The Accidental Bestseller (34 page)

“No,” he said. “I’m planning to go to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. They’ve been after me to come home to visit for a while now.”

She waited for him to ask her to meet him in Akron, where he’d grown up and his parents still lived. Or to say that he’d come back to New York first so they could fly there together. Once again she waited in vain.

There was another long silence during which she debated what to say; the whole time she was afraid that he’d hang up before she figured out what the right thing was.

“When do you think you’ll come home?” she asked carefully, fighting back the urge to beg him to come back to her now, this minute. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d referred to Akron as home. “It’s so empty here without you,” she said, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “So quiet.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know exactly how that feels.”

Mallory closed her eyes and tried to still the panic. She was completely alone and he wasn’t coming home. She did feel guilt at how she’d treated him, but she felt the panic of being alone even more.

“Chris,” she said. “I
am
sorry. I’ve apologized so many times I don’t even know what else to say. I will do better. As soon as I’ve finished this project I’ll—”

“I know, Mallory. You always mean to do better. And I think you actually mean it when you say it. But not to ‘diss’ what you do for a living, but actions really do speak a whole lot louder than words.”

In the silence, she imagined she could hear him thinking, which was really weird because she could barely think at all. When he spoke, she latched onto each word, wanting desperately to turn them into the words she wanted to hear.

“I’m planning to fly into Akron the day before Thanksgiving and stay for the week,” he said. “If you want to meet me there . . .”

Mallory was so relieved at the invitation she didn’t even let him finish issuing it. “That would be so great,” she said quickly. “I could come in Wednesday night and be there all of Thanksgiving. I just have to fly back to Atlanta Friday morning. It could work though, I could . . .”

His sigh stretched all the way from Arizona, across the telephone wires, to stop her. It was filled with regret and resignation and other things she did not want to identify.

“Forget it, Mallory,” he said. “I’m not open to one of your quick in and outs. You’re invited to spend the week with me and my parents.” He paused. “Or not at all.”

“Oh, Chris, I want to be with you. Really, I do. It’s just that Kendall needs me and I promised that I’d—”

“No, Mallory,” he said, sounding horribly weary. “Not this time. When you’re ready to put us first we’ll have something to talk about.”

Mallory’s heart pounded and the blood whooshed in her ears. She couldn’t let this happen, couldn’t let him hang up on such a final note, but she couldn’t find the words to stop him.

“Until that happens, I’m just not interested,” Chris said. “And I wouldn’t wait too long, Mallory,” he added as he prepared to hang up. “I’ve already waited for what feels like forever.”

Tanya’s eyes flew open at 5:00 A.M. out of habit. The bedside clock confirmed the time but a quick scan of her surroundings told her something else: She was no longer in Oz. Or her own bed for that matter. And from the feel of things, the warm body tucked tightly against her was not one of her daughters.

Shit.
She wished herself back asleep, but she appeared to be all out of wishes. Her ruby slippers and Marilyn dress lay strewn across the bedroom floor. The fairy tale was definitely over.

“Morning.” Brett’s voice was warm and rumbly on the back of her neck. His arm was folded around her waist and his hand cupped her breast. His erection pressed against her bottom. They were both naked.

She didn’t respond, choosing to feign sleep while she tried to figure out her next move. She had a vague memory of driving home in what she might have referred to as a pumpkin-turned-coach. And she remembered their clothes coming off in a mad race to this bed once Brett had assured her the girls were spending the night out. And the sex? She swallowed now as it came flooding back to her. She’d made love to him once wearing nothing but the red stilettos. And another time on the floor with the faux fur stole spread beneath her. The other intimate details remained mercifully hazy, but her limbs were weary and she felt a pleasurable ache between her thighs.

She closed her eyes more from embarrassment than any real hope that she could go back to sleep. She held back a groan.

“Are you OK?” Brett’s hand tightened slightly on her breast and his thumb brushed across her nipple. She felt an answering tug between her thighs, but resisted the impulse to press her bottom tighter against him. She needed to go home and back to her own reality. Fairy tales simply weren’t built to stand up to the light of day.

“Yeah. Sure.” The words were hollow even in her ears. She felt oddly cheap and stupid, though she thought cheap wasn’t exactly the right word since last night’s extravaganza must have cost him a week’s pay. She didn’t understand why he would have gone to so much trouble. Or spent so much money. Or why she had let him.

Uncomfortable with her thoughts, she pulled away to sit on the side of the bed, keeping her back to him. “I need to go.”

Brett swung his legs over to sit beside her. Like naked bookends they sat for a moment staring at their clothes, which littered the bedroom floor.

“I thought I’d make omelets.” His smile was crooked and charming and it promised things she no longer believed in. “Or we could eat junk food in bed.”

Tanya got up to retrieve her dress. She slid it over her head, not bothering with the push-up bra or matching thong, and bent in front of him, holding her hair out of the way so he could zip her up. She didn’t know why she felt so compelled to get out of here, but she did.

Following her lead, he pulled on a pair of jeans, buttoning the fly as she scooped up her underthings and smashed them into her evening bag. The red stilettos dangled from her fingertips; so much for their homing properties.

“Wait a minute.” Brett stopped in the living room and waited for her to turn and face him. “What’s going on? We had a great time last night. An incredible time. And I know it wasn’t just me having it.”

His cheeks were covered in morning stubble. His shoulders were broad, his chest bare. Tanya’s gaze got caught in the mat of dark hair that arrowed downward. She forced herself to look away.

