Elizabeth Wellington

1. Story statement:

Tess has to share her truth when she makes the worst mistake of her life. (Also: see log line below.) 

2. The antagonist:

The antagonist Tim Butler is a narcissistic progressive from a long line of politicians with questionable moral character based in Boston. Tim made a name for himself for leading a filibuster to protect women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. House of Representatives in pink sneakers. He sleeps with his ex-girlfriend (a bookish food and culture journalist who never got over him) while feigning a divorce, pulling her into a sex scandal with national implications.

Tim values public opinion more than private truth, leading him to distort both at great cost to those dearest to him — particularly, the women in his life. As the stakes rise in the lead up to his election as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he becomes increasingly manipulative and malevolent. He’s motivated by an ego the size of Massachusetts. 

3. Breakout title:

SCANDAL ON THE PLATFORM 

TESS ON THE PLATFORM

LUCK & THE PLATFORM

4. Genre and comparables:

Women’s contemporary fiction/book club fiction and the below comparables — 

*the pitch-perfect social commentary in CITY OF LIKES 

*cinematic escapism of CRAZY RICH ASIANS

*feminist themes of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

*self-discovery of THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

*Irish heritage of WE ARE THE BRENNANS

*the scandalous intrigue of THE FRAUD SQUAD

*the wit of DEVIL WEARS PRADA

*culinary charm of THE CITY BAKER'S GUIDE TO COUNTRY LIVING

5. Log line

When straitlaced food journalist Tess O’Sullivan falls backwards into a political sex scandal, she must find her voice during a trial of public opinion or risk losing it.

6. Inner conflict continued

Tess feels conflicted about the choices she’s made to betray her own values and the humiliation she must endure to right those wrongs. She also has to fight her own tendency to stay “in the margins” of her life and to use her voice to tell other people’s stories rather than her own. It’s only when the conflict escalates externally — with press knocking on the door of her grandfather’s nursing home and the antagonist misrepresenting Tess' genuine  act of self-defense  —  that Tess finds the motivation to face the antagonist and his lies, online, in print and in television. 

7. Setting

This manuscript takes place within the working class Irish-American community in Boston before launching onto a luxury train ride in Ireland, where Tess is surrounded by influencers on a free press trip. The narrative walks back and forth between the present and the past to propel the protagonist forward on both sides of the pond. Having lived in Boston and reported on the real-life train ride featured in the book, I bring an authenticity to the setting that goes beyond the Boston and Irish stereotypes. The train ride itself also serves as a metaphor for Tess’ journey to expand her world and her sense of possibility, all the while honoring her deep roots. 

May 2019

Dublin, Ireland 

Sweat broke out at the back of her neck. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her left ear. People needed to see her face, not just hear her voice. The lights were invasive — fitting for a public reckoning or a root canal. Theresa O’Sullivan steeled herself as the producer said, “Three, two, one.”

Everyone always talked about the glass ceiling. No one talked about the rock bottom that women hit when they fell. Men bounced back from scandals as if on trampolines: They landed new jobs, new wives, new prospects. There was no soft place for women to land. Their futures shattered on mirrors that only reflected their mistakes. 

Tess had tumbled backwards into a story that was not her own. It was over. She knew that. But she could put a crack in that rock bottom if she fell hard enough. Maybe, there was something softer underneath for the next woman. Because there would always be a next woman. 

CHAPTER ONE

April 2019 

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tess walked down the steps to the inbound platform of the Red Line. An unexpected downpour had left her soaked to the bone in spring rain, her frozen fingers fumbling to grab something from the pocket of her wool coat. She dropped a smile and a wet five-dollar bill in front of the bongo player who set the rhythm of the Harvard Square commute. He never seemed to age, even as students had come and gone year after year. Tess looked like one of them — a graduate student polishing up an academic pedigree on her parents' penny — but she and the bongo player knew otherwise. 

Twenty years ago, she began commuting to Cambridge Day School as a scholarship student from South Boston. Once she had enrolled in Boston College as a freshman, those daily trips had become biweekly visits to see her childhood best friend, and a boyfriend, at Harvard University. 

In the last few years, Tess had only ventured to that side of the Charles River for her work as a freelance food and culture journalist. That day, she walked past large Victorian homes that gave way to humble triple-deckers — unfussy tenement buildings with flat roofs, three floors, three decks and aluminum siding — on her way to report on a new restaurant. Her raw hands scribbled the words in a damp notebook as they flooded her mind.

