A Literary Scandal Page 7

  “Are we ready? The guests are all here,” I told them.

  “It’s not noon yet,” Luanne snapped. “And I need another coat of mascara.”

  “You need to get your butt downstairs and start schmoozing,” Eva countered. “Food’s on the table at noon. I want you working the room a bit beforehand. Come on. Your eyelashes are perfect. And your hair is gravity-defying. Let’s go.”

  I bit back a smile, very grateful that the agent had shown up to act as a buffer between me and the author. I wouldn’t have had the gall to talk to her the way her long-time business associate did, and I doubt I would have been anywhere near as effective.

  “Fine,” Luanne snapped, grabbing the bottle of water from Eva’s hands. “I hope that cow who owns this place has something decent for breakfast. Those cookies were horrible.”

  A cold, hard glint came into Eva’s eyes. “You will eat what’s on your plate and compliment her, do you hear me? This isn’t the nineteenth century. Being a bit eccentric is one thing, but insulting your fans and hostess crosses the line. One social media post goes viral and you can kiss that film deal goodbye. And that contract offer on a third series.”

  Luanne snarled and threw the bottle of water across the room, where it bounced off a wall and onto the bed. “The producers don’t care, and neither does the publisher. Any publicity is good publicity. I’d probably just sell more books if something like that went viral.”

  “Bullying your hostess to tears? The hostess who has been practicing recipes for a week to accommodate your health concerns? The hostess who overnighted in special flour to make cookies from scratch for you? Cookies that were incredible tasting? Cookies that you told her were stale and like cardboard? Luanne, you made that nice, plump, granny woman cry. That’s not the kind of publicity you want. Now get your act together, get control of your mouth, and be nice for once in your damned life!”

  I stared wide-eyed at the two, feeling like a complete eavesdropper, but far too nosy to scoot away. Holy moley, there was clearly a line not to cross with the tolerant, easy-going Eva Zinovi. Luanne jerked as though the other woman had hit her, her eyes narrowing as the pair commenced an epic stare-down. Finally, the author turned with a huff, pushing past me and tottering down the stairs in her high heels.

  “I better go make sure she doesn’t alienate the whole room,” Eva muttered. “Sorry you had to see that.”

  “Everyone has their breaking point,” I told her. “What can I do to help? Run interference with the questions? Buffer between her and Paula?”

  “She’ll apologize to that woman before she leaves in the morning,” Eva told me with that glint back in her eyes. “Some assistance with the questions would be appreciated, though. Have you read all her books?”

  “No,” I confessed. “Just the first Fanged Darkness and a few chapters of book two. I started Broken Wolf and Witches Gone Wild last night, but…” Ugh, how do I tell this agent that her client’s first two series were absolutely dreadful?

  Turns out I didn’t have to.

  “What? Where the heck did you find those? They’re buried so far in the product listings that they’re halfway to China. The publishing company won’t sell her the rights back because they’re worth more on the balance sheet than the reversion fees. I was hoping they’d died a slow death and were in some unmarked grave.”

  “Luanne mentioned them when I was driving her back from the airport, so I thought I’d check them out.” I paused a second, searching for the right words that wouldn’t come across as horribly insulting. “Lots of literary fiction isn’t all that successful in terms of sales, but are wonderful works of art. I’d thought…”

  “Well, you’d thought wrong.” Eva laughed. “They sold okay, don’t get me wrong, but that was in the early days of e-books when there wasn’t a lot out there. They just don’t hold up with the competition now. They’re really not that well written—not anywhere nearly as good as her current stuff. I’ve got no idea why she’s so attached to those things. I’ve advised her for years to just let them go and focus on the money makers.”

  “She’s lucky,” I told Eva. “Lots of authors never come around. It’s like she had an epiphany or something ten years ago. Whatever happened, I’m glad. I’m totally hooked and plan on binge-reading Fanged Darkness and Infernal Awakenings through the rest of the summer.”

  Her dark eyes squinted up with her smile. “Good. We can always use more fans. And as for the questions, try to keep things away from Barton Wells. Other than that, Luanne should be able to field just about anything without wigging completely out.”

  I blinked in surprise, remembering the conversation from the airport. “What’s up with Barton Wells?”

  “Ever since she killed him off in book six, she’s been getting hate mail. It seems he had quite the group of admirers, including several fanfiction books where they got together. It’s a sore subject with her.”

  My jaw dropped. “Barton Wells is dead? Dead?” I felt like someone had punched me in the gut at the news, as if someone I actually knew had died.

  Eva clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I forgot you haven’t read that far in the series. Forget I said that. Spoilers.”

  “Why?” I choked out. “What happened?”

  She eyed me warily. “Are you sure you want me to tell you? Spoilers, you know.”

  “You can’t just tell me a character I loved, one I loved far more than Roman, sexy though he may be, died, and not let me know the details.”

  “Ah, you’re one of those readers.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Like I said, there are a bunch of Barton fans. They write fanfiction about Barton and Trelanie having a happy-ever-after, and him staking Roman and all that. I told Luanne that killing him off was a bad idea, but she insisted. We got death threats. Someone mailed a cow heart to her in a box. It was a bad few months. We’re still getting hate mail over that one and it was last year when that book came out.”

