The Accidental Bestseller (54 page)

The rejection letters stacked behind the manuscript confirmed Lacy’s assessment. They’d come from a who’s who of New York publishing houses and every one of them concluded with the advice that the author not give up her day job; advice Jane Jensen had apparently taken to heart. And possibly never gotten over.

Was it envy that had made Jane belittle the writers she’d been hired to help? Had that envy ultimately hardened into the anger and bitterness she’d showered on those around her?

Lacy straightened the pages and bound the stack, rejection letters on top, so that Jane would know that they had been seen. Then she taped the box closed, wondering whether the anger had built into a chemical imbalance or the alleged chemical balance had stoked the envy to uncontrollable proportions.

In the end, Lacy realized, it didn’t really matter which wire had blown first, and as she labeled the box with her ex-boss’s address, Lacy conceded that there would never be a heart-to-heart about Jane Jensen’s failed literary ambitions. Why Jane had tortured her authors and underlings was less important than the fact that she had.

It was time, Lacy thought as she carried the box out of the empty office, to stop thinking about her former boss and start thinking about how to keep
Sticks and Stones
alive. Mallory St. James’s call had started her wondering whether the other three authors might also want to see some sort of agreement reached.

Maybe, Lacy mused as she carried the box onto the elevator and down to the mail room, she could help keep
Sticks and Stones
on the shelves with good old-fashioned perseverance. And a little TLC.

Steve had already left for church when Faye stepped into the shower on Sunday morning. With clumsy fingers she blew-dry her hair and applied makeup then dressed in the black pin-stripe suit she’d set out the night before.

The things she might say flitted through her head as she drove to church and parked in a reserved spot in the massive parking lot, but she just let them float through. When the time came, she didn’t want to regurgitate a carefully written and memorized speech. She’d decided that whatever she said today had to come not from her mind, but from her heart.

The cameras were in place and most of the crowd in their seats when Faye entered the church. She stood just inside the massive double doors of the high-tech worship center for a moment, gathering her nerve. She had helped to build this church and had contributed in every possible way to the growth of her husband’s ministry. Even though it had not been her dream, she had helped him achieve his.

She raised her chin and squared her shoulders, reminding herself what was too easily forgotten. This church had been founded to do good and to help those in need. She had done both of those things. It wasn’t up to others, her daughter included, to judge her for her methods.

A hush fell as she walked up the center aisle toward their family pew. Faye felt the eyes of the congregation follow her progress. There were occasional smiles and hellos, but many of those who watched her so carefully let their gazes slide over her as if she weren’t there.

As Faye approached the pew, her daughter and son-in-law became aware of the growing hush and turned in their seats. There was a flare of surprise in her daughter’s eyes and she grasped hold of her husband’s arm as if in need of physical support. A buzz of conversation arose but Faye ignored it. At her usual seat on the end of the front center row, she sat, keeping her eyes on the pulpit. Moments later Pastor Steve made his entrance from the side of the altar and strode vigorously up to the podium. The choir began an opening hymn. The congregation came to its feet.

For Faye the service both sped by and dragged interminably. She could feel church members studying her, eager to see if she would take a microphone toward the end of the service when members were invited to stand up and speak.

Steve’s gaze flicked over her repeatedly, when he wasn’t playing to one camera or another or exhorting the congregation to lift their voices to God. Both she and Sara read responsively, sang along with the choir, sat silently during the sermon, but they studiously ignored each other.

After long minutes devoted to silent meditation, Pastor Steve introduced the concluding “talking time” and asked if anyone in the congregation would care to speak.

Faye stood amid a buzz of conversation. Looking neither left nor right, Faye walked up the steps to the altar and moved behind the empty podium. She carried neither notes nor specific thoughts with her. But she did offer up several prayers to the God she knew.
Please guide my tongue so that I may be clear,
she asked silently as she stared out at the sea of faces before her.
And please know that in my own way, I love you.

The red light on the camera aimed at her came on and, without prompting, Faye began to speak. “There are many of our members, including my family, who were upset to discover that I have been writing sensual novels under the name of Shannon LeSade.” She paused as heads across the huge room bent together. “They’ve asked me to apologize to you because they think I’ve done something wrong, even shameful.”

She turned her gaze to her daughter and waited for Sara to meet her eye. “But I began as LeSade to fund my children’s college education and to help build this church. And I don’t regret a single word I’ve written.”

Faye allowed her eyes to scan the audience. Some faces were hard and unmoving. Others were turned away. But many watched in rapt attention, open to what she had to say. She might not change a single mind, but she was not really here to sway others. She simply needed to have her say.

“I don’t believe God has a problem with novels about physical passion between men and women who love each other. And at one time, my husband wouldn’t have, either. I don’t know when my daughter began to judge others so harshly. It’s not the way she was raised.”

She paused, but did not turn to look at Steve or Sara or try to gauge their reactions. “In Deuteronomy it’s written, ‘Ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s.’ I think there are members of our and other congregations who have tried to take over God’s role as final judge,” she said. “I don’t believe that God has appointed us as the arbiters of others’ actions. It is not up to us to tell others what they can think. Or feel. Or write. Or read.”

The words came of their own accord, building in speed and intensity like they did when she wrote, when she just opened herself up and let whatever was inside her flow onto the page.

“I do apologize for not sharing this information about myself with my family and friends. I know it came as a shock and that the people closest to me felt betrayed by my silence. I regret that with all my heart.”

