Getting his manuscript to a publishing house and paying for the promotion had cost him dearly; not just every cent he had managed to save since his freshman year of college, but also the six years spent writing, work shopping, and carefully polishing his work. Perhaps naively, Rodney had hoped that his written debut would grant him at least the exposure necessary for more successful works to follow. If he allowed himself unlimited room to daydream, Rodney’s greatest wish was to be able to afford a house of his own, and a live-in caretaker for Zelda.
Rodney dropped into his office chair and buried his face in his hands. Katherine Burt’s review had all but guaranteed he would never make anything close to a living as an author, and his work as a creative writing tutor online was sure to take a hit now, as well. Who would want to take advice from such a publicly humiliated hack?
She ruined my life, Rodney thought. She trashed my work in the most brutal way possible, and she gets to just keep on living her glamorous New York existence. I’m going to be living here for the rest of my life, struggling to make ends meet, and Katherine Burt is never going to see what she’s done to me.
Bolting upright, Rodney realized that wasn’t necessarily true. He wasn’t a hapless victim in all this, at least not yet. He could take charge, and he could force Katherine to face the consequences of her actions. With a renewed energy and a sense of purpose, Rodney strode upstairs for his suitcase. He was going to New York to pay a visit to one Ms. Katherine Burt.
5
The week went by, and Kate’s life went on as it normally did. She devoured the Civil War sisters novel and enjoyed it immensely, writing a glowing review. When she turned it in to Jack, she could practically feel his disappointment from across the building, but it didn’t bother her. She was prepared with a small lecture in case he confronted her (“My column means nothing if I’m not honest,”), but he never did.
One night after returning home from the office, Kate researched potential women’s charities that might take her wedding dress. It was a beautiful summertime dress, tea length with a tulle skirt and a lacy bodice. It was timeless and lovely, and obviously in perfect condition.
Kate began the search with gusto, focused on completing the first step towards acceptance. After scanning three or four charity mission statements, she closed her laptop and paced restlessly around her apartment, a leaden ball of anxiety resting in her chest. I don’t need to decide just now, I have time. Why am I in such a hurry to rush through the grieving process? Rationalizations swirling in her head like a cloud of mosquitos, Kate waged a mental battle until she found herself standing in front of her closet.
Staring at the chicly distressed white door, Kate’s heart began to pound. The warm glow surrounding the idea of providing a dress for someone else’s happiest day began to dim, and was replaced by an icy sense of dread. I just want to look at it one more time. She reached for the doorknob, then hesitated.
Kate remembered the day she had bought her lovely dress, walking around the city with Aiden just a few days after he had proposed. They couldn’t find the new bakery they were heading to, hoping to try out the muffin tops that had earned the pointless overnight fame New Yorkers assigned to the most mundane items. Stomach growling, Kate crankily suggested they stop at a bodega for literally anything to eat when Aiden pointed out the dress shop just across the street.
“Come on, Katie,” Aiden cajoled in an effort to cheer up his hangry fiancée. “Wanna try on a wedding dress?”
Unable to resist the allure of playing dress up, Kate agreed. When she emerged from the dressing room in the first selection, an over-the-top ball gown exploding with tulle, Aiden had laughed uproariously, sending Kate into a fit of laughter, as well.
“I feel like a cupcake,” Kate declared.
“You look like a cupcake,” Aiden answered. “A beautiful cupcake, but still a cupcake.”
The second dress Kate tried on was the one, and she knew it as before the attendant had finished buttoning her up. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at her ethereal reflection in the mirror, stunned. This is what I’ll be wearing when I marry Aiden, she thought wonderingly. Stepping out past the changing room’s curtain, she watched Aiden’s eyes grow wide with appreciation.
“You look so beautiful,” Aiden said in awe. “I can’t believe...” he cleared his throat. “I can’t believe I’m the one who got you.”
Giggling with delight, Kate had thrown herself into his strong embrace. Aiden was a photographer, and never without his camera. Stepping back from Kate, he pulled his Nikon out of his bag and pointed the lens at her. “Show me your bride smile,” he instructed. Kate, usually not one to enjoy having her picture taken, had posed happily.