  “What happened?” I insisted.

  She sighed. “Barton and Trelanie had a moment. Roman found out. End of the day, Roman didn’t lift a pinky to help Barton when the ghouls swamped the condos, and he was killed. It opened a huge rift between Roman and Trelanie that lead to the events in book seven which is coming out next week. That’s why everyone is wringing their hands over whether Roman and Trelanie are going to get back together again or not.”

  “I’m more interested in whether Barton is going to come back from the dead and kick some vampire butt,” I retorted. “With or without his wheelchair.”

  Eva lifted both hands. “I know. I know. Just don’t go mailing us any cow hearts or anything.”

  We made our way downstairs where Luanne was thankfully chatting politely with the attendees. Everyone clustered around her as she told a tale of her inspiration coming in a bolt of awareness while sitting on a mountaintop somewhere. She’d thought to herself: what if a strong, confident woman could turn a creature of darkness into one of light and reform a heartless, cruel vampire with the strength of her love?

  It was a common trope, from Beauty and the Beast to the millions of bad-boy romance novels on the shelves, but what made this old theme new and shiny had been Luanne’s writing. And no matter how much I disliked the woman, she could write a heck of a novel. At least, in the last ten years she could write a heck of a novel.

  “So you didn’t just remake Wicked Night, then?” the woman with the burping cloth asked.

  There was a sudden chill in the room. I heard Eva suck in a breath and realized that Barton Wells wasn’t the only sensitive topic as far as Luanne Trainor was concerned.

  To give the woman credit, she didn’t bite anyone’s head off at the question. Her smile grew a little stiff, but she wasn’t rude, and she did answer the question.

  “I never copied off Wicked Night. I’ve never even read the series. There are common themes between all vampire romance novels, but I can promise you that I have never plagiarized or stolen someone else’s idea. Any
similarities between Star Swift’s series and mine are completely coincidental.”

  Eva let out a breath and muttered, “Good. Just what the lawyer told her to say. We might get through this morning without a tantrum after all.”

  “That’s what I thought,” one of the soccer moms announced. “Trelanie is nothing like Belinda. And Roman is way sexier and brooding than Eduardo.”

  The rest of the attendees all chimed in their agreement on how Roman set the standard for smoking-hot vampire heroes, and in an epic battle between the two, he’d beat Eduardo to a pulp.

  “I wish Barton hadn’t died,” one of the teen girls commented.

  “Oh, I know. He was a very nice man. So polite. So considerate.” One of the older women shook her head. “I’d hoped he’d find a nice young woman of his own. Not Trelanie, of course, but maybe that librarian woman.”

  “Why not Trelanie?” burping-cloth woman asked. “I was so thrilled to see a positive portrayal of a disabled person in a novel but shuffling him off on the librarian is wrong. There needs to be a world where a beautiful, knife-wielding woman can fall in love with a smart, capable man regardless of whether he can walk or not.”

  A teen with blue hair and a nose piercing snorted. “Seriously? You’ve got two guys to choose from and you’re going to pick stuffy old Barton over the vampire who rocks the bedsheets? Who can rip through a hoard of ghouls with his bare hands? Who craves your blood like it’s the very water of life?”

  Ew on the blood thing, but as much as I liked Barton and felt he was the better long-term choice for a relationship, she did have a point.

  “Barton rocks the bedsheets too,” burping-cloth woman countered. “And at least he’s not sneaking into her room at night like some deranged serial killer, or lying to her about the staff of power, or offering to share her with his Maker to get the vial with the oil of Anubis.”

  I was so confused. But in spite of that, and in spite of the fact that the spoilers were flying around the room, I was fascinated. It was incredible to see a group of people passionate about fictional characters, discussing their lives and their motivations as if they were real. As the woman who’d spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book, as the woman who’d majored in journalism, I wholeheartedly approved. We weren’t debating Faulkner or James Joyce, but reading was reading.

  “He wouldn’t have really shared Trelanie with his Maker,” one of the soccer moms protested. “That was all a ruse to get the vial. Besides, Trelanie would have kicked the Maker’s butt.”

  “Are you kidding?” blue-hair’s friend, who had normal-colored brown hair but twice the nose piercings, countered. “The Maker is three thousand years old. Trelanie never would have beaten him. And I agree. Roman is kind of a dick sometimes. Maybe Trelanie can just sleep with him every now and then but marry Barton.”

  Yikes. I don’t know many men who would have been on board with that sort of arrangement. I thought of Eli, of my father, of my boss J.T., and Judge Beck and realized that I didn’t know any men who would have been on board with that sort of thing.

  “Barton is clearly the better man,” burping-cloth woman agreed.

  “Well, too bad, because Barton is dead,” Luanne snapped. “Dead. Torn apart by a hoard of ghouls. So forget about him.”

  “Roman let those ghouls in and purposely didn’t help Barton,” nose-piercings girl said. “It was a total dick move on his part. I know he was jealous and all that, but if I was Trelanie, I’d never forgive him for that. Well, maybe I’d still sleep with him now and then, but I’d never forgive him.”

