Bell, Book, and Scandal jj-14

by Jill Churchill

  Jane was impatient but tried not to show it. She wanted desperately to return to the registration booth before all the editors and agents were booked up. As they'd waited for the elevator, quite a few attendees had already lined up.

  Felicity appeared to sense her tension and the reason for it. "Let me look at that. Oh, they're all baby editors and agents."

  "Babies?"

  "New ones with names like Tiffany and Bambi. But that's okay," Felicity said, "if they're babies in a good agency or publishing house. There are normally only a few heads of houses or agencies at small conferences like this." She pulled out her green-ink book-signing pen and checked three. Two agents and one editor.

  "These are with good companies. And they're eager to come back to work with something to show for being sent here at their employers' expense."

  "I don't see Sophie Smith on this list. Isn't she a really important editor?" Jane asked.

  "Yes, but she leaves things like this to her underlings. Downtrodden people like that poor Corwin she drags around with her and abuses in public. You don't want to be with her anyway."

  "What would you both like to drink?" Shelley asked them.

  "I'll have a soft drink, something brown. Coke or Royal Crown if you have any," Felicity said. "And Jane needs to run back downstairs and make her appointments before the slots all fill."

  "Thanks," Jane said. "I think we're twins separated at birth. RC is my favorite, too."

  "Are you prepared for these interviews?" Felicity asked.

  "I have the whole manuscript with me, but I didn't think anybody would want to weigh down their luggage with it."

  "Do you have the first couple of chapters and an outline with you?"

  "Yes, I do," Jane said.

  "Good for you, girl!" Felicity lifted a fist as the woman in the restaurant had done. "You've done your homework. Now scat. Oh, let me write my room number down. Call me when you know who you sign up with."

  Jane returned to the suite forty-five minutes later. Shelley was sitting in one of the chairs with her bare feet up on a coffee table, reading a book. "Did you find who you wanted?"

  "Amazingly, I did. Sometime between now andtomorrow morning I have to run home and make copies. Just on the faint hope that all three will want to see the chapters and outlines."

  "There's a copy shop in the mall just across the parking lot," Shelley told her. "Spring for their prices and don't waste your time going home."

  "Where did you find that book? It's Felicity's latest. I already had a copy you could have read."

  "Jane, where is your head?" Shelley exclaimed. "Authors come to these things to sell books. There's a room just to the west side of the registration desk where there are four booksellers. I wouldn't dream of borrowing your book and cutting down on what she earns on this. And besides, I want it autographed to me."

  Jane slapped her head. "Do you have any more RCs? Somebody stepped on my foot in line and I need to put it up for a few minutes."

  "Not the foot you broke?"

  "No, the other one," she said, taking off her shoe and rubbing her little toe as Shelley brought her a drink.

  Shelley said, "I've been thinking about that Zac person. Felicity said he'd written a couple of books. I'll bet that's why he was forcing one on Sophie Smith. Wanting to get back in the game."

  "You could be right. He'd probably make a better living writing his own books than reviewing others. And if he continued to do both…"

  Now that she had Jane's agreement to her theory, Shelley said, "Let's pick out what to wear at

  the dessert bar tonight, then we can go have your copies done, and you can have part of the afternoon to mingle."

  "I'm not a very good mingler," Jane admitted.

  "Everybody has these tags with their names on them. Just approach anyone standing alone and introduce yourself. Easy as pie."

  "First, I must call Felicity while I'm still shoeless and tell her I lucked into the appointments I wanted." But Felicity wasn't in her room and Jane left a message.

  "See, Jane? She's out mingling," Shelley said smugly.

  Jane pointedly ignored this and glanced again at the schedule. "I want to go hear what Sophie Smith says this afternoon at the opening ceremony."

