The Accidental Bestseller

by Wendy Wax

  At first, after her “outing” on The Kristen Calder Show, Mallory had been too frightened to think clearly. She’d been afraid that her readers would desert her in droves. That her publisher would drop her. That somehow admitting to her pathetic past and to a burnout so severe that she’d actually plagiarized herself would blot out everything she’d achieved and erase her from the bestseller lists as if she had never existed.

  For a time it had looked as if all of her fears might be realized. Readers were angry and not shy about saying so and her sales numbers dropped sharply for the first time in a decade. Her publisher was not happy with her and there were more legal questions at this point than answers. But ultimately her nightmare of losing “everything” as she had after her parents’ suicides, had proven to be just that—only a nightmare.

  It was only now, when she was certain she was not going to be out on the street, that she’d discovered the facet of her nightmare that didn’t fade in the light of day; she was alone. Horribly alone. And this time it wasn’t because the people she loved had deserted her, but because they felt unloved and deserted by her.

  Like the owner of a sinking boat who’d been so fixated on the teak trim and polished chrome that she overlooked the gaping hole in her vessel’s hull, Mallory had spent so much time and energy striving for financial security that she’d overlooked what mattered most. Or rather the people who mattered most.

  She’d heard that Chris was back in New York, but she hadn’t heard from him. She didn’t even know where he was staying.

  She also knew that Faye’s and Tanya’s contracts had been terminated and that Scarsdale was planning to take Sticks and Stones off the shelves because of the legal wrangling between their publishers. Mallory would have given anything to talk with her friends, but she could still see the shock on their faces when they’d discovered she wasn’t who she’d said she was. And her own shock over Faye’s revelations.

  When they’d needed each other most, rather than circling the wagons as they always had in the past, they’d turned on each other. How did a friendship survive that?

  Mallory didn’t know. In fact she was afraid she didn’t know anything that mattered anymore. She’d rebuilt her life once before with hard, grueling work writing book after book, presenting herself as she wanted to be until she became it, making appearance after appearance.

  But always she’d held her real self back. She’d given to her husband and her friends, but not of her self. Even when she’d been trying to help Kendall, she’d been frantically trying to get over a writer’s block that she couldn’t admit to. She’d accepted Chris’s love and attention as her due and then doled out the bare minimum of herself in return. No wonder he’d given up on her.

  Mallory walked into Chris’s closet searching for her husband, but only bits and pieces of him remained. His absence taunted her and she missed him with a fierceness that she couldn’t push aside.

  It was there amid the unnecessary articles of clothing that Chris had left behind that Mallory realized there was no room for pride in the great emptiness yawning inside of her. If she loved her husband and her friends then she needed to demonstrate that love by offering her true self. Whether they accepted what she presented would be up to them.

  Hurrying into the bedroom Mallory picked up the phone and placed a call to Patricia Gilmore. When she had her agent on the line, she explained that she was planning a month’s vacation followed by major changes in her writing schedule. Then she instructed her to contact Zoe at Partridge and Portman as well as P&P’s legal department. There had to be a way to salvage Sticks and Stones so that all of its authors could benefit from it. She charged her agent with finding a way to make this happen then placed another call to Lacy Samuels to try to get a sense of how things were playing out at Scarsdale.

  Relieved to be taking action, Mallory dialed her travel agent next, explaining what she had in mind and asking that the tickets be messengered to her later that afternoon. And then before she could lose her nerve, she called Chris’s secretary and scheduled a lunch appointment with her husband for the following day.

  It was said that an opera wasn’t over until the fat lady sang. For Mallory a love story wasn’t over until the hero and heroine professed their love and agreed to live “happily ever after.”

  Lacy Samuels sat in Jane Jensen’s empty office wondering if she should call a shaman or a priest to rid the space of any evil remnants of the editor’s personality that might remain.

  She’d been sent to clean out and box up the detritus of Jane’s sixteen years at Scarsdale so that the space could be made ready for Hannah Sutcliff, who had laid claim to it as well as Jane’s biggest authors.

  With an empty box on a chair next to her, Lacy began to sort through Jane Jensen’s things, realizing as she did so that she was looking for an explanation for her former boss’s hostility and disdain.

  She handled things as little as possible, partly because they’d been Jane’s and partly because she couldn’t shake the irrational fear that Jane was somehow going to storm into the office, see what Lacy was doing, and find a way to punish her for it.

  Despite Hannah and Cash’s assurances that this was impossible and that Jane was no doubt out interviewing for new jobs right this very minute, Lacy’s fight-or-flight instinct was primed and ready to kick in.

  The top of the desk yielded little in the way of clues. A chipped coffee mug stuffed with pens and pencils, an electric cup warmer, several yellow pads with Jane’s aggressive scrawl across the pages, and a mostly dead plant that had bent itself in half trying to reach the light went into the box without examination.

  Then Lacy pulled open the top drawer of Jane Jensen’s desk.

