The Accidental Bestseller

by Wendy Wax

  “Good, real good. I was really glad I could be there.”

  Other waitresses came, picked up their orders, and went, and every one of them gave Brett some kind of once-over. She noticed Red eavesdropping. She also knew that she should offer something in return. But she wasn’t about to invite the Adamses into Trudy’s shabby mobile home, and even if she’d wanted to, she was no match for Brett in the kitchen. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep with him just because he’d done her a good turn, no matter how attractive he was. That was Trudy’s way, not hers.

  “So, uh, like I said. I do appreciate what you did.” Pulling the apron out of the ball she’d smashed it into, she pulled out a wad of bills and counted out $25 in ones and laid the stack on the counter next to him. “Please give this to Valerie and tell her thanks.”

  “There’s no need,” he began. “It wasn’t a babysitting job. It was just—”

  But Tanya didn’t want to feel in debt, not even to a teenaged girl. And she wasn’t planning to let herself get too used to Brett’s charming ways or his white knight complex; if she let herself enjoy either too much she’d feel worse than she did now when he was gone.

  “I’m sure there were lots of things Valerie would’ve rather been doing than taking care of Crystal and Loretta,” she said. “Or humoring my mother.”

  Brett opened his mouth clearly about to offer an argument, but Tanya wasn’t having any of it. “You give it to her, you hear? And when you do, you tell her not to waste that on those thongs she’s been buying. In my experience, the only thing they’re good for is attracting a whole passel of trouble.”

  It was late and the house was silent except for the loud tick of the grandfather clock in the living room and the faint rhythm of Steve’s snoring from the master bedroom. Alone in her study, Faye typed in the combination of letters that would allow her to open the password-protected file. Scrolling down, she read the chapter she’d roughed out the night before, her eyes skimming over the words and phrases she’d used to describe and establish Faith Lovett, the character she’d created for Sticks and Stones.

  When she reached the end of what she’d written, Faye went into Edit, chose Select All, and hit Delete. Faith Lovett was so “her,” she might as well have named her Faye.

  For a few long moments Faye watched the pulse of the cursor on the blank screen and contemplated her options. If she wrote the public version of herself she’d bore the readers to death. If she wrote the truth about herself, and it was recognized as the truth, she could end her husband’s ministry and her own career, not to mention the charitable works her income funded. Confessing to her husband was one thing—not that she’d even come close to working up the nerve to do that yet—a public admission of the secret she’d guarded so closely was something else entirely.

  So what was she to write? How could she contribute a compelling character and plotline to Kendall’s work without destroying life as she knew it in the process?

  Faye sat for some time weighing the possibilities. If ever she’d needed to think outside the box, it was now. But as she knew from her fifteen years of writing, the brain was an ornery organ. The heart might be required to beat regularly and predictably, but the brain took circuitous paths and had its own way of solving a problem or creating an idea. It rarely produced on any schedule but its own.

  Faye closed her eyes and tried to direct her brain in search of inspiration, but it kept coming back with her own life and what would happen if she exposed it. After a time, her eyelids began to feel heavy and her head fell forward, pressing her chin into her chest. In midthought, she fell asleep. When her eyes fluttered open it was 2:00 A.M. and a glimmer of an idea teased at her consciousness. She breathed slowly, afraid to make any sudden moves, lest she lose it.

  In this half-awake state she summoned up Faith Lovett and attempted to see her more clearly. A scene began to unfold in Faye’s head and she realized, as it spun out, that she could place her character in a similar background and give her a surprisingly damaging secret without revealing her own.

  Slowly she began to type, carefully picking and choosing the words that would create a multilayered character that would surprise the reader, as each layer was first revealed and then stripped away.

  The words came faster as the first meet scene unfolded in Faye’s mind. She held her breath as she felt the strange and wonderful surge of power that took her thoughts and ideas and transformed them into something even greater than what she’d imagined. She didn’t know where this power came from, whether it was a gift from God or was something even more ancient that was buried within. But it was the reason that she wrote; it was what compelled her to continue to put words on a page, even when those words weren’t what others might expect from her.