  Going to the copy shop wasn't exciting but it was better than trying to make lifelong friends with strangers. Jane took her outline and the chapters and had three copies made. She bought three simple buff-colored folders to put them in, forgoing the copy shop's more attractive folders — floral, neon transparent, and a pink she liked. She knew, however, that making something "cute" was the sign of an amateur. She chose the fourth folder in bright orange for her own copy. She simply couldn't resist.

  When she returned to the hotel, she parked closer to the copy center than to the hotel itself, then trudged clear across the increasingly hotpavement and went up to the suite to leave the copies. She was still hot, so she had another soft drink. She also called the front desk to ask if Mel VanDyne had checked in yet. The clerk said he was booked to arrive the next day. Knowing full well she was dawdling, she finally broke down and went to the lobby.

  Jane mingled to the best of her ability. A few of the seemingly lonely attendees were simply waiting for the rest of their friends to arrive. Jane introduced herself anyway, and said how much she was looking forward to this conference. "I've never been to one of these. Have you?" she asked the first woman she accosted.

  "Oh, I go to all of them. I'm an autographed-book junkie. Oh, there's Susan. Nice to meet you, Joyce."

  "Jane," Jane said to herself as the woman disappeared.

  A couple of the solitary figures she tried to mingle with seemed to want to latch on to her for dear life. She was nice to them, but eventually did the same thing the first woman had done to her. Pretending to see a lifelong friend. But Jane said the women's names right.

  She met two other rather aggressive unpublished authors who hoped Jane was an editor or agent. This was quickly sorted out. They hadn't realized until then that the name tags were color-coded in order to differentiate among fans, writers, editors, agents, and booksellers.

  She gave up trolling the lobby and went to the booksellers' room. This was, naturally, a much better experience. People who love books love promoting their favorites to other people who love books.

  Jane struck up several cheerful conversations with shoppers from the conference who insisted she buy several authors she'd never heard of before.

  When she forced herself to stop running up her credit card, she had a bag of books she could hardly manage to carry back to the room by herself.

  "Good Lord!" Shelley exclaimed when Jane staggered back to the suite. "Have you bought out all four booksellers in one swoop?"

  "Almost. But look at what neat things I've bought," Jane said, sliding the pile out of her canvas bag and onto the coffee table. As she lined them up and fondled all of them, trying to decide what order she'd read them in, she said, "I'm going to have to buy more bookshelves. But I'll tell you this, Shelley, the best mingling is that room."

  "You're not going back in there, are you? You'll break the bank."

  "Maybe not right away," Jane said.

  "You sound guilty."

  "Three of the four bookstores are from the Chicago area. I asked for their business cards so I can look at everything they stock, not just the selection they brought along. I also bought a really nice computer program to keep track of what you've read, how much you liked it, and whether there are more books by the same author. And a really cool book-holder gadget. I bought one for you, too."

  Shelley just shook her head and said, "Do you want to go down for lunch before the opening ceremony?"

  "I'd rather eat room service so I can look over all these books."

  Shelley tossed her the room service menu. "Read this first. I'll order."

  Seven

  Todd and Katie were out of school that day due to a "professional development workshop" the teaching staff had to atte
nd. Jane pried herself away from the book collection for long enough to call the kids at home. Katie's new cell phone was busy, which made Jane frown. Who was her daughter already using her precious minutes on? She called Todd's number and he picked right up.

  "Hey, Mom! You're my first call. This is so cool."

  "It is, isn't it? Where is Katie?"

  "Right here, trying to call you at the hotel," he said. "Wanna talk to her?"

  "Sure. Hi, Katie. Hang up your phone," Jane said to Todd.

  "Is the conference what you expected?" Katie asked. "Are you having fun?"

  "Lots of fun. I have three appointments with two agents and an editor tomorrow."

  "You're going to sell your book, Mom. I just know you are."

  "I'm not counting on it but I've already learned a lot about the business. Hold on. Room service is at the door," Jane said.

  "I've never had room service," Katie said with a slight whine, when her mother came back to the phone.

  "Yes, you have, Katie. Remember when we took that trip to Colorado? We called room service there. What are you doing tonight?"

