Dark Drizzles

by Jessica Beck

  “They are called pseudonyms,” he corrected me acidly. “Welcome, everyone. I just want to say up front that I’ll answer to any name, especially if it’s written on the front of a check.”

  There were a few bits of laughter, but not as much as he’d clearly been hoping for, either. Good. At least it wasn’t just me. “I hope you all realize just how lucky you are to have me here today.”

  Was he joking, or was this man’s ego actually that big? I decided to take the microphone back before we all found out.

  “Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Why don’t you take your seat so we can bring out the rest of your fellow authors?” I asked as I wrestled the microphone out of his hands. Clearly he hadn’t been expecting much of a fight, but I’d been making donuts for many years, and that had given me a surprising amount of hand strength.

  He relinquished the mike and headed to his designated chair, albeit reluctantly, as I turned to our next guest. “We are also fortunate to have Hannah Thrush with us. Ms. Thrush is the author of the Gable Cakes and Cookies Mysteries, and according to the latest stats, she’s sold over a million copies of her books.”

  Johnson scowled at that, but it was true, at least according to her website. Elizabeth had prepared bios for each of our writers, but I’d had to pare them down considerably if there was any hope for them having time to actually speak themselves. Ms. Thrush was a slim young woman with glasses, and she looked a bit overwhelmed by everything going on around her. Still, I felt it only right to let her introduce herself to the crowd as well.

  “Hi. Thanks for coming,” she said, taking the microphone for a brief second before handing it back to me. A man in the crowd whistled and clapped his hands together, something that seemed to make Hannah Thrush retreat even further into her shell, if that were possible.

  How on earth was I going to get this shy flower to open up? If she didn’t say any more than she had just now, I had a feeling the others were going to eat her alive.

  Hannah took her seat beside Johnson, albeit reluctantly. If she scooted her chair any farther away from him, she would have fallen off the stage.

  “Next up, we have Amanda Harrison, author of seven cookbooks, including Instant Pot Cooking For One.”

  A pleasingly plump woman in her early forties took the stage as though she was storming an enemy encampment. Taking the mike from me, she said, “I’m a true national bestselling author, not like some posers who claim to have made a major list anytime in their lives.” The last bit she added as she glared in Tom Johnson’s direction.

  He grabbed the mike in front of him, but I was hoping that it would be dead until the panel actually started.

  No such luck.

  “I made a list,” he said with a snarl. “Look it up.”

  “I tried, but all that I could find was that you were fourth alternate on the Upper Sandusky Library’s poll of authors they didn’t absolutely hate,” she said with glee. “I, on the other hand, am a legitimate national bestseller.”

  “With a cookbook,” the man said derisively.

  “What’s wrong with cookbooks?” Amanda asked as she started toward him.

  Were we going to have an actual brawl before the panel even started? “Let’s move on,” I said. It was more difficult wrestling the microphone from her, but I put a hand over it and said in a voice too soft for anyone else to hear, “If you don’t behave, you won’t get to talk any more for the rest of the panel.”

  Apparently that prospect was enough to bring her in. “Fine,” she said, releasing the microphone unexpectedly.

  Surprised by her move, I accidentally dropped it, and it hit the stage with a resounding thud, and then a series of high-pitched squeals followed quickly after it.

  After the microphone stopped shrieking, I turned to our last guest. “Last but certainly not least, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Hank Fletcher, the author of Cowboy Country Cast Iron Cooking.” It was his first cookbook, but the man certainly dressed the part, from his worn-out cowboy boots, his dusty blue jeans, and his pearl-buttoned shirt to his weathered ten-gallon hat. His hair was gray, at least at the temples, but his piercing blue eyes were ageless.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” he said with a grin as he tipped his hat to me, refusing to take the microphone at all.

  “You’re no cowboy. You’re from Brooklyn,” Tom Johnson announced from his place on stage. Why hadn’t anyone cut his microphone off?

  Fletcher took a deep breath, and then he turned to the mystery writer. “While it is true that I was born there, my folks and I moved to Texas when I was six months old, and I’ve lived there ever since. Or did you somehow manage to miss that fact while you were digging up dirt on the rest of us?” He asked the question with a gentle tone, but there was nothing soft about him. One look at his hands and I knew he’d be more than capable of squeezing the life out of Tom Johnson without even breaking a sweat.

  “Whatever,” Johnson said dismissively.

  The introductions were officially over, thank goodness.

  Now I just had to run not one but two panels with these combatants.

  I couldn’t complain, though. After all, I’d volunteered.

  What had I been thinking?

  Chapter 3

  I don’t know how we managed it, but we somehow got through the main part of the first panel. It was obvious that there was no love lost between any of the writers. I’d had to rap the back of Tom Johnson’s chair numerous times, since public humiliation seemed to roll right off him. To be fair, Hank Fletcher and Hannah Thrush mostly stayed out of the fray, but that wasn’t the case for Amanda Harrison and Johnson. The two had an avid dislike for one another that was palpable from the start that just seemed to get worse as the panel progressed.

  One exchange in particular had bothered me between the two of them.

  “Tell everyone why you’re hiding behind a woman’s name,” Amanda said acidly at Tom after he’d made a crack about her not being a real writer.