  An author possessed the kind of power others only dreamed of. The writer created both the characters and the worlds they inhabited. A writer decided who lived and who died, who found happiness and who tragedy. Her husband spent his ministry in an effort to revere and communicate with God; Faye, in her role as writer, got to play Him.

  The appointment with divorce attorney Anne Justiss was both better and worse than Kendall had expected. Mallory had had to drag her out of bed Wednesday morning, rush her to get dressed, and then drive them into Atlanta; Kendall had no doubt that if she’d been on her own she simply wouldn’t have gone. At the moment she could completely identify with the ostrich and his predilection for sticking his head in the sand.

  Anne Justiss didn’t look like the man-eater Kendall was expecting. She was petite with stylishly cut blond hair and bright blue eyes. In the right kind of light and through the right sort of filter, the attorney might have passed for Cameron Diaz.

  “So,” she said, without preamble. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Kendall did, cringing inwardly as she explained that Calvin didn’t want to be married to her anymore and describing, in way more detail than necessary, her encounter with his Realtor girlfriend who’d had the nerve to show up expecting to list their house.

  “And he’s represented by Josh Lieberman?” Justiss asked.

  Kendall nodded and handed over the sheet of paper on which she’d copied the name and contact information for Calvin’s attorney. “Is that bad?”

  The attorney shrugged. “Look, none of this is good. Typically after a divorce the man’s standard of living improves. The ex-wife and children’s standard of living drops dramatically. I do my best not to let that happen to my clients.”

  Kendall swallowed, wishing her neck was longer and a patch of sand readily available.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in and it’s always worse when the divorce isn’t your idea,” the attorney said. “But you won’t be in this alone, Kendall. I can promise you that.

  “As soon as we get your deposit and paperwork on file, we’ll sue for subpoena and get hold of all the relevant financial information. We want to move quickly so that we can freeze your joint assets.”

  Kendall’s lips were so dry now she could barely find the saliva required to swallow. She hadn’t even let herself think about money or who would get what. She just didn’t want Calvin selling the house out from under her. And she really didn’t want to have to tell Melissa and Jeffrey.

  “I don’t know if the friends who referred you mentioned it or not, but I subscribe to the Green Giant School of Divorce.”

  Kendall looked up into the bright blue eyes, certain she must have misunderstood. “Green Giant?” she asked. “As in the packaged vegetables?”

  Anne Justiss smiled, but there was no humor in it. “There’s an old joke that asks, ‘What do you have when you’ve got one large green ball in one hand and a second green ball in the other?’ ”

  Kendall shook her head, thrown by the insertion of veg gies into the conversation.

  “Complete control of the Jolly Green Giant!” The attorney’s bark of laughter was disconcerting, as was the glint in her eyes. Her features hardened. “That’s my goal: to get your h
usband by the balls.”

  Kendall told herself that this was good. She’d come here because she needed someone strong and unafraid—someone who could squeeze on her behalf—and it appeared she’d found her. Now was not the time to turn squeamish or question Anne Justiss’s taste in jokes. Calvin should be glad she was hiring Anne Justiss to squeeze his financial balls and not Lorena Bobbitt to remove them.

  20

  Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.

  —JOHN STEINBECK

  Kendall stewed all the way back from Atlanta. She shook her head when Mallory slowed in front of the Home Depot and waited in the car while Mallory ran into the grocery store for more wine. At the moment neither wine nor her tool belt offered the least bit of comfort.

  As they wound their way up the mountain road, she kept her gaze glued outside the window, trying to still her panic and wishing she could throw it over the side of the cliff or hide it behind a curtain of Kudzu. By the time they reached the house she was slightly calmer but no clearer.

  Mallory turned off the motor and they sat in the car on the gravel drive. Only the whistle of the wind through the branches of the trees broke the silence.

  “I know this is really hard,” Mallory said.

  “I keep thinking I’m feeling better,” Kendall said. “And then something reminds me that everything’s come apart and it’s not going back together again.”

  “It’ll go back together,” Mallory said. “It just might fit together in a different way.”

  Kendall’s gaze was still riveted out the windshield. The quiet, normally so reassuring, clamored with her own fear and uncertainty.

  “It’s like when you move to a new place and at first everything seems so alien—the stores around it, turning into the neighborhood, where the windows in the bedroom are,” Mallory continued in her most soothing tone. “And then all the sudden one day it’s the most natural thing in the world; the mind just makes that adjustment and it becomes home.”

  “Well, I haven’t moved in twenty years,” Kendall said, absolutely hating the whiny note in her own voice, but unable to stop it. “And I haven’t dealt with any men besides Calvin. I can’t imagine how I’m going to do any of that.”

  “I know. But you will. We can do all kinds of things we can’t imagine when we have to.” Mallory turned to Kendall, her eyes both certain and unbearably weary. “That’s when we find out who we really are. Or who we want to be.”

  They sat a little longer, both of them staring out the windshield as the afternoon sun began to slip in the sky. One day she’d have to ask Mallory how she’d learned all of this, but right now it took every ounce of energy to contemplate her own reality.

  “So how do I start?” Kendall asked.

  “We get out of the car. We go inside and pour ourselves a glass of wine.” Mallory looked Kendall in the eye. “And then we spend exactly one hour free writing any scene we choose for our characters. No plotting, no editing, no deleting, no conscious thinking.

  “Just get it all out, Kendall. Kill Calvin, maim him, give him a lisp. It doesn’t matter. Just write. No one will see it but you. Tomorrow morning we’ll both get up bright and early and see what gems exist and throw the rest away.”

  “An hour, huh?”

  “We can set a timer, if you want. And we won’t write a second more. Even if we want to.”

  OK, Kendall thought. An hour was a manicure and pedicure. A shower and a blow dry. A trip through the grocery store including checkout. She could vomit her feelings onto paper for an hour. She’d worry about what came next tomorrow.

  And that’s exactly what they did. Sitting side by side on the deck, their laptops perched on the table in front of them, the bottle of wine at the ready. Each of them turning off the internal censor and putting whatever came to mind down on the page.

  Over the next few days Kendall and Mallory fell into a pattern. They got up in the morning, nodded at each other over the coffeepot, then headed to their respective spots—Mallory out on the deck and Kendall at the kitchen table with its view of the woods and the bird feeders.

  To Mallory’s knowledge, Kendall hadn’t actually started the first chapter yet, but she seemed to be putting ideas down on paper, working on scenes and character sketches. The words continued to flow for Mallory—as long as she was working on notes and ideas for Kendall’s book. The same was not true for her own manuscript, which came out in the bar est of trickles no matter how long or how hard she tried.

  E-mails from Tanya and Faye promised in-depth character sketches by Saturday morning. The parameters they’d set had left a lot to each writer’s discretion, and Mallory could hardly wait to see what they sent; she hadn’t felt this eager about anything in years.

  Most days she and Kendall broke for lunch around one, making sandwiches or heating up leftovers while they sounded out ideas. Then Mallory worked for another hour or so on Safe Haven—trying mightily to turn the trickle into something closer to a torrent—while Kendall puttered around the house or strapped on her tool belt to tackle some kind of project.

  Then they’d head out for a hike or drive into Franklin or Highlands or some other quaint town with a tiny square and a stretch of dust-filled antique stores.

  The hour before dinner was spent napping or reading. In the evenings they watched an old movie together in the living room or retreated to their own rooms. In this way one day began to blend into the next in a soothing rhythm that both of them came to rely upon.

  On the negative side, it was Friday and Chris still hadn’t answered any of Mallory’s e-mails and Mallory hadn’t answered any of Patricia’s or Zoe’s. Mallory knew she couldn’t duck dealing with either situation any longer.

  She waited until Kendall left to drive into town for some household supplies and went out on the deck to place her calls.

  “Mallory?” Patricia Gilmore’s voice indicated both surprise and relief. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve never known you to disappear like—”

  “I’m in the mountains,” she said. “Visiting a, um, sick friend.” She sent a silent apology to Kendall, though in truth she didn’t think it a complete lie. “Cell phone reception is spotty—I’m leaning out over a balcony right now, risking falling down a cliff to reach you.”

  “Well, be careful,” her agent replied. “I wouldn’t want to have to tell Zoe she’d lost you to the wilderness.”

  The mention of her editor was not a coincidence, Mallory knew. She had no doubt Patricia had already heard from Zoe about Mallory’s lack of responsiveness.

  “No, we wouldn’t want that,” she said.

  “So, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to check your e-mail or not,” Patricia said delicately. “But Zoe wants to bring out All That Glitters ahead of schedule to capitalize on the buzz on Hidden Assets, which means they’d need Safe Haven completed ahead of deadline.

  “People magazine called Hidden Assets a ‘must read’ and ran a photo of Paris Hilton carrying a copy to the beach last weekend.”

  “I didn’t realize Paris Hilton knew how to read,” Mallory replied.

  “Well I suppose she has to do something when she’s not shopping. Maybe she has someone on staff who reads it to her.” Patricia’s tone was droll. “I don’t care if she never cracks the spine; the photo alone has sent Hidden Assets back to print and as you know the first print run was substantial. Universal Studios is inquiring about movie rights.”

  Mallory stared out over the deck railing, enjoying the feel of the breeze stirring her hair. The afternoon sun shone through the leaves and cast a sway of shadows on the deck.

  It took her a moment to realize that she felt next to nothing about the whole Paris Hilton thing. Kendall’s book and career felt much more pressing and immediate; so did the alarmingly absent Chris.

  She’d always been afraid to say no to a request or suggestion from her publisher. Always at the back of her mind was t
he fear of being penniless again, without the simplest of resources. This fear had done great things for her. It had driven her to harness her talent, to maximize her opportunities, to put out two books a year for the last eight years. It had kept her writing even when she didn’t feel like it, when she felt she had nothing left to say.

  But now the fear had begun to strangle rather than motivate. It had always compelled her to write rather than question. But now she asked herself the questions she’d shied away from: What would happen if her next book came out a little later, after she helped Kendall finish her book and then took a much-deserved break? Would that really mean the end of her career? Would her backlist suddenly disappear? Would her fans desert her?

  The fear said, “Yes, don’t take the chance; you’ll be sorry.” But she was so damned tired of the pressure and sick to death of the fear.

  “That’s great, Patricia.” Even Mallory could hear the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. “About the movie thing.”

  She paused when she realized what she was about to say, shocked at the words that she didn’t think she could hold back. “But I need a break. I can’t write Safe Haven any faster. In fact”—she told herself that once the words were out she wouldn’t be able to retract them, but even that didn’t stop her—“I’d like my deadline extended.” She drew in a breath, let it out. “I need some time off.”

  There was a shocked silence.

  “But you’ve never asked for an extension before. And now’s the time to jump on the—”

  “Patricia,” Mallory said, still trying to process what she’d just said, trying to stay calm. “It’s always the time to jump on something. I just can’t do it right now. I think after all the books I’ve sold for Partridge and Portman I have the right to take a break. Don’t you?”

  There was a prolonged silence, which Mallory decided to interpret as agreement. After all, she reminded herself, Patricia Gilmore had gotten wealthy off her and did, in fact, work for her, though it was easy in all the craziness to forget it. “I appreciate your support,” Mallory said, eager now to end the conversation. “I trust you’ll call Zoe and let her know.”