The Accidental Bestseller (27 page)

“Oh, Mama.” Tanya groaned. “I’ve been watching you do this to yourself my whole entire life. Thirty-five years of watching you destroy yourself. You’ve got to be as tired of it as I am.”

“I am tired. But I can’t sleep.”

Tanya sighed and rubbed her eyes. If she didn’t get in bed right now she’d be a basket case in the morning and Belle had already cut her all kinds of slack.

“Come on. I’ll tuck you in.” Tanya reached down and slid her hands under Trudy’s armpits then lifted her up from the couch like she’d done a thousand times before. There wasn’t a lick of meat on her mother’s bones.

“No point. Can’t sleep,” Trudy observed, though she didn’t resist.

“Well then, you’ll just lie there and rest your eyes.” Tanya propelled her toward the back of the mobile home, though propel was maybe the wrong word; it was sort of like herding a wet dishrag.

In Trudy’s bedroom, Tanya pulled back the ancient comforter and smoothed the rumpled sheets. She plumped her mother’s pillows then helped Trudy down into a sitting position.

“You don’t want to let Brett get away. He’s a good man,” Trudy said as Tanya tucked her under the covers.

“Oh, Mama. How would you know that?”

“Just ’cause I ain’t ever had one don’t mean I don’t recognize one when I see him. I ain’t never had a million dollars either, but I’d recognize all them zeros if I came acrost ’em.”

Tanya pulled the covers up to Trudy’s chin and turned off her bedside light. Despite her protests, Trudy’s breathing was already turning shallow and even. “I been wrong a lot, Tanya, I admit it,” she said.

Tanya snorted at the understatement.

“But I’m right about him. You be careful you don’t run so fast that he can’t catch you.”

“Oh, Mama.” Despite all the heartaches and disappointments that were part and parcel of being Trudy’s daughter, Tanya still felt a wallop of love when she looked down at the battered shell of her mother. By most standards Trudy had failed miserably as a parent, but she’d done far better by Tanya than her own mother had done by her. Trudy might have side-stepped much of her parental responsibility, but she’d never abandoned her daughter. Mess that she was, in her own way she’d soldiered on.

“I don’t have the time or energy for running. Or for playing any other games for that matter.” Another understatement, Tanya thought. She was weary deep down into her bones. In just a few hours she’d have to jump on the treadmill that was her life and start up all over again.

Trudy’s eyelids fluttered shut and she began to breathe noisily through her mouth.

“I’m right in the middle of my very own reality edition of
Survivor,
Mama,” Tanya said as she tiptoed out of the room, “and I can’t figure out how in the hell to get myself voted off.”

Faye spent the morning making notes for the upcoming conference call with Kendall, Mallory, and Tanya, then finished a chapter of her own work in progress and roughed out the first scene of the next chapter before breaking when Sara dropped off Becky for the afternoon, fresh from kindergarten.

For a treat, they strolled hand in hand along Central Avenue, the tree-lined two-lane main street of Highland Park, walking west, away from the lake toward the shops and restaurants, while Rebecca explained her plans for famous bal lerinadom.

Promising Rebecca an ice cream from the Dairy Queen for the walk home, Faye paused outside the Borders bookstore and noticed a window display of Mallory St. James’s latest hardcover,
Hidden Assets
. “My friend wrote that book,” she said to Rebecca. “She’s gotten really famous.”

“Cool!” Rebecca peered through the window. Her head turned slightly toward a display of historical romances by another author Faye had met at conferences.

Rebecca scrunched up her nose in concentration as she sounded out the words on the cover. “
One Night with You
.” She looked up at Faye, her brown eyes wide. “Is that one of those porn-io-graph-ic books my mommy tole me about?”

Faye squeezed Rebecca’s hand and knelt down so that she could look straight into Rebecca’s eyes. “No, of course not.”

“But that lady has her lips poked out to kiss that man.” She pointed at the cover, her finger unswerving. “And his chest doesn’t have any clothes on it.”

This was true, Faye thought as she searched for the right words of explanation. In her mind, a clinch cover did not pornography make.

“It’s a book about a man and a woman who fall in love and try to live happily ever after,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.” She continued to look into Rebecca’s eyes, not wanting to undermine her daughter’s authority, but once again disappointed by and irritated with her daughter’s narrow-mindedness. She and Steve had gone out of their way to try to instill empathy and open generosity of thought in their offspring, yet with each year, Sara aligned herself more and more with the ultraconservative faction of Steve’s congregation. She seemed to spend much of her time in judgment of others.

“Let’s go in and pick out some books. Then we’ll see how Gran Gran’s new release is selling.”

Inside they went to the children’s section where Rebecca immediately found two Junie B. Jones books, one she couldn’t live without and one for the children’s library at Rainbow House. On their way to the religious fiction section, where Faye’s inspirational romances were shelved, they passed a table display of books by the now notorious erotica author Shannon LeSade. Faye clutched Rebecca’s hand more tightly in her own, intending to simply speed past it, but Becky must have felt the urgency in Faye’s grasp. She stopped right in front of the display and began to gawk.

“I bet
that’s
porn-i-ography,” the child said, with absolute certainty. “What are they doing on that cover?” She moved closer, practically sticking her face into a stack of books.

