The Accidental Bestseller (35 page)

Soon the whir of the printer filled the silent kitchen, which she reminded herself was, in fact, a very good thing. Determined to banish her bad mood, Kendall shook a mental finger at herself. She should be celebrating the positives, not dwelling on the negatives.

Sticks and Stones
was finished and it was first-rate. Tanya and Faye and Mallory would be here all weekend to help tweak and revise it. After she did a final pass, she’d send the manuscript to Lacy Samuels and to Sylvia. Then it would be time to finalize things with Calvin and find some way to move forward.

She was beginning to look at her holiday meal with a little more appetite when the phone rang. She picked up on the second ring.

“Mom?” Melissa’s voice rose over a hum of voices. Kendall could hear a television commentator in the background. “I’ve got Jeffrey on the line, too. We’re having a turkey-themed conference call.”

“My, aren’t we sophisticated?” Kendall said, responding to the pleasure in her daughter’s voice.

“That’s us, totally high tech, Mom.” Jeffrey’s voice also sounded happy, though this was the first Thanksgiving the twins had spent not only without their parents but without each other. And this, she realized, was only the beginning of their independence. How long until one of them really found “the one”? Good God, in the not-too-distant future she could become a grandmother!

“So tell me all about your Thanksgivings. Are you both having a good time?”

They chatted easily, sharing vignettes of their visits, debating the relative merits of stuffing versus dressing, which Melissa had just tasted for the first time. Someone had brought a sweet potato casserole that Jeffrey thought she should try next year. One of them, she thought it was Melissa, was expounding on the wonders of Krispy Kreme-doughnut bread pudding. “It was to die for, Mom,” her daughter said. “I told Todd’s mother I’m not leaving here without the recipe.”

Kendall felt herself calming as they talked. Her relationship with her children was solid. They were beginning lives of their own, but she would be a part of them. She wasn’t alone today; she was just somewhere else.

“How about you, Mom? What’s happening with the book?”

She’d told them in advance that she was going to be holed up here over the holiday finishing and made Calvin call and tell them that he’d been invited to friends.

“I just typed my two favorite words,” she said.

Both of them chimed in without prompting. “The end!”

“Yep.” Kendall laughed. “It’s finished. And I think it’s really, really good.” She kept her reservations about the joint authorship to herself, just as she had the pending divorce. She loved picturing them happy and surrounded by friends; she saw no reason to taint their holiday with things beyond their control.

“And are you OK?” This came from Melissa, who always cut to the chase.

Without thinking the affirmatives began to spring to her lips. But as she began to reassure her daughter that all was well, she was pleased to discover that she really meant it. “I’m good,” she said, with conviction. “My critique group is coming up tomorrow to help me tweak, but I’m absolutely thrilled to have this book done. And I’m looking forward to taking some time off.”

“That’s so cool, Mom,” Melissa said as they prepared to say their good-byes. “Todd’s mother can’t believe you’re an author. And she said she’s read all of Mallory’s books.”

There was a loud roar in the background and Jeffrey groaned. “Oh, man! That touchdown just cost me twenty bucks!”

Melissa giggled and gave her brother some grief over backing the wrong team and then in a flash they were gone, leaving Kendall feeling immeasurably better.

The printer continued to whir out the pages. The scent of turkey reached her nostrils and penetrated her thoughts. Without further internal debate, Kendall dished up a heaping plate and carried it into the living room, where she settled herself in front of the television.

She ate her feast while she watched Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye hamming it up in the season’s first showing of
White Christmas.
She finished her piece of pumpkin pie as costars Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney sang the number “Sisters.”

Which reminded her she’d better pick up the guest bedrooms and make a grocery list before she headed into the Atlanta airport the next morning to pick up her “peeps.”

Faye, Tanya, and Mallory had coordinated their flights as closely as possible, and after a late breakfast at an Atlanta Waffle House, they’d driven back up to the mountains with only a grocery stop and a hurried walk through Home Depot to delay them.

An unseasonably warm day put them in their favorite chairs on the back deck by 2:00 P.M., where they began to read their copies of the manuscript. They read through the afternoon, the silence interrupted only by the chirp of a bird or the scratch of a pen on paper as one of them or another jotted a note in a margin or paused to take a sip of sweet tea.

As dusk and then the early dark of winter descended, they came in to make sandwiches for dinner and then settled inside to continue their reading.

Occasionally someone laughed out loud or shook her head or murmured her approval, but no one interrupted the concentration of the group. Speed readers all, they’d agreed to finish their read throughs before they went to bed, intending to let their thoughts simmer overnight so that they could begin the discussion and revision work first thing Saturday morning.

Kendall was the first one up. She’d slept fitfully, her dreams vague and ill formed. Faye and Tanya and Mallory appeared in them but their actions were unclear and their motivations even murkier. It was still dark when she padded into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

The temperatures had dropped overnight and she pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajamas and watched the sunrise through the kitchen window, her grogginess evaporating like the fog before the sun. Growing impatient, she laid a fire in the fire-place and went into her bedroom to pull on a pair of sweat pants and an extra pair of socks. If the others didn’t show up soon, she would wake them. She could hardly wait for the day to begin.

As if sensing her vibes, they appeared in rapid succession. And although all of them needed coffee, no one seemed inclined to linger over it. Kendall pulled out a box of sweet rolls they’d bought the day before and set out the remnants of the pumpkin pie. The conversation about
Sticks and Stones
began at the kitchen table and would last all day.

