Sea Change (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 1)

by T'Gracie Reese

  “Oh you were?” said Allana, pulling out the chair, evaluating it, cleaning it, disdaining it, hearing its brick-scraping apology, forgiving it, and accepting the petition of the entire garden to join her realm and worship her, all with one brief sweeping magnificent gesture…

  …upon the end of which she was somehow there, seated across from Nina at the table, the now-reigning queen of what had once been Margot’s little shop.

  She and Nina exchanged a few pleasantries, after which Margot reappeared in the doorway:

  “I have several teas to offer. We can have Darjeeling or Assam if we’re in an Indian mood; I have Chinese White Tea, Sencha from Japan, or Ti Kwan Yin from Taiwan.”

  Allana’s gaze focused, narrowed, and hardened. She spoke slowly, the words drenched no longer with sweetness but with a great deal of disappointment, mixed only to a slight degree with rancor.

  “Why, Assam, of course.”

  Margot nodded.

  How, Nina found herself asking Margot mentally, could you have asked?

  Embarrassing both of us like that!

  Darjeeling indeed!

  “Assam,” Margot said, “it is.”

  Darjeeling.

  The very thought.

  “Dearest Nina. I must admit I am happy to have found you here. There is…well, an ISSUE that has arisen.”

  Strange, Nina thought, how Allana Delafosse had the ability to speak in capital letters.

  The tea appeared, and was properly sipped.

  Allana Delafosse broached the ISSUE.

  “It concerns this evening, Nina. I assume you’ve heard.”

  “Oh. You mean…”

  “The writer.”

  “Tom Broussard?”

  “Yes. Mr. Broussard.”

  “Well. I heard he was coming to talk to the writers’ group.”

  “Indeed. And it’s just that there do exist, at least in my mind, questions of––how shall I say it?–– APPROPRIATENESS. I’m sure Mr. Broussard has written some very fine things. I must admit to not having read his work myself.”

  Cleave Her in Indigo; Disembowelment at Dawn; Genitalia for the Generals…

  …how surprising, Nina found herself thinking, that these works were not on the shelves of Allana Delafosse’s personal reading room.

  “Well. I know that Tom has been quite successful. He’s sold a lot of books in the last years.”

  “I see.”

  “I know the group has been after him for some time to come and talk with them.”

  “Yes.”

  “I did speak to him myself, and, I guess, kind of persuaded him to come. Edie Towler—she’s head of the group—had asked him several times. He may have been a bit curt with her. But I talked with Tom, and I think I can assure everybody involved, that he’ll be a really useful guest lecturer. Now, as for what he’s going to say…well, I really don’t know.”

  “I had heard that he was your student.”

  “Years ago.”

  “I see.”

  “We didn’t have the closest relationship.”

  “And yet I am informed that he dedicated one of his books to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which book?”

  “I think it was…no…no, I guess it was Whore Witch—Which Whore?”

  One second two seconds––

  “Can I get us some more tea?” asked Margot.

  Allana turned her head, frowned a smile, and said icily:

  “I really must be going.”

  Then, to Nina:

  “Dearest Nina. Several parents have contacted me. Their children trust me. They trust me. And the young people themselves are very excited about this event. Mr. Broussard, the Best Selling Author, is a celebrity to them. They want very much to hear what he has to say.”

  “Of course.”

  “If I can have your assurance that what he says will be, well, edifying…then, I shall be happy to attend tonight myself, and bring with me several of our young writers.”

  “Allana, I haven’t talked to Tom for some time. But I’m sure he’ll be fine. He wouldn’t say anything inappropriate. Especially with young people there.”

  The smile returned.

  “Wunnnnnnndaful! Then I’m sure it will be a delicious evening! Oh! We are all so looking forward to it. Adieu, then!”

  And after little more ceremony than attends the departure of any member of the Royal Family, Allana Delafosse rose, dusted from her the remnants of common folk, and was gone.

  There was silence for a time, just enough for regality to dissolve into the air, and coffee to be replenished.

  Somehow tea no longer seemed appropriate.

  Finally Margot spoke:

  “Nina, I think I can finally bond with you. There was always some—well––some distance between us before. But now I realize what it was. And now it’s gone.”

  “What are you talking about, Margot?”

  “During the entire year I’ve known you, I wasn’t sure you were a human being.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I never saw you do anything truly stupid. Now, I feel much better.”

  Nina sighed.

  “Right. Well, we’ll see what happens. You don’t want to come tonight, do you?”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Ok, so no. Well, do you want to talk about the Robinson mansion and why it’s haunted?”

  “No. I want to close the shop, walk on the beach for a few hours, and then take a long grand nap. I have a big day ahead tomorrow”

  “Doing what?”

  “Listening to the descriptions of the disaster that’s going to happen tonight, at the Writers’ Group. Now come on. Let’s tidy up.”

  And they did.

  CHAPTER TWO: WRITERS ON WRITING

  “When audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we’ll be funnier to look at than to read.”

