Farewell, Dorothy Parker (3 page)

Chapter 2

“Settle down,” Violet said. “I can’t hear myself think.”

But the little dog continued to bark and yip as if he was, well, possessed, running in frantic circles around her kitchen table, where the Algonquin guest book lay.

Violet couldn’t believe she had actually stolen it. She had never done anything like that in her life. But then again, she had never had an experience as terrifying and exhilarating as those few moments in the Algonquin. If she opened the book now, would it happen again? Violet put her head in her hands. Couldn’t that dog be quiet for a second so she could get ahold of herself and reason it all out?

“Come here, boy,” she said, but he ignored her and kept yelping.

She picked up his leash and jangled it. “How about a walk?” That usually got his immediate attention, but not today. “A treat?” she asked, opening the cabinet where she kept his Milk-Bones. She shook the box, but even that got no response.

Violet paced. She didn’t understand what was going on with the poor little dog and didn’t know how to get him to settle down. One thing she did know without question—the force that had seized her at the Algonquin was Dorothy Parker.

And now that force was captured in the guest book.

As tempted as she was to open it, she couldn’t bear the thought of feeling as sick as she did in the restaurant, but, oh, the power! With
Dorothy Parker’s spirit compressed into a tight ball at the center of her soul, she was as courageous as she had always dreamed of being.

The phone rang, though she could barely hear it over the incessant high-pitched barking. Knowing Woollcott would follow, she picked up the book and carried it into the study, a dark, cozy room off the foyer her sister had restored to its original charm, repairing and refinishing the ancient oak paneling and recessed bookcases. It was a small space, furnished with a settee, an old desk, two antique wingback chairs facing the stone fireplace, and loads of books. Except for the anachronistic laptop she kept on the desk, entering the room always felt like taking a step back to another century.

She tossed the hefty tome onto one of the chairs and a cloud of dust wafted up, followed by a pang of guilt. This house had meant so much to Ivy. Violet needed to do a better job of keeping the place in good order.

Woollcott, oblivious to her shortcomings as a housekeeper, jumped onto the seat and put his head on the cover of the book. At last he was quiet.

Violet went back into the kitchen and listened as her answering machine clicked on.

“Shit,” she said, and grabbed for the phone. It was Friday evening and he was planning to move in on Sunday morning. She couldn’t put this off another minute. She had to tell him it was over.

“Carl,” she said, “you still there?”

“Hi, baby.”

Violet heard the tap-tap-tap of Woollcott’s nails on the tile as he came back into the kitchen. He sat at her feet and rubbed his face against her leg. “You’re better, huh?” she said, giving him a gentle scratch behind the ears.

“Much better,” Carl said. “I think the Neosporin helped.”

“I was talking to Woollcott.”

“I’m the one who got bitten, and you’re worried about the dog?”

“He hasn’t been…himself,” she said.

“I noticed. He nearly took my fingers off.”

Violet rolled her eyes. She knew Carl hadn’t been badly hurt. “Well, thank goodness he didn’t,” she said. “Thank goodness it’s just a tiny wound.”

“It’s not that tiny,” he said. “My mother thinks I should get a tetanus shot.”

His mother. When Violet first started dating Carl, she thought his attachment to his parents was charmingly eccentric. But now she realized how arrested his development really was. If he moved in with her, he would bring that neediness with him, making Violet the mother figure. It was the last thing she wanted from a man.

“I…never finished what I was trying to tell you in the restaurant,” she said.

“Yeah, what the hell happened to you in there?”

“Wait,” she said. “I think I just heard something.”

“Heard something?”

“In the house. It sounded like…like a little dog barking.”

“Woollcott,” he said. “Duh.”

Violet bristled. Didn’t he think she would know if it was her own dog? “Woollcott’s right here with me,” she said.

“Must be coming from outside.”

That made more sense. She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat—she had to get this over with. “Okay, remember when I said you couldn’t move in this weekend?”

“You were upset about the garage. I understand. You have a lot of family treasures in there. But maybe we can put a shed in the backyard.”

“I don’t want a shed, Carl.”

“I saw some at Home Depot that were pretty attractive. They even have them with wood shingles.”

“I don’t care about wood shingles.”

“Or a fiberglass one that looks like white clapboard siding.”

“Carl, please. I have no interest in a shed.”

“Don’t be so stubborn,” he said. “A shed is a perfect solution. You get to keep all your sister’s stuff, and I get a studio.”

This isn’t about the fucking shed, she thought. This is about us. “Look,” she said. “This isn’t going to work.”

“I bet there’s room in the attic,” he said.

“The attic?”

Violet heard something—something that definitely wasn’t coming from outside. And it wasn’t a dog.

“If it’s empty—” Carl said.

“Shush,” she said. “I think there’s someone in the house.”

Carl was still talking, so she took the phone away from her ear. And then she heard it. She heard it as clearly and distinctly as if there was a person in the next room.

Oh, for God’s sake,
said a woman’s voice.
Just tell him to go to hell
.