  “Did the ghouls really kill him?” pregnant woman asked. “They just found some blood and stuff. Maybe the ghouls took him away and have him captive somewhere to use as leverage. Maybe he’ll enthrall them and be back with an army of ghouls to get his revenge and run off with Trelanie in his arms…in the wheelchair.”

  “He’s dead,” Luanne snarled. “Dead. What part of dead don’t you understand?”

  “Ooh,” burping-cloth woman’s eyes shot wide. “The oil of Anubis! Trelanie is furious with Roman, right? So she goes and sleeps with the Maker and he gives her the vial—”

  “Because Trelanie is such a good lay that the Maker is gonna give up the oil of Anubis for one night?” the other teen girl without any piercings at all countered. “I mean, I’d do a lot for some quality naked time with Trelanie, but I wouldn’t be giving up something like that just for a quickie in the sack. No, she’s going to have to give up her soul or something.”

  “Barton would be devastated,” pregnant woman told her. “Trelanie giving up her soul to bring him back from the dead? That’s a bargain he never would have wanted her to make.”

  “Dead!” Luanne shouted. Everyone ignored her.

  “But then Roman can fight the Maker,” burping-cloth woman added enthusiastically. “Trelanie losing her soul pushes him over the edge and gives him the strength to face the Maker and kill him, which would give Trelanie her soul back.”

  “But Roman should be mortally wounded in the fight,” one of the older women said. “And he dies in Trelanie’s arms. Then she and Barton ride off into the sunset…on his wheelchair.”

  “Dead!” Luanne screamed, her voice reaching the pitch of a harpy. “I’m the author. I get to say what happens to these people and Barton does not get Trelanie. He’s just some side character. He’s not sexy. He’s boring and he’s in a wheelchair. And he’s dead. The ghouls killed him. He’s dead and he’s not coming back!”

  Everyone stared at her. And as if on cue, Paula poked her head in the door, a cheerful if somewhat nervous smile on her face as she announced that breakfast was ready.

  I had no doubt brunch would be delicious…and awkward.

  Chapter 7

  By the time I got home, I was wishing I could fast-forward through the rest of the weekend and shove Luanne Trainor on a plane. Brunch had been awkward, as expected, although Luanne had recovered her composure enough to thank Paula for the wonderful food and insist that the woman give her the quinoa pancake recipe. Our hostess’s tears had evaporated at the kind words, and she’d spent the rest of the brunch flitting about like an overly caffeinated butterfly.

  She was the only one. The eleven guests asked their carefully worded questions about how many books would be in the series, if there would be a third series featuring Morgana, and if Luanne had any intentions of revisiting the characters from Infernal Awakenings in the future. Questions about the much-rumored film deal were coyly turned aside by Eva, to be addressed at the actual presentation later that day.

  Things had lightened up a bit as the plates were cleared. The books were signed, and Eva had led a spirited discussion on which actors and actresses should play Roman and Trelanie if the rumors of a film deal were true. No further mention was made of Barton and his sad fate. Still, I was glad to head home, well aware that I’d be turning around and driving back in another few hours.

  Taco greeted me with a meow at the door, purring loudly as he serpentined around my legs. I picked him up, reminding him that I’d fed him earlier that morning. He butted his head against my cheek, so warm and affectionate in my arms that I had no choice but to head for the kitchen and the bag of cat treats I’d hidden in the cabinet next to the flour.

  “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I asked as he chirruped and eagerly took the treat from my fingers.

  “Don’t tell anyone what? That you’re slipping treats to your fat cat? The one you keep putting on a diet?”

  I smiled up at Judge Beck. “These are low-calorie cat treats. Any nutritionist will tell you that a diet is doomed to failure if you deny yourself anything pleasurable at all. I’m just ensuring Taco’s long-term weight-loss success by allowing him the occasional healthy snack.”

  One of Judge Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “Bacon cheese Kitty Nibblers are a healthy snack? The half of a lemon cream cookie you so carelessly dropped on the floor last night is a healthy snack? And wasn’t Taco licking the ground beef bowl from
the meatloaves yesterday?”

  “Look at this face.” I turned my cat and held him up so the judge could better see him. “Can you say ‘no’ to this face? I can’t say ‘no’ to this face.”

  He grinned, taking the cat from my arms. “Okay, but I don’t want to hear you scolding any of us for allowing him the occasional ‘healthy snack.’ Hypocrite.”

  I sighed, wondering if there were such things as cat treadmills. I’d been restricting Taco’s outdoor activity to the enclosed cat-run ever since I’d realized he’d been taking daily jaunts across the street to Mr. Peter’s house and pestering the Lars’ dog, but he really wasn’t getting as much exercise as he used to. Roaming around the house begging for food and watching the world from a six-by-eight enclosed pen wasn’t the same as chasing insects, climbing trees, and trotting around an entire neighborhood. No amount of diet was going to counter his change in activity levels—especially since none of us in the household seemed to be able to resist his pleas for treats.

  Should I start letting him out again? I knew it would make him happy, but I worried he’d be hit by a car crossing the road or mauled by a neighborhood dog. Although he did seem to be car-savvy