by Judith Ivie
“Not really!” Isabelle exclaimed in delight. She leaned forward eagerly. “I read mysteries addictively, but I’m so bad with authors’ names. Do you have a series?”
May blushed just a bit. “The Ariadne Merriwether series about an old lady who lives in a retirement community and …” She paused and looked around guiltily. “Of course, it’s not nearly as chic and sophisticated as Vista View, nowhere as nice.” Her blush deepened.
“Oh, my goodness, I just love Ariadne,” Isabelle gushed. “I’ve read every single one of those titles. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize your name instantly.”
My phone rang, and I reached to pick it up, turning away to speak to the caller over the chatter of the two women at my desk. Realizing they were interfering with my ability to hear, May and Isabelle picked up their coffees and headed to Isabelle’s office, giggling and nattering away like old friends. I couldn’t help smiling at how each had managed to distract the other from her problems. Inviting May to visit Vista View had been a good idea.
When May didn’t reappear by lunch time, I took my growling stomach into the dining room alone and scanned the room for possible congenial company. None of my regulars were present, so I collected one of Dominick’s excellent chicken salad plates and retreated to my car to enjoy lunch, the latest edition of Fresh Air on public radio, and the autumn sunshine, which continued to be glorious. If it weren’t for the fact that Armando and I might have to move to Florida in the near future, severing my ties with everything here that I loved; Emma forging a romantic connection with a man who lived on the opposite coast; and May being harassed by a person or persons unknown for who-knew-what reason, life would be pretty darned good, I reflected.
Shortly before two o’clock May finally returned to the sales desk, where I was busy with a couple of prospective buyers. I was explaining the amenities of the variously phased units. It was a speech I could have given in my sleep, but I dutifully injected the appropriate amount of enthusiasm into my voice. Out of the corner of my eye I saw May sink into one of the visitors’ chairs. Her face was troubled as she retrieved her laptop from her tote bag, plugged it into a handy outlet and booted it on the corner of my desk.
“You and Isabelle seemed to hit it off,” I fished delicately when my prospects finally packed up their brochures and left, chattering with excitement.
May was engrossed in catching up with her e-mails but looked up when I spoke. “We seemed to this morning, chatted like old pals right up until the middle of lunch, but now I’m not so sure.” Her brow furrowed as she removed her computer spectacles.
“Why, what happened during lunch?” I prompted. “I was so pleased for you both that you seemed to be getting along.”
“Mmm, so was I. It would be lovely to have a friend closer to my own age up here in Yankee country,” May agreed. “Not that you and Strutter aren’t darlings, and of course I just love Margo and John to death, but there’s somethin’ about being able to let your hair down with a gal who remembers a lot of the same stuff you do, danced to the same music and swooned over the same movie stars, you know?”
I did know. I was grateful every day of my life for Strutter and Margo, who had become my dearest friends outside my immediate family. How I would miss them if I had to leave Connecticut, I thought with a pang before wrenching my mind back to what May was saying.
“I totally get that. So what happened at lunch?” I asked again.
May dropped both hands onto the desk. “That’s just it. I don’t know. Was it something I said or something I did? I haven’t a clue. All I know is I was blathering away about my little publishing business …”
“You shared that with Isabelle? I thought Romantic Nights was strictly off limits as a topic of conversation.”
“You’re right, it usually is, but as soon as Isabelle confided that she was an aspiring author, I just knew she was a kindred spirit. All these years she’s been toilin’ away at tedious jobs, making her bosses look good while keeping her own hopes and dreams locked away. Why, it just broke my heart to hear her talk. So I decided to inspire her by sharing my own history. When I got to the part about not being satisfied just writing mystery stories any longer and setting up shop with Romantic Nights, the strangest look came over her face, almost as if she was in shock. After that, she barely said another word, pushed her food around for a little while and then put her fork down and went back to her office, pleading a sudden headache.”
May looked to me for a reasonable explanation, but I had none to offer. “What were you talking about just before you told Isabelle about Romantic Nights?” I asked her.
