All She Wrote

by Josh Lanyon

  That left my turn. “It’s not a comfortable read,” I said, “but I don’t need a comfortable read so long as you make me care about the characters or tell a story so interesting I have to know how it all turns out. To be honest, that didn’t really happen for me here. I have to agree that the characters didn’t seem recognizably human.”

  I felt that was a gracious compromise to I’d prefer to claw my eyes out rather than read your work again. Poppy, unimpressed, curled her lip.

  “I don’t believe that woman would kill her husband,” Sara said. “I think she would talk about it and fantasize about it, and never do anything about it.”

  “That’s how much you know.”

  Sara raised her brows. Victoria said staunchly, “Well, I like it. I think it’s your best work yet.”

  We hastily moved on.

  Afterward I didn’t remember much of the morning. Everyone read, everyone got their feedback. Nella got rave reviews pretty much all around. Even Rudolph seemed fondly paternal in his comments. Sara, by far the best writer in the bunch, went last. She was treated with scrupulous politeness and a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Even Anna hadn’t bothered to make notes on her manuscript, which seemed more than tactless. I’d have been interested in hearing Rudolph’s thoughts—I was surprised he didn’t make Sara an offer then and there—but Sara herself cut him off by suggesting that we break for lunch.

  I suspected that she couldn’t take one more chilly kiss of death. Anyone who wrote as well as she did was obviously passionate about the work and her craft, and this kind of indifferent reception had to be soul destroying.

  So, although I am rarely mistaken for one of those warm-and-fuzzy, teddy-bear guys, I blurted out, “Lunch sounds great, Sara, but I want to say I thought your book was amazing. I literally couldn’t put it down last night. I thought it was beautifully written. The word that comes to mind is lyrical.”

  Rudolph seemed startled. The rest of the AC looked blank. Sara, for one split second, looked touchingly unguarded.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s a wonderful book,” Rudolph said quietly.

  She gave him a very brief, shy smile and then she was back in snow-princess guise, informing us that, per tradition, we were on our own for lunch, but would be meeting back at the cottage at two o’clock sharp.

  On cue, everyone rose, closing laptops and notebooks, picking up purses and pulling on jackets.

  Sara had it all so perfectly under control I wondered why Anna hadn’t had her run the seminar in her place. Except, I remembered with a flinch, after lunch I was supposed to give the first of my talks from the viewpoint of the nominal successful writer present.

  With that recollection went my appetite for lunch, but Victoria and Poppy hailed me as I was buttoning up my Burberry.

  “We’re driving into Nitchfield,” Poppy said. “There’s a place there that does a real old-fashioned English high tea, and we thought that might be fun since you write a series about a British biologist.”

  “Botanist.”

  “Right.”

  Nella was with them and all three eyed me expectantly. I couldn’t remember the protocol. Hazily, it seemed to me that Anna had made a point of lunching with different groups of students throughout the weekend of the seminar. That was part of the fun, right? Getting to pick a professional writer’s brain in an open, casual atmosphere?

  I glanced around for guidance. Sara was cleaning up the plates and crumbs from the morning session. Rudolph was speaking to her quietly. It was clearly a private discussion. Hopefully one in which he was offering her a publishing contract.

  Was that perhaps part of the problem? Did the other members of the circle feel that Sara already had an unfair advantage because of her position? Did they think Anna had helped her with her story? Or was it simply that Sara’s reserve didn’t encourage people to like her? Whereas Nella was such an eager, enthusiastic kid it would take a harder heart than mine to squash her.

  Speak of the devil. “I wanted to ask you about your agent,” Nella said as my gaze happened to meet hers.

  “Uh, sure.” What the hell. I didn’t have plans for lunch and if I was going to do a good deed, I might as well do it to the hilt. “High tea or lunch or whatever sounds great.”

  They made sounds of approval. Victoria called, “Rowland, did you want to join us for lunch?”

