The Accidental Bestseller (25 page)

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 husband 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

—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 the 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.”

Mallory hung up the phone and stared out over the deck. Relief didn’t exactly flood through her, but God, she hoped she’d done the right thing. Without thinking it through she dialed Chris’s cell phone, wanting to share her news with him.

The phone rang so many times that she was ready to hang up. When he came on the line, his voice carried none of its usual warmth and enthusiasm and she realized he must have been debating whether or not to answer. “Hello, Mallory,” he said.

That was it. Not once in the twelve years they’d been married or the year for which they’d dated had Chris ever offered so little of himself to her.

“Hi.” Mallory cast about for what to say but it was almost as difficult as filling a blank page had become. “How was your weekend? Did you go up to the beach house?”

“Nope.”

“So you stayed in the city?”

“Yep.”

She felt a horrible stab of guilt as she pictured him alone in New York, when everyone who could would have fled the city for the final hurrah of summer. She felt even worse when she thought about how she’d spent the weekend. True, most of her time had been spent working, focusing on Kendall, but she’d been surrounded by people who cared about her. Chris had been alone.

His silence reached out to engulf her but it was far from the companionable silence they normally shared. She felt an urgent need to fill it, to keep him on the line. “I just spoke to Patricia and I’ve asked for an extension. I’m going to take a break.”

“Really?” His interest level rose a notch. “That’s great. Does that mean you’re coming home?”

Too late, she realized she should have prefaced her announcement with an explanation. Worse was the realization that her decision had had almost nothing to do with Chris and almost everything to do with Kendall and her own need to write Miranda’s story.

“Of course,” she hedged, trying to think how she could present this to minimize the damage. “I’m, uh, just going to stay here a little longer. Until I feel like Kendall’s OK and on track.”

Silence again.

“So you took time off to be with her, to help her.” It wasn’t a question.