The Accidental Bestseller (50 page)

From LaGuardia, Lacy, Cindy, and a still-fuming Naomi Fondren took a limo directly to Scarsdale’s headquarters on West 36th. There the publicity head told Cindy she could go. Lacy followed Naomi onto the elevator and down the empty fourth-floor hallways to the conference room.

Although it was almost 8:00 P.M., most of the seats at the conference table were already occupied. The publisher, Harold Kemp, sat at one end. Brenda Tinsley sat at the other. Jane Jensen and Hannah Sutcliff were already seated and ignoring each other. Naomi took a seat next to Jane and Lacy ended up next to Hannah. When she’d settled into her seat, Lacy looked up and saw Jane Jensen smiling menacingly at her. Her skin prickled.

“Now that those of you who were on the spot have arrived,” the publisher said, “perhaps you can explain how in the hell this happened.”

Relieved that the question was directed at Naomi Fondren, Lacy shrank back and tried to become one with her chair. If she could have, she would have disappeared completely.

Naomi didn’t shrink back or apologize, but began to explain. “Apparently a Kristen Calder staffer noticed the similarities between the Kennedy Andrews character in
Sticks and Stones
and the author, which made her look more closely at all the characters in the book. Then another staffer, who’s a big Mallory St. James fan, noticed the similarities between a scene in
Sticks and Stones
and one in an earlier St. James novel.

“Although we had no warning of it, Kristen was primed and ready for a witch hunt. She just didn’t realize how many witches there were until all four of them stood up and started trying to protect each other.”

“It was a complete and utter train wreck!” Brenda Tinsley said. “One awful revelation after the next.” She shuddered. “We’ve already had calls from Masque, Partridge and Portman, and Psalm Song, Faye Truett’s inspirational publisher. People are freaking out all over New York City.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting we take comfort in the fact that we’re not the only New York publishing house with egg on its face,” Kemp said in the deep voice that with the power he yielded had earned him the nickname “God.”

“We’ve got a lot more to worry about than wiping up egg,” Brenda said. “There are bound to be lawsuits and ultimately we’re going to have to figure out what to do about
Sticks and Stones
, which is still climbing the
New York Times
list.”

“Well, I want to know how this happened,” Kemp said. “How could we not have known that the book was not written by our author?”

“Jane?” Brenda Tinsley’s tone was not the one she normally used with her former college roommate. Out of the corner of her eye, Lacy noticed that the Hand of God’s hands were shaking.

Jane Jensen actually looked surprised at the associate publisher’s tone. She automatically began to bristle, but managed to regain control. “Even before the book was complete I wanted it buried. I had informed the author that we would not be going back to contract. I’d assigned it a recycled cover. The print run would have been minimal.”

She managed to keep her tone civil, but Lacy saw the affront in her eyes. Jane Jensen wasn’t used to being questioned. Or having to control herself. She shot Lacy a venomous look and then continued. “
Sticks and Stones
would never have been put out in the way that it was if I hadn’t been ambushed at the sales meeting by Lacy Samuels.” She pointed an accusing finger at Lacy. “She fell in love with the book and contrary to my wishes, she marshaled a whole group of supporters, including Hannah and Cash Simpson, with whom Lacy has been sleeping.”

The publisher turned to consider Lacy, but whether he was trying to determine why Cash Simpson might find her attractive or was simply confused as to why this person would have stirred an insurrection at a sales meeting, Lacy didn’t know.

“What is Miss Samuels’s position here?” Harold Kemp asked.

“She’s my editorial assistant!” Jane snapped, her outrage making her forget who she was snapping at.

“So you’re blaming this on your
assistant
?” The publisher’s tone was incredulous.

“Yes!” Jane snapped again, and Lacy could see how close she was to losing her grip.

“And why would your assistant feel compelled to take action on a book you were editing?” Hannah asked quietly.

“Because she’s a troublemaker!” Jane Jensen spat her answer at Hannah, her fury building by the second.

“Had you read the book at the time your assistant started rallying in-house support for it?” Hannah continued to speak calmly and quietly, in stark contrast to Jane’s increasingly agitated manner.