Boston native Ryan Tolley is opening a new restaurant, BSTN (pronounced B-S-T-N), in the space once occupied by beloved pub Monaghan’s, which closed in January after 98 years in operation. BSTN will serve up nostalgic, New England dishes for a new generation in a sleek gastropub with contemporary bells and whistles. Here, Tolley will showcase skills he honed as a chef de cuisine at Michelin-star-winning Stripes. Locals may disagree about whether openings like this one herald a renaissance for Boston’s dining scene or a death nail for local, family-owned businesses. Either way, the dishes are worth the trek.

The young chef, a redhead who had cut his teeth at the city’s best restaurants, had made Tess’ work obligation feel like a first date. The chef ate the signature dishes with her at a small table by the window, dropping glances her way as she savored each course: Littleneck clam chowder with pancetta served before sous-vide Sunday pot roast on a bed of braised parsnips and Boston cream pie with maple ganache. He had rendered culinary déjà vu with perfection, and she would have fawned over the meal if not for the awkward conversation, and the context.

Tess and the chef were both from working-class Irish Catholic families. Their acquaintances and relatives made up a tangled web that crossed the river and back too many times to count, and they found themselves connected in more ways than one. He ratcheted up his local credentials as he spelled out the changes he had made to the former watering hole where Tess used to gobble up cheeseburgers on Wednesdays with her ex-boyfriend. Where they came from, there was nothing worse than seeming like a sellout. 

When the chef saw Tess glancing around the dining room, he said sheepishly, “Did you see the mural of Boston on the building’s wall? We designed everything to get people to post photos online. That’s how the press works these days according to the investors. You have to make everything . . . ‘consumable for an online audience.’” He used air quotations, and Tess gave him a limp nod. That certainly wasn’t something to tell a print journalist whose livelihood depended on people picking up a local newspaper every morning.

The shriek of the train as it neared the station interrupted her thoughts. She looked up and at the campaign posters taped to the wall behind the train tracks. The man on the poster’s eyes were bright blue, and Tess thought the dimple on his left cheek had deepened over time. She wondered if he knew their haunt had been replaced by the restaurant she had just visited, and if that loss had summoned a pang of grief in him, too. Tess walked onto the inbound train and could see straight into the outbound train, which had pulled up next to it. His blue eyes startled her. They weren’t supposed to be there.

The real man had replaced his image on the poster. He sat on the outbound train with his long legs too wide, a subtle nod to the entitlement of someone used to taking up a lot of space. He wore pink sneakers. At six-foot-five, the former Ivy League rower cast a long shadow. She had never escaped it.

Tim. 

His gaze locked into hers with the immediacy of a lightning bolt as the train doors slammed behind her. Rather than follow him with her eyes as the train pulled away — rubbernecking straight into her past — she froze, forgetting to blink. It brought her right back to the end. 

Once he was out of view, she pinched the bridge of her nose and calculated her missteps. She had avoided all run-ins for years with unceasing vigilance. No post-work beers at his favorite dives, no contact with mutual friends, no work projects that brought her too close to his home in the suburbs. In truth, if anyone had known how small she had made her world to avoid him, they would have sent her straight to a shrink. 

Tess couldn’t help knowing the broad strokes of his rise, even though she had avoided press coverage of him with religious fervor. His image and name jumped out at her as she turned the pages of The Boston Globe every day, and she picked up the gist from headlines alone. Tim had become a household name after leading a filibuster to protect women’s reproductive rights as a junior member of the House of Representatives. Political analysts had anointed him “the next JFK” in his lucky pink New Balance sneakers. He began a “movement” among progressive men who wore the shoes to show solidarity with women’s rights and the labor movement. 

Since leading the filibuster, Tim had leveraged his rising star status to run as a Democrat in a special election against the Republican candidate, Fred Felder, for the United States Senate. In a deep blue state where even moderate Republican Senators were few and far between, his ascension to the role was almost guaranteed. 

Tess knew Tim had always hated going underground, but he must have been doing it for the story. No doubt his team was in a black car while he hoofed it on the train. She imagined women snapping selfies with him on the Red Line, positioning themselves to catch both his real face and a campaign poster in the background. She thought of the men in pink sneakers posing alongside him for a photograph — the same men, probably, who never gave up their seats on the train for old people or pregnant women. 

She swayed as the train jerked across the Salt-and-Pepper bridge. Choppy water churned toward her under a wall of rain. She couldn’t see the city coming into view, but she knew that the gold dome of the State House, the tidy brownstones of Beacon Hill and the trees on the Esplanade were ahead of her. Soon, she would be back with a cup of tea in her apartment on Telegraph Hill, far away from Tim Butler and the memories that had never left. Her hands reached for her phone as a text from a local number popped into view. 

Hey

She couldn’t forget that number — not if her sanity depended on it.