The Accidental Bestseller

by Wendy Wax

  “So you’re Jane’s new slave.” He smiled and there was a teasing note of sympathy in his voice.

  “That’s me.” She looked into his eyes, trying to assess his allegiance to her boss. “I’ve learned a lot from her already,” she said carefully. How to gauge her mood . . . how to duck . . . how to . . .

  “Well, you’re still standing,” he said. “So I’ll take that to mean you come from sturdy stock.” The eyes were glittering now and she wondered if he knew Jane had a crush on him.

  The elevator’s free fall slowed as the numeral two for the second floor lit briefly then went out. Soon he’d be walking off the elevator and she’d barely done more than stammer out her name. Say something, you dolt, she commanded herself; something that will set you apart and make him remember you.

  “I am from sturdy stock,” she said, as the elevator yanked to a halt on the ground floor. “Good old Russian peasant stock. Why, we’d work the fields until it was time to drop our babies right there, and then get right back to tilling the soil without missing a beat.”

  His look of surprise was close to comical and inspired her to blunder on. “Of course, we don’t do that nearly as often as we used to.” She swallowed, suddenly aware of exactly what she’d just said. “Give birth in the fields, I mean.”

  She barely bit back her groan of embarrassment as the elevator doors slid open, but unexpectedly, miraculously, he threw back his head and laughed, a great unselfconscious guffaw that somehow made him even more attractive.

  “I’ll remember that, Lacy Samuels,” he said as he prepared to step off the elevator. “And I’ll tread very carefully the next time we’re in a field together.”

  He was still chuckling when he exited the elevator and strode out into the marbled lobby. Lacy rode the elevator in humiliated silence. All the way back up to the floor from which she’d begun.

  23

  You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you’ve got something to say.

  —F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  For Kendall the remainder of the week both flew and dragged. She’d completed the first chapter of Sticks and Stones and e-mailed it to the others for their critique and to help set them up for the scenes they would write. Tonight they’d have a conference call to discuss the book in more detail now that everyone’s character sketches and backstories were complete—all of them much more intriguing than Kendall had expected.

  Chapter two, like chapter one, would be written from her character, Kennedy’s, point of view, and would cover the day of the awards ceremony. All Kendall had to do was close her eyes to remember the dread and panic coupled with that tiny ray of hope that had lain like a dead weight in her stomach.

  What she needed to do was mine the pain, but it wasn’t easy to find the strength required to relive such unpleasantness. The more she thought about it, pictured it, tried to frame the best words to describe it, the more she longed for the feel of a hammer in her hand and the distraction of directions to follow.

  Mallory sat outside on the deck checking e-mail and preparing for tonight’s conference call, though Kendall couldn’t help noticing that this was interspersed with long sessions spent staring out over the valley.

  Kendall sat at the kitchen table dreading what she had to write. Normally the personal things that found their way into her work had been processed over time; the pain already deadened to a manageable level. But Kendall was still living this story and she had no distance or perspective to cushion or protect her.

  And what would happen when Mallory left tomorrow? Who would make her sit down and work? Who would withhold her tool belt until her page quota had been met? Who would commiserate with her? Who would sit next to her patting her hand ineffectually while she cried?

  She calmed herself with a replay of her recent conversation with Calvin, once again taking great pleasure in his bellows of outrage over Anne Justiss’s opening salvos.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he’d shrieked when she answered the phone. “That woman is a total ball buster!”

  “That’s ball squeezer,” she’d wanted to retort, but she’d kept quiet, enjoying his discomfiture too much to interrupt it. “You told me to hire an attorney, Calvin,” she said reasonably, knowing this would irk him even more. “You didn’t really expect me to hire someone your attorney could walk all over, did you?”

  He’d sputtered and raved for a while afterward, but Kendall knew that was exactly what he’d expected. He’d believed she’d simply step back and expedite what he wanted, like she’d always done, but as he ranted incoherently Kendall had vowed that her doormat days were over.

  “I’ve invited the kids up here for the weekend,” she said, once he’d sputtered to a halt. “And I’m not planning to say anything about . . . us . . . until more of the details are worked out. I don’t see any reason to jeopardize their finals or ruin the holidays for them.”

  There was more cursing, but she realized that while she still disliked the language, it no longer had the power to move her. And neither did Calvin.

  “If you want to tell them you can go ahead,” she said. “And while you’re at it, maybe you should explain Laura and her plans for the only home they’ve ever known.”

  This suggestion was greeted with a stony silence, as she’d known it would be. Calvin would expend considerable energy trying to push her to do the dirty work, but he didn’t have the courage to do it himself. Especially if it would make him look bad.

  “You might want to get the house picked up in case either of them wants to come home. Or maybe you can talk Laura into doing it.” She realized with some surprise that she was beginning to enjoy herself. Not caring what Calvin thought was wonderfully freeing. “If they come home and see that mess, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “And you don’t think the fact that we’re living in two different places might clue them in to that?” he’d sneered.