  For a time it was a simple matter of sorting: supplies like paper clips and sticky pads and red pencils stayed here, anything that looked remotely personal went into the box—though there wasn’t a lot of that. There were no mementos, no personal photos, not even ones taken with the well-known authors Jane had edited. Lacy found only in-house memos and phone lists and production schedules along with crumpled wrappers and miscellany.

  As she handled Jane’s things, she continued to look for clues as to why a talented editor would so despise writers that she edited. Or why she had made everyone around her so miserable. Even serial killers began with a clean slate. Jane Jensen must have had her reasons.

  Taking a break from the desk, Lacy turned to the shelves that held books Jane had edited over the last few years. Because she’d been an executive editor, they were mostly recent releases by Scarsdale’s best-known names. Lacy handled their books reverently and felt the thrill of being a part of the publishing process. She was now an assistant editor and she could hardly wait to take the diamond of the author’s work and help to polish it to an even more startling brilliance.

  On a bottom shelf, Lacy found several copies of Sticks and Stones and she felt the elation coupled with frustration that she experienced whenever she confronted the tangled mess of claims and counterclaims now twined around the book. The book was still climbing the New York Times list despite, or more likely because of, Kristen Calder’s “outing” of its authors. Lacy knew there was still talk of pulling it from the shelves due to the disputes over ownership. But it seemed a terrible waste to Lacy to lose such a huge moneymaker.

  In her heart she believed there must be a way to satisfy the claimants without pulling the book. Mallory St. James’s call made Lacy even keener to figure out a way to do it. But whenever she brought up the idea, both Cash and Hannah accused her of wishful thinking. But wasn’t it wishful thinking and determination that had seen the book published in the first place? Why couldn’t the same outside-the-box thinking help keep it on the shelves?

  Lacy was still musing about this possibility when she came across the dog-eared manuscript crammed into the very back of a bottom desk drawer. One Life, One Dream was scrawled across the title page in an oversized old-fashioned font. The author’s name appeared beneath it. L
acy’s hands stilled as she read the name, Jana Johansen, clearly a pseudonym for “she who should not be named.” The cover letter attached to the title page was dated 1983, right about the time Jane had come to Scarsdale.

  Curious now, Lacy began to leaf through the manuscript pages, reading a paragraph here and there, skimming from scene to scene. She grimaced when she hit a reference to the hero’s “throbbing male member.” But there were also passages that betrayed Jane’s attempts to be literary. Overall, Lacy thought, it wasn’t bad, certainly not as bad as the submissions Jane had foisted on her. Parts of it were even good, just not good enough.

  The rejection letters stacked behind the manuscript confirmed Lacy’s assessment. They’d come from a who’s who of New York publishing houses and every one of them concluded with the advice that the author not give up her day job; advice Jane Jensen had apparently taken to heart. And possibly never gotten over.

  Was it envy that had made Jane belittle the writers she’d been hired to help? Had that envy ultimately hardened into the anger and bitterness she’d showered on those around her?

  Lacy straightened the pages and bound the stack, rejection letters on top, so that Jane would know that they had been seen. Then she taped the box closed, wondering whether the anger had built into a chemical imbalance or the alleged chemical balance had stoked the envy to uncontrollable proportions.

  In the end, Lacy realized, it didn’t really matter which wire had blown first, and as she labeled the box with her ex-boss’s address, Lacy conceded that there would never be a heart-to-heart about Jane Jensen’s failed literary ambitions. Why Jane had tortured her authors and underlings was less important than the fact that she had.

  It was time, Lacy thought as she carried the box out of the empty office, to stop thinking about her former boss and start thinking about how to keep Sticks and Stones alive. Mallory St. James’s call had started her wondering whether the other three authors might also want to see some sort of agreement reached.

  Maybe, Lacy mused as she carried the box onto the elevator and down to the mail room, she could help keep Sticks and Stones on the shelves with good old-fashioned perseverance. And a little TLC.

  Steve had already left for church when Faye stepped into the shower on Sunday morning. With clumsy fingers she blew-dry her hair and applied makeup then dressed in the black pin-stripe suit she’d set out the night before.

  The things she might say flitted through her head as she drove to church and parked in a reserved spot in the massive parking lot, but she just let them float through. When the time came, she didn’t want to regurgitate a carefully written and memorized speech. She’d decided that whatever she said today had to come not from her mind, but from her heart.

  The cameras were in place and most of the crowd in their seats when Faye entered the church. She stood just inside the massive double doors of the high-tech worship center for a moment, gathering her nerve. She had helped to build this church and had contributed in every possible way to the growth of her husband’s ministry. Even though it had not been her dream, she had helped him achieve his.

  She raised her chin and squared her shoulders, reminding herself what was too easily forgotten. This church had been founded to do good and to help those in need. She had done both of those things. It wasn’t up to others, her daughter included, to judge her for her methods.

  A hush fell as she walked up the center aisle toward their family pew. Faye felt the eyes of the congregation follow her progress. There were occasional smiles and hellos, but many of those who watched her so carefully let their gazes slide over her as if she weren’t there.