  “My publisher insisted on it,” Tom said. “I had no choice. When I started this series, they were the only game in town, so it was either allow it to be published under a female pseudonym or give up writing altogether. Why does it bother you so much, anyway? Could it be because you queried my agent with a mystery of your own and he flat-out rejected you?”

  It was clear that he’d scored a direct hit with the statement. “That never happened!” Her face was so red I thought she might catch on fire.

  “Seriously? You’re going to actually try to deny it? I can get him on the phone right here and now, and he can tell the crowd himself.” Johnson seemed especially pleased with the prospect.

  “There’s no need to get ugly about it, Tom,” Hank Fletcher said.

  “Oh, shut up, Cowboy Bob. Nobody asked you for your opinion.”

  Fletcher’s gaze narrowed as he stood. “We’ll just see about that. No man is going to get away with talking to a lady like that in my presence, and I won’t allow you to attack me, either. If you can’t keep that yap shut, I’ll just have to shut it for you.”

  I could see the cookbook author’s hands clench white, and it was clear that while Tom Johnson was enjoying goading his fellow panel members, they weren’t particularly happy about being on the other end of his barbs.

  “Please, let’s keep this civil,” I said, trying to get control of a situation that was clearly out of my hands. “We have children present.”

  The cast iron cowboy cooker looked over at me, nodded, and then sat back down. “I apologize, ma’am.”

  “Accepted,” I said quickly.

  Amanda leaned into the microphone. “I’d like to address Mr. Johnson’s accusations, if I may. While it is true that I submitted a proposal to his agent for a culinary mystery series of my own, it was solicited by an editor at one of the biggest publishers in New York.”

  “Really? So, when can we expect to see it on the shelves over there?” Johnson asked her with a snort as he gestured to Paige’s bookstore. Poor Hannah Thru
sh couldn’t get far enough away from the man, and I worried again that she’d fall off the stage entirely if she scooted her chair any farther back.

  “These things are capricious. In the end, they decided to go in a different direction,” Amanda admitted icily, “though I was told that my presentation was stellar.”

  “I’ll just bet it was,” Johnson said sarcastically.

  We had ten minutes left in the program, but I clearly couldn’t trust the authors to interact with any civility towards each other. “Do we have any questions from the audience?” I stepped off the stage with my microphone.

  A beautiful, elegantly dressed young woman stood up, and I was thankful that maybe we’d get a little dignity back in the proceedings.

  “This question is for Mr. Johnson,” she said in a throaty purr.

  Tom looked in her direction with mild interest, but when he saw who it was, he instantly frowned. What was going on here? I didn’t have long to wait.

  “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” she asked him. “We can go wherever you want, my treat. Please?”

  “Sorry, but as you well know, I don’t date my fans. We’ve covered this before,” he said brusquely. “Next question.”

  I tried to get the microphone back, but she wouldn’t release it. “Tommy, I’ve apologized a dozen times for breaking into your apartment. You have to give me another chance.” She was literally begging him now, something that made me, and everyone else present with any sense of dignity at all, cringe.

  “I’m not interested,” he said coldly. “Not now, not ever.”

  She shot him a look of such vitriol that I could feel the heat of it from where I stood. “That’s not what you said two months ago,” she spat out. “You used me, and then you cast me aside. I won’t stand for it, do you hear me?”

  “Will someone get this lunatic out of here?” Johnson asked me plaintively.

  There was no way that Amanda was just going to let that go, though. “Hang on. I’m interested in what she has to say, and I’m sure the rest of the audience is as well. You were saying?” she directed toward the mystery woman.

  “Ask him,” the woman said angrily.

  When Johnson saw that the crowd was growing angry with him and not the woman asking the questions, he explained, “This woman’s name is Cindy Farber. She’s developed some kind of fantasy relationship with me, and by fantasy I mean that it’s all in her head. She’s made it all up, and I won’t sit here and listen to it for another second.”

  Johnson started to stand up to leave when I noticed Grace approach the woman beside me. She whispered something in Cindy’s ear, and after a moment, she surrendered the microphone to me and allowed herself to be led off. The cozy writer was apparently mollified by this action, though in truth he probably just hadn’t wanted to give up the spotlight, no matter the provocation. As he sat back down, I nodded my thanks to Grace. I hadn’t even realized she’d been there, but that was what best friends were for. I knew that no matter what, she would always have my back.

  “Is there anyone else?” I asked as I looked around.

  A nicely dressed man in his mid-twenties stood, and I walked over to him with the microphone. “You have a question for one of our panel members?” I asked him.

  “Yes. I’d like to know why no one has acknowledged the fact that there is one true nationally bestselling author on the stage.”

  I hadn’t seen anything in the notes Elizabeth had given me, and when I glanced in her direction, she looked stricken. Evidently she realized her mistake as soon as it was pointed out, and the poor woman looked mortified. I took the mike back for a moment. “Would you care to explain?”

  I had a hunch who it was, though, as Hannah Thrush lowered herself in her chair, sliding down as to almost be out of sight. “My name is Gregory Smith, and I’m wondering why no one has mentioned the fact that Hannah Thrush is a legitimate New York Times bestselling author,” he said as proudly as if he’d made the list himself.