  “Suspecting and knowing are two different things,” she said, with a certainty born of experience. “I mean, look what it took for me to accept the truth about you.”

  That night Kendall and Mallory sat at the kitchen table, each with a phone pressed to her ear, their notes spread out in front of them as Mallory punched in Faye’s and Tanya’s phone numbers. Within minutes the conference call was ready to begin.

  “Are we all on the line?” Mallory glanced over to Kendall, who nodded.

  “I think we’re all here,” Kendall said. “Can everybody hear all right?”

  Tanya and Faye answered in the affirmative and then everyone started talking at once.

  “OK,” Kendall said. “Now I really feel like we’re all here. But I think we’re going to have to speak in some sort of order or figure out the verbal equivalent of raising our hands.”

  Now no one spoke, each afraid of talking over the other. “All right,” Kendall said with a laugh. “Faye, why don’t you go first?”

  “OK.” Faye cleared her throat. “First of all, I want to say how great I think the first chapter is. I know it couldn’t have been easy to write, and I think it was dead on. You let everyone know exactly what you were feeling and still managed to set up our characters without detracting from that.”

  Kendall breathed a small sigh of relief. Even when something felt right, it helped to have validation.

  “I agree,” said Mallory, not waiting to be called on. She flashed a smile at Kendall.

  “Me, too,” said Tanya. “Kendall, the first chapter was first rate. But the character sketches? Some of them were plum full of surprises.”

  “I’d ask you to explain,” Mallory said. “But I’ve never known you to need an invitation for that.”

  “Well, since you asked,” Tanya said. “I wasn’t all that wild about your character describing mine as a big-haired blonde with a Dogpatch accent who stole clothes from Daisy Duke’s closet.”

  There was laughter.

  “I don’t know,” Faye teased. “I thought it was pretty
dead on.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Tanya retorted. “And what about your character, Faith? A preacher’s daughter who rebels and writes super sexy romances in secret? Does that feel dead on, too?”

  Faye’s voice when it came over the line carried an odd note that Kendall couldn’t identify. “Are you saying you don’t think that could happen? Or that you don’t think I’m capable of writing a sex scene?”

  There was a brief pause before Tanya answered. “I think Pastor Steve’s flock would be shocked and horrified to discover that you even know what sex is!”

  “You’re right about that. And I don’t intend to ever tell them. But do you actually think that just because I’m married to a religious leader and write inspirational fiction I can’t write sensual?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Tanya backpedaled a bit. “But it does seem like a stretch.”

  “That tells me you need to be careful not to judge all the books you know by their covers,” Faye said, her voice tight.

  Tanya laughed. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that the backstory Mallory created for her character, Miranda, shouldn’t have surprised me, either.”

  Across the table Mallory stiffened.

  “She has a father who loses the family fortune and then commits suicide? And then, just a few years later, her mother does the same? I couldn’t stop bawling.”

  A look of embarrassment passed over Mallory’s face and Kendall figured it had been a long time since anyone had questioned anything Mallory had written. Mallory didn’t respond, but Kendall could feel the intensity with which she was following the conversation.

  “I was under the impression that since this was fiction and no one is ever going to know who wrote it that everyone could do whatever she chose with her character as long as it worked in the story,” Kendall said, eager to defuse the situation. Of all the things she feared at the moment—and there were many—jeopardizing their friendship terrified her most. “I like Faith, and I can’t wait to see how Faye handles the sex scenes. And I think Miranda’s backstory gives her character the perfect motivation and makes her rise to New York Times Bestseller all the more impressive.”

  Kendall snuck a peek at Mallory, but Mallory was staring out the window, her thoughts seemingly a million miles away.

  Faye added another note of conciliation. “That’s right. Sticks and Stones is going out under Kendall’s name. No one’s going to be asking themselves why Pastor Steve’s wife is writing sex. Or why Mallory St. James would create such a grim background for herself.”

  Mallory continued to stare out the window.

  “And they’re not going to ask who the short-order cook in Tanya Mason’s life is, either,” Kendall added, reaching for their earlier teasing tone. “Or why the big-haired blonde in the Daisy Duke clothing isn’t snapping him right up.”

  “And that’s a good thing,” Tanya declared, “because that’s nobody’s damned business. Like I keep trying to tell my mother.”

  There was a silence in which Kendall felt them all trying to regroup. There had been an undercurrent to the conversation that she didn’t understand and that no one seemed inclined to examine too closely.

  “When you offered to help me write this book, I had my doubts that we could do this,” Kendall said. “I mean, you offered me a lifeline and I grabbed on and I’m not letting go. But now I see what we can create together and it’s even bigger than what I’d originally envisioned.”

  Mallory turned to look at her and Kendall could feel Faye’s and Tanya’s presence as if they were in the room.

  “I love what you all have come up with, including the surprises,” Kendall said. “Although I don’t see why they’re such big surprises. We’re professional liars, aren’t we? It’s our job to keep the story interesting. Until we decide to stick the word autobiography on the spine, I say we continue to write what we’re writing. No one ever has to know how real or imaginary our characters are.”