  Sinclair Lewis

  “There are three rules about writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

  Somerset Maugham

  The Bay St. Lucy Public Library was located in a despicable little building on the corner of Calvin Coolidge St. and Archie Manning Drive. It resembled the elementary school (located only two blocks away), but was smaller, older, more depressing, and noisier. It’s only positive attribute was a refusal to replace shelves of books with rows of computers, said refusal stemming sadly not from a surplus of principle but from a shortfall in finances.

  The library did not replace its books with computers because it could not afford to.

  It could also not afford large and luxuriously appointed meeting rooms, which was why Room 4, approximately thirty by forty feet with a circular table in the middle and straight chairs backed up against the walls, was overly full when Nina arrived at six fifty five p.m.

  “Incredible,” she whispered to herself as she made her way through groups of people still standing, all of whom were talking—pleasantly if they were visitors, earnestly if they were writers.

  She found an empty chair in a far corner and sat down to survey the scene.

  There, seated around the table, were the town’s amateur writers.

  Richard Benson, a shy and amiable man, insurance agent, office on the square, poet. He wrote not precisely lyric poetry, but private musings. Occasionally, one or two of them appeared in The Bay St. Lucy Gazette. They dealt often with weather, more specifically, the changing seasons. The melancholy feeling preceding autumn, the gaiety of spring––

  ––all of which was fine, Nina had often observed, except that it left him for large portions of the year—middle of July, middle of January, late November, etc.—with nothing to write about.

  And there beside him sat Florence Cummings, who wrote short novels—two of them already self- published—about the charm of small towns in southern Lucyiana. The first of the books had been entitled Lucyiana Musings and the second Memories of Lucyiana. There was a great deal in each book about ga
rdening, and there were recipes.

  Two other members of the group wrote similar material, but Florence was the only one who’d actually taken the step of publishing her work. The others—Deborah LeBlanc and Marcie Collins––declared at each meeting that they were “not ready for the big time yet” and were still compiling materials, most of which were gathered on weekend trips and summer vacations.

  Nina knew these things from scattered gossip in shops and breakfast nooks rather than actual attendance at the Writers’ Group meetings, which she attended only rarely, and then as a specially invited guest, by dint of her having taught literature to most of the citizens of the town at one time or another.

  There, across the table from her, was Dorothy Andridge, who had at one time written short descriptions of wanderings through southern Mississippi towns, but who had undergone a literary vision some time in the last six months and had begun writing paranormal romances. Her books dealt with younger people who were vampires or ghosts.

  Sitting beside her was a kind of colleague, perhaps the cause of her inspiration. Frank Whittington, large and jovial, manager of the town’s only department store, was rumored to be gay and have a lover in New Orleans. That was all right; that was his business. But it did allow him to work without scandal in collaboration with Dorothy, and give her tips, since he had written two novels that were themselves related to the Paranormal Romance genre. Neither had been published, but he was “shopping” both, and considering self-publishing a complete line of “e” books suitable to Kindle transfers. Frank, eschewing the current rage of vampire romances as somewhat trite, had created a series of heroines who were young, deeply in love, and werewolves.

  There were more of the usual suspects. A short story writer here, a poet there, a budding teenage Shakespeare creating odes about lost loves, an older gray-haired woman populating her small town with potential murderers in a slowly developing—but so far well reviewed by various good friends and close relatives—“cozy” mystery.

  And there, in the corner precisely opposite, her retinue of students clustered about her, was Allana Delafosse.

  She caught Nina’s eye and nodded, smiling threateningly, then let her glance fall back to its original object…

  …that being Tom Broussard.

  Tom, Tom…

  He had come all right, and there he was, sitting beside the group’s leader, Edie Towler, his denim shirt sweat through, his hair tangled and oily, and his great stomach…for Tom was a good six foot three and, never exactly skinny, much more filled out than she remembered him from high school days—his stomach pressing against the side of the table.

  Yes, there he was.

  He stared downward at his hands, which were folded in his lap.

  He stared at them as though he hated them.

  The room was filled with murmurings.

  More and more people found seats, and murmured sitting down instead of standing up.

  Nina glanced up at the digital clock above the room’s doorway.

  Six fifty nine…

  …..no, oops, seven o’clock.

  “Well, then. Good evening everybody!”

  Edie, the District Attorney of Bay St. Lucy, looked much as she always looked, Nina mused. Tall in her two inch pumps, professional—the suit she wore to board meetings, city council meetings, library club meetings, etc.—always looked the same, perfectly pressed, varying only in the change of one muted color for another, depending on the seasons.

  Edie had never married, and there had been, at least to Nina’s knowledge, no man or lover of any kind to watch the slow changing of her once sandy hair to salt and pepper gray.

  A pity.

  But some lives were lived like that.

  “We are so happy to have this wonderful crowd! It is a very special evening for the Writers’ Group of Bay St. Lucy. I’m certain all of you are aware of the status of Tom Broussard, our guest speaker/workshop leader for the evening.”

