by Ali Brandon
Darla had been listening with interest to Lizzie doing her version of the Biography Channel. Recalling the woman’s earlier outburst, she said sympathetically, “I’m guessing you and Valerie weren’t best friends, were you? You think she’ll remember you?”
“She’d better,” Lizzie proclaimed, her smile now bright.
They continued chatting as they finished restocking the display, with Darla keeping an eye on the clock. “James,” she called a few minutes later, “can you remind the folks back in the mystery section that we’re closing early to get ready for the autographing? Oh, and is Mary Ann here yet?”
Mary Ann Plinski, the same old friend of Great-Aunt Dee’s who’d helped out after her death, had volunteered to run the register during the event. She lived next door in an apartment over her brother’s antique store, so she could pop in at a moment’s notice, and since she’d helped out Dee before, she needed no training on the equipment. She would be the first stop once the eager fans finally made their way inside the store. Each would pay her for up to two books and then present the receipt to Lizzie or James at the signing table, where Valerie would sign their copies.
Mary Ann showed up just as they escorted out the last customer.
“My goodness, those kids are having a wonderful time out there,” she exclaimed with a smile after greeting everyone. Though she wore her pewter-hued hair in its usual French twist, she’d gotten into the spirit of things and had donned a vintage 1940s-era black gown that Darla suspected was borrowed from her brother’s inventory.
Darla locked the door after the older woman. “Are you sure we won’t be keeping you up too late tonight?” she asked her. “We’ll probably be here until eleven, maybe later.”
“Oh gracious, don’t worry about that,” Mary Ann declared, waving away Darla’s concerns with one wrinkled hand. “You get to be my age, and you don’t sleep too much, anyway. I’m always up at all hours, so tonight won’t be any different.”
The clamor on the sidewalk outside had risen as the time drew closer to the magical Valerie hour. Darla felt her temples begin to thrum, though she wasn’t sure if it was from lack of food or from nerves. This was, after all, her first major event since taking ownership of the place. But just in case it was the former, she had that covered.
“Thai food is on the way,” she said, earning sounds of gratified approval from her staff. “In the meantime, let’s get those bookshelves moved so we can set up the autographing area.”
In a bit of clever carpentry, the shelves in the center of the store were all on casters. A flick of a lever unlocked each wheel, so an entire unit could be rolled away without unloading the books, allowing the store’s floor plan to be reconfigured with only a bit of effort. Soon enough, they had cleared a broad path down the center of the store. That accomplished, they created a mazelike pathway with the stanchions.
“Pack ’em in here like sardines,” Mary Ann said approvingly.
“Ooh, it’s like the waiting line for a ride at Disney World,” Lizzie declared in satisfaction.
“Or the line going through airport security,” James countered, drawing a disapproving moue from the woman, while Darla merely shook her head.
At the rear of the main room, they swiftly set up a table that they covered in black and red cloths, behind which Valerie would sit as she signed books. Lizzie arranged an artful pile of books on either end of the table—they’d be replenishing books all night long from displays and a few dozen more boxes still unopened along the back wall—while Darla moved the easel with its poster into place. For a finishing touch, Mary Ann draped black cloth over the shelving behind the table and covered the folding chair with a properly spooky black slipcover.
“The Thai has arrived,” James proclaimed as the women stepped back to admire their handiwork.
Over the next hour, the four of them took turns standing watch over the crowd while Jake and Reese made a run-through of the store and managed a final break to eat before the evening’s excitement began. Lizzie, meanwhile, went outside to hand out the first of the giveaways, an official Haunted High trivia sheet. Later would come the silicone bracelets with the various book titles on them, and then the Haunted High pins. When it was her turn to play security guard, Darla pulled on her black cloak and went to check on Callie first thing.
It was almost dark now, but the nearby streetlamps and security lights from the surrounding buildings provided adequate illumination to see what was going on. She found Callie sitting propped against the wall, her pink backpack in her lap as a makeshift table to hold the paperback she was reading. She looked up at Darla’s greeting and gave a lopsided smile that showed most of her red lipstick had worn off.