“Well . . . of course!” Jane lied. She looked at Hannah as if she’d like to jump up and smack the woman down—a look Lacy knew well.

“So you read the book and didn’t notice that it wasn’t written in the same voice as Kendall Aims’s earlier books?”

Lacy realized now that even if Jane had read the book at this early stage she wouldn’t have known, because she’d never bothered to read the author’s earlier titles.

“And then somehow you let your assistant get other reads, have a new cover designed, and present it at the sales meeting?” Hannah’s tone remained smooth and calm. Jane was too angry to mount a credible defense. Perhaps she was using all her mental powers trying to keep herself from beating Hannah Sutcliff to a pulp.

“I didn’t realize what she was doing. I . . .” Jane clamped her mouth shut, apparently just now realizing the depth of the hole she’d just dug for herself.

“Who was assigned to edit this book?” Brenda Tinsley’s voice was cold and hard.

Lacy saw Jane struggle with her answer. Despite her rage, she seemed to realize the trap that had been set. If she admitted she hadn’t even read it until after Lacy had pulled off her sales meeting coup, she would have to admit that she’d planned to pass off important editorial work to an inexperienced assistant. If she claimed she’d read and edited the book, then she’d have to accept responsibility for completely missing the fact that the book was written by four authors and not just the one she had under contract.

“I was Kendall Aims’s editor,” Jane said, her tone stiff with anger.

“And did you actually edit
Sticks and Stones
?” Brenda asked.

“Yes, I did. But I wasn’t . . .” Jane was shaking from her efforts to hold back her anger. Her eyes took on a glazed, unfocused look that Lacy knew precipitated an explosion.

“Were you the editor or weren’t you?” Harold Kemp asked.

“I knew Kendall Aims was a mediocre talent and I had already planned to drop her. I didn’t want
Sticks and Stones
in hardcover. I didn’t . . .” Jane Jensen’s voice rose with each statement. She looked like a teakettle coming to a boil.

“Did you edit it or not?” Harold Kemp demanded.

“Yes!” Jane shouted at the publisher. “But you aren’t listening to me!” She’d lost it completely. “I knew that author was a problem. There was no way she should have been allowed to . . .” She was shrieking now. The 360 of the head on the shoulders was coming next.

But she didn’t get that far. Because this time she wasn’t venting her spleen all over a powerless assistant. She’d picked the wrong audience for her pyrotechnics.

“That’s enough,” Harold Kemp said. “You’re fired.”

“What did you say?” Jane Jensen was still shouting. She turned to Brenda Tinsley. “Are you going to let him do that to me?” Jane yelled.

Brenda’s mouth compressed into an angry white line. “Yes,” she said coldly. “Of course I am.”

“You can’t do this!” Jane Jensen jumped to her feet and shoved back her chair. “Not after sixteen years of working my ass off for you! You’ll be sorry. You’ll—”

“Brenda,” Harold Kemp said. “Please call security and have them escort Miss Jensen from the building. We’ll discuss what to do with the book later.”

And just like that Scarsdale’s publisher-in-chief performed a much-needed exorcism. Or in
Wizard of Oz
terms, he dropped a house directly upon Scarsdale’s Wicked Witch and removed her ruby slippers.

Lacy watched him turn and leave the room. Brenda Tinsley picked up the phone and called downstairs. Moments later two burly guards appeared and escorted Jane Jensen out of the building.

Lacy breathed a shuddering sigh of relief as the door closed behind them. Brenda, Hannah, Naomi, and Lacy stared at each other for several long moments, but nobody seemed to be able to think of a fitting comment. They left their seats and began to file out of the office.

Lacy would have preferred a celebration. Maybe some skywriting. Or a chorus of Munchkins singing “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” She wanted to hear Jane Jensen’s editorial career pronounced “Really most sincerely dead.” And she wanted to see her feet shrivel up and disappear beneath the killer house.

Lacy’s relief was fleeting. She knew that although tonight’s curtain had fallen, the drama was far from over.