After he died, Kate had searched for that picture but she never found it. I wish I had more pictures of him, she thought, not for the first time. Of course, Aiden had spent more time behind the camera than in front of it, and Kate had come to treasure every picture he had taken. Each one was a window into life as Aiden had seen it, a frozen look at the world through his eyes.
With trembling hands, Kate reached for the garment bag, then stopped. She wasn’t ready to look at the dress, not yet. She knew she wanted to see it one last time, hold it in her hands and breathe in the memory of that perfect day, but she wasn’t ready to unzip the bag. Not tonight.
Instead, Kate moved the bag from her bedroom closet to the unused hallway closet, where she wouldn’t see it unless she was looking for it, and firmly shut the door. She turned off the light and walked purposefully to the living room to find another book to read. She had a collection of Joyce Carol Oates shorts she was eager to begin, and she wasn’t going to get anywhere with it if she spent the whole night pining over a dress.
She had just immersed herself in a fresh story when her phone rang. Annoyed, Kate checked the caller ID. Cynthia. Great, Kate rolled her eyes, debating not answering. Cynthia had avoided her at work as much as possible since the argument over the book club donuts, and that was fine with Kate. In all honesty, Kate’s day went by much more smoothly without the interference of her assistant. Of course, if Kate fired Cynthia, she would really look like the bitch of the office. Kate sighed, reluctantly accepting the call. “Hello?”
“Ms. Burt?” Cynthia asked, as if someone else would be answering Kate’s cell phone.
“Yes, Cynthia. What is it?”
There was a long hesitation, and Kate pulled the phone from her ear to be sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Cynthia?” She prompted. “Hello?”
“Are you...” Cynthia uttered a small belch. “Are you home?”
Kate closed her eyes, irritated. “Cynthia, are you drunk?”
“No-o-o,” Cynthia drew out the word. “I’m not drunk. I’m just…I’m just…” She hiccupped. “I just wanted to apologize.”
“Apologize for what?” Kate was struggling to be kind, but her interest in the conversation, not very high to begin with, was rapidly waning. She eyed her book hungrily, eager to get back to it.
“For forgetting the donuts, and for the jacket taking so long, and for forgetting things sometimes.” Cynthia’s voice had taken on a whine. “You just sometimes aren’t a very easy person to work for, and so…but I wanted to apologize.”
“I appreciate that, Cynthia.”
There was a long silence.
“And?” Cynthia prodded.
“And what?” Kate sighed.
“And aren’t you going to apologize to me for being such a…you know…”
“Cynthia, let me stop you right there,” Kate said icily, eyes still closed. “I’m not going to tolerate this sort of behavior. If you really want to apologize to me, do better work. Be better. And then maybe I’ll apologize to you. But I can’t even fathom the stupidity it must take to call your boss while you’re drinking, so I can tell you this is not a great start. I can only imagine what sort of things you have to say to me from here, and I don’t think that conversation would go so well for you. So I’m going to hang up
now, and if you call me back, I’ll take that as your resignation. Okay?” Without waiting for a response, Kate hung up, shaking her head.
Picking up her book and settling back into the couch, Kate once again lost herself in a different world, one without a dead fiancé or an incompetent assistant. Her phone didn’t ring again, and she easily put Cynthia’s drunken ramblings out of her mind. Thoughts of the dress lingered a little longer, but were pushed wholly from Kate’s mind once she began Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
***
Hours later, she woke with a start. What was that? Groggily, Kate glanced around the room in confusion before placing herself. She had fallen asleep on her couch. Great, she thought, rubbing the back of her neck. Her back always felt funny after she slept on the couch, and she tried not to make a habit of it. Sorry, Joyce. You aren’t boring, I’m just getting old. Standing, Kate groaned. She rolled her shoulders and began to make her way to the bedroom. She didn’t consider what had woken her until she heard it again, the abrupt pounding making her jump.
