The Accidental Bestseller (14 page)

She’d heard the TV on during the night, little snippets of what sounded like “cornice mouldings” and “router,” but her sleep had been deep and untroubled. For the first time her own problems weren’t front and center clamoring for attention. Her first order of business needed to be getting Kendall back on track.

Pulling on her robe, Mallory followed the smell of coffee out to the kitchen. There she found Kendall dressed and smiling and writing something on a legal pad. Her gaze strayed to the clock on the kitchen wall. It was 8:30 A.M.

“Wow, you’re already dressed.” She sniffed. “And showered, too. I may change careers and become a counselor.”

“What can I say?” Kendall said. “You’ve inspired me.” She gestured Mallory to the empty mug on the counter near the coffeemaker.

Mallory poured herself a cup of coffee, mixed in creamer and sweetener, then took a long sip. “What are you writing?” she asked. “An outline? Character notes?” Maybe this wouldn’t be the emotional ordeal she’d been anticipating. She’d offer to brainstorm or help solidify plot points to get Kendall started and then she’d do the same. Just the change of scenery should be a solid shot in the arm. How could a view this beautiful fail to inspire?

“Actually, it’s a list for Home Depot.”

Mallory dragged her gaze from the view to consider her friend. “Home Depot?”

“Yeah, all those HGTV shows I’ve been watching have inspired me to take care of some things around here.”

“But you don’t have a
renovation
due.” Mallory felt compelled to state the obvious. “Scarsdale is expecting a completed manuscript, not photos of a room remodel.”

“Oh, I’m not planning anything major,” Kendall said. “But one of the back steps is loose and so is part of the deck railing. We wouldn’t want either of us to fall through now, would we?”

“No, of course not. But . . .”

“And there’s something wrong with the toilet handle—it’s starting to drive me crazy. I’m sure I can fix that in no time.

“Why don’t you run and get dressed and we’ll drive down. We can have breakfast at the Clayton Café while we’re down there and we can hit the grocery store on the way back. It shouldn’t take us more than two or three hours.”

“But I thought we’d work this morning,” Mallory said. “We both have books due. We could just bring our laptops out here on the deck and—”

“Look, Mal, you can stay here and work if you want to. I need to get these supplies and some groceries. Trust me when I tell you I’m down to my last bag of Doritos.”

“But I came here to help you. . . .”

Kendall smiled and pushed her hair back off her face. “Mallory, this is the first time I’ve showered or had clothes on in the last three days. As far as I’m concerned you’re already a miracle worker.

“But I can’t even think about the book until I take care of these small repairs and we have some food in the house.” She looked at Mallory, her expression both grateful and innocent, but Mallory had become a first-rate procrastinator in her own right and she knew an evasive move when she saw one.

She took another sip of her coffee, trying to decide how best to handle Kendall. The truth was that although she had never held a hammer or driven in a nail, that being Chris’s bailiwick, she didn’t think she could face the computer screen right now, either. Maybe breakfast and an outing would put them in the right frame of mind.

Besides, if she let Kendall go by herself, she might blow off the entire day. If she went along, she could keep their joint procrastination to a minimum. They’d have breakfast, pick up some supplies and sustenance, and get back here and down to work.

“All right,” Mallory finally said. “Give me fifteen minutes to get ready.” She looked up and caught the expression of relief that washed over Kendall’s face, as if she were a death-row prisoner who’d just received a last-minute reprieve from the governor. “But we’re going to stock up so we don’t have to keep running into town. And then we’re going to come back and start fleshing out your story idea.”

Kendall didn’t respond; she just carried her coffee out on the deck, the relieved smile still on her face.

Mallory started toward her bedroom wondering how dressed up people here got for a trip down to Home Depot. And whether the abject relief she felt at not having to sit down and work yet was as clearly etched on her face as it was on Kendall’s.

11

—A. L. KENNEDY

 

 

 

After practically licking their plates clean at the Clayton Café, Kendall and Mallory strolled Clayton’s tiny Main Street to try to work off some of what they’d eaten.

“God, I’m full.” Kendall tugged at the waistband of her jeans, trying to create more room.

“It was good,” Mallory agreed. “Although I can’t quite get comfortable with the idea of brown gravy at breakfast. And I do not understand the appeal of grits.”

“Shh,” Kendall admonished. “Don’t say that so loud. Around here it’s enough to get you tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.”

“I don’t know about that, but I do know this town isn’t big enough to work off all the calories we just consumed. We’re going to have to take a hike later today.”

Anything that didn’t involve assessing her life or sitting down in front of a computer sounded good to Kendall. After all, she had that new family motto to live up to.
Avoidus, avatas, avant.
Having Mallory here made her feel less alone and isolated, but she didn’t see the fear and emptiness roiling inside her disappearing anytime soon. And she couldn’t imagine how she was supposed to turn all that turmoil into a book.

“Sounds good,” Kendall said, as they meandered past a row of antique stores and a carefully maintained garden that fronted a historic stone building now operating as a museum.

When they came to the town’s lone bookstore, Mallory stopped, turning to Kendall. “God, do you remember when our first books hit the shelves?” She smiled at the memory. “How many stores did we go into when you came up to New York that first time? Twenty? Thirty? Remember how we cabbed from store to store and raced back to the fiction section as fast as we could without actually running?”

Kendall nodded, but for her the memory was tainted by her present reality.

“Do you want to go in and see if they’re carrying us?”