She turned her gaze to her husband, who stood stock-still behind the other podium. Unflinchingly he met her gaze, but she couldn’t read his face or his thoughts. She reminded herself that she hadn’t come seeking his or anyone else’s approval, but only to set things straight.

“But I will not apologize for what I’ve written. Or for the good we’ve been able to accomplish as a result.”

Steve’s gaze remained locked with hers, but he remained silent. There was not a sound in the massive church now, not a creak of a wooden pew, not a cough. Faye pictured the five million people viewing this live telecast sitting still and silent in their homes, weighing her words. Waiting to see what would happen next.

She looked down at Sara and saw that her head was bowed, but whether her daughter was moved or embarrassed, Faye didn’t know.

So be it. She’d said what she had to say. Now she would go. She’d just walk back down the aisle and out the doors. She’d stop off in Becky’s classroom and give her all the hugs she’d promised. And then, well, then it would be time to get in touch with her friends so that she could apologize and, if God showed her the right way, make them understand. Then she thought she might call that nice young Lacy Samuels.

The church was still almost eerily silent. With a final nod to the camera Faye left the podium, swept down the steps, and began a resolute march down the aisle. She felt lighter after her “confession.” Clearer headed. Resolute. But the aisle stretched out into infinity; the exit might have been twenty miles away. She judged herself to be almost halfway to the door when her husband’s voice rang out in the silent church.

“My wife,” he said, with conviction, “is one of the bravest women I know. And her points are well made.”

Faye stopped and turned. Pastor Steve stood under a shaft of klieg light. She saw that he was staring, not into the television camera, but at her.

“It’s I who owe her an apology. And my thanks,” he continued in the voice that belonged to her husband. “Because she’s right,” he said, his gaze turning now to their daughter. “It’s not our place to judge. And we’re not in the business of burning books or condemning others for their choice of reading materials.”

He looked to Faye once more and she felt her heart swell with tenderness and love and an awesome thankfulness to the God who had not only heard her prayers but answered them.

“She was also right when she told me that I didn’t want to know the truth. But when we love someone we love all of them, even the truths that we find difficult. The things we’d rather not know.”

He held his hand out toward Faye and a camera panned along with her as she came forward to join her husband at the podium for the final benediction.

She didn’t know if she’d gotten through to Sara and she hadn’t yet reached out to her friends, but it was a start.

Faye Truett stood in the shelter of her husband’s arms as he addressed God on her and his congregation’s behalf.

And then she bowed her head and cried.

44

—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

 

 

 

“Tanya,” Trudy called from the living room. “Come on out here and look at this!”

It was Sunday morning and Tanya had slept until well after ten then lay in her bed for another thirty minutes wishing she was still asleep. She’d taken to sleeping whenever she wasn’t working; all those stolen minutes and hours she used to spend hunched over her laptop she now spent either asleep or trying to be.

She knew she needed to look for another job to replace her lost income.
Sticks and Stones
was still on the shelves, but she had no idea whether she’d ever see any part of that money. Masque had joined in on a massive lawsuit, but if she didn’t start looking for an agent, she’d have no one but herself to make sure she was protected.

Despite all the extra sleep, Tanya had grown increasingly short-tempered. At work she and Brett nodded to each other but hadn’t talked since she’d rejected his last offer of help. The Adamses’ standing invitation to Sunday supper had never been rescinded and Tanya’s girls kept begging to go. But it had gotten to where the mere mention of their name made Tanya long for a blanket and pillow.

When Loretta and Crystal asked why they couldn’t see the Adamses anymore, Tanya just told them to leave her alone and to not ask so many questions. Because she couldn’t bring herself to tell them that she was afraid to be with Brett because she liked him too much. That she didn’t want to let them start imagining life in the cute little house with the great smells in the kitchen. That she was afraid if she let Brett Adams carry any part of her load she’d lie down on the ground in relief and never get up again.

“Your friend’s on the TV!” Trudy yelled again.

Tanya shuffled out of the bedroom in her pajamas and slippers mumbling at Trudy and railing at the world.

Trudy had on Pastor Steve’s
Prayer Hour
. “Isn’t that your friend?” she asked. “The erotica writer? I usually just tune in to look at Pastor Steve. That is one fine-looking man.”

Tanya lowered herself onto the couch and leaned forward to study the grainy image on the old television set. Faye certainly didn’t look like she’d been moping around in her pajamas feeling sorry for herself. Her salt-and-pepper hair was neatly styled and she had on a black pin-striped suit that made her look like a CEO. Everybody in the church, including Faye’s husband, seemed to be hanging on her every word.

“I expect you’re sorry you ever met her and the other two. The way they left you hanging out there to dry and all.”

Tanya didn’t comment. She was watching Faye bow her head, and the way her husband’s arm went around her shoulders as he offered a final prayer.

“It just don’t pay to rely on anybody else,” Trudy was saying. “It only ever leads to heartache. I taught you that from the time you were a baby. I couldn’t bring myself to leave you. But I couldn’t let you get too dependent on me neither, in case . . .” She hesitated. “. . . in case I caved in one day and took off.”

Tanya froze. Her eyes left the bowed head of Faye Truett as she swiveled to look at her mother. Trudy took a furtive little sip of her orange juice, which undoubtedly had been spiked with a little Sunday morning vodka. There was nothing like hearing that your own mother had had to fight the urge to desert you.