Faye pulled her away. “That’s not exactly porniog . . . pornography,” Faye said, at a loss as to how to continue. She didn’t particularly want to add the word “erotica” to her granddaughter’s vocabulary. Sure as she did, it would be the first word Becky shared with her mother when she got home. “But it is for adults, not children.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s too . . . grown up for kids.” This she knew for a fact.

“Why?” Rebecca’s trusting brown eyes stared up at her waiting for an explanation from the one person who up until now had always told it like it was.

“Because it is!” Despite attempts to stop it, Faye could feel her face flushing. She knew she was handling this badly. Overreacting would impress the book even more strongly in Becky’s mind, but she couldn’t seem to help it.

She was tugging on Becky’s hand in an effort to move her away from the display when the store’s customer relations manager, Judy Winslet, approached, an enthusiastic smile on her face.

“Mrs. Truett!” The manager stopped next to them. “We’ve been hoping you’d stop by to sign some stock.” Her gaze moved from Faye and Becky to the table display in front of them. “It’s amazing how big LeSade’s gotten,” she said. “Erotica’s so hot right now—pun intended—but I think part of it’s how reclusive she is. Have you ever met her?”

Faye cleared her throat and shook her head no. She was growing increasingly uncomfortable with their proximity to the display and to their conversation. She could practically see Becky’s ears growing larger, the better to suck in their conversation for repetition later.

“I heard her publisher is getting ready for a big publicity push. Maybe that will bring her out of hiding.”

Faye could have told her exactly why this was not going to happen, but since she wanted only for this conversation to end, she didn’t say so. Instead she widened her eyes and tried to use them to motion toward Becky in warning, apparently a much too subtle form of communication for the woman.

“Maybe not though,” the young woman chirped, now not only asking questions, but answering them. “They say her agent doesn’t even know her real identity.”

Faye took a firmer hold of Rebecca’s hand, intent now on changing the topic of conversation as well as their location. “Judy,” Faye said, “this is my granddaughter Rebecca. I was just explaining to her that these books are only for adults.” She shot the manager a final look of warning then turned her back on the display and began to move toward the religious fiction section, pulling Becky with her. Judy followed.

“Becky’s five and she loves Junie B. Jones.” Faye was the one chattering on now as she led her granddaughter by the hand and the manager with her voice.

“I’m getting two of them,” Rebecca chimed in, mercifully distracted. “One for me and one for Rainbow House.”

“Junie B. is very cool,” Judy said to Rebecca. “And so is your grandmother.”

They came to a halt at the information desk. “In fact,” she said, “if you all wait here, I’ll go get the copies of
In His Image
off the shelf so you can autograph them.”

She and Becky waited for the manager to return.

“How’s it doing?” Faye asked, when Judy returned with a stack of books balanced against her chest.

“Great. We have two book clubs reading it and a third has expressed interest. One of them wanted to know if you’d be willing to come speak to their group.” Judy stacked the books on the counter in front of Faye and pulled out a Sharpie and autograph stickers.

Faye felt a flush of satisfaction as she handled the books, carefully signing her name and a personalized message on the front title page of each book then handing it to Judy who put an autograph sticker on each cover.

Having booksellers excited about your work was critical. In the end a book purchase often came down to a salesper son’s recommendation. Some store personnel loved books and were excited about having personal contact with the authors who wrote them, and would then go to great lengths to hand sell an author they knew and liked.

Others had no interest in knowing or meeting you. Faye had once had a bookseller disdainfully refer to her mass-market paperback as one of those “little books.”

From early on Mallory was sent on multicity tours where crowds of readers queued up to buy her books. Faye’s first few book signings had generated much less fanfare and had consisted of her alone at a folding card table in the back of a bookstore. Selling books in this situation required either attracting the buyers to the store or somehow convincing someone already browsing to buy a copy, which left an author feeling like a Girl Scout hawking cookies in front of a grocery store.

All too often the only thing an approaching customer wanted was directions to the restroom.

Fortunately Faye was no longer unknown and this bookstore was on her home turf. As she signed the books a small knot of customers wandered closer, turning the stock signing into an impromptu event. Faye smiled encouragingly at them. She might not do the numbers or generate the same level of excitement as Mallory, but she knew how important one-on-one contact could be.

“I loved
In His Name,
” one woman said. “I can’t wait to read this. Can you make that out to me? And I think I’ll take one for my sister, Claire, too.”

Faye finished signing and then stayed to chat with the women now vying for her attention. When she felt Becky growing restless, Faye offered her good-byes and led Becky up to the checkout line to pay for their purchases.

“Wow, you must be famous, too! Will you just keep getting famouser and famouser?”

Faye smiled at her granddaughter’s enthusiasm. “I’m nowhere near as famous as my friend Mallory,” she said, as she handed her credit card to the clerk. “But I’m famous enough for me.”

They stopped at the Dairy Queen as promised then walked toward home, Rebecca greedily licking her ice cream cone while Faye reflected on the pros and cons of both fame and notoriety. At Central Park, opposite the house and overlooking the lake, Becky played happily on the equipment while Faye watched from a shaded spot on a nearby bench, her mood still reflective.

A certain amount of name recognition was necessary to build a career. But too much exposure could be a dangerous thing. Especially if you were married to a prominent televangelist who had no idea his wife was the notorious Shannon LeSade.