Thump thump thump. Her apartment door shook with the force of the knocks. What the hell? Kate wondered. She checked her phone, squinting at the sudden bright light from the screen. 1:14 a.m. Who would possibly be pounding on her door? Kate was frozen on the spot, unsure of what to do. Should she call out, ask who was there? It seemed unwise to advertise her presence like that. Calling the cops felt too extreme; after all, it was just knocking. Loud, insistent knocking. At one in the freaking morning.
Another round of banging came, and Kate winced. She hadn’t buzzed anyone up, but the building’s intercom system had always struck her as useless, anyway. There was usually someone in the building who would be willing to buzz just anyone up without verifying it was the food delivery guy or their invited guests first.
“What the hell do I do here?” Kate whispered to herself. More knocking, if such a crude banging could be called knocking. Kate yelped, panicking, until it dawned on her. The peephole, genius, she thought in exasperation. Duh!
She moved quietly across the floor, but the knocking had ceased by the time Kate peeked through the tiny hole in the door. It was silent, and no one was on the other side. Kate sighed with relief, then looked closer at the fisheye image of the hallway. What the…Oh God, that’s smoke!
Kate threw open the door and found a flaming bag waiting on her Welcome mat. With a small shriek of surprised fright, she ran inside and grabbed a throw pillow off the couch before racing back and using it to beat out the tiny fire. Once she had extinguished it, she leaned against the doorframe, panting. She glanced down at the pillow, although she knew its impromptu debut as a firefighter had left it ruined.
Eyes widening, she realized with horror that the pillow wasn’t just singed. A dark red stain had bloomed on the front. She instinctively dropped it, and as it landed next to the tattered bag, she realized that’s where the crimson stain had come from. Grisly blobs were splattered from the inside, and a large charred lump lay partially exposed from the middle of the carnage.
Oh dear God, is that a rat?! Kate’s mind screamed. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she began to gag. Who in the world would do something like this? Fighting to remain in control, Kate forced herself to take a long, settling breath. It worked for a moment, then the stench of singed pillow fabric wafted up her nose, and Kate promptly vomited all over the still smoldering pile. She closed her eyes, unable to take in the surreal scene before her.
Once she had calmed herself enough to open her eyes, Kate retreated to her kitchen to grab some garbage bags from under her sink. She paused long enough to snatch the yellow rubber gloves she used for dishwashing, and began the grim task of cleaning up the grisly mess outside her door. She grimaced in distaste as she gingerly tossed the debris into the plastic bag, holding everything by the smallest corner she could manage. Even with the gloves on, Kate felt dirty handling the still-smoking items.
It occurred to her later that she might have called the police to report this, but then thought better of it. She couldn’t imagine any NYPD officers putting a flaming bag of--well, whatever it was in the bag--at the top of their to-do lists, and besides, the whole thing was coated in a thick layer of her expelled dinner, anyway. Dispatch would tell her they’d send the next available unit to her, and then what? She’d wait for however long it would take while her puke pile matured into a fine vintage? No, easier to clean it up and be done with it. Probably just some dumb, disturbed teens messing around, anyway.
“Never a dull moment,” Kate pushed her damp hair off her now sweaty brow and hoisted the bag up, holding it well away from her body, heading to the trash chute down the hall. She was sorely looking forward to falling into her comfortable bed, too exhausted to bother with a shower until morning. By the time she returned to her apartment and fell onto her plush mattress, the fire had taken on the fuzzy quality of a half-remembered dream, and Kate slipped easily into sleep.
The next day, Kate didn’t spare a thought to the one a.m. incident until she left her apartment and stepped onto the floor of her doorstep. She looked down, wondering why that particular step felt so off. My Welcome mat, she realized. That half inch drop is weirdly noticeable after so many years. In the light of day, the fire seemed like a ridiculous antic, or a joke. Then she remembered the rat, and shivered a little. That was a weird little twist that she just couldn’t wrap her head around. Maybe it was already dead when they found it, she thought. That didn’t really make it any more comforting, though. It was still a very abnormal thing to do.