“OK,” Kendall began. “I’ve been reading your chapters as they’ve come in, so I’ve watched the story taking shape. My biggest concern was how our voices would blend.” She smiled. “But I think it’s the fact that they
don’t
blend that kicks it up another level.”

“I agree,” Mallory said. “The characters are completely different from each other yet they’re drawn to and held together by the bond of their writing. And their determination to survive in a brutal business.” She looked around the table. “Just like we are.”

“Of course,” Tanya added, “I’ve wasted lots of hours trying to figure out how much real life everybody’s written into their characters. I mean I’ve never seen Mallory experience one second of writer’s block. And we all know Chris is pretty much her love slave.”

Everyone but Mallory joined in the laughter. Seeing the stricken look on her face, Kendall shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“And, of course, I catch myself wondering about Faye’s love life,” Tanya said.

“Tanya!” Kendall yelped.

“Well, I can’t help it,” Tanya said. “Where did all that great sex she’s writing come from? And does Pastor Steve know he’s married to a Sex Goddess? I mean my imagination’s nowhere near that highly developed.” She winced at the look on Faye’s and Mallory’s faces. “Even though my mouth apparently is. Sorry.” She made a zipping motion across her lips.

Faye stepped into the resulting silence. “Well, fact or fiction, I like that all the characters are flawed and surprising in some way.”

Her eyes behind her glasses glinted with mischief. “I mean Tanya’s character, Tina, is so afraid of being disappointed, she runs away from the best thing that’s ever shown up in her life. Not to mention the best sex.” She smiled as her point hit home. “None of our characters are perfect. And they’ve all got secrets that they’re trying to hide.”

All four of them were silent for a moment as they digested Faye’s words, but Kendall noticed that no one stepped forward to clarify how much of what they’d written was fact and how much was fiction, herself included.

“We’ve all put ourselves out there in different ways,” Faye continued. “And before we get into the nitty-gritty of corrections, I, um, want to make sure we’re all still in agreement that we’ll never reveal that anyone besides Kendall wrote this book.” She looked into their eyes, her gaze intent. “I felt free to write what I did because I was counting on anonymity. My husband’s pulpit and a lot of what I’ve worked for could be damaged if my part in this were ever revealed.”

“Well, I’m with you, Faye,” Tanya said, her unzipped lips once again in movement. “Darby says my sales figures are still climbing and it looks like I’m definitely going to be a part of that anthology. I don’t want to do anything that might mess things up. My contract gives Masque the rights to pretty much everything I’ve created, including my kids.” She grinned. “I’d feel a lot better if I could trade ’em Trudy for Loretta and Crystal, but I don’t think that’s gonna be happening.”

“OK, then,” Mallory said. “We’re all in agreement that the book is Kendall’s. And that no one else will ever lay claim to it except in the direst of emergencies.”

“We could put our pact in writing,” Kendall said. “But then we’d have to rig the document so that it would self-destruct if it were ever discovered.”

Somebody hummed the
Mission Impossible
theme song as they adjourned to the living room, where they spent the day camped out in front of the fire with occasional breaks for food and drink.

They went through the manuscript page by page, discussing anything that dealt with character or story, knowing that the typos and miscellaneous corrections they’d noted could be addressed in a final pass.

Mallory thought Lacy’s and Jane Jensen’s characters should be given a little more page time. Kendall wanted Miranda’s husband to realize his life was empty without her and come back of his own accord.

“No way,” Tanya said. “This is women’s fiction. Everyone’s not necessarily going to end up living happily ever after.”

“I agree,” Faye said as she settled into a more comfortable position on the couch. “These women are facing serious choices and making decisions with real ramifications. We have to be careful not to wrap everything up too perfectly.”

“Well, I don’t want Kennedy’s kids finding out about their father until she’s ready to tell them,” Kendall said. “I know we discussed this before but couldn’t we let him realize a lifelong dream to run away and join the circus?”

There was much eye rolling over this suggestion, but mostly they hashed things out, generally coming up with a solution everyone could live with. When they couldn’t, they handed the final decision to Kendall.

Tired and with their jaws aching from talking, they finished just after midnight and were in bed within minutes. On Sunday morning they staggered out of their beds with the sun and set to work on the revisions they’d agreed to.

By the time they left the house for the drive to the Atlanta airport that afternoon, all four of them were pretty much numb. Kendall dropped them at curbside, hugged them all tightly, and watched them disappear into the throng of holiday travelers. Somehow she made it back to the mountain house and threw herself into bed just about the time the sun made its exit behind the mountains.

Three days later after a final pass through the manuscript and the inputting of all the agreed-upon changes, Kendall Aims typed a brief e-mail to Lacy Samuels, which she copied to her agent, Sylvia Hardcastle, attached the file that contained the completed manuscript of
Sticks and Stones
, drew a deep breath, and hit Send.

It was exactly 10:35 P.M. on November 30. One hour and twenty-five minutes before her December 1 deadline.

29

—LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

 

 

 

Lacy Samuels was writing a rejection letter to a current resident of the Florida Correctional Center, hoping that FDOC #85762 wouldn’t be released and therefore able to come after her anytime soon, when the e-mail from Kendall Aims that contained
Sticks and Stones
landed in her inbox.

She knew the instant it arrived because the
click
of an arriving e-mail signaled a reprieve from her struggle to find the appropriate words to tell a convicted felon not to give up her day job. She left the grueling task in midword to see what had come in and found Kendall’s e-mail, which made her even more eager to finish the rejection letter so that she could get a first glimpse at the manuscript.