her voice ringing clear and authoritative across the silent living room. "He’s the chair of the English Humanities department where Meredith works as an adjunct tutor. He picked up Devon's novel three weeks ago on the recommendation of the St. Louis Library Board. On Thursday morning, he officially added The Line Through the Timber to the contemporary narrative curriculum for the upcoming fall semester. He praised it for capturing the authentic voice of the rural working class—a voice, he noted in his departmental memo, that academic writers spend their entire careers failing to emulate."
Meredith sank back onto the sofa cushions as if her spine had dissolved. Her hands gripped the fabric of her skirt, her knuckles white. To be outshone was one thing; to have the very institution she worshipped validate her younger brother's "garbage" as required reading was a fatal blow to her entire identity.
Before Dad could recover his voice to speak, my phone began buzzing loudly in my jacket pocket.
The screen displayed an incoming call from a New York area code: Margo Ross - Agent.
I tapped the speaker button, deliberately letting the call broadcast into the frozen living room. "Hey, Margo."
"Devon!" Margo’s voice exploded through the phone with the electric intensity of a woman who had just conquered Wall Street. "I hope you’re sitting down, because the bidding war just closed!"
Dad, Mom, and Uncle Ned all leaned in unconsciously, their eyes glued to the small glowing device in my hand.
"What bidding war, Margo?" I asked calmly.
"Warner Brothers and Apple TV just went twelve rounds for the exclusive film and series rights to The Line Through the Timber!" Margo practically shrieked with delight. "Warner closed it ten minutes ago! Seven-figure production deal! One point four million dollars upfront for the film rights alone! And that’s not all—your publisher just triggered the escalator clause in your original contract. They’re offering a three-book extension deal worth an additional nine hundred thousand dollars!"
A glass cup slipped from Mom’s fingers in the kitchen, shattering into pieces on the ceramic tile floor.
Dad’s jaw slung open so wide his chin nearly hit his chest. Uncle Ned rubbed his eyes as if he had just seen an apparition floating above the coffee table. Over two million dollars. In one single phone call, the boy they had treated like an uneducated utility laborer had just earned more money than my father and sister would make in their combined lifetimes.
"Devon, are you there?!" Margo yelled through the receiver. "You just became a major voice in American fiction, kid! We need you in Manhattan next Tuesday to sign the paperwork and do the press junket with Variety and the Hollywood Reporter!"
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"I'm here, Margo," I smiled, looking straight into the wide, terrified, and utterly bewildered eyes of my father. "I’ll be on the Tuesday flight. Thanks for everything."
I tapped off the call. The silence that followed in my parents’ house was so absolute you could hear the hum of the refrigerator three rooms away.