May thought for a moment. “I believe she was tellin’ me about how hard it was to find an agent and how she’d begun sending out her manuscript to smaller presses herself, but she hadn’t had any luck so far.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, two puzzle pieces struggled to find each other. “Did she mention what kind of novel she’d written?”
“Why, no, I don’t believe we ever got that specific about her manuscript. She mentioned she had sent it to Harlequin, Kensington and somewhere else … could it be Liquid Silver? I’d never heard of that one, but Harlequin and Kensington publish mysteries along with a whole bunch of other genres, so I assumed Isabelle had written a mystery. Seems as if everyone else has,” she chuckled without much humor.
I digested this information for a minute before clicking on a new tab on my computer and opening Google. I typed Liquid Silver in the search bar before asking,“What other genres do Harlequin and Kensington publish, May?”
“Oh, I guess you’d call it chick lit—you know, women’s fiction, cozy mysteries, light suspense, fantasy, romances. That sort of thing. What are you doing over there?”
I frowned as Google led me to the website of Liquid Silver Books and read through their list of offerings. “Liquid Silver publishes all those things, too, including romances.” I looked at May and raised an eyebrow. “Any chance Isabelle wrote a romance, do you think? You know, the kind of thing you publish—or reject, as the situation might be?”
May’s face morphed from puzzled to horrified before I’d finished speaking. “Oh, lordy, you don’t think it’s possible she sent her manuscript to me, do you? And I rejected it?”
She had the picture. “I can’t be sure, but it would explain her sudden change in attitude. Didn’t you tell me a few days ago about a submission from a woman who kept a post office box in Rocky Hill, right around the corner from here? You were saying the manuscript she sent in wasn’t very good, but she wrote extremely well, remember?”
May swallowed hard. “I do remember. Did I tell you her name? The problem is, I delete rejected submissions almost immediately, just send out a form e-mail and get rid of everything else. Otherwise, my mailbox would be clogged all the time. Wait!”
Frantically, she clicked into her Sent folder and ran the cursor down the list of e-mails sent out within the past couple of weeks. “I meant to clean this out yesterday, but with one thing and another, I never got around to it.” She focused on the list of names before her for another moment. “Aha! Here it is, Desirée L’Amour. All I have is her e-mail address, but I know this is the one. I mean, who could forget that over-the-top name? I remember us talkin’ about what a great editor she would make, but I didn’t think anyone with a pen name that exotic would be interested in doing that sort of work.”
She pulled off her computer glasses and turned around to gaze with dismay at Isabelle’s office door, which was firmly closed. “Could it be?” she mused. “Yes, it could,” she answered herself. “It’s been that kind of a week altogether.”
My thoughts exactly. “You do seem to be having a run of bad luck,” I commiserated.
May huffed in disgust and powered off her laptop. “Well, girlfriend, as much fun as this has been, I’d best get on home to see what new disasters are waitin’ for me before Judy arrives. Can you give me a lift, or shall I call a cab?”
Nine
; Isabelle sat in her office, her back to the closed door, and stared out the window. She was oblivious now to the riot of color she had been thoroughly enjoying up until an hour ago while chatting with May over lunch. She glanced at her wristwatch, which read 2:15. Would the woman never leave?
Cautiously, she crept to the front window of her office and peeked through the vertical blinds, which she’d yanked shut as soon as she’d reached her sanctuary. No, there sat May at the corner of the sales desk, tapping away at the keys of her laptop. Doubtless she was sending impersonal e-mails of rejection to other hopefuls whose dreams she so routinely and ruthlessly dashed. What kind of person could do that with complete equanimity day after day? She probably enjoyed it, Isabelle concluded.
Abandoning the window, she paced restlessly back and forth across the small room, hugging herself to keep from shrieking. Of all the things to happen. What were the odds? How could it be that the principal of a small publishing company ostensibly based in Atlanta, Georgia, was in fact doing business in Wethersfield, Connecticut? Wasn’t that fraud or something?
