Read One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories for Free Online

up.”
    “Okay. That’s good,” said John Grisham.
    “Not one blog—nothing. For whatever reason—and I know it was a huge mistake on my end—a monumental one that willprobably … Yeah. Just, for your own peace of mind, you should know that the reaction has been one hundred percent okay so far.”
    John Grisham said nothing.
    “I’ll tell everyone to hold off on the next printing immediately until you’ve had a chance to figure out what you want to do here. It’ll be a big deal—first printing is a million, as I’m sure you know—but this is my fault, and literally nothing is more important to this company than you being happy here. Think about what you want to do, okay?”
    “Okay. Thank you, Dale.”
    “And John?”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    John Grisham hung up the phone and looked out the window.
    The Something
? Were they fucking kidding him?
    And, also: number one. Again. Not bad. Expected, but still. Number one. He hadn’t taken a moment to let himself enjoy that. He took another sip of coffee, and as he did, he quietly wished himself a tiny, formal congratulation.
    “Congratulation”? “Congratulations”? What was the singular? John Grisham wasn’t sure. He didn’t need to know. Guys like Dale were paid to know things like that.
    Although apparently guys like Dale were paid to do a lot of things they didn’t do right.
    John Grisham took a sip of coffee as he thought about what to do.
    The coffee tasted good. After all these years, he finally knew how to get the proportions right.
    John Grisham walked over to his bookshelf. He pictured the hard new spine of a book called
The Something
on his shelf, right next to the other number one bestsellers he had written,like hard, humble trophies, right next to his favorite trophy, an actual trophy, the division championship trophy of the Little League team he had coached back when his kid was a kid, and when people could hardly believe that a successful guy like John Grisham really did coach Little League, let alone was a really good coach, let alone was the coach of the division champions, the Reds.
    It looked okay, on the shelf in his mind.
    The Partner
,
The Racketeer
,
The Runaway Jury
,
The Something
,
The Street Lawyer
.
    Not great—just okay.
    But okay.
    But only okay.
    But still okay.
    If he couldn’t enjoy a morning like this, wondered John Grisham; if he couldn’t appreciate learning about his own number one bestseller in a crisp rolled-up newspaper delivered right to his front door, even now, deep into the internet age; if his book was number one yet again and the reviews were actually perfectly kind … If he couldn’t shrug this off and move on with his morning and have mercy on a perfectly decent guy like Dale who had made a mistake and felt terrible about it … then what was the point? What was it all for?
    On the other hand: how did John Grisham become John Grisham? By caring about every single detail. By never letting a single comma go unquestioned. Calling an entire book
The Something
, by accident? What would the man in the photo in the ad from this morning’s paper—the handsome, ambitious self of ten years ago, still dressing up for photo shoots, still bringing it after twenty-odd bestsellers—what would he think of that?
    Manager
, John Grisham suddenly remembered. That’s what they were called. Not coach. You coached Little League, butyou called yourself a manager, just like in real baseball. Or at least John Grisham did, because he cared about things like that. Or did he just care because the kids cared?
Did
the kids care? And now that he thought about it, his official biography on the dust jacket always referred to him as a Little League coach, not a manager, and he had never thought to correct it.
    John Grisham ran his finger along the trophy and thought back to that championship season, and soon found himself thinking back to the day, years later, when he realized with more suddenness than sadness that he