  "Jenny's coming over. We're making spinach omelettes with lots of cheese."

  "I'll check back with both of you after the dessert welcome party tonight," Jane said.

  Jane had dithered over choosing what to eat, so Shelley had chosen cheeseburgers, french fries, and salad for both of them. They both sat at the big table in the suite. They used the nifty book holders Jane had bought in the book room, reading and chatting while they ate.

  I never knew these things existed," Shelley said. "Thanks."

  "I didn't either. Aren't they great?" Jane said. "When I read while I'm eating at home, I usually just prop the book open with a knife and have to keep moving it. Sometimes I forget I've used it and smear up a page with mayonnaise or catsup."

  "I'm going to save my salad as a late-night snack, so I have room for desserts."

  "Plural?" Jane said.

  "Of course. I've been to things like this before. They cut lots of different desserts into really tiny pieces and let you try out a lot of them. You know, I came here not only to snoop and enjoy this suite, but also to help you out. I'm having more fun than I expected. Wasn't all the inside gossip your friend Felicity told us neat stuff to know?"

  "She's such a nice woman, isn't she?" Jane said. "I'm amazed she took such pains to fill us in on the people here. I'm only sorry that awful woman Vernetta was so rude to her."

  "I suspect a lot of other people here will feel that way before this conference ends," Shelley speculated. "I have my laptop along. Later on, we must take a look at her book on the web. As illiterately as she speaks, I can't imagine it being any good."

  "To be fair, she might have a good story in her head in spite of it," Jane said, doubtfully.

  "You don't need to be fair to a person like that, Jane. She's scum."

  "I guess you're right. And I'm sure the publisher will clean up her grammar and spelling for her if they paid big bucks for it. I wonder if Vernetta will even notice."

  "Probably not. Jane, I can't finish my fries. Do you want them?"

  "No, thanks. Let's just put this away in the little fridge. It's only half an hour until the opening remarks. Plenty of time to wash the catsup off our faces."

  At the start of the opening session, Sophie Smith took the podium. She stood silently for a moment, waiting for the conversations to stop.

  "She's sort of swaying," Jane observed.

  "Yes," Shelley said. "Nerves?"

  "I wouldn't think so. She must have done this dozens of times, and everybody says she's a tough cookie."

  Sophie began to speak, paused a moment, and disappeared behind the podium.

  The young man, Corwin, who'd been checking in at the desk with her that morning, and a couple of the staff of the conference who sat at the head table, ran over. Conversations broke out, all wondering what had happened. Had she been standing on some sort of box and fallen off? "No, she's a tall woman, she wouldn't need a box," somebody piped up.

  "Let's get out of here," Jane said.

  As they headed for the door, they heard someone come to the podium and say, "Ms. Smith has been taken slightly ill. There's no need to be worried. She's being well taken care of. She's left her written introduction to our speaker. Everybody sit down and I'll read it on her behalf…."

  Jane and Shelley closed the door behind them.

  "I think she was taken a bit more than 'slightly' ill," Shelley said. "Did you see the look on her toady Corwin's face as he bent over her? He looked horrified."

  "I hope she's not dead," Jane said. "It would cast an awful pall over the rest of the conference. They might even cancel the rest of it. Oh dear, I shouldn't have said that. It sounds so selfish."

  "I think if she is dead, it might be the highlight of the conference," Shelley said. "She seems to be heartily disliked by everyone but Vernetta."

  Other attendees were slipping out as well, either having heard how boring the speaker was, or out of dismay at the scene they'd just witnessed.

  Jane and Shelley took over a couple of chairs and a table in the hotel lobby. "I could ask John, the hotel manager, if he knows what happened. If he's on duty this shift," Shelley said.

  "I don't think he'd tell you even if he knew." "Probably not. But I'll give it a try."

  Shelley returned a few minutes later. John was in a meeting and couldn't be disturbed, she reported.