She pulled her desk chair back to the computer and sat down to double-check. Opening Google, she keyed in Romantic Nights Press, clicked on the company’s website link, then Contact Us. There it was in lurid lavender: M. Farnsworth, Publisher, PO Box 287430, Atlanta, Georgia, followed by an e-mail link. She should report M. Farnsworth to the authorities for misleading the public, for misleading her. It simply wasn’t right.
Distraught, Isabelle dropped her head into her hands and tried to get a grip. She’d given May the excuse of a vicious headache, so she had a ready-made alibi if anyone barged in and found her in this posture. Not that anyone would dare to do that. Isabelle had carefully cultivated the persona of stern taskmaster, cool and unapproachable as she went about her daily duties, precisely to discourage any chummy overtures from other members of the staff. It had worked fine—perhaps too well. Last week, when she’d met Kate Lawrence and warmed to the woman in spite of herself, had been Isabelle’s one lapse, and look where that had landed her.
Isabelle’s position at Vista View as chief bean counter and pencil pusher had turned out to be precisely what she’d thought she wanted and needed at this point in her life, only sometimes she did get lonely. As much as she’d hated her previous jobs, there had been one or two people at each place of employment with whom she felt at least superficial kinship, enough to visit for a few minutes during the day or to share a sandwich or a cup of coffee. Being alone nearly all of the time was harder than she’d thought it would be.
It figured that the two people she’d met in the last month toward whom she was drawn would turn out to be at least witnesses to, and possibly responsible for, Isabelle’s most crushing disappointment.
For thirty years she had dreamed of becoming a published author. Year after year as she dutifully took the minutes of hundreds of mind-numbingly tedious meetings, made travel arrangements for dozens of incompetent managers to destinations she would never see, and pretended enthusiasm she’d never actually felt for their short-sighted goals and crass aspirations, she had clung to her own heart’s desire, determined one day to attain it. It would happen, she told herself, when she had the time and energy to apply herself fully to the task of seeking publication.
A fresh wave of humiliation washed over her as she recalled the details of her decision to submit her manuscript to Romantic Nights. She had researched the process thoroughly, totally done her homework and made certain her submission was faultlessly edited and formatted according to the company’s guidelines. She had joined the major romance writers’ organizations and participated in their on-line chat groups, reading the horror stories of aspiring authors who had been shabbily treated by agents.
She vowed never to put herself at the mercy of a third party. She would represent herself. That had brought prompt rejections from two major publishers, which refused to entertain submissions from writers lacking agents. So Isabelle had developed a short list of smaller, independent presses she would approach. Of these, Romantic Nights seemed to be the most promising. All of the titles chosen for publication by Romantic Nights were selected personally by its publisher, who made it clear in the on-line submission requirements that she valued accomplished writing, as well as engrossing stories. Authors were expected to submit three grammatical, correctly punctuated samples which would be reviewed by M. Farnsworth personally.
Isabelle glowered at the computer screen as she scanned the subgenres published by Romantic Nights. They included historical romance, young adult stories, contemporary romance and erotic romance—a.k.a. soft porn.
She should have known that a publisher who peddled smut, no matter what polite words were used to disguise it, would be incapable of appreciating her restrained submission. “Doesn’t quite meet our needs,” the rejection had read, infuriatingly vague and uninformative. “Best of luck placing this title elsewhere,” as if she would willingly subject herself to this particular sort of abuse ever again, she thought, mourning afresh for the death of her dream. At the very least she deserved to know specifically why her manuscript didn’t “quite meet” Romantic Nights’ needs. Would a few lines of constructive criticism have been too much to ask? How long would it have taken to jot them down, a few minutes? Isabelle had invested two years in creating and honing her manuscript.
She jumped to her feet and went to glare once again through the blinds. May still sat there, chatting away with Kate just as if she weren’t responsible for killing Isabelle’s long-cherished hopes. She had murdered them, Isabelle thought, which seemed appropriate for a woman whose secondary occupation was writing grisly mysteries. May should have stuck to that and not branched out into ruining other people’s lives so cavalierly.
Maybelle Farnsworth needed to be taught a lesson, Isabelle concluded darkly as she watched May packing up her laptop, and Isabelle herself might be just the one to do it. She’d made rather a specialty of setting miscreants straight over the years, and she was good at it.
Quickly, she reviewed their lunchtime conversation during which May had confided the exact nature of her business venture. At first Isabelle had been intrigued and attentive, but when the name of May’s publishing company, Romantic Nights, had been spoken aloud, Isabelle’s interest turned to horror. She froze in confusion, only half-listening as May continued to babble about the rigors of starting a new business, how much work and how little profit was involved in publishing, blah blah blah,
Was it possible that May was aware of Isabelle’s submission, which she had so summarily dismissed, and was taunting her? Now that Isabelle’s temper was giving way to reason, she thought not. She let the blinds fall shut and regarded her reflection in a small mirror her predecessor had left propped atop the filing cabinets. No, she decided. No one would connect the severe-looking, soon-to-be senior citizen with her sensible haircut and unadorned earlobes to a romance writer calling herself Desirée L’Amour, the pen name Isabelle had used consistently in her submission. Even her PO box in Rocky Hill bore Desirée’s name. Her secret was safe, thank heaven.
Now, how to give Ms. Lah-di-dah Farnsworth a taste of her own medicine?
Ten
Saturday brought with it the usual flurry of domestic chores. I’d heard Armando let himself into the kitchen through the connecting door to the garage sometime after midnight, so I knew he must be exhausted. In order to let him sleep as long as he could, I tiptoed out to do the grocery shopping and a few other errands in mid-morning.
I hate grocery shopping, but today I took my time and made a thorough job of it. I picked out a plump roasting chicken, along with some fresh lemons and elephant garlic that I’d use to stuff it. Then I gathered the ingredients for homemade scalloped potatoes and an apple pie, two of Armando’s favorites, before checking off all of the usual items on my weekly list.
After filling the Jetta’s gas tank and darting into CVS to pick up some necessities before one of their incessant coupons expired, I thought about re
warding myself with a cup of the Town Line Diner’s excellent coffee but decided against it since May and her visiting friend Judy were joining Margo, Strutter and me there for our weekly brunch the next morning. Instead, I hauled my accumulated shopping home and got busy on the laundry before beginning what promised to be a long session of cooking. I’m reasonably competent in the kitchen, and I love watching cooking shows on television, but six days a week, our dinner is a couple of pieces of baked chicken with either rice or potatoes, a big green salad and a nuked frozen vegetable, period. Only occasionally did I pamper Armando with a home-cooked spread, but it felt like the thing to do this weekend.
A few minutes after noon, the man himself stumbled downstairs to the kitchen in search of coffee. The brewer having long since turned off, I poured a mugful, added a teaspoon of sugar, and placed it in the microwave to reheat.
“Hi, handsome, how did it go last night?” I said, making an effort to keep my tone light. He looked as if he’d been run over and left for dead, but he probably wouldn’t appreciate my telling him so. “Did you get everything done that you needed to do?” I busied myself breaking open a cinnamon bagel and putting it in the toaster oven.
He eased himself onto a stool at the kitchen counter and reached greedily for the mug I placed before him. “Not entirely, I am afraid. I was so tired for the last couple of hours, I cannot even remember exactly what I was doing, and I must return to the office this afternoon. I am still tired. How can that be? I have been sleeping for almost twelve hours.”
You’re depressed and scared, I thought, and that’s what depressed, scared people do. “Face it, honey, you’re not twenty-two years old anymore, and you’ve been putting in a lot of extra hours. I’m so sorry you have to go back in this afternoon. Give yourself a break.” I paused to let him get a couple more sips of coffee down. “Anything new to report?”