The Accidental Bestseller (8 page)

Tonight the words and images just wouldn’t come. And when she closed her eyes to try to picture her characters and put herself in the scene, she saw Kendall’s stricken face instead.

A hacking cough sounded at the back of the trailer and then there was the shuffle of feet as Trudy Payne came out to the living area. Shriveled and wizened well beyond her fifty-one years, Trudy had been only sixteen when she gave birth to Tanya. If she knew who Tanya’s father was, she had steadfastly refused to name him.

Tanya had seen pictures of her mother before she’d gotten “caught” with Tanya, but there were none that came after. That would have required a camera and some sort of interest in documenting the train wreck Trudy’s life had become.

Tanya guessed she should be grateful that Trudy hadn’t aborted or abandoned her. She knew firsthand how hard it was to support and raise a child by yourself. But while Tanya relied on hard work and her dreams to sustain her, Trudy had turned to alcohol and cigarettes and the stream of men who provided them; a stream that had shrunk to a trickle now that Trudy had gotten old.

“You seen my smokes?” Trudy’s voice had always had the sound of a stick being dragged across gravel, but now it was punctuated by a perpetual whine.

Tanya studied her mother in the half light. Her blue eyes were wilted and her skin had turned leathery. Her blond hair came out of a bottle now and didn’t resemble anything created by nature. Even in the more forgiving light, it was impossible to believe that this woman was only a year older than Mallory; she might have been a hundred.

“Did you hear me? I asked if you’d seen my smokes.” Trudy’s whine had turned ornery.

“No,” Tanya replied. “And by the sound of that cough you’d be better off if you never did find them.”

“Always think you know best,” Trudy muttered, “but you ended up no better off ’n me.”

Her mother settled for a shot of whiskey, which she poured with a shaking hand and a defiant glare. “I went three whole days without a single drink while you was gone, so don’t give me that look of yours.”

“Oh, Mama,” Tanya said. “When did alcohol ever solve one little thing in your life?”

Trudy took a swallow of the amber liquid. “Just tryin’ to take the edge off.” Trudy’s whine laced through her lament. “I’ve kept my part; I don’t drink a drop when I’m takin’ care of the girls. But I don’t see no big advantage in facin’ the world so stark sober as you.”

Tanya didn’t argue further; it wasn’t as if they hadn’t covered this ground a thousand times before. Trudy’s promise not to drink around the girls had been the only thing that had made moving in with her possible. Trudy had never shown that kind of restraint when Tanya was a child; the idea had never occurred to her.

“You never did say much about that conference you went to,” her mother said now. “What do you think those fancy friends of yours want with you?”

“We’re all writers, Mama,” Tanya said, as calmly as she could. “And we started at the same time. We all help each other.”

“Lotta good that’s done you.” Trudy downed the remaining whiskey and brushed the back of her hand across her mouth. Mercifully she didn’t belch.

“We wouldn’t even still be in this trailer if it wasn’t for my books,” Tanya said. “And just ’cuz you don’t think much of what I do and who I am, doesn’t mean nobody else does.”

Her mother snorted but didn’t ramp up for a fight, for which Tanya was grateful. She put up with a lot and bit her tongue as often as possible, but she would not let Trudy ruin her daughters’ opinions of themselves or Tanya’s faith in her friends. Faye and Mallory and Kendall had saved her as surely as if they’d reached in and pulled her physically out of a garbage Dumpster. If it weren’t for them, she’d have no one’s opinion of herself except her mother’s. And she sure as hell would never have written a book, let alone fifteen of them.

Her thoughts circled back to Kendall and how upset she’d been after the awards ceremony. It was odd how she’d lit out for home without even telling them. And now she wasn’t responding to their calls or e-mails.

A shiver of unease snaked up her spine and Tanya promised herself she’d send another e-mail before she quit writing tonight and place another call to her from the Laundromat tomorrow.

“Don’t you stay up too late now,” her mother said as she shoved her glass onto the counter. “You know I can’t get up with them girls in the morning. Especially after a night like this when I don’t do anything but toss and turn the whole damned time.”

Tanya knew better than to mention the heavy snores she’d heard coming from Trudy earlier. Or the fact that this probably wouldn’t be her last shot of whiskey before morning. Her mother liked to dish out the criticism, but she surely couldn’t take it.

Trudy retreated into her room, hacking as she went, but Tanya was no longer seeing the bitter woman who had given birth to her. She was seeing her current heroine, Doreen Grant, who was wiping the cute little bistro table at the beachside café where she worked. She kept straightening her uniform and fussing with her hair because her brother was supposed to be bringing one of his oldest friends in for lunch—a NASCAR driver Doreen had had a crush on since childhood.

Eyes closed, Tanya could hear the rush of the waves over the sand and see the seagulls wheeling overhead. The hero would be wearing cutoffs and have his T-shirt hanging over one broad shoulder so that he could be bare chested. He and Doreen’s brother would tease her about the old days, but that spark would be there between him and Doreen. He might fight it for a while, but that boy had met his match.

Tanya gave a happy little sigh as the scene unfolded in front of her. Then she placed her fingers on the laptop keyboard and began to type.

Later that morning in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Faye Truett stretched and yawned then opened one eye experimentally. It was 6:00 A.M., not yet time to roll out of bed but too late to turn over and go all the way back to sleep.

Beside her, her husband Steve, or Pastor Steve as he was now known in almost every corner of the civilized world, slept on, his breathing even and peaceful in the morning quiet.