Kendall looked into Mallory’s face, with its almost dreamy look of nostalgia and felt the need to erase it. “I’m sure it would be fun for you, Mallory. Everybody stocks plenty of your books. But if they
do
have my books, they probably won’t have enough of them to make me feel better. And if they
don’t
have my books, I’ll just feel worse. Which is kind of hard to imagine at the moment.”

Mallory let go of the doorknob. Her hand dropped to her side.

“The thing is, Mallory, even in a tiny bookstore like this, there are thousands of titles vying for a reader’s attention. And I have to ask myself, what are the chances that someone wandering in off the street is going to choose one of mine? And if they
do
buy one of the few copies of mine the store
might
have in stock, what are the chances the store will bother to reorder?

“For me, walking into a bookstore is a reminder of what I’m up against. It’s too depressing.”

“All the more reason to write this next book,” Mallory countered. “Increase your backlist and your name recognition. It can never hurt to get your name out there.”

Kendall shook her head, trying to suppress the surge of irritation at Mallory’s response. “It seems pretty pointless to me.”

“Now you’ve got me depressed,” Mallory said, turning away from the store.

“Well, I try to be an equal opportunity depressant,” Kendall replied. Her tone was purposely flip but inside she felt like a dark cloud bulging with rain.

“But, of course, you have no reason to be depressed or worried. You’re prolific, your publisher has been pushing you from day one, your numbers are great.” She tried to swallow her resentment at the unfairness of it all. “You have a husband who worships you.”

Her voice broke on the last accusation and she hated herself for letting loose all over Mallory’s parade. At the moment she simply couldn’t seem to get past the fact that Mallory had absolutely everything she had ever wanted. “I’d be eager to write, too, if I were in your situation.”

Turning on her heel, Mallory began to walk toward the car. She moved so quickly that Kendall, who had been focused on her own misery, was taken by surprise and had to scurry to keep up.

“So you think I have no problems? No stress?” Mallory bit out as she increased her pace. “You think that I don’t have a care in the world and that when I sit down to write I just snap my fingers and out it comes?”

They reached the car and took their positions on either side of it, the lazy comfort of the morning blown to smithereens. “Is that what you think?” Mallory demanded.

Their gazes locked, Kendall told herself to choose her words carefully. She was grateful that Mallory was here and disgusted at the little pity party she’d just thrown. But that little green monster continued to egg her on. “Well, yeah, pretty much,” Kendall said, popping the door locks. “You’ve certainly never indicated otherwise.”

Mallory snorted and slid into the passenger seat. Kendall climbed in behind the wheel.

“You know what the real pisser is?” Kendall asked, as she turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the parking space. “The pisser is you’re such an incredibly good friend I don’t even have the luxury of hating you for it.”

Mallory kept her mouth clamped shut and her retorts to herself as they crossed the Home Depot parking lot and entered the massive box of a building.

The angry part of her wanted to inform her friend that she’d assumed wrong; that every word was a battle and every moment spent in front of her computer a hard-won victory. And that she couldn’t even remember why she hadn’t called the husband who worshipped her to tell him she’d arrived safely.

But Kendall was smiling for the first time since Mallory had arrived and seemed to be contemplating the Home Depot with the same reverence and excitement with which Mallory approached the couture departments of Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue. The part of her that had come out of friendship tamped down on the hurt and kept those truths to herself.

“Do you smell that, Mallory?” Kendall asked as they halted inside the store. “That’s the smell of possibility.”

Mallory drew in a breath but got only a whiff of wood chips, insect spray, and an underlying hint of fertilizer. The place was a hotbed of activity though; clearly an outing to the new Home Depot was a “do not miss” up here.

Mallory had her doubts that a home repair of any kind was going to make Kendall feel appreciably better about her life, but she was not about to say so now. Nor was she going to unburden herself. Kendall was right; she was in an envi able position. No one wanted to hear how hard it had become to maintain it. Or that no matter how much she had she couldn’t block out the memory of what it would feel like to lose it.

Mallory took a step forward, trying to shrug off her ill humor. Kendall reached out a hand to stop her. “I am so sorry for attacking you,” she said. “I had no right to do that. You’re a fabulous writer and you work hard and you deserve what’s happened to you.” She smiled wistfully. “I don’t normally envy you. It’s just hard for me to be positive right now, you know? It’s not just that I think the grass is greener on your side of the fence, Mal. I’m deathly afraid all the grass is brown.” She squeezed Mallory’s hand and then let go. “Do you forgive me?”

Mallory felt some of the tension seep out of her. “Yeah,” she said. “And if there was ever proof of how much I value our friendship, being here is it.”

Mallory waved a hand at the endless aisles of power tools and widgets and who knew what else. “We gutted and renovated a five-thousand-square-foot brownstone, and I never once set foot in a place like this.” She’d left all of that, like most everything to do with the day-to-day running of their lives, to Chris. “I’m in foreign territory. And I don’t speak the language. What do we do first?”

“Good question.” Kendall pulled her list from her purse and perused it like a tourist trying to place his location on a map.

“You ladies look a little lost. Can I help you find something?”

The deep male voice took them both by surprise. Their rescuer was of average height and build with hair that was more salt than pepper. His face was smooth and angular, his eyes a faded blue, as if they’d seen all kinds of things and gotten a bit washed out in the process.

Kendall looked down at her list, then at him. Then she just handed the slip of paper to him with an apologetic smile.