The Accidental Bestseller (5 page)

Sylvia sighed. “Sometimes this business really and truly sucks. And this is one of those times.”

Another of Sylvia’s clients approached. Her unforced smile proclaimed her a newbie who had no idea what lay ahead.

“Call me Monday after you get back to Atlanta,” Sylvia said as the younger author drew closer. “And we’ll talk this through.”

“Right.” Atlanta was a world away, her everyday life shrunk to insignificance by the disaster that had befallen her. She looked up to see Mallory, Tanya, and Faye moving toward her, her own personal Mod Squad. But after this last blow, Kendall could barely stand, let alone share the complete implosion of her career.

“None of us have had dessert yet. Let’s go get something chocolate.” Mallory was doing the talking but all three of them were eyeing her as if she were a piece of glass that might shatter at any moment. They had no idea how right they were. And she couldn’t tell them.

“Can’t do it.” She’d gag if she got within smelling distance of chocolate. And she absolutely could not discuss this latest disastrous development without completely freaking out. Even the slightest hint of sympathy would push her completely over the edge.

“Listen, I’m really beat right now,” she said. No lie there. “I know you guys want to help, but I need some time to myself. I just can’t talk about anything right now.”

“Let’s all go back to the suite then. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. We’ll just—” Faye began.

“No!” Kendall looked away, willing the hysteria out of her voice. If they knew how bad off she was, they’d never leave her alone. “I have to get some sleep. I’m way beyond exhaustion, you know?” She heard the quiver in her voice, but was helpless to eliminate it. “And I really need some time to myself.”

The three of them conferred silently. Mallory acquiesced for the group. “All right, but we’re going to have a powwow in the morning. You’re not in this alone, Kendall. None of us is.”

“Right.” She hugged them all good night, but even as she did, she knew Mallory was wrong. They might want to be there for each other, they might even smooth the path a bit on each other’s behalf whenever they could, but when it came to putting the words on the page and living with what they’d written, they were all alone.

At the moment, she was the one whose career was facing extinction; she was the one who was supposed to write a book, which was tantamount to giving birth, and then put that baby in the hands of people who would either ignore or abuse it.

“I’ll see you all in the morning,” Kendall said, and she headed back to the room. Once there, she closed her bedroom door and sat on the side of her bed for a very long time, mesmerized by a small comma-shaped stain on the wall. Unable to think or plan, Kendall just breathed—a steady in and out that she hoped would calm her. But that never happened.

When she heard a key in the door, she reacted without thinking, sliding under the covers still dressed, like a child about to run away from home.

It came to her then, in the dark as she listened to the others getting ready for bed. She couldn’t wait for her Sunday afternoon flight out. She’d never make it through Mallory’s promised powwow or brunch or the limo ride to the airport afterward. She wanted to go home right this minute. She didn’t know how she was going to make it happen, but she needed to be home in her own house and her own bed as soon as humanly possible. If not sooner.

Moving on instinct she hurriedly changed her clothes, packed her suitcase, and phoned the airline. Then she was scribbling a note and propping it on the cocktail table and tiptoeing out of the room, without a single thought in her head except getting back to Atlanta as quickly as possible.

4

—DAVID BEATY

 

 

 

The 6:00 A.M. flight out of LaGuardia deposited Kendall at the Atlanta airport at 8:29 on Sunday morning. Exhausted, she deplaned and made her way to baggage claim then took the shuttle to the remote parking lot where she’d left her car. She felt as if she’d been gone an eternity rather than a mere forty-eight hours.

Traffic on Interstate 285 was light and she made the trip to the northeastern suburbs in record time, pulling into the driveway of her house on the dot of 10:00.

The twins were in Athens at their last week of the summer session. Cal’s car wasn’t in the garage and there was no sign of him in the house. After bumping her suitcase up the front stairs to the master bedroom, she wheeled it through the bedroom into the master bath and propped it open to get out her nightgown and toiletries.

She was creaming off her makeup—applied so hopefully yesterday afternoon in New York—when she looked into the bathroom mirror. Unable to face her ravaged reflection, she stared beyond it to the mirror image of the bedroom behind her.

Kendall’s fingertips on her face stopped in midmotion. Carefully she cupped her hands beneath the stream of water and rinsed off the remaining cold cream then patted her face dry with a hand towel. Only then did she turn around to consider their king-sized bed, which she noted with a peculiar mixture of resignation and horror, appeared patently unslept in—the comforter, shams, and pillows aligned exactly as she’d left them on Friday morning—a feat Cal would never have attempted to duplicate.

The garage door rumbled open downstairs, announcing Cal’s arrival at the same time the possible ramifications began demanding access to her heretofore numbed brain.

An interior door slammed and Cal’s footsteps sounded on the back stairs. They were not the eager steps of a lover, but the long, dragged-out footfalls of a husband who had not been expecting his wife home quite yet. And who might even now be trying out explanations for why he hadn’t answered the house phone all weekend.

Kendall stood there in her rumpled nightgown and makeup-less face as Calvin walked into the master suite freshly showered and shaved. His gym bag dangled from one hand.

“You’re home early.” He stepped up and bent his tall, spare frame to give her a kiss on the cheek along with a whiff of minty mouthwash and woodsy cologne. “How’d the conference go?”

Kendall’s antennae quivered. Sunday morning usually found Cal still in bed or stubble faced and surly behind the Sunday newspaper. But here he was all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Her gaze stole to the crisply made bed. His gaze followed hers and then came back to her face.

“Did you win?” Cal’s tone was calm, matter of fact. It contained no admission of guilt and no real interest in what she’d suffered over the weekend.