“I’m almost finished reading my second book,” she proclaimed over the noise of the teens surrounding her. “It’s a good thing I brought three with me. Is Valerie going to be here soon?”
“Any minute now. Did you get something to eat?”
Callie nodded. “Mom packed me enough for lunch and dinner, plus I’ve got a chocolate bar for dessert. Susanna”—she motioned to the petulant-looking brunette teen standing next to her huddled with two other girls, all three dressed in the requisite black capes—“she had one, too, but she said it would make her fat, so she gave hers to Mr. Reese.”
While Darla considered this, Callie scrunched up her small face in concern. “Is Mr. Reese your boyfriend?”
“No, he’s just a friend of my friend.”
“Whew,” the girl exclaimed, making an exaggerated swipe of her hand across her brow. “That’s good, because I heard Susanna tell Mimi and Janna that she’d like to jump his bones. That didn’t sound very polite, especially not if he already has a girlfriend.”
Darla glanced over at the teen in question and smiled sweetly, though she discovered to her surprise that she had to suppress a sudden impulse to give Susanna a good shake. “Don’t worry, Callie,” she replied through gritted teeth, “Mr. Reese is way too old for your sister. Now, sit tight, and when the line starts moving, I want you to hold on to your sister’s hand so you don’t get shoved or stepped on. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Satisfied for the moment that Callie was taken care of, Darla made her way down the line. She was pleased to see that the crowd continued to be civilized, save for those occasional earsplitting shrieks. She wondered if Jake and Reese had pre-intimidated the crowd into good behavior, or if Valerie’s fans were naturally well behaved. Either was fine by her.
Then she glimpsed the Lone Protester in her usual spot, and her good mood dissolved.
FIVE
DARLA TAPPED THE SHOULDER OF ONE OF THE CLOAK-WEARING girls in line. The teen turned her way, displaying a moderate case of acne and a shock of bleached hair so overly processed that it would probably ignite if it came within ten feet of an open flame.
“Yeah.”
It was less a question than a statement, but Darla took it as a conversational opening. “See that girl across the street?” she asked, pointing. “Do you know who she is, or why she’s protesting Valerie?”
The girl smacked her gum and shot a bored look at the still figure. “I dunno. Some loser, I guess. Why don’t you go ask her?”
A reasonable enough question, Darla wryly told herself. She had half a mind to march over there and have a few words with the girl—or send Lizzie out to do the dirty work—but she wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. The last thing she needed was to get into a brawl with some disgruntled teen just as Valerie and her entourage were pulling up.
And then there was the problem of physically getting over there to her.
Valerie Baylor’s upcoming appearance was bringing out all the gawkers, with traffic picking up rather than dwindling as it usually did on a Sunday evening. At least the police were doing a great job with traffic control, and the passing vehicles were moving along at a brisk pace, Darla thought in approval. But that meant crossing the street would be an even dicier prospect than usual. No point risking her
life just for the satisfaction of telling off a teenager.
She received similar responses from a few other girls that she questioned, though the last teen added, “She must be stupid. Everyone knows Valerie wrote all those books.”
Conceding defeat, Darla started back toward the store, pausing under a streetlight to check her watch. Quarter to seven. Surely, Valerie should be there by now!
Jake met her coming down the stairs. “Any idea where the big star is?”
“No clue, but they have the store’s number if they need to call.” Glancing up at her apartment window, where a light was burning, she said, “I’m going to run upstairs real fast and check on Hamlet. It’s nearly his suppertime, and you know how he gets.”
A few moments later, she was unlocking her apartment door. She’d half expected a fleeting swipe of a p.o.’d paw when she walked in, but it seemed his highness had decided against exacting punishment for her tardiness. She flipped on the kitchen light, prepared to see him there by his bowl. Instead, there was no sign of the cat, in the kitchen or anywhere else.
