The Accidental Bestseller (57 page)

Kendall studied the cover and liked it, especially the way they’d interlocked all four of their names. She looked up but couldn’t read the others’ reactions.

The cost of production for this new version would be divided equally between all four publishing houses as would the profits, minus the authors’ advances and royalties.

It sounded fairly clear cut to Kendall and she wondered again why so many people were necessary. She tuned out the rest of what was being said in order to study her friends. Or rather, the three who she hoped were still her friends.

She wanted to know if Mallory had made up with Chris; whether Tanya was still fighting off the cook and whether she’d quit all her jobs once
Sticks and Stones
started paying out. Ditto for Faye, who was rumored to be writing a time-travel erotica series set partly in biblical times.

Scarsdale’s lead attorney talked next, but Kendall noticed that only the other attorneys appeared to be listening. Even the agents were busy scoping each other out. Kendall was dying to hear about Tanya’s new agent and what had happened during the split with Masque.

Another attorney began to speak.

Feeling someone’s gaze on her, Kendall looked up to find Mallory contemplating her. A dark eyebrow went up, then there was a roll of Mallory’s green eyes. She tilted her head toward the door and Kendall felt her first real stirring of hope.

Faye noticed and nodded her head almost imperceptibly. Then Tanya joined the silent communication with a flip of her big hair.

When the attorney finished speaking and called for comment from the authors’ representatives, Kendall stood and asked to address the group. Sylvia groaned quietly beside her, but Kendall was ready to make her move.

“Before we vote on the specifics, I just want to take a moment to thank Mallory, Faye, and Tanya. I’m not sure if they realize it, but they saved my life. And in the process, they made sure we all wrote a truly incredible book.”

The attorneys, accountants, and agents looked slightly uncomfortable as if paying a compliment crossed some unwritten line, but Kendall only cared about her audience of three. And they were sitting up and paying attention.

“All of them paid a price for helping me and I don’t think I ever thanked them properly. I wouldn’t still be here—or anywhere—if it wasn’t for them.”

The attorneys and agents exchanged looks of alarm. A faint whiff of panic wafted into the air.

Kendall saw Mallory’s smile and the batting of her eyelashes as she attempted to hold back tears. Faye ran a hand through her salt-and-pepper hair. There was a suspicious sheen behind her glasses.

Tanya stood and raised her pointy chin. “It was my pleasure,” she said, as she swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “My new agent here,” she nodded to the woman seated to her left, who looked like she was about to have an apoplexy, “seems to think my future lies in Southern women’s fiction. Well, hell, I guess I’ve got the accent for it. But I sure would like to know what you three think.”

“I think we have a lot of things to discuss.” Faye stood at her place now, too. “But I don’t think much of it has to do with this particular deal.”

“No,” Mallory said. “It doesn’t, does it?” She stood, completely ignoring Patricia Gilmore’s gasp of horror.

Kendall looked at her “peeps” and felt a pure rush of joy as the last piece of her life’s puzzle dropped into place. “All in favor of recommending that our representatives accept the split and cover credits on our behalf as offered, unless they can negotiate even better, but still equal deals, please say ‘aye,’ ” Kendall said.

“Aye.” All four of them answered as one.

Lacy Samuels, the onetime naïve but plucky editorial assistant, pumped a triumphant fist into the air.

Hannah Sutcliff, who had already made a six-figure offer on Kendall Aims’s next novel,
Names Will Never Hurt Me,
which would chronicle said plucky assistant’s imaginary rise up the publishing ladder, smiled serenely.

Everyone else just looked nervous, which Kendall figured was precisely what they got paid for.

“I say we adjourn to someplace where we can toast our good fortune,” Mallory said.

“And find out how the hell everyone’s doing,” Tanya added.

“If you’ll excuse us?” Faye addressed those still assembled. “We really need to leave now.”

And they left just like that. Crowding into the elevator, bursting out into the lobby, throwing their arms around each other as they marched across the marbled floor and out onto the steamy New York sidewalk.

If this were the movie version that had been proposed for
Sticks and Stones,
Kendall thought, the theme music would swell up about now as the four of them shouted to and over each other as they walked, all of their energies focused on the joy of being together, oblivious to the surge of humanity forced to pass around them.

And there’d be short paragraphs typed on the top of the screen—little capsule views of their fabulous futures—as the camera zoomed out so that the audience could see Mallory St. James’s car and driver trailing sedately behind them.

And then, Kendall thought, the last shot in the movie would be a real tight close-up of a woman’s hands typing on a computer keyboard. Then the camera would tilt up so the audience could read the words as they appeared on the screen. Those words would be . . .

 

THE END