Kendall looked directly into his eyes, not wanting to see the truth there. Her brain began to poke at all the evidence, but some self-preserving censor commanded it to back off, for which Kendall was thankful. If there was such a thing as a good time to find out your husband was cheating on you, Kendall was pretty sure nine out of ten women would agree that this definitely was not it.

Like a pigeon bent on Capistrano, she’d managed to sneak out on her friends, get to the airport, onto a different flight, and then drive home almost entirely on instinct. And those instincts told her she absolutely could not handle the end of her personal life right now. Not on top of the demise of her career.

Those self-preservation instincts turned out to be pretty heavy duty. One minute Kendall was staring into Calvin’s face, the next the air was whooshing out of her lungs and her brain was going wonderfully mushy.

Then her knees buckled beneath her and everything went dark.

Mallory St. James had breakfast with Faye and Tanya before dropping them at JFK for their flights home to Chicago and Tampa. They spent the meal and the limo ride trying to reach Kendall, whose note had said only that she’d decided to go home early and would be in touch when she got herself “back together.”

“I can’t even let myself think about what time of morning she must have left,” Faye said, picking half-heartedly at her eggs Benedict.

“Sylvia must have hit her with something pretty big for her to bail like she did,” Tanya agreed, pushing her plate away.

“Well, I don’t like how she ran out on us.” The bright yellow yolks on her fried eggs stared accusingly at Mallory. “I only let her off the hook last night because I figured we’d all be able to help better this morning.” Mallory looked at the others and knew they were feeling as guilty and out of sorts as she was. “We’ve always shared the bad times along with the good.”

Tanya shot her a piercing look. “When did we ever help you? I’m not aware of you having a bad time.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Except maybe that cover where they used that shade of blue you didn’t like?”

Mallory put down her fork and attempted to still the rush of anger. These women who knew her best knew her so little, but then that had been her choice, not theirs. “I’m so sorry I haven’t had more problems.” That you know about, she added silently. “If it’s any consolation, I feel like shit about it. Sometimes I’m afraid to mention anything good that happens because I don’t want to make you feel bad.”

There was a heavy silence. Mallory felt like a hen that had surprised the whole henhouse by laying a ten-pound egg. They prided themselves on being honest with each other, but they were women. Sometimes they put protecting feelings above the truth. Or looking self-sufficient above asking for help. And, of course, the version of her past that Mallory had shared with them had been carefully edited. If she ever admitted the real reason she wrote so compulsively, would they understand?

“Well that’s not right, Mallory.” As always Faye was the peacemaker. “We’re glad for your success, aren’t we, Tanya?” A salt-and-pepper eyebrow sketched upward above the dark frame of Faye’s glasses. Her gray eyes were warm.

“Of course we are.” Tanya took a sip of orange juice. “I’m just all worked up about Kendall. I feel like we failed her last night. And I hate to think about her all alone in Atlanta right now dealing with everything on her own.”

“She has Cal,” Mallory said, not sure why she said that when she knew better than anyone that being married didn’t guarantee you a safety net.

They all sighed. They’d been friends too long for any of them to hold out any real hope of Cal as a comfort.

“And Melissa and Jeffrey are only an hour away at UGA in Athens,” Mallory said as they divvied up the bill for the food they’d barely touched. “Kendall’s a big girl. She’ll be fine. Let’s just promise that whoever reaches her first will let the others know.”

Now Mallory stood in the foyer of her newly renovated Greenwich Village brownstone, trying to shrug off the nagging sense of worry that had ridden home with her. They all cared about Kendall and wanted to help her, but a woman had to build her own safe harbors and escape hatches in this life.

“Mal? Is that you?” Her husband, Chris, called out.

“Yes.” She sat her suitcase down on the marble floor and propped her laptop up against it.

“I’m in the kitchen.”

Mallory pushed through the far door of the circular entry-way and stepped into the sun-dappled kitchen, by far her favorite room in the house. Two banks of windows framed the lush walled-in garden and allowed one to sit at any spot at the kitchen table and still have a view of it.

Chris, who had overseen the seemingly endless renovation and managed to make it possible for her to work throughout it, stood at the stovetop set into the octagonal island. The hair at his temples had begun to gray perfectly and his chiseled jaw and carved cheekbones made him look more like a male model in a Williams-Sonoma ad than an actual living, breathing, cooking spouse.

Chris waved his spatula at her. “Thought I’d make osso bucco for an early dinner. Or are you full from eating in restaurants all weekend?”

Mallory pinched a handful of grapes from a bunch in a cut-glass bowl on the counter and popped one in her mouth, feeling his positive energy lift and buoy her. “Sounds good,” she said.

“Do you want to go to a movie while it’s simmering? Or maybe adjourn upstairs for a nooner?” He moved up behind her and nuzzled the nape of her neck, smelling of man and meat, a fairly potent combination. Mallory knew from experience that he could put her in the mood in five minutes flat if she let him.

Her gaze strayed to the clock on the microwave and she struggled against the temptation. What could be better than an afternoon in bed with Chris? Certainly not the pages she had to write. For a long moment Mallory considered shrugging off the clock and throwing herself into her husband’s arms. But making love wouldn’t keep her in charge of her destiny; she already knew that writing could.

Turning, she gave him an apologetic peck on the cheek and ducked under his arms. “It’s way past noon, and I haven’t done my twenty pages yet.”

“It’s Sunday afternoon and you’ve been gone all weekend. Don’t you think you could start thirty minutes later?” Disappointment thickened his voice. “Better yet, why not take the rest of the day off?”