41

—ELINOR LIPMAN

 

 

 

Kendall’s plane landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport just before 7:00 P.M. By 7:30 she’d retrieved her bag and met Calvin outside of baggage claim. She was too tired and too numb to feel much of anything other than the hard knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach that had been with her since she awoke this morning in Chicago.

With her bag stowed in the trunk of his BMW, Calvin merged out of the airport and headed north on Highway 85. The drive to Athens, which was northeast of Atlanta, would take about an hour and a half.

Kendall watched the familiar landmarks whiz by in silence as her brain continued in its attempts to process the horrific details of her day: Kristen Calder’s surprise attack, the even more surprising revelations that followed. The meltdown of her friendship with Mallory and Faye and Tanya.

Dominating all of this was the coming conversation with her children during which she’d have to explain things that she still didn’t understand herself.

Kendall closed her eyes and searched for calm. “Did you reach the kids?” she asked. “I was never able to get through.”

“Yeah,” Calvin replied. “And they’re royally pissed at both of us. At me for, and I’m quoting Melissa on this, ‘being an asshole and only thinking with my dick.’ And at you for not telling them what an asshole I am. Melissa had a four P.M. class but apparently everyone in her dorm watched Kristen Calder today and couldn’t wait to give her a blow by blow.”

Kendall groaned. “I just can’t believe any of this. I feel like I’ve been trapped in a nightmare since WINC in New York, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to wake up.”

“I know what you mean,” Cal said.

Kendall turned in her seat to look at him, something she had not intentionally done for a long time. His dress shirt appeared rumpled and his tie had a food stain on it. She realized, with some surprise, that he needed a haircut.

“What do you mean, you know what I mean?” she asked.

He shrugged, but without his usual cockiness. “Just that things haven’t exactly turned out the way I expected.”

Anger burned away some of Kendall’s numbness. “Gee,” she said. “Let me get out my violin.” She saw his face flush and hoped it was from shame. “But don’t you dare try to tell me that your abandonment of your family has been as hard on you as it has on me. Or will be on your children. Don’t you dare!”

He took his gaze off the highway to look at her. The rhythmic spill of streetlights lit the hollows of his cheeks. “I did the wrong thing. I know that,” he said. “I just . . . well . . . Melissa wasn’t all wrong. I wasn’t using my head.”

Kendall closed her eyes again, not wanting to hear what part of his anatomy had held sway. He’d had to choose between his dick and his head. When had his heart been taken out of the running?

“And now you are?” she asked. “Using your head?”

“Laura, the whole . . . thing . . . was a huge mistake,” Calvin said quietly. “I wish I’d never gotten involved with her.” He swallowed. “I
shouldn’t
have ever gotten involved with her.”

The flare of westbound headlights flickered on his face. Light and dark. Truth and consequences.

She sensed what was coming before he said it; it was just one more surreal part of a science fiction kind of day.

“I’m sorry, Kendall. Really sorry. I want to put things back the way they were.” He paused, apparently waiting for some sort of reaction from her. When she didn’t respond, he forged on, laying out his plan, though she suspected he was making it up as he went.

“We could start fresh tonight,” he said, talking himself into it even as he tried to convince her. “When we get there I’ll apologize and ask their forgiveness. Oh,” he added hastily, “and yours, too. And then we could try to start over again.”

She realized that he’d only apologized to her as an afterthought because he assumed she’d need little convincing. He undoubtedly assumed she’d been dragging through her dreary life praying that he’d come back.

“What’s happened to Laura?” Kendall asked. “How does she feel about this . . . fresh start you’re proposing?” She was almost too weary to dredge up a sufficient amount of sarcasm.
Almost.

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks.” He shrugged and she could picture him dismissing her to Laura in the same way nine months ago. “It’s over.” His tone suggested this was a minor point, hardly pertinent to the conversation. “I want you to come home where you belong. You know that’s what the kids will want, too.”

Kendall turned away from him. She’d taken so many emotional blows today that this one almost didn’t register. He thought he could just say, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake,” as if he’d brought home the wrong brand of toothpaste. “Let’s forget it ever happened” and she would be so relieved that she’d take him back. With some horror, she realized that even a few months ago she would have leaped at the offer.