When she got to the office, Kate noticed Cynthia hovering outside her door almost immediately. Shooting nervous glances at Kate, the mousy assistant waited until Kate was seated behind her desk before meekly knocking on the door, never quite meeting Kate’s eyes. “Hi, Ms. Burt. Sorry to bother you, but Mr. O’Bannon…he said as soon as you got in…um, his office, right away…”
Kate rubbed her temples. She didn’t want to snap at Cynthia again, because obviously the poor woman was having a lot of trouble getting over it, but damn, Cynthia rubbed her the wrong way. “Thank you. I’ll be right down.” Kate was willing to let sleeping dogs lie as far as their last conversation was concerned, if Cynthia would. The last thing in the world she wanted was a heart-to-heart with that woman about whatever personal problems she may or may not have. It seemed more like something Human Resources should handle, if anything.
Cynthia hesitated. “But…okay.” Scurrying out the door, she cast one last nervous look over her shoulder, clearly relieved that Kate didn’t intend on rehashing their phone call from the night before.
Kate didn’t have anything to do in her office, but she definitely didn’t want to walk down to O’Bannon’s office with Cynthia trailing behind her like a lost, repentant puppy. She pulled out her crossword puzzle for the morning, hoping to give herself a mental reset before dealing with her boss. She had four blank entries left, and she was determined to finish the whole thing before lunch. After spending a few moments pondering over three down--it was right on the tip of her tongue, she could swear it--Kate decided she had better head to O’Bannon’s office before she got lost in her own thoughts.
Turning the corner, she was surprised to see Jack speaking animatedly to someone in his office. The frosted glass walls concealed whoever it was in the room with him, and Kate offered up a silent prayer that it wasn’t airheaded Cynthia crying her tale of woe unto Jack’s surely unsympathetic shoulder. She tapped the glass door, and he waved her in.
It certainly wasn’t Cynthia in Jack’s office. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, was a towering man, easily a foot taller than the 5’5” Kate. He had very short hair, buzzed down to nearly nothing. Although his arms were incredibly muscular, straining the sleeves of his black tee-shirt, the first thing Kate noticed about him, even before his noteworthy height, was the man’s stunningly green eyes. He stood insolently against the far wall of Jack’s office, tossing M&Ms into the air one by one and catching them in his mo
uth.
“You need me?” Kate inquired, directing her words at Jack but unable to take her eyes off the strikingly handsome stranger. “Cynthia said-”
Jack nodded impatiently and waved her in. “Yeah, yeah. Kate,” Jack exhaled gustily. “We got a problem.”
Kate lowered herself into the chair in front of Jack’s desk and glanced between the two men, confused. Jack looked perturbed, but the stranger was simply watching Kate and her editor interact with mildly curious detachment, as though he wasn’t terribly interested in their conversation. “What kind of problem?”
“Well, we got two different problems, you and me,” Jack chuckled humorlessly. “See, my problem is I gotta hire this guy, because of your problem. Your problem, is you got a death threat. Actually, that’s my problem, too, because it came addressed care of the paper. If it had gone right to you, then it would be solely your problem, and I wouldn’t have to hire anybody.” He spread his hands as if to say, what lousy luck, huh?
Kate stared at Jack in disbelief. “What?” She managed to choke out.
“Yeah, the legal department tells me that since the threat came directly to the paper and not to your personal residence, we could be held liable if something were to actually happen to you. So we gotta take ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure your safety.” Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head, amazed at the outlandish measures he was being forced to take.
“Wow, Jack. That really sucks for you.” Kate’s head was spinning. “I thought you said I got hate mail all the time and it was no big deal!”
“Hate mail is one thing. This was your first death threat. And it was graphic enough to be deemed troubling and credible.” Jack was clearly impressed. “It was really messed up.”
“Well, who the hell sent it?”
“We don’t know yet. I mean, it came to the paper, but it doesn’t look like it was delivered by the post office. Someone brought it here. So that’s not good for you, either.”
The Book Critic's Bodyguard Page 3