  Then they were talking all at once again, debating, tweaking each other’s ideas, arguing good-naturedly. They roughed out the first five chapters, noting whose character’s point of view each scene would be written from, agreeing on a time-table for getting the chapters to each other, deciding when they would have their next conference call.

  After they’d said their good-byes and hung up, Kendall and Mallory continued to sit at the kitchen table. The sun had slunk down behind the mountains and the remaining daylight was seeping slowly out of the sky.

  “I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow,” Mallory said.

  “Yeah, me, too.” Kendall studied her friend as she gathered her notes and tucked them into her laptop case.

  “Will you be OK?”

  Kendall gazed out the window thinking about her answer, gently testing her emotional cuts and scrapes, relieved to discover they’d begun to scab over. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Not great, you know, but definitely OK.”

  She would have said this regardless of her true feelings. Mallory had held her hand long enough and it was time for Mallory to get back to her own life. But Kendall was relieved to realize it was the truth. She was healing, slowly—somewhere near the speed of a glacier—but healing nonetheless.

  Mallory nodded. “Good. I was getting tired of kicking your butt anyway.”

  Kendall smiled. “Well you’re even better at it than your characters are. I’ll be glad to write you a reference anytime. Maybe I should post something on one of the writer’s loops: Mallory St. James is a first-rate butt kicker.”

  They laughed companionably and Kendall tried not to think about how much she was going to miss Mallory.

  “Funny how much easier it is to kick somebody else’s rear end,” Mallory said, smiling. “I’m counting on you to control your fix-it habit. You just call me whenever the urge to use a hammer gets too strong and I’ll talk you out of it.”

  “Thanks, Mal.” Kendall stood and went to the wine rack where she picked out a bottle of red. “In the meantime, what do you say we take this out on the deck and drink to the success of Sticks and Stones?”

  “I’m with you on that.” Mallory took two wine goblets out of the drain board while Kendall scooped up the corkscrew. Together they trooped outside, settled into their favorite seats, propped their feet up on the deck railing, and contemplated the universe.

  24

  Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck—but, most of all, endurance.

  —JAMES BALDWIN

  Fewer than three hours after Mallory left for the airport, Kendall’s kids arrived. They came in Melissa’s car, she and Jeffrey bounding out almost before it came to a stop. Jeffrey’s girlfriend advanced more slowly.

  “Mom.” Jeffrey beamed after squeezing her mightily. “This is Deeana; Dee for short.” The look of adoration in her son’s eyes was almost painful to see. He had always been the quieter of the twins, the more reflective. While Melissa had dated her way through high school, Jeffrey had hung with the guys, only asking a girl out when absolutely necessary.

  “Hi, Mrs. Aims.” Deeana’s voice was soft and wispy like the girl herself. She extended her hand and Kendall relaxed a bit; whatever she’d been afraid of, it wasn’t this shy young girl who was practically trembling in fear herself and whose glances at her son were equally adoring.

  “Hi, Dee,” Kendall said. “I’m so glad you could come for the weekend. The kids have been spending time here since before they were born, and I know Jeffrey must be looking forward to showing you around.”

  And with that they came in and filled up the house with their youth and warmth and laughter, which Kendall, who needed exactly that more than she’d realized, drew in and hugged close.

  For the most part Kendall managed to dance around the fact that she was living here and Calvin, well, wasn’t. Melissa cornered her in the kitchen on Sunday morning and, as was her way, called her on it. “What’s going on between you and Dad?”

  Kendall shrugged. Somehow she managed to look her daughter
directly in the eye and lie, as she had now and again over the years when she’d felt it was in her child’s best interests. “It’s just this horrible deadline, sweetie,” she said. “I realized the only way to meet it was to lock myself away until I finished.” And then a sliver of the truth: “I just couldn’t seem to write a word at home; there were too many distractions.” Including a blond-haired Realtor determined to take her place.

  She was certain that Melissa would report back to her twin and she knew she was right when Jeffrey joined her out on the deck later that afternoon.

  “Mom,” he’d said tentatively, as they stared out over the valley together. Melissa and Deeana were in the kitchen preparing dinner. “I’m really glad you and Dee are getting on so well. Do you really like her or are you just being polite?”

  She looked into her son’s eyes, shaped and colored like his father’s but brimming with a sincerity and gentleness of spirit that even at their best Calvin’s had never possessed, and was grateful no lies were required this time.

  “I think she’s lovely, sweetheart. I really like her and I’m glad you’ve found someone you want to be with.”

  She saw the relief on his face. Oh, God, had she ever been that young? That in love?

  “But she’s your first real girlfriend. I want you to enjoy it and make the most of it. But don’t be too upset if it doesn’t turn out to be forever.”

  “It is though, Mom. I can tell. Just like you must have known when you met Dad.”

  Kendall was very careful not to react; she didn’t even blink. “I hope that whomever you end up with that you’ll be even happier than your Dad and I have been.” And for longer, she added silently.