The phone slipped from Violet’s hand and hit the floor. She fumbled for it. “Carl?”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, her heart pounding. “Someone’s here. I heard…a woman.”

“First you heard a dog and now you hear a woman? Violet, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she whispered, her hand over her mouth. “I’m going to investigate.”

“If there’s really someone there, don’t you think you should call 911?”

“Shh,”
she said, as she tiptoed out of the kitchen and toward the study.

The door was ajar, and she quietly pushed it open. The first thing she saw was the Algonquin guest book, open on the floor beside the wingback chair. And there, on the seat itself, where she had left Woollcott, was a cloud of dust far thicker than the one she had created when she tossed the book onto it. It seemed to hover several feet in the air with a distinct shape. As Violet stared, she could make out lines and shadows within the floating matter. It was like seeing a three-dimensional form take shape in one of those Magic Eye pictures you had to look at with a relaxed focus.

And then the particles settled themselves into a recognizable image. Violet blinked. She wasn’t just looking at a mass of floating dust particles. She was looking at a pale gray suggestion of a small woman holding a French poodle on her lap. As she continued to stare, the vision got stronger, more vibrant, until it wasn’t a vision at all but a real live person.

“You still there?” Carl asked, but Violet didn’t answer him. She couldn’t. She was paralyzed in place, unable to move or speak.

Then the apparition broke the silence.

“It’s customary,” the woman said, as she petted the small dog on her lap, “to offer a guest a drink.”

Chapter 3

Violet hung up the phone without saying good-bye.

“Dorothy Parker?” she said to her guest. It came out as soft as vapor.

“And this is Cliché,” Mrs. Parker said, introducing her poodle.

Violet stared, dumbstruck.

Dorothy Parker looked straight at her. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“What?”

“Your name, miss.”

“Uh, Violet. Violet Epps.”

“The movie critic?”

Dizzy, Violet held on to the door frame. “You’ve heard of me?”

“One doesn’t float about the dining rooms of the Algonquin for forty-five years without learning a thing or two.”

Violet closed her eyes for a second, remembering the smell of gin and cigarettes that seemed to pass right through her just moments before the incident with the book. Had that been the spirit of Dorothy Parker?

“What are you—” she began. “How…?”

“It’s all tied to this awful thing,” Mrs. Parker said, indicating the guest book, which lay open on the floor next to her. “My damned luck. I get to spend eternity with one book and it’s a collection of signatures.”

“I don’t understand,” Violet said.

“Percy Coates,” she explained, referring to the erstwhile manager of the Algonquin, “was obsessed with two things—writers and death. He collected us in life, and tried his damnedest to collect us in death. His favorite medium, a Madame Lucescu, assured him that anyone who signed the book would be captured in it upon their death. But I’m the only one who stuck.”

“Why you?”

“Long story, dear child. But it’s my own stupid fault, I assure you.”

Woollcott trotted into the room and parked himself at Violet’s feet. He gave one of his quiet little yips, which was much more characteristic of him than the frantic barking he had been doing earlier. She bent to pick him up.

“And who is this charming creature?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“His name is Woollcott.”

Violet saw the corners of Dorothy Parker’s mouth curl as she recognized the name of her feisty friend and fellow theater critic.

“Then he must have quite a bite.”

Violet couldn’t suppress a smile, as a soft tingle of conspiratorial warmth relaxed her. “Not really,” she said, “though my friend Carl might disagree.”

“The handsome fellow with the messy hair?”

Violet nodded.

“In that case, I hope it was worse than his bark.”

Yes, Violet thought. It’s really her. She took a step forward for a closer look. “Are you…a spirit?”

“Something like that. Speaking of spirits, where’s that drink?”

Violet wanted to touch her guest to see if she was flesh and blood, but she held back. “Can you do that? Can you…eat and drink and all that?”

“As long as the guest book is open I can take on a corporeal form.
All I have to do is hold still for a few minutes to let the matter settle together.”

“And if the book is closed?”

Mrs. Parker shrugged. “It’s rather like going to sleep.”

Violet considered this for a moment. “Can you open and close the book whenever you want?”

“I cannot,” Mrs. Parker said. “And there’s the rub. I’m a damned prisoner. I can’t even leave the confines of the room. Wherever the book is, I am. About that drink.”

“Of course,” Violet said. “Sorry.” She didn’t want to walk away, afraid that if she took her eyes off Dorothy Parker she would disappear. But she did as she was asked and went across the foyer to the living room, where Ivy and Neil kept their liquor cabinet.

“Gin okay?” Violet called.

“As long as it’s not homemade.”

Violet mixed gin and tonic in a highball glass. It was the first time she held a drink in her hand since the accident, and for a moment, she thought about
him,
the stranger in the pickup truck, and wondered what he had been drinking. They never did tell her the particulars, only that his blood alcohol level had been more than twice the legal limit. Back then, Violet had been burning to know every detail, as if that would help her make sense of it all. But, of course, it didn’t really matter. Not one bit.

She came back into the study and handed the cocktail to her guest.

“Where’s yours?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“Oh, I don’t—”

“You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you?”