  As Faye approached the pew, her daughter and son-in-law became aware of the growing hush and turned in their seats. There was a flare of surprise in her daughter’s eyes and she grasped hold of her husband’s arm as if in need of physical support. A buzz of conversation arose but Faye ignored it. At her usual seat on the end of the front center row, she sat, keeping her eyes on the pulpit. Moments later Pastor Steve made his entrance from the side of the altar and strode vigorously up to the podium. The choir began an opening hymn. The congregation came to its feet.

  For Faye the service both sped by and dragged interminably. She could feel church members studying her, eager to see if she would take a microphone toward the end of the service when members were invited to stand up and speak.

  Steve’s gaze flicked over her repeatedly, when he wasn’t playing to one camera or another or exhorting the congregation to lift their voices to God. Both she and Sara read responsively, sang along with the choir, sat silently during the sermon, but they studiously ignored each other.

  After long minutes devoted to silent meditation, Pastor Steve introduced the concluding “talking time” and asked if anyone in the congregation would care to speak.

  Faye stood amid a buzz of conversation. Looking neither left nor right, Faye walked up the steps to the altar and moved behind the empty podium. She carried neither notes nor specific thoughts with her. But she did offer up several prayers to the God she knew. Please guide my tongue so that I may be clear, she asked silently as she stared out at the sea of faces before her. And please know that in my own way, I love you.

  The red light on the camera aimed at her came on and, without prompting, Faye began to speak. “There are many of our members, including my family, who were upset to discover that I have been writing sensual novels under the name of Shannon LeSade.” She paused as heads across the huge room bent together. “They’ve asked me to apologize to you because they think I’ve done something wrong, even shameful.”

  She turned her gaze to her daughter and waited for Sara to meet her eye. “But I began as LeSade to fund my children’s college education and to help build this church. And I don’t regret a single word I’ve written.”

  Faye allowed her eyes to scan the audience. Some faces were hard and unmoving. Others were turned away. But many watched in rapt attention, open to what she had to say. She might not change a single mind, but she was not really here to sway others. She simply needed to have her say.

  “I don’t believe God has a problem with novels about physical passion between men and women who love each other. And at one time, my husband wouldn’t have, either. I don’t know when my daughter began to judge others so harshly. It’s not the way she was raised.”

  She paused, but did not turn to look at Steve or Sara or try to gauge their reactions. “In Deuteronomy it’s written, ‘Ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s.’ I think there are members of our and other congregations who have tried to take over God’s role as final judge,” she said. “I don’t believe that God has appointed us as the arbiters of others’ actions. It is not up to us to tell others what they can think. Or feel. Or write. Or read.”

  The words came of their own accord, building in speed and intensity like they did when she wrote, when she just opened herself up and let whatever was inside her flow onto the page.

  “I do apologize for not sharing this information about myself with my family and friends. I know it came as a shock and that the people closest to me felt betrayed by my silence. I regret that with all my heart.”

  She turned her gaze to her husband, who stood stock-still behind the other podium. Unflinchingly he met her gaze, but she couldn’t read his face or his thoughts. She reminded herself that she hadn’t come seeking his or anyone else’s approval, but only to set things straight.

  “But I will not apologize for what I’ve written. Or for the good we’ve been able to accomplish as a result.”

  Steve’s gaze remained locked with hers, but he remained silent. There was not a sound in the massive church now, not a creak of a wooden pew, not a cough. Faye pictured the five million people viewing this live telecast sitting still and silent in their homes, weighing her words. Waiting to see what would happen next.

  She looked down at Sara and saw that her head was bowed, but whether her daughter was moved or embarrassed, Fa
ye didn’t know.

  So be it. She’d said what she had to say. Now she would go. She’d just walk back down the aisle and out the doors. She’d stop off in Becky’s classroom and give her all the hugs she’d promised. And then, well, then it would be time to get in touch with her friends so that she could apologize and, if God showed her the right way, make them understand. Then she thought she might call that nice young Lacy Samuels.

  The church was still almost eerily silent. With a final nod to the camera Faye left the podium, swept down the steps, and began a resolute march down the aisle. She felt lighter after her “confession.” Clearer headed. Resolute. But the aisle stretched out into infinity; the exit might have been twenty miles away. She judged herself to be almost halfway to the door when her husband’s voice rang out in the silent church.

  “My wife,” he said, with conviction, “is one of the bravest women I know. And her points are well made.”

  Faye stopped and turned. Pastor Steve stood under a shaft of klieg light. She saw that he was staring, not into the television camera, but at her.

  “It’s I who owe her an apology. And my thanks,” he continued in the voice that belonged to her husband. “Because she’s right,” he said, his gaze turning now to their daughter. “It’s not our place to judge. And we’re not in the business of burning books or condemning others for their choice of reading materials.”

  He looked to Faye once more and she felt her heart swell with tenderness and love and an awesome thankfulness to the God who had not only heard her prayers but answered them.

  “She was also right when she told me that I didn’t want to know the truth. But when we love someone we love all of them, even the truths that we find difficult. The things we’d rather not know.”

  He held his hand out toward Faye and a camera panned along with her as she came forward to join her husband at the podium for the final benediction.