  Rowland shook his head regretfully. “I was thinking I should check on Mother.”

  Victoria looked disappointed, although she said cheerfully, “Maybe next time.”

  Rowland nodded. He smiled at Nella, who blushed and smiled back.

  Ah-ha, I thought. Followed by, Uh-oh. Didn’t anyone want to date in their own age bracket these days? He had to be twenty years her senior, and yes, Nella was technically an adult, but the memory of how naive I’d been at twenty didn’t fill me with confidence.

  We trailed out of the cottage in a procession, Rowland walking ahead of us. By the time we reached the stairs he was well in the lead, moving with surprisingly brisk purpose.

  Poppy remarked, “I don’t know why he doesn’t put that old bat in a nursing home.”

  Nella, several steps behind, made a sound of protest. Victoria shushed Poppy.

  “He can’t hear me.” Poppy said to me, “Rowland lives with his mother, in case you couldn’t guess. She’s like those broads in Victorian novels who get everything they want by playing sick all the time.”

  “She has fibromyalgia,” Victoria said.

  “Fibromyass.”

  Nella’s nervous giggle floated behind us.

  “You think we’re awful,” Victoria said, glancing at me.

  “No.” That was the truth. I didn’t care what they said about Rowland’s mother. She probably was a total PitA. That didn’t mean Rowland didn’t love her dearly—I suspected from what I’d read the evening before, he did indeed love her—and it didn’t mean she didn’t deserve that love.

  There’s nothing more puzzling than human attachments.

  I was preoccupied with trying to think of a way to ask if they suspected anyone of wanting Anna permanently out of the picture. It seemed sort of awkward to bring it up out of the blue. Somehow Miss Butterwith always knew how to segue any conversation into talk of death and disaster. Since I was the hand behind the puppet, I couldn’t understand why I didn’t have the same ability. Everything I thought of was liable to trigger the very thing Anna wanted to avoid.

  “Chris could care less,” Poppy said. “You should read the mean things he writes about people.”

  “Huh?” I stared up at her.

  “I started reading one of your books last night. You’re mean.”

  “Mean?”

  “The little things you say about people. Those barbed what-do-you-call-’ems? Asides.”

  “I’m not mean,” I protested. “Which book was it?”

  “Miss Buttermilk Has a Case or something like that.”

  Oh. “Miss Butterwith Closes the Case.”

  “That sounds right.”

  I’d been editing that one as things were falling apart with David. It probably was more astringent than some of the earlier books.

  “You don’t like people,” Poppy observed.

  “Yes I do. I like some people.” Admittedly, I was less and less crazy about her.

  “Ignore Poppy,” Victoria told me.

  I smiled politely. I had a feeling that was probably easier said than done.

  Rowland had widened the gap between us by the time we reached the top level. His bright blue jacket was the only splash of color as he strode across the white lawns.

  I wasn’t as out of breath as Nella, but not by much. I really did need to make an effort to get myself in shape again. Not that it mattered, since the only one seeing my shape would be me.

  Victoria asked, “Does anyone need anything from the house?”

  We all agreed we didn’t need anything from the house and struck off down the side path to the front drive. I remembe
red the shadowy figure I’d seen walking that way the night before. That hadn’t been a dream, right? A heavy dinner, a couple of glasses of vino and too many mystery stories in a row?

  Overhead, a plane droned high in the granite sky. Ahead of me, Victoria and Poppy chatted about some mutual acquaintance, and a few steps behind, Nella was huffing and puffing. Yet my overall impression was of how still it was. The snow seemed to swallow sound in a vast white hush. In the distance I could hear the sharp insect buzz of Rowland’s car falling away.

  “How long did it take you to get published?” Nella asked.

  “A few years.” I smiled faintly at the memory of all those earnest attempts at the Great American Novel. All those passionate and utterly corny stories of coming out and coming to terms. Thank God no one had given them a second look. “I wrote my first novel the summer before I started college.” It was still buried somewhere in a box in my parents’ garage.