  She looked down at Tom as though he were a roast turkey while applause spread around the room. Two—now four—of the writers stood, clapping as hard as they possible could. More people stood. Many were standing already. Two teenage writers, while not actually standing, did put their cell phones on the table, so that they could clap.

  This went on for perhaps half a minute.

  Then:

  “Tom, who we all know grew up here in Bay St. Lucy, has written….”

  She went on to talk about the number of novels Tom Broussard had written, and the weeks they had remained on The New York Times Bestseller List.

  She did not, specifically, mention their titles.

  Orders, Nina wondered, from Allana Delafosse?

  All of this took two to three minutes and led to:

  “So with all that said, I can safely repeat, we are indeed honored, Tom, that you’ve chosen to be with us tonight.”

  Tom looked at her.

  He nodded.

  She smiled, and continued.

  “Our members have so many questions.”

  Then she looked out across the table.

  “I know—John, I know you’ve told me about several of your questions, and they all sound so interesting!”

  John Edwards, current high school English teacher, recent college graduate, beamed:

  “Yes, well, Mr. Broussard, I’m just going to ask a little later about the relation you feel between description and dialogue. I mean, does one grow organically from the other, and if so, which from which? Is there a kind of…I don’t know exactly the word I want here—palliative symbiosis between the two?”

  Everyone at the table nodded.

  All of them, Nina realized, were like the little plastic birds, who, proper weights on tails and beaks, go up and down into small containers of water.

  “I just want,” said Muriel Whitfield, smiling, white-haired, red-faced, author of the weekly gossip column “What Blew Throo St. Loo?”…I just want to know where you get your ideas?”

  “Yes,” said someone sitting beside her, someone Nina didn’t know, “yes, do they come from your own experiences, or do you just make them up?”

  Nina thought for a moment.

  Cleave her in Indigo. Disembowelment at Dawn.

  Did these books come from Tom’s own experience or not?

  She was not certain which answer she would have preferred.

  A hand up in the back of the room:

  “I want to know if he knows the ending before he starts writing!”

  General laughter.

  Finally, a silent room again.

  Then Edie:

  “Tom I guess we’re also wondering about your use of workshopping. Do you workshop your chapters before finalizing them? How do you get feedback as this, this, “process,” this, symbiotic moment evolves? And, of course, would you be able to join us as we try to work together, encouraging each other, helping each other—to reach the point you’ve achieved. Obviously we feel writing to be a group process, and we find the, the “sharing” process—and isn’t “process” such an appropriate word?”

  Beaks up around the table, beaks down around the table…

  “We find the “sharing” so aesthetically therapeutic, that we’d love for you to be involved in it with us.”

  Silence.

  More applause now.

  Then:

  “….and so, without further ado, I introduce to you, Bay St. Lucy’s best-selling author, Tom Broussard!”

  He rose and leaned forward on his knuckles like one of the great apes.

  His thick brown leather belt extended down from beyond its last belt loop like six inches of dog tongue panting, except no saliva fell from it.

  He looked at the crowd, which for one instant, became completely, even digitally, silent.

  Then he said:

  “Go home and write.”

  Then he walked out of the room, exiting through a door immediately behind him.

  Damn, Nina found herself cursing inwardly.

 
; Silence for one second.

  Two seconds.

  Then there was chaos.

  The most frequently heard cry was, “Well, I never!” which, strangely, Nina had very seldom—perhaps even never—heard before in actual life.

  It was more a thing that dowagers said in novels and British movies.

  Whatever a “dowager” was.

  But it was being said here, and with great frequency.

  There were other things said, too.

  There was a bit of spotty laughter, as some members thought of forgiving the man, whom they viewed as simply unpredictable and eccentric.

  This was, of course, not the attitude of Allana Delafosse

  “Nina, dear…”

  “I’m sorry, Allana.”

  “It’s all right. This is, of course, not your fault. I only wish that you would give to Mr. Broussard, whenever you should see him, this note. It contains my sentiments concerning his––behavior––this evening. Especially in regards to the effect that behavior might have on the young LAAAAADEEEEEZ of Bay St. Lucy.”

  She gave Nina a letter.

  In an elegant ecru envelope.

  And with that she was gone, vanished somehow into the smoke of her own bright-blue bitterness.

  Now Nina simply had to deal with Edie Towler.

  “Did you know that he was going to do that?”

  “No,” said Nina.

  “What was he thinking?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought you were his friend.”

  “I’m not sure I would put it that way.”

  “Do you realize what he has done? We have prepared for him. We were all SO LOOKING FORWARD to this!”

  “I know.”

  “You must also know that he owes all of us…he owes the whole town for that matter—an apology.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Are you going to see him, Nina?”

  “Edie, it’s not as though he and I are close friends.”

  “Well—if you can talk to him, please do so.”

  “I guess I can go to see him.”

  “Please do. And tell him that our invitations are over. We’re sorry to have inconvenienced him. And that we will never. NEVER. See him here again.”