Bell, Book, and Scandal (6 page)

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."

Jane was hard-pressed not to put her face in her plate and weep.

"Finish your desserts and we'll replace our plates and round up some of the stragglers to sit at our table and mingle," Shelley said. "Maybe we can talk loudly enough to drown her out."

Corwin, Sophie Smith's assistant, came into the dessert room, picked up two little pieces of bread pudding, and sat down at a corner table, first putting the other three chairs against the table as if he was saving them for someone else.

Vernetta dragged Gaylord across the room and grabbed two chairs, setting them upright and settling in. "How swell of you to have kept chairs for Gaylord and I."

Gaylord grabbed her arm again and whispered. Vernetta lowered her voice to his command, leaning forward and resting her enormous breasts on her crossed arms on the table while chatting to Corwin, asking him pointed questions about how Sophie was doing. In a few moments Corwin rose and leaned over Vernetta and said something to her.

Vernetta and Gaylord rose and left the table. The young man tilted the chairs back toward the table to finish his desserts. "Toodle-loo, Corwin!" Vernetta said in a little girl voice as they drifted away.

"I wonder what he told them?" Shelley said. "They don't look angry about being dismissed." Jane said, "He probably said they could talk

with her editor later in private, or some such tactful remark. I'm amazed it sunk into the Strausmanns' brains — such as they are."

The two minglers Shelley and Jane had hijacked were trying to convince Shelley to buy a book by their favorite author. He apparently wrote very blunt and hard-boiled police novels, a type of literature Shelley didn't like.

Their new tablemates finally rose and left, giving one last order that Shelley buy the book they liked. As they departed, Jane looked around the room and realized the crowd was thinning a little. She and Shelley went for their third course of desserts, but there wasn't anything left that they hadn't already tried. They went back to the booksellers' room. Unfortunately, it was shut down for the night, so they had no choice but to either keep mingling in the lobby or go upstairs to the suite.

"I'm mingled out," Jane said. "And I want to have a good night's sleep so I don't look half dead in the morning. My first appointment is at nine o'clock."

Sophie Smith had endured what
were
probably the three worst hours of her life. She'd had her stomach pumped because the first resident to see her thought she'd been poisoned. The full-fledged doctor who saw her next put it down to a virus and took blood samples. Between and after these ministrations, Sophie had spent two and a half disgusting hours in the hospital room bathroom. She was afraid of leaving the tiny tiled room for fear of disgracing herself.

By seven o'clock in the evening, she was finally able to crawl into the extremely uncomfortable bed.

She rang the hotel and gave her own room number. "Corwin?"

"Yes?" her assistant said. "Who's calling?" "It's Sophie, you ass."

"Sorry. You don't sound like yourself."

"Of course I don't, Corwin. I've been through a wringer."

"I've called the hospital three times and nobody

would tell me anything about your condition," Corwin complained.

"They're insisting on keeping me in here overnight for observation. No point, really. I'm feeling better already."

"Do they know what was wrong?"

"They have half a dozen theories. But I'm tempted to find where they've hidden my clothes and make a break for it. Whatever it was, I'm nearly over it."

"Sophie, you must stay there. What if you have a relapse of whatever it was?"

She'd actually considered this and said, as if she were graciously taking his advice, "I guess I might as well stay until morning, though I fear these horrible sheets will take a layer of skin off me. Meanwhile, Corwin, bring me that book bag, would you? And my purse. I need to show these people my health insurance card. Both are in the bottom of the closet. Make sure that thing Zac Zebra handed me is still in the book bag."

"Let me look right now," Corwin said.

He came back in a moment. "Are we talking about the paperback book?"

"Yes."

"It isn't in the book bag. Could you have put it somewhere else?"

Sophie, for all her bravado, knew she still wasn't quite up to par mentally.

"I may have taken it out of the book bag. I don't remember doing so. Perhaps I set it aside some-where. Take a good look around the suite and bring the bag and my purse," she said, knowing she was whining.

"If you don't find it," she went on, "ask Zac Zebra to find another copy. I simply can't imagine being stuck here without something to read, and since I don't know where my clothes are, I can't even walk down to the gift shop. My hospital gown gaps in the back. Come over as soon as you can. And bring along a small bottle of Merlot. Carefully hidden, of course."

Early Friday morning, while Jane was drying her hair, she was astonished when a phone rang in the bathroom. She hadn't even noticed it was there.

"Hello?"

"Mom," Mike said, "I've been told that you, Katie, and Todd all have cell phones. Why don't I have one?"

Jane laughed. "Because you were in college instead of home the day I went haywire and bought them."

"Are you still haywire?"

"Yes, but for different reasons. I'm at this mystery conference, as you obviously know because you have the telephone number to my room. I have appointments with two agents and one editor today."

"I know. Katie told me. Congratulations. But about the cell phone…?"

"You'll be out for summer vacation soon. I'll buy you one then. Okay?"

"Okay. Good luck, Mom. I have to be in class in five minutes. Gotta go. There's a test today and I have the crib sheet up my sleeve. Just
kidding,
Mom."

A moment later, Shelley turned up in Jane's room. "I heard the phone. There's nothing wrong, is there?"

"No. Just Mike wanting to know why the whole family except him received cell phones."

Shelley laughed. "What a good grapevine your kids have. Do you have time for breakfast before your first interview?"

Jane looked at her watch. "Nope. How about we meet after the interview? It's only twenty minutes from now and only fifteen minutes long."

"I'll meet you at the registration booth then. Do you have everything you need for the interview?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mommy."

When Jane arrived in the interview area early, she peeked in the door. Three tables had been set up in the room where the dessert party had been held. Each had two people sitting on opposite sides and a placard with the name of the editor or agent. She was early, so she sat down on a chair in the hallway, waiting with the two other eager, nervous interviewees. They exchanged smiles all around, but didn't speak.

A few minutes later, the door opened and twowomen and one man walked out. One woman was smiling. The other two people looked disappointed.

Jane and the other two women she'd waited with rose and entered the room. Jane went to the desk with a card saying "Gretta Green." This was the first agent she had an interview with.

Jane leaned across the table and shook the woman's hand. "I'm Jane Jeffry, and I'm pleased to meet you, Ms. Green." She handed over the folder with the first three chapters and the outline.

The agent pulled out the papers, set aside the chapters, and went to the outline first.

"Oh, it's an historical novel, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it has a mystery element, too."

"But it's historical," Ms. Green said with a frown. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but historicals are dead and gone. Nobody's doing them anymore."

Jane didn't know quite what to say to this, but pulled herself together and managed, "But I've read a lot of historical mysteries that have been recently published."

"Yes, maybe so. But mystery is the main thrust of the books, not the historical element. And the outline suggests that's almost all historical. I'm sorry. It's not something our agency does. Good luck. It's been nice meeting you. Take my business card in case you decide to rewrite it as a pure mystery."

She handed back the folder, gave Jane her business card, and smiled dismissal.

There was nothing for Jane to do but thank her and get the hell out of the room.

She glanced at her watch once she was outside in the hall. Her fifteen-minute interview hadn't lasted quite four minutes.

Shelley could tell it hadn't gone well when she spotted Jane moping at the registration area.

"Struck out?" she asked sympathetically.

"I was in there less than four minutes, Shelley. She said it's too much of an historical novel and not enough of a mystery. Odd how fast someone can devastate someone's hopes."

"How could she tell that fast?"

"She skimmed the outline and made a prune face."

"She's an ignorant child, Jane. I took a look at her through a crack in the door. She can't be more than seventeen. Pay no attention. You still have two interviews to go. And you need to put this one out of your mind. When is the next one?"