  “Let’s get serious,” Johnson said as he stared at his fellow mystery writer. It was clear that he’d known of her status, even if he hadn’t shared it with anyone else. “She made the extended Times list one week for one of her books. It barely counts at all.”

  “How many times did you appear on the list, if it’s so easy?” the man asked.

  “Everyone knows those spots are bought and paid for by the publishers,” Johnson snorted. “They don’t mean anything.”

  “And yet you pretend that you’re a bigger seller than Ms. Thrush, when any internet search will show that it’s not true.”

  “I’ve sold more books than this entire group combined under my seven names,” he said loudly. “That’s it. Thanks for coming, folks. I’ll be at my table ready to sign books, if anyone wants one written by a real author and not a one-trick pony, or a cook.”

  With that, he stood and walked off the stage toward the area Paige had set up for our author signings. I knew that she was counting on those sales, and I couldn’t allow that portion of the event to be so haphazard, so I did the only thing I could think to do, given the circumstances.

  I quickly climbed back on stage and faced the crowd. “That concludes this portion of our program. We urge you to show your support for our authors, as well as our generous bookseller, and have one of their books signed while you have the rare chance to get an autographed copy of your very own.”

  The other panelists stood, and I noticed that Hank Fletcher walked over to Hannah Thrush and spoke a few soft words to her. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but if he’d been trying to comfort Hannah, he was failing miserably at it. She seemed to shrink away from him as she hurried off the stage, and Fletcher looked genuinely confused by her reaction. Evidently I hadn’t been the only one watching the exchange, because I saw Gregory Smith scowling in the audience when I turned around.

  Amanda Harrison slapped the cowboy on the back and said cheerfully, “Better luck next time, Tex. I’d love to talk to you about cast iron after the signing is over. It might do us both some good.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, which seemed to be more than enough of a rebuke for Amanda.

  “Your loss, cowpoke,” she said in disgust.

  Now, it appeared that none of the authors we’d invited were getting along, and that was saying something. I just hoped that it didn’t stop folks from buying books, and thus supporting Paige’s bookstore. If I had to, I’d split my share of Donut Hearts’ net profits with her after this was all over, which I realized was something I should have suggested before the debacle that had just happened had occurred.

  For now though, we’d gotten through most of the official program for the day, and with any luck, the writers would all go their separate ways until the next day.

  But so far, luck hadn’t really been on our side, so why should that change now?

  To my surprise and delight, apparently the animosity the writers had shown for each other on the panel didn’t have any impact on whether the folks there bought books or not. Hannah Thrush’s line was the longest, while Amanda’s was a bit shorter than Hank Fletcher’s and Tom Johnson’s queues. I wasn’t sure if it was from foresight or just dumb luck, but the signing tables were far enough apart so that the authors couldn’t continue to pummel each other once they were off the stage.

  Grace joined me as I watched the lines. “That was something to see, wasn’t it?”

  “Thanks for stepping in,” I told her as I squeezed her shoulder. “What did you say to her, anyway?”

  “I told her that he wasn’t worth it,” she explained, “but if she thought he was, maybe she should wait and discuss things with him in a more private manner. I know I might have just postponed the inevitable scene, but you have to admit, it got her out of there when you needed it most.”

  “I’m not criticizing,” I said. “I was about to ask Chief Grant to step in.”

  “He was about to, but I thought it would make for bad press for the crowd to s
ee a man in uniform leading her off. That’s when I stepped in.”

  “I’m glad you did,” I told her. “Can you believe he was so abrupt with her?”

  “The woman is drop-dead gorgeous, isn’t she?” Grace asked me. “That was another reason I wanted to keep my boyfriend away from her. After all, there’s no reason to tempt him with so much beauty, is there?”

  “You don’t have anything to worry about, especially since she seems to be more than a little bit obsessed with Tom. Besides, the police chief is pretty smitten with you. At least he was the last time I checked.”

  “Yes, well, the feeling is mutual, but still, why take a chance?” she asked me with a grin. “That was fun.”

  “You call that fun?” I asked her a little incredulously.

  “Yes, but then again, I wasn’t moderating that band of character assassins,” she said. “I was just a bystander, and to be honest with you, it was a lot livelier than I’d been expecting it to be.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “At least it hasn’t kept people from buying books.”

  “Are you kidding? I think it caused the surge we’re seeing now. Who knew grown-ups could act that way, especially onstage in front of such a large crowd?”

  “I suppose when egos are involved, people sometimes forget themselves.”

  “Maybe,” Grace admitted, and then she grinned at me. “I can’t imagine what tomorrow is going to be like. Have you been able to come up with a way to keep them from tearing each other apart the next time?”

  “No, but I’ve got time,” I said, suddenly realizing that I had to do it all again the next day.

  “At least twenty-three hours, by my clock, but who’s counting,” Grace said with a smile as she glanced at her watch.

  “Come on. Let me buy you a donut,” I said as I put my arm through hers. I knew that I’d have to deal with the event’s panel the next day at some point, but not yet.