Breaking the Mould

by Victoria Hamilton

  Brock joined them, glass of scotch in one hand. With a drink or two under his belt he was more bearable, friendly and happy, rather than sarcastic and judgmental. As he buttonholed Jakob, Jaymie took a glass of wine from a server and drifted away from the two men, ambling off to tour the house with her friends.

  The main floor was all public rooms, the parlor and dining room on one side, then across the central hall a sitting room that led through another set of pocket doors to a library, all full of small groups of people clustered everywhere, their chatter drowning out the seasonal orchestral music that floated through the house on some kind of central sound system. The fireplace in the sitting room was topped by a gorgeous Eastlake-style mantelpiece, with family photos and mementoes. A large carved wood frame held a photo of Evan and Ben together, the handsome, dark-haired son behind his distinguished-looking father’s chair, hand on his shoulder, family ring displayed prominently. It looked very new, within the last few weeks, perhaps. There was another, matching, of Evan and lovely Bella, her beauty shimmering in the perfect professional lighting. It was a good-looking family. No photo of the ex, of course; no older photos at all.

  They kept circling back to the dining room and snacking as they went, fighting through a crowd when some new delicacy had been served. But as well as the sideboard buffet and trays of food on the ten-foot-long table in the dining room, waitstaff dressed in black and white circulated with plates of hors d’oeuvres. So far she had seen neither her host nor hostess. Odd. As she speared a mini meatball with a tiny sword from a tray on the table, having lost contact with Heidi and Valetta for the moment, Jaymie edged close to a group composed of an older woman, very august and staid, with two middle-aged men. Pastor Inkerman approached them. It appeared that he was well known to them, as they greeted him by name.

  “Good to see you, Vaughan,” the older woman said affectionately, hugging him and exchanging air kisses. “You look . . . happier.”

  “Somewhat, Hazel,” he said. “I’m still wounded. It’s never easy when you’re criticized and don’t know where the disparagement is coming from. Listen, I’ve been told recently that that horrible reviewer, Book Bookman, is a local man. Who could it be, do you think? I’ve wracked my brain. Who would be so set on destroying me that he’d trash my book in such a manner?”

  “Vaughan, you must let go of this,” the woman said, glancing over at the other two men and raising her heavily penciled brows. “Carter, Andy, please reassure him. Among many positive reviews, one negative should not hold so much sway.”

  “If only it were just one criticism, but this Bookman fellow . . . he has stalked me online and continues to do so! Anywhere I blog or write, he follows and . . . what is it called? Trolling? He trolls me, makes disparaging comments, sarcastic jabs.” There was a plaintive edge to his voice. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve it. I wish he’d leave me alone.”

  The woman exchanged looks once more with the two men. There was something knowing in her gaze, something that arrested Jaymie’s attention. “Vaughan, whoever this unpleasant individual is, I have faith you will deal with him with grace and humility.” She turned once more to the other two men. “Isn’t that so, gentlemen? We must keep our college pastor happy, mustn’t we?”

  The woman knew something, Jaymie was sure of it. She stole a look, as the two fellows obediently burbled about how the reviewer was probably some outsider, someone who didn’t understand, someone who . . . they trailed off, watching their host approach. Inkerman examined them, brow furrowed, lips pursed. When he saw where their gazes were directed he whirled around to find Evan Nezer standing behind him, a derisive expression on his face.

  “Having a bad day, Inkerman?” he said, his lip curled.

  The pastor’s face told Jaymie as clearly as if he’d said it aloud. In that moment he knew, and so did Jaymie: Nezer was the offending book reviewer, Book Bookman.

  Seven

  Inkerman’s expressive face blotched with red. He set down his drink, his hand shaking so much it sloshed, and fled the group. Jaymie watched as he bumped into Valetta, apologized, and moved on. Val joined her, looking over her shoulder. “What was that all about?”

  Jaymie explained.

  “Poor guy,” Valetta murmured. “What a thing to find out at a party, that your host is your mortal enemy! Let’s look around some more. Where’s Heidi?”