  “But you didn’t get published until after college?”

  “I didn’t get published until I finished my MFA.”

  “Do you think you need to complete an MFA to get published these days?”

  “I don’t think you ever needed it to get published. I wanted it because…I like structure and organization and it gave me a starting point.”

  “I just want to start writing,” Nella said passionately. “I don’t want to wait to start my career.”

  I thought about Anna’s plans for Nella. Well, that was life. The thing that happened while you were busy making other plans.

  Chapter Seven

  The Tudor Teashop was a largish building with black-and-white decorative timbering, fake chimneys complete with fake chimney pots, and long, narrow windows with flower boxes containing perky plastic blooms.

  Inside, it was quaintly decorated in ye olde pseudo-English style complete with Staffordshire pottery and pictures of the queen. It was packed on this Friday afternoon, but we found a table near the fake fireplace and sat down to order our lunch.

  The ladies went for various cakes and dainties. I opted for the most substantial selection on the menu which turned out to be three different kinds of finger sandwiches: smoked salmon, watercress and walnut. I don’t think any of it was true British fare, but by then I was starving and I’d have been willing to eat soggy cucumbers or anything else my system could digest.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Victoria asked diffidently once we’d given our orders to the tiny brisk Englishwoman who owned the Tudor Teashop. “How did you get an agent?”

  I opened my mouth. Closed it.

  “Remember,” Nella told her. “He wrote letters to everyone in Writer’s Market.”

  I said, “Huh?”

  “Oh, I must have missed that,” Victoria said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Nella turned those wide blue eyes my way. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Well, I mean it’s sort of right. I didn’t write everybody. I tried to target agents who handled my kind of thing. Agents I had a chance of scoring with.”

  “How many rejections did you get?”

  “It’s a long time ago.”

  She said with disarming honesty, “I always remember the rejections better than the good news.”

  I thought of the recent rejections in my life. Maybe my perception was wrong, but I felt like even though I received fewer rejections these days, my bounce back had been better when I was younger. Part of that was probably spending nearly twenty years at the same publishing house with the same editor. Not to mention the thirteen years I’d spent with David. Although “spent with” was maybe looking at it through rose-colored reading glasses.

  I said, “I was lucky. My agent was starting up and she was what’s known in the industry as hungry. She signed me before the others had a chance to reject me.”

  “Is she looking for clients?” Nella asked.

  “You know, I’m not sure.” It was the truth.

  Her gaze fell, her cheeks turned pink, and I knew she felt she’d been brushed off, which was kind of true, but not entirely.

  To my astonishment, I heard myself saying, “If you want to mail me a copy of your manuscript, I could send it on to Rachel with a note of recommendation.”

  She lit up happily.

  Yeah. No good deed goes unpublished.

  “What’s to stop you from stealing Nella’s story?” Poppy broke in.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You could steal Nella’s story and submit it as your own, right?”

  “Wrong.” One cold, compact ice cube of a word cracked out of the frozen tray I wanted to dump over her head. I was too offended to let it rest there. “First of all, ideas aren’t the hard part. Secondly, there are no new ideas, only the author’s unique execution.” I think I spoke the word execution with more fervor than strictly necessary. “Thirdly, why the hell would I want to submit Nella’s book as my own when I—like every author in the world—like my own work better?”

  “I guess I hit a nerve,” Poppy said, amused.

  “Nerve is the right word. I’m offering to do Nella a favor and you’re basically—” I stopped there. He who argues with a fool is a bigger fool. Or drunk. And I was neither. I wasn’t drunk, anyway. Worse luck.

  I said to Nella, who was staring wide-eyed from me to Poppy, “Do what you want. If you feel safer sending the book on your own, you can let Rachel know I recommended you.”

  Our food came at that point, which was probably as well. I occupied myself with the triangles of sandwiches and did my best not to grind my teeth.

  Victoria cleared her throat. “How long does it take you to write a book, Christopher?”