Faye turned her head so that she could see his profile, which she had always considered Kennedyesque. In fact the older Steve got, the more Faye thought he looked exactly like Jack Kennedy might have had he been allowed to reach the age of sixty-four. She, however, was no Jackie. Nor did she want to be.

Steve sighed in his sleep and rolled closer, draping an arm across Faye’s waist, or what was left of it. Sometime in her midfifties everything had begun to widen and soften no matter how many hours Faye spent on a treadmill or at the gym. Sitting at a computer all day most days hadn’t helped. Steve, with whom she had been sleeping for the past thirty-nine years, didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps he was just too smart to comment.

She settled her head against her husband’s shoulder and marveled at the twists and turns of their life together. Even Faye, who now wrote fiction for a living, thought her real life had turned out much differently than anything she might have made up.

She and Steve had met in a comparative lit class at Northwestern University in the late sixties, fallen in love, and married the June that Faye graduated.

They started out normally enough; Steve went into sales at a large Chicago ad agency, and Faye, who dreamed of one day writing a novel, became a producer for a film production company. Like most of their friends, they juggled careers and the rearing of their children. They had three in five years: Steve Jr., Kai, and Sara—all of them now married and producing grandchildren, though only Sara still lived in town.

On his fortieth birthday, Steve, who had been a lapsed Catholic since Faye had met him, decided to take a class at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary on the Northwestern campus. In hindsight, Faye should have paid more attention to this. But at the time it seemed a commendable use of Steve’s spare time. He’d downplayed the whole thing, billing it as an intellectual and spiritual exercise—not a second calling or the beginning of a second career.

In fact Faye missed every single warning sign right up until the day, on her own fortieth birthday, when Steve announced his plans to leave his lucrative advertising job to start the Clearview Church of God and Television Ministry.

Despite the fact that all three of their children were in college.

It was, Faye thought now, a miracle that she—and their marriage—had survived the shock.

Steve’s hand skimmed down the swell of her hip and back up to her waist in a soothing yet sensual movement even as Faye’s thoughts continued to center on the past.

Overnight they’d gone from “comfortable” to strapped as they’d eaten through their savings to support three college tuitions in addition to Steve’s new aspirations.

During those turbulent years she’d put her own writing dreams on hold to ghostwrite the two God for Dummies books and
Rich God, Poor God,
which had put Pastor Steve on the ministerial map. Then she’d used her broadcast background and contacts to help launch his television ministry. She’d done what she had to do to keep her family afloat and Steve’s dream alive. And found an additional source of income she’d never mentioned to him and of which he remained blissfully ignorant.

Steve had never looked back, but Faye had. He’d wanted her on the air and by his side, a package deal like the Bakkers once were or the Osteens out in Texas were now. But while Faye loved Steve and her children and believed strongly in God, a public ministry and a husband who globe-trotted in the name of Jesus was not what she’d signed on for.

Still she did her best. And when the kids were out of college and his ministry became both successful and highly profitable, boasting a facility with a 2,300-seat Worship Experience Center, full-service Starbucks café, childrens’ facilities, and film and recording studios, Steve told her it was her turn. That was when she’d attended her first Wordsmiths Incorporated conference where she met Kendall, Mallory, and Tanya. From that day onward she’d considered herself a professional writer even though it took her two more years to sell her first novel—at least the first work of fiction written under her own name.

Steve’s questing hand moved beneath her nightgown, drawing it up to cup her breast. “I missed you,” he murmured against her skin, and against all odds, she felt the same shimmer of anticipation that she’d felt as a coed. Whatever they’d gone through, however their paths had diverged, they’d always been able to find their way back to each other. And they’d always been good in bed.

“You haven’t said much about the conference. How’d it go?” he asked.

“It was all right,” Faye said, not really wanting to talk about it.

“Just all right?”

“Yes.” Any other time this week Faye would have been grateful to discuss the subject, but right now she wanted to turn off her brain and enjoy the feel of Steve’s hands on her body. “Kendall didn’t win and she got some other bad news she was too upset to share with us.”

“That’s too bad.” Next to his looks, Steve’s voice was his biggest asset. It was warm and soothing, the perfect register for communicating conviction and concern. Faye sometimes had to listen closely to separate the true feeling from the professional sympathy.

Once he’d realized Faye wasn’t going to join his religious bandwagon, Steve had supported Faye’s writing—in fact, being his wife had certainly boosted her inspirational romance career, but he’d never really understood her attachment to Kendall, Mallory, and Tanya. “She’s the one in Atlanta, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” Faye didn’t want to ruin the moment with irritation over his lack of interest in the details of her life. Between his speaking engagements and television production schedule and her book deadlines, their time alone had become increasingly rare. There’d been a time when they talked about everything; now it seemed like they had to pencil each other in and work down an agenda to cover the most important topics.

Subtly Steve lifted his arm to check the wristwatch he was never without and Faye noticed that his fingernails were newly manicured and his palms felt smoother than hers.

“Do you have any other books due out?” Steve asked, running one smooth palm across her hip. “The ladies of the congregation love your inspirationals; I thought we might look at cross promoting on the website. Maybe I should have someone call your publisher to see if we can work out some kind of agreement.” He rested his palm on the no longer gentle swell of her abdomen, his fingers splayed. But now Faye was thinking about the book she was working on and whether it was a good idea for anyone from Clearview to contact Psalm Song.

Faye’s amorous mood began to evaporate just as Steve’s seemed to be kicking in. In real estate it might be location, location, location. In lovemaking it seemed keeping one’s mouth shut might be the key.

“I don’t think I have time for this right now.” Faye began to pull away. “I really should get up and get to work.”