  Heidi was nowhere to be found and Jakob had been absorbed into a group of men near the Christmas tree, as had Brock, so the two friends went along on their own. Valetta, even snoopier than Jaymie, led the way. At the end of the hall was a dark space and a door. They pushed it open and peeked. There was a dowdier area beyond the front of the house, which explained why there was no lighting in this end of the hall. Bella Nezer had no doubt had her hands full getting the rest of the house ready for the party. She couldn’t do everything in two months. This space had peeling wallpaper, stained with moisture, and chipped floor tiles.

  But there were no signs commanding them to keep out and the door was unlocked. Jaymie and Val passed through the heavy door. They noticed a small washroom, which Val used. Then it was Jaymie’s turn. She did her business, then opened her clutch to get her lipstick. There was the note the woman in the bushes had handed her. She held it to the light, too weak for a bathroom, but designed to hide the tiny room’s flaws.

  The note was folded over and taped, and on one side was written Ben in a large scrawl. So, this was for Benjamin Nezer? Her curiosity, always an itch under her skin, tickled. What did it say? Why hand it to her?

  She ran her lipstick over her lips, smacked them together in the mirror, then pushed the note back in her clutch and exited the bathroom. She’d have to find Ben, at some point, and give it to him. Valetta was peeking into the room beyond. Jaymie joined her at the door. It was the kitchen, bustling with caterers who whipped trays of hors d’oeuvres out of the oven and filled platters that servers awaited as they chattered among themselves.

  It was a huge, open room with sparse furnishings and centered by a large high worktable. The housekeeper—Jaymie assumed it was Erla Fancombe, anyway—leaned with one hand on the counter as she faced Finn Fancombe, her expression tense. “You should not be here tonight, you know that!” Her son hung his head, looking more like he was ten than the thirty-something-year-old he must be.

  “Jaymie Leighton!” gasped a familiar voice nearby.

  She whirled. “Austin Calhoun! What are you doing here?”

  Austin was an acquaintance who had helped her sneak into a business building a year ago when she was trying to solve a murder. They hugged and she introduced Valetta as her partner in crime, the woman with whom she had gotten locked into that office building. He giggled. When she stood back she could see his plump form was clothed in the black and white of waitstaff. “You’re working?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I need money for the holidays. My mom wants the latest iPhone and I’m a poor student now.”

  “Student?”

  “I’ve decided to do something with my life,” he said, beaming. “At least that’s what my mom says.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s relieved I’ve got a goal. With my sparkling personality and ready wit I decided hospitality is a natural, so I’m taking the hotel management course at WC.”

  “Oh, WC!”

  “It’s cheap,” he said with a shrug. “And local. I moved back in with my mom to save money.”

  “You will be a natural,” she agreed. It was a perfect fit for him. He loved people and could talk to anyone.

  “I’m still working at the call center part-time, but when the listing was posted on the college work board for this party I signed up. Extra moolah for Christmas.”

  “I was surprised to see waitstaff, actually,” Jaymie said, her attention still straying to Finn and his mother, arguing by the back door. Valetta had moved into the kitchen and snatched a treat from a tray, bouncing it back and forth between her hands until it cooled, then popping it into her mouth as a caterer ga
ve her a censorious look. “Most parties in this town are there’s the buffet; help yourself.”

  “That would never do for Mrs. Bella Nezer,” Austin said with an edge to his tone, as two of his fellow waiters pushed past through the door. “When she arrives at the college to check up on her hubby she always makes such a production out of it, swanning through campus, Louboutin shoes, Hermes handbag and matching scarf wound into a turban over her hair like Joan freaking Crawford. The students call her La Bella.”

  Erla Fancombe glanced over, perhaps hearing her employer’s name. Finn smiled woozily at Jaymie and shrugged. What was he doing there on the night of a party? Surely Evan didn’t know about this. His mother handed him a bag and pushed him toward the back door, then sent an unfriendly look at Jaymie and Val.

  “Austin, you’d best get one of those trays and get going before the shrimp goes off,” she said loudly, her gruff voice tinged with impatience. She bent over and pulled a heavy roasting pan out of the oven and easily hoisted it up onto the counter. “Mr. Nezer doesn’t wait for anyone. Get a move on.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, rolling his eyes at Jaymie.

  “We’ll follow you back to the front of the house,” Val said.

  As they pushed through the door to the front hall another server was on her way through, returning to the kitchen with an empty platter for more food.

  “Jacklyn?” Jaymie exclaimed.

  It was indeed Jacklyn Marley, dressed in black and white. Her face burned red and she grimaced. “Yeah, well, I’m getting money out of the bastard one way or another,” she joked as she shouldered past them.

  “That is odd,” Jaymie said as she followed Val.

  “Why?”

  “Why would she work here, given her animosity toward Evan Nezer? And why would Bella hire her, knowing their history? That makes zero sense.”

  Val knew Jacklyn as a new tenant of the apartment above the Emporium, but she didn’t know the whole story. As Austin waved and mouthed toodles, then headed back toward a crowd of people with his platter of shrimp, Jaymie strolled with Val and told her friend about Jacklyn’s bitterness toward Nezer for his failure to pay her, as his ghostwriter, what she was owed.

  “What does he write?” Valetta asked.

  “A couple of fiction books back in the eighties, according to Jacklyn, but his more recent work that she ghosted, I haven’t a clue.”

  “Ladies! I’m so happy you both could come,” Bella Nezer said, drifting over to them. She was, of course, gorgeous, in an off-the-shoulder body-hugging black gown, ruched across the stomach, and with a glittering halter of rhinestones that held it up, as the front plunged deeply, displaying her impressive décolletage. She emanated a cloud of good wine and expensive cologne. “Where is your little blonde friend, Heidi whatever her name is?”

  Jaymie exchanged a look with Val. That was the most passive-aggressive way to describe Heidi Lockland imaginable. Her last name could not be difficult to remember, as it was the same as Haskell Lockland, whom she seemed to remember quite well.

  “She’s around here somewhere,” Jaymie said. “Lovely house, Bella. You’ve done an amazing job with it in such a short time. I don’t know how you did it!”

  “It wasn’t easy. We haven’t even been here long enough to have our mail delivered properly, for heaven’s sake! Evan has had it all routed through the college until we’re settled properly. Très incommode,” she said with an airy wave of one elegant hand. “But my dear husband wanted to host all his friends from the college and community, so I knew I had to make it happen. He’s busy with all his work, and teaching, and writing. It’s the least I can do to provide a lovely home for him.”

  There was no answer to that and fortunately she appeared to need none, drifting off to graciously speak with others, touching a shoulder, smiling beneficently, beaming at her husband, air-kissing the college president.

  Austin, Jacklyn, and the other waitstaff, probably students at WC as well, threaded through the crowd offering a variety of appetizers and hors d’oeuvres: crostini, smoked salmon bites, stuffed endive, rumaki, and a dozen more were endlessly supplied from the caterers. Sparkling wine flowed, punch was available, a traditional wassail, as Bella announced, to celebrate the season. Funny, Jaymie thought, when all Nezer seemed to want to do was end the festive Dickens Days, where such traditions as fellowship, wassail and gathering with friends were celebrated.

  Jakob, standing with Brock, looked across the room to her and winked. She winked back and rolled her eyes. Jacklyn Marley sailed past with a tray of tiny quiches and she snagged two, handing one to Valetta, who stood next to her chatting to a stranger.

  Her question about the host’s writing was soon to be answered. Nezer, at the heart of a circle of folks, including the college president and her minions, held forth about the meaning of Christmas, and how if they were going to be true to it and their society, they needed to embrace the commercial aspect. It was only through unfettered buying that the lower orders could be gainfully employed and thus lifted out of the poverty in which they toiled. “If our society would toughen up a little, those who are laying around on food stamps would be forced to get off their butts and work for a living. Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise?” Inkerman said, standing up from his sofa seat behind the group. “Otherwise where should we put them? Your book The Literary Economics of Charles Dickens says the Victorians had the right idea and Dickens was full of bunkum for painting such a grim picture of the prisons and workhouses. Am I right?”

  Nezer swiveled his gaze and stared at the pastor over the top of his glasses. He raised his wineglass in a salute. “So you’ve read it. I hope you found it illuminating.”

  “I found it horrible,” the pastor said. “Rife with heartless judgment and void of compassion.”

  “Interesting. I suppose you have to say poppycock like that, being a man of God—” Nezer paused and glanced around, as if waiting for a laugh, even though he hadn’t said anything particularly funny. A couple of the college colleagues politely tittered. “But I stand by that one hundred percent, Inkerman. False hope of some miraculous deliverance isn’t doing them any justice. Not like that ‘best of all possible worlds’ crap you peddle.”

  “Now we get to the heart of it!” Inkerman howled, jabbing his finger at his host as he pushed through the crowd toward him. “Now I understand you, why you haunt me and torment me wherever I go. You’re a heartless contrarian who can’t bear anyone having a different opinion than you.”

  Jaymie noticed Jacklyn Marley standing close, transfixed, her platter drooping dangerously, the tiny quiches sliding to one side, then looked back to the two men, edging closer and closer. Jakob was paying attention too, from his spot near the front window, where he stood with a drink in his hand chatting with Nezer’s son, Benjamin.

  “You’re just angry your book was panned as pie-in-the-sky silliness.” Nezer turned away.

  “By you, you . . . you sour, faded, hack Scrooge! You’re jealous of Dickens because besides being a brilliant author and devoted humanitarian, he had a heart. You wouldn’t know what that was if someone ripped out the vital organ dripping with blood and slapped you with it!” That violent and evocative image was followed by a physical attack of sorts. Inkerman threw his drink at Nezer’s back. It splashed his expensive suit, the silk blotching in drips.

  Nezer whirled, shards of ice scattering around him. “Why you wheedling little pathetic excuse for a writer.” The words grated from between gritted teeth. From coolly amused, he had transformed into fuming fury, his skin red above his trim beard. “Get out of my house. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

  “Your wife invited me, you louse.” Inkerman set his empty glass aside. “She, at least, is graceful and gracious. How she ended up married to a doddering old has-been like you I’ll never understand.”

  “Has-been? Me?” Nezer bellowed. “Look who’s talking! A never-was. Your book was so bad that when I reviewed it, I had to hold back the w
orst points.” He looked around at the crowd gathered. “Yes, that’s right, folks. No one would have believed its awfulness until they read it for themselves!” He turned again and glared at the pastor. “I probably did you a favor. At least I steered a few people away from it. Readers are laughing at the drivel you’ve spewed.”

  Inkerman launched himself at Nezer, but the older man held his ground and grabbed the pastor, whose blonde locks were in his eyes, interfering with his vision. “Give it up, Inkerman,” he said, shaking him. “You know you only wrote that piece of crap to try to hide your past affairs.”

  The pastor roared in anger and swiped ineffectually at Nezer, who was certainly stronger than he looked. Jakob calmly set his drink aside as people started to shout and gabble. He pushed through the crowd, stepping between the two men and physically separating them with his bulk, grabbing a handful of fabric from each man’s shirt. “Gentlemen, let’s remember where we are,” he said gruffly, lasering stern looks at each of them. “And that there are ladies present.”

  Inkerman retreated first, his pale face blotched in red spots of color that stretched in blobs down his neck. He swept his fair hair back off his forehead, gasping and wheezing in distress. Nezer, with a sneer still on his face, shifted his glasses up to the bridge of his nose again and stood his ground, even as Jakob kept his big hand on the professor’s chest.

  “This poor fellow is suffering humiliation over the devastating failure of his book in comparison to mine,” Nezer said.

  “I’d rather have a tender heart than one of stone,” Inkerman said, his eyes welling and his voice breaking. “I’ll be leaving now.” He stepped back, settled his rumpled shirt, turned and bowed to his hostess, who stood, hand over her mouth in mortification at the quarrel. “Bella, beauteous lady, radiant morning star, my most sincere apologies to you, and my condolences on wedding the worst human being I have ever met in my life.” He threw a disgusted look over his shoulder. “I’ll take my coat now and leave.”