Darla quickly put out food and fresh water and headed back to the door, calling over her shoulder, “You’d better be in here, Hamlet, and not wandering around downstairs. Back soon.”
The sound began drifting up to her as she hit the second landing. Frowning, she made it to the first floor, and then realized what it was. Chanting.
“We want Valerie! We want Valerie! We want Valerie!”
“Great,” she muttered as, using her key, she let herself into the store via her hallway entrance. No way was she going to run that gauntlet from outer door to outer door! Inside, Lizzie, Mary Ann, and James had their faces pressed to the window. They turned as one when she asked, “Any word?”
James shook his head. “Neither the publicist nor the driver has called. I put on the radio and heard nothing about any traffic backups. So it seems that they are, in a word, late.”
“Great,” Darla repeated, managing not to modify the word with the universal adjective. “How are Jake and Reese holding out?”
“Except for the chanting, everything appears under control. But perhaps if you have a contact phone number, you might wish to—”
A cheer erupted from the crowd outside, cutting short James’s suggestion. Lizzie, who had still been glued to the window, spun about. Cheeks flushed and black cape swirling, she rushed toward the door while exclaiming the obvious.
“Valerie Baylor is here!”
“YOU WILL FIND PLENTY OF EXTRA PENS HERE, MS. BAYLOR,” JAMES said, pointing to a box on the black and red draped table, “and we have a selection of bottled water, as you requested. We also have soft drinks stocked, if you would care for one, or there is freshly brewed coffee, if you prefer. Oh, and the strawberry yogurt and whole wheat bagels with butter you requested are waiting upstairs in our lounge area.”
“Actually, what I really want to do is to take a pee and have a smoke, preferably in that order. Point me to the ladies’, would you?”
Long black velvet cape swirling, Valerie Baylor sauntered off in the direction James indicated. Darla’s first less-than-kind thought upon meeting Valerie had been the satisfied realization that the author’s publicity photo had definitely been retouched. Not that Valerie wasn’t an attractive woman, despite her theatrical spill of black hair and pale features. In person, however, her cameo features showed the beginnings of middle-aged sag, while the slash of red lipstick emphasized the trademark smoker’s wrinkles that radiated from her mouth. But she was dressed for the role, with tight black leather pants and a black silk blouse, along with three-inch red satin pumps that Darla guessed came from Manolo Blahnik or some other trendy designer.
Valerie’s entourage included a young woman in a too-short yellow sweater dress who looked like a brunette, grown-up version of Callie, and a chunky Asian man in his fifties, who was wearing designer jeans that appeared to have been both starched and then ironed into sharp-creased submission. It didn’t take much imagination to guess that the second man in the group—a bald, buff African American sporting wraparound shades similar to those Reese was wearing—was the official bodyguard.
“Name’s Everest, ma’am, like the mountain,” he introduced himself to Darla before taking up position at the front door to serve as a living roadblock.
The final member of Valerie’s posse was a model-thin woman with broad shoulders and sleek blond hair almost as long as the author’s. Her apparent Botox addiction had left her gaunt face almost expressionless, though her liberal application of makeup was flawless. She opened a satchel from which she now was pulling various pots and tubes of cosmetics and laying them like surgical tools upon the signing table.
The Asian man, meanwhile, stuck out an uncertain hand in Darla’s direction.
“Hi, Darla, right? I’m Koji Foster, Valerie’s publicist. We’ve been emailing back and forth.” Indicating first the brunette and then the blonde, he went on, “That’s Hillary Gables, Valerie’s agent, and Mavis, her personal assistant. So sorry we weren’t here earlier, but traffic was bad. We’ll be ready to start in just a few minutes, I promise.”
“Don’t worry, we understand. And I’m sure the kids outside do, too,” Darla answered, glancing over at the wall clock and noting that it was only quarter after seven. But then, with another look at the cosmetic counter’s worth of products the assistant had by now unloaded, she wondered, just how much prep time was the author going to need before she was ready to meet her public?
The screams that had risen from the crowd as Valerie’s limo pulled up had rivaled those of the audience at the boy-band concert to which Darla had taken her preteen niece a few years earlier. Flanked by her bodyguard and agent, and wrapped in her signature black cape, the author had graciously waved to the line of ecstatic young women before rushing up the steps to the store, Koji and Mavis trotting after her. She’d favored Darla with a limp handshake and brief greeting before eyeing the autographing area with a jaundiced look in her pale blue eyes that made Darla regret she hadn’t sprung for a red carpet or something equally over-the-top.
“The store looks lovely,” Hillary spoke up, as if she sensed Darla’s concerns, though her distracted gaze was fixed on the closed bathroom door Valerie had disappeared behind. She pulled a tissue from her jacket pocket and snuffled into it. “Sorry, allergies,” she explained, tucking the tissue away again. “And I was so sorry to hear about your aunt. I met her once before during another event here and thought she was charming.”
“Well, I’m sure she would have gotten a kick out of Val Vixen returning to her store as the famous Valerie Baylor after all these years.”
“Much better,” Valerie declared as she burst from the restroom and headed back toward the table. Plopping into the slipcovered chair, she added, “Koji, you did make sure the people here know my rules about what I will and won’t sign, didn’t you? For Chrissakes, we don’t need a bunch of little twerps selling scraps of paper with my signature on them all over eBay. And if the press show up, no interviews. They can read what I have to say in my blog. C’mon, Mavis, I need a touch-up.”
This last was directed toward the silent assistant, who obediently plucked an oversized satin bib from her bag of tricks and tied it about Valerie’s neck before she began applying dramatic smudgy color to the author’s lids. She used her array of brushes with the swift expertise of one of those artists on the old PBS how-to-paint television shows, much to Darla’s admiration. She herself was still trying to perfect the art of applying mascara without leaving behind a few clumps and smears.
Darla noted in passing that Mavis’s hands seemed unusually large for her thin frame, though they fluttered about her client’s neck with practiced grace as she adjusted the bib. And she couldn’t help but admire the heavy gold puzzle ring the woman wore on one long finger. Darla recalled a far cheaper version of that ring that she’d once bought for herself, having been intrigued by the series of thin interlocked bands that linked together to form what re
sembled a Celtic knot. Unfortunately, she’d succumbed to temptation and had taken it apart, only to concede after several fruitless hours that she had no clue how to put the darn thing back together again. In frustration, she had given the ring to her then six-year-old niece—and within five minutes, the girl was triumphantly sporting her auntie’s reassembled ring on one chubby finger, leaving Darla to shake her head in amazement.
“And make sure you keep things moving this time, Koji,” Valerie instructed the publicist as, shadow applied, she rolled her eyes upward for an application of mascara. Shutting them for a dusting of powder, she went on, “I want these kids in and out again as quickly as possible . . . not like the last event. We spent way too much time in that store in Boston. Christ, I had one girl talking to me for almost three minutes before you managed to get her out of my face.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be moving your readers through here lickety-split,” Darla hastened to assure her, not sure whether to laugh or simply be appalled at the woman’s cavalier manner toward her fans. “In fact, I have a stopwatch that we use for the writers’ critique group that meets here. Maybe I can let Koji borrow it.”
She smiled as she said it, intending the suggestion as a mild joke to take the tension down a notch. To her surprise, however, the writer nodded.
“Not a bad idea. Dig it out, why don’t you, and we’ll get this down to a science.” Then, snatching a hand mirror from Mavis, who had finally set aside her brushes, Valerie stared at her retouched reflection a moment before making a sound of disgust.
“For Chrissakes, I’m supposed to look ethereal, not like the Crypt Keeper. No, no, leave it alone,” she went on as Mavis attempted a bit of repair with a cosmetic puff. “We don’t have time to fix it. I’ll just look a hot mess, and who the hell cares?”
Yanking off the bib, she tossed it and the mirror onto the table and shoved back her chair. “God, I need that cigarette now,” she announced in Darla’s direction. “Is there a place out back I can smoke?”