  The lobby was filling up with writers and fans, all speculating about what had happened. Some said, sounding knowledgeable, "She's had a heart attack."

  Others stuck with the theory of her just fainting. Or falling off whatever she might have been standing on.

  One suggested that the wiring was bad and as she touched the microphone she'd been electrocuted. This was hooted down. "The woman who ended up reading the speaker's introduction

  touched it, too, and nothing happened to her," someone said.

  "This is driving me mad," Jane said. "Nobody knows what they're talking about. Let's go somewhere else. We have half an hour before the next seminars."

  Shelley picked up her purse. "There are some nice shops in a tunnel under the hotel. Let's go shopping for therapy."

  "I'd rather go to the book room again," Jane said.

  "No, you wouldn't. It would be full of other attendees saying the same things. Come with me. Last time I was in the tunnel shops, I saw a lapel pin I thought you'd like, and now that I see you in this sweater, I know it would be perfect. Let's see if it's still there."

  The last seminars of the day both seemed exceedingly boring, so Shelley and Jane went upstairs and finished the salads they'd put in the tiny fridge. Jane checked in with Todd and Katie again on their new cell phones. Katie said the omelettes were almost ready and she couldn't talk right now. Apparently this overrode the thrill of receiving a call on her new phone.

  Shelley and Jane arrived five minutes after the dessert party started. It was already crowded. Shelley had been right. The desserts were all about one and a half inches square, set in little paper baskets. Jane picked up a plate and selected only three. She didn't want to look greedy. Andshe could always dispose of the plate and go back, pretending it was her first trip.

  Both Jane and Shelley were keeping a wary eye out for Vernetta and Gaylord Strausmann. They didn't want to be taken unawares again.

  "I'd have thought a big hefty woman like that would be the first through the line," Shelley commented as she forked up a sliver of cherry cobbler.

  "I'd have thought so, too," Jane said around her mouthful of a bread pudding square liberally iced with sugar and brandy. "Oh, there's Felicity surrounded by fans, while we're nobodies who have our own table so we can stuff ourselves without being noticed."

  At that moment Vernetta and Gaylord entered the room. As she did in the restaurant, she shouted, "Howdy, y'all. I'm Vernetta Strausmann and this is my hubby, Gaylord."

  The pair had abandoned their country-western
look and gone for pure June and Ward Cleaver. Vernetta was in a patterned shirtwaist with the buttons straining at the bodice. A little fifties hat, high heels, and even white gloves, a bit grubby at the fingertips. Gaylord was in a gray suit and wore a fedora and shiny black shoes. The outfit would have looked more authentic if the trousers hadn't been a bit short and his black-and-redstriped socks hadn't been showing.

  "Do they think this is a costume party or Halloween?" Shelley said. "Where did they find that stuff? At a secondhand store?"

  Most of the people in the room were staring at the couple, but nobody approached them. Vernetta looked over at the crowd surrounding Felicity and glowered. Gaylord took her arm in a firm grip and whispered something to her. She nodded and smiled hungrily at the other partygoers.

  "Gather round, y'all. Lookee-loo at the plans for our mansion."

  She took over the largest table, forcing two women who were eating there to find other seats, and unfurled a couple of large blueprints. Gaylord found some canned drinks to hold down the corners. "Come on, y'all. Don't be shy," Vernetta bellowed.

  A few obedient people eased their way toward the table.

  "See? Here's the second floor," Vernetta said. "Ten bedrooms. The biggest for Gaylord and I, and one for each of the three kids. And six more for guests."

  "Gaylord and me," Shelley muttered, turning her back on the scene Vernetta was making. "Just imagine the absolutely spine-chilling horror of being their guests!"

  Jane scooted her chair so she wouldn't have to watch, though they were forced to listen.

  "This here room on the ground floor is a ballroom," Vernetta went on. "But we're gettin' lots of tables and chairs for when I set up giving writing lessons."