“I did not imagine that we talked without stopping all through dinner. Or how good we were together afterward.” Brett raised a hand and pushed his hair back with it. “I think you owe me at least an explanation for why you’re practically running out the front door.”

It was the words “owe me” that struck her. They jumped right out of everything else he’d said and commanded her complete attention.

Trudy had given her love for as little as a bar tab and as much as a month’s rent. Tanya had held out for marriage with Kyle Mason, but that hadn’t gotten her anything but knee deep in debt.

Last night had been a fairy tale night. But she was not Marilyn or Cinderella or Dorothy. She was a thirty-five-year-old writer/waitress with four mouths to feed. Her mother had taught her the folly of depending on the kindness of others and Kyle had reinforced the lesson. As long as she stayed strong and took care of her own, she’d be OK.

“It was a great night,” she conceded. “It went way beyond my imaginings. I couldn’t have invented one that was any better.”

He took a step toward her, clearly intending to take her in his arms. She shook her head. “But I don’t know what you want from me. I’m not sure you even do. And I can’t afford to owe anybody anything; I’m not willing to take the chance. Not even with a guy who seems to have a Prince Charming complex.”

“That is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard,” he said. “You’re not going to let something good happen because . . . What? It might not last forever? Are you kidding me?”

He turned his back on her and went into the bedroom. When he came back out he had on a T-shirt and was carrying his car keys. He led the way out to the Jeep and this time he didn’t open the door or hand her into her seat.

He drove efficiently and quickly, much like he cooked at the Downhome Diner. Tanya tried not to look at his profile or think about how good he’d been in bed.

When they pulled in front of Trudy’s mobile home, the sun was up, but the streets were still quiet. The newspapers hadn’t yet been delivered. Tanya gathered her things.

“Thank you for everything,” she said politely, as if he’d just handed her something across a counter or passed her the salt and pepper. “I’m sorry I . . .”

“You’re welcome,” he said, in the same polite but impersonal tone. And then as he prepared to pull away, “I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

28

—QUENTIN BELL

 

 

 

On Thanksgiving afternoon, after more than twenty consecutive hours attempting to do Kennedy Andrews’s emotional journey and the last chapter of
Sticks and Stones
justice, Kendall Aims typed, “THE END.”

Numb and weary, she sat in the kitchen chair staring intently at the monitor, as the tension that had consumed her during the weeklong push toward completion seeped from her body.

She was done. Finished. The manuscript, all 135,240 words of it, was complete.

Sticks and Stones
existed in its own right, wrestled from the germ of her idea into flesh and blood and, as soon as she printed it out, paper.

Slowly Kendall pulled herself out of Kennedy Andrews’s head and slipped back into her own. She saw her kitchen for the first time in hours and smelled the comforting smell of the turkey breast she’d put in the oven earlier.

Her knees were stiff as she stood and stretched, her body tight from the hours spent hunched in the chair. Her eyes ached from the strain of all those hours staring into the computer screen.

It was done. Finished. As the numbness wore off, the relief coursing through her began to turn to joy. Straightening, she gave a great shout of happiness that echoed through the silent kitchen.

Despite Jane Jensen, despite Calvin, despite the emptiness of her nest, despite all the obstacles thrown in her path, she’d done it.

She froze in the midst of the thought, the joy and happiness spraying up inside her like a Magic Kingdom fountain halted in midspike as she reminded herself this wasn’t exactly the case.

She had not done it, at least not all of it.
They’d
done it.

Kendall paced the kitchen trying to distance herself from the thought. But there was no getting away from it.

Even before the final read through and tweaking they would do over the weekend, Kendall knew that
Sticks and Stones
, with its five viewpoint characters and gentle lifting of the publishing industry veil, was the best book she’d ever written.

Except she hadn’t really written it.

Her name was going on the cover of a book she hadn’t written alone.

Looking for a distraction, Kendall pulled the turkey breast out of the oven and set it out to cool. She mixed a packet of instant mashed potatoes and put the bowl into the microwave. She fitted a can of cranberry sauce onto the can opener then took the store-bought pumpkin pie out of the refrigerator so that it could get to room temperature.

She had planned her little feast as a celebration of finishing the manuscript on time, but the rush of pleasure had already fled in the face of reality. She was going to be a liar, a fraud. She was going to claim sole credit for a book she hadn’t actually written alone. It had seemed such a simple fix for all her problems when they’d first agreed to it and the manuscript had benefited enormously. She wasn’t at all sorry that the manuscript existed or that she’d be able to fulfill her contractual commitment. But she hated the idea of pretending to have created something she hadn’t. Or at least not all the way.

For the first time in weeks, she felt an almost irresistible urge to slip her hand around the handle of a power tool. She tried to think what materials she had around but she’d finished her last serious project two weeks ago. And even if she could think of something to work on, today was Thanksgiving. Home Depot wasn’t going to be open. James and all the other employees were undoubtedly sitting around Thanksgiving tables with family and friends right now, enjoying beautiful meals and spirited conversation. Or sitting comatose on couches watching football together.

For the first time that day Kendall felt sorry for herself. She was alone on a major holiday about to eat a Thanksgiving meal of instant dishes and store-bought food. How pathetic was that?

Once she allowed the self-pity in, it grew and multiplied. The next thing she knew she was imagining Laura prancing around her kitchen in Atlanta cooking a feast for Calvin and all their new friends. She sniffed and swiped at her nose. Now both angry and pathetic, she walked back to the computer and hit print so that she’d have a hard copy of the manuscript to make copies from in the morning on the way to the airport.