  “Six months.” Three of which were spent on research and convincing myself I still had one more Miss Butterwith in me.

  I stopped chewing. Where had that thought come from? That almost sounded like I was tired of writing Miss Butterwith, and of course I wasn’t. I adored her. I adored Mr. Pinkerton. I adored Inspector Appleby—even if he was in the closet.

  I finished chewing, swallowed the last bit of sticky walnut sandwich and reached for my teacup.

  My expression must have been peculiar because Victoria asked even more meekly, “Do you use an outline?”

  “Yes.”

  Poppy opened her mouth. I leveled an austere look her way, and she subsided.

  For a couple of minutes we all applied ourselves to sipping and chewing, but eventually I got over my ire. If I was fair, a lot of this publishing stuff seems complicated and mysterious when you’re on the outside of it. You hear horror stories about crooked agents and insolvent publishers and nefarious writing partners. A lot of misinformation floats around, not to mention flat-out misunderstanding, rumor and speculation.

  “So tell me about this guy, Luke,” I asked.

  They turned to the change of topic in relief.

  Poppy laughed. “What’s to tell? He’s sex on legs.”

  Nella’s cheeks went rosy again. I suspected that explained the awkwardness of her sex scenes.

  Victoria said, “Now there’s a story.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “He’s an ex-con.” That was Poppy.

  I managed to drain my cup of Earl Grey without spilling a drop. “What was he convicted of?”

  “Armed robbery,” Poppy answered.

  Victoria objected, “I heard it was assault and battery.”

  “I heard it was vehicular manslaughter.” Nella reached for another frosted cake.

  “Are you sure you’re talking about the same guy?”

  “Whatever it was,” Victoria said, “Anna heard about his case and worked to get him out on parole. I guess the evidence used to convict him was pretty shaky, and that factored into his being released early.”

  “Interesting. And you think they’re having some kind of relationship?” I did my best to look innocent and inquiring.

  Victoria’s expression was uncomfortable. Poppy, however, could always be relied on. “If you ev
er see them together, you’ll know it in a minute.”

  I could see Nella was about to protest. I cut her off. “How long has he worked for Anna?”

  “It’s been a couple of years now,” Victoria said. “She hired him before she and Todd divorced. I think it was part of the condition of Luke’s parole.”

  I returned lightly, “That Anna get divorced?”

  They all laughed, though uneasily. Victoria spoke. “That Anna offer Luke a job. I’m not sure how it works. But it seems to be successful.” She looked at the other two for agreement. Poppy shrugged. Nella looked vague.

  Having given up on finding a subtle way to introduce the subject, I joked, “Is Luke the one responsible for keeping the garden steps cleared of ice?”

  Nella swallowed a bite of cake the wrong way and began to cough. Both Victoria and Poppy patted her on her back.

  “That was awful,” Victoria said. “I actually saw it happen.”

  “You did?” Poppy looked startled.

  Nella was still spluttering and coughing. Poppy absently thumped her again.

  Victoria explained to me, “I live in a cottage on the estate. In the woods. It’s about a two-mile walk to the house. It’s really pretty and I find it calms my mind to walk rather than drive sometimes. Anyway, that morning I’d strolled over to bring Anna some rutabagas from my winter garden. I was cutting through the lower garden when I heard her scream.” She shivered. “It was terrible. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. That she’d been attacked. She sounded like she was being murdered.”

  “It’s amazing she hasn’t been,” Poppy muttered.

  “So you actually did see her fall?”

  Victoria nodded. “That is to say, I saw her roll to the bottom of the steps. I ran to her and saw that she was conscious. I told her to lie still and then I ran up the stairs to sound the alarm. Luke had heard her scream too, and he was already on his way down.”

  “That’s why you should carry a cell phone,” Poppy told her.

  Victoria made a face. “I hate the damn things.”

  I considered her story. “Did Anna say anything when you found her?”