by Sally Mason
31
Gordon sits on the bed of his room and stares at the wall.
The day was a resounding success, Bitsy’s idiot savant routine—which he knew came from sheer terror and an old Puritan addiction to the truth—catnip to the media.
He and his sister are going to be very rich.
“So why the hell are you so damned glum?” he asks himself.
“Good question, Gordo,” Suzie says, leaning a haunch on the mini-bar.
“Have you come to crow?” he asks.
“No, I’ve come to say goodbye.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You’re a hopeless case, Gordon. You blew the opportunity to finally rip off that hair shirt you’ve been wearing for twenty years and live.”
“It’s a very well-tailored hair shirt.”
“Gordon, I know what happened to me was tragic. Hell, I should know, I was the one who died. But you have to move on, Gordy. You can’t carry on mourning me.”
“I’m not mourning you.”
“You sure as hell are. What was that decade plus spent writing that awful book if it wasn’t some act of mourning?”
“It was me trying to find some meaning in my life.”
“Just live, Gordo. Fall in love again.”
“I think I’m done with love.”
“Then I’m done with you. Have a nice life, Gordon.”
And she’s gone.
He looks around, certain she’ll pop up in another corner of the room.
“Suzie?” he says, but he’s talking to himself.
Feeling a profound emptiness, Gordon lies on the bed and stares up at the ceiling.
He sees the rest of his life stretching out before him.
A life of great financial comfort, to be sure, but with little else.
When he finds his hand on the telephone he realizes he’s about to call Jane Cooper.
Gordon withdraws his hand.
No, he is better alone.
Miserable, yes, but still with his dignity intact.
For what, after all, is a man without his dignity?
He waits for Suzie’s ribald rejoinder but, of course, it doesn’t come.
All he hears is the muted whisper of the traffic and the slow, measured tick of the bedside clock.
32
The two days since the media blitz at The Pierre have passed in a blur for Jane.
Lizzie Rushworth is officially hot.
Trending on Twitter.
Ablaze in the blogosphere.
Splashed across the pages of the major newspapers.
Jane’s hardly slept and barely eaten.
The upside is that she’s been too busy to fret about Tom Bennett.
Jonas Blunt has jetted off to Los Angeles to booze and schmooze Raynebeau Jones and her acolytes, eager to keep his noble profile high in the shark-infested Hollywood waters.
He’s left Jane, as he put it, at the tiller, managing the slavering media and the auction of Ivy, which is happening today.
Before he left Jonas set the terms of the auction with the five major publishers who are bidding: it’s to be a “round robin” auction, with 11:00 A.M. today the deadline for first offers.
Once all the initial offers are received, the lowest bidder will be given the opportunity to outbid the highest or drop out, then the next lowest bidder will be given the opportunity to top the highest bid and it will continue until there is one winner standing by tonight.
Three hours ago Jonas, air kissing the vicinity of Jane’s forehead as he dashed to the airport limo, said, “Over to you, Janey. I’ll be on my mobi.”
There are many things that Jane loathes about her boss, but his new affectation of using British slang for his cell phone had her biting back a snide rejoinder.
But, as she sits in her gorgeous new office watching the clock edge toward eleven, she understands how much she owes him and how she merely needs to bob in the wake of his insufferable ego for another couple of years and then (who knows?) perhaps she’ll be able to hang out her own shingle.
The Jane Cooper Agency, has a nice ring.
Or maybe Cooper Literary.
Her computer bings like a door chime as she sees the first bids land in her inbox.
She clicks on one.
An offer of $3 million.
She gulps and clicks on the next.
$3.5 million.
Jonas is right: they’ll be able to get around $6 million by the end of the day.
The door to the office opens and Jane’s new assistant, Belinda, sticks her head in.
“Jane, there are two detectives here to see you.”
Before Jane can reply Belinda pushes the door wide and a flabby guy in a badly fitting jacket followed by a tired looking woman in a pantsuit invade the room.
The man wags a badge at Jane and mumbles two names she doesn’t get.
“What’s this all about?” Jane says, hearing her computer chime as another bid arrives.
“You know a Thomas Bennett?” the woman says.
“Yes.”
Jane sees her assistant still lurking in the doorway.
“You can go, Belinda, and close the door, please.”
Jane waits until the girl departs before she speaks.
“Tom Bennett is my ex-fiancé,” she says.
“You wouldn’t happen to know his whereabouts?” the man asks.
“No. I haven’t seen or heard from him in a couple of days.”
“But he lives at your apartment?”
“He did,” Jane says. “He moved out a few days ago. What’s wrong? What’s he done?”
The woman says, “He is a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.”
She flaps a piece of paper under Jane’s nose.
“This is a warrant authorizing us to search your apartment.”
Jane stares at the woman cop.
“What for?”
The man says, “Ms. Cooper we need you to accompany us to your home. Immediately.”
Jane shakes her head.
“I can’t. That’s impossible. I’m in the middle of something vital here.”
“Don’t make us arrest you, Ms. Cooper,” the woman says, staring her down with very cold eyes.
Jane stands.
“Okay, I’ll go with you. I just need to brief my assistant before we leave, okay?”
“Make that briefing brief,” the man says, chortling.
His partner looks pained.
Jane, her computer chiming again, abandons her desk on the most important day of her career.
Jane sits at her kitchen table watching as the detectives and a squad of uniformed cops turn her apartment upside down.
A man built like a basketball player knocks a bowl from a shelf beside the fridge and it crashes to the floor, spilling sugar on the tiles.
He doesn’t seem to notice, crunching over it in his size eighteens.
It’s after noon and Jane, who had to surrender her iPhone and iPad to the detectives (a nerdy looking plainclothes cop sits opposite her, trawling through phone and tablet) feels close to panic.
Her landline rings and the female cop crosses the living room to answer it.
“Yes?” the woman says.
After a pause she says, “Ms. Cooper is unavailable right now,” and she hangs up.
“Who was that?” Jane asks, standing, heading toward the doorway.
“I look like your secretary?” the cop asks.
Jane walks toward her.
“I need to be in touch with my office—”
“Just step back into the kitchen and stay there, Ms. Cooper, otherwise I’m going to have to restrain you.”
Jane obeys, watching the wall clock advance toward 12:30 P.M.
The nerdy cop leaves her phone and iPad on the table and goes through to the living room, speaking to the male detective who grunts and comes into the kitchen and sits down opposite Jane.
“Okay, your apartment’s clean.”
Jane wags
a hand at the spilled sugar and broken bowl.
“Hardly.”
“Believe me, sugar is the least of your worries.”
He leans in and gives her the benefit of his breakfast breath.
“You look like a nice girl, what you doing with a loser like Bennett?”
“I’m no longer with him.”
“So you say. Thing is Counselor Bennett was supplementing his income by supplying his preppy crew with dietary additives, if you get my drift.”
“I don’t.”
“Drugs, Ms. Cooper. Cocaine, to be specific. You indulge?”
“Certainly not!”
“Tom Bennett ever use drugs in your company?”
“God, no. He hardly even drank.”
The cop stares at her.
“Looks like there’s a lot about this guy you don’t know.”
She nods.
“I’m realizing that.”
The cops grunts his way to his feet.
“We’re outta here. You’re free to go. But you hear from him, you call me, okay?”
He hands her a card.
And just like that they’re gone, leaving Jane with an apartment that looks like Hurricane Sandy took a detour through it.
Jane’s cell phone rings and her stomach knots as she sees Jonas’s name on caller ID.
“Jonas,” she says.
“I’ve just landed in L.A. and I’ve already had five editors calling me, screaming about their bids being ignored.”
“I can explain—”
“Hell, I thought I knew you, but this!”
“I’m sorry, Jonas?”
“Sorry? Sorry!? Why? You have cojones of steel, Janey. You’ve got these editors in a spin. They’re all swearing that they’re prepared to double their bids. Or they would if they could track you down!”
He laughs.
“Where are you, anyway?”
“Uh, I’m at Starbucks.”
“Well, have a Peppermint Mocha on me. Then trot on back to the office and bleed those suckers dry.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Oh, and Janey . . .”
“Yes, Jonas?”
“Remind me never to play poker with you.”
He’s gone and so are Jane’s knees.
She falls into a chair and sits for a minute before she finds the strength to go out into the chaos that has become her life.
33
Gordon finds himself on one of his aimless meanders through East Devon, shoulders hunched, hands deep in the pockets of his corduroys, eyes fixed on the sidewalk, oblivious to the autumnal blaze of color.
Since returning from New York he’s felt rudderless.
Adrift.
You’re in mourning, he tells himself.
In mourning for that God-awful book and all the years you spent writing it.
He has no idea what he’s going to do with his life now that he has abandoned his novel and academia has abandoned him.
At least he no longer has financial worries.
Since the media blitz Ivy is being downloaded at a dizzying rate and the first royalty payment hit his bank account yesterday, an obscene amount of money that left him almost panic-stricken when he went on-line and checked his account balance.
He felt as if the door was about to be kicked down and some shadowy truth police were going to invade Bitsy’s house, dragging Gordon out into the street and demanding that he own up to his deception.
Before they emptied his bank account of his ill-gotten gains.
Ridiculous, Gordon tells himself as he approaches Grace’s restaurant, the absurdly named Field To Fork.
He’s drawn from his reverie by the sudden realization that there’s way more traffic than usual in East Devon.
Cars line both sides of the street, strangers browse the stores and when he looks into Grace’s he sees the tables are all full.
A hand-lettered sign in the window of the eatery invites diners to “Try the delicious Joe Froggers that Suzie eats in Ivy.”
Is it possible that the awful novel is attracting people to East Devon?
Gordon’s questioned is answered by a plain woman with permed hair who heaves herself from the passenger seat of a Ford with Massachusetts plates, saying to her husband, a skinny, long-suffering fellow: “Isn’t it quaint, Desmond? It’s just like the book.”
They disappear into Grace’s and Gordon walks on, leaving the main road and finding himself standing outside the house where Suzie Baldwin lived all those years ago, now the home of lesbian potters.
“Hi Suzie,” he says, staring at the upper window that had been her bedroom, but he knows it’s no good.
She has kept her promise.
He hasn’t seen her since that night at The Pierre.
One of the potters appears in the window, scowling down at him.
“You’re losing your mind, Gordon,” he says and takes a deep breath and strides off in the direction of his sister’s house.
As he arrives home he is accosted by the postman, heaving a bulging mailbag.
The old coot, his face red as a beet, says, “They got me working double shifts because of the sister o’ yours.”
The postman upends his bag, pouring a pile of letters onto the sidewalk beside Bitsy’s mail box.
Gordon looks at the letters and then up at the postman who marches away, muttering to himself.
Gordon reaches down and snags an envelope.
It is addressed to: Viola Usher, East Devon, Vermont.
He lifts another.
And another.
And another.
Scooping up the pile, envelopes slipping from his grasp as he walks up the short pathway, Gordon kicks at the front door.
After a few seconds he kicks again and Bitsy, cell phone pressed to her ear, opens the door.
“I’m talking to Jane,” she says, then she stares at the envelopes. “What’s all that?”
“Fan mail,” Gordon says, dumping the envelopes on the living room carpet.
“Here’s Gordon,” Bitsy says and hands him the phone.
“Hello, Jane,” he says.
“Gordon, are you sitting down?” Jane asks.
“Why?”
“We’ve just concluded the auction.”
“And?”
“Ivy has gone to Argyle Press for eight million.”
“Dollars?” he asks.
“No, Gordon, Vietnamese Dong. Of course dollars.”
A sudden dizziness has Gordon sitting, staring up at Bitsy who paces the living room, looking fretful.
“Gordon, are you there?” Jane says.
“Yes. That’s an impressive sum.”
“An understatement.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Bitsy needs to give us the nod and we’ll conclude the deal.”
“She’s nodding like her heads on a spring, Jane.”
“Good, then it’s done. I’ll be in touch with the paperwork. Congratulations all round.”
“And to you, Jane. You must be very pleased.”
“I’m ready to leapfrog the Chrysler building.”
Gordon laughs.
“I wish I was there to see it.”
There’s a pause that neither of them seems able to fill, then Jane says, “Well, we’ll speak soon. Goodbye, Gordon.”
“Goodbye,” he says and sets Bitsy’s phone down on the coffee table.
He scratches his head.
“We’re rich, Bitsy.”
“I know,” she says. “It’s terrifying.”
“We’ll get used to it.”
She sits opposite him, still with her snazzily styled hair but back in her frumpy clothes with no make-up on her face.
“What are you going to do now, Gordon?”
“I don’t know. I’ll move out, of course.”
“Where to?”
He shrugs.
“Maybe Manhattan.”
“What will you do there?”
“The same as I’d d
o if I stayed here in East Devon: lots of nothing.”
“Aren’t you going to write another book?”
“No, I’m done with that lark.”
“What about another Suzie Ballinger novel?”
“I fear my muse has deserted me, Bitsy.”
Before his sister can reply they are startled by an amplified voice bellowing from outside: “And this, folks, is where the author of Ivy lives. Viola Usher, aka Lizzie Rushworth, wrote the book in this very house.”
Gordon dashes to the window and stares out.
A bus idles in the narrow street, belching diesel smoke and a squad of women brandishing cell phones spill out onto the sidewalk, looking right at him, their cameras clicking.
Gordon draws the drapes and turns to sister.
“What have you done, Gordon?” Bitsy asks.
He can find no answer.
34
It’s 9:00 P.M. and to celebrate the day of extraordinary success Jane lies on her couch dressed in her most comfortable sweats, drinking Heineken, eating Chinese take-out and binge-watching Netflix.
She refuses to acknowledge the realization that there’s something sad about being alone tonight.
What the hell, she’s on top of the world.
Jonas called the office when the auction was concluded and blew kisses at her through his mobi and sang (seriously!) “Bo-bo-bo-bo-bonus time!” to the tune of “Barbara Ann.”
She floated out of the Blunt Agency on a cloud of French champagne (Jonas sent a bottle of Cristal along with a bunch of blood red roses) and watched night fall on Manhattan from the back of the cab taking her to her apartment.
An apartment that was sprucer than it had ever been thanks to the crew of cleaners organized by her assistant Belinda while Jane finalized the Ivy auction.
There’s no sign that her home was searched by the cops.
And, best of all, the cleaning solvents used by the housekeepers have erased any lingering traces of Tom Bennett’s aftershave and hair gel.
Realizing that she’s about to slide down a mental rat hole that’ll lead her into a world of anger and hurt, Jane purges Tom from her mind and, the antics on the TV screen not holding her attention, finds herself thinking of crusty old Gordon Rushworth.
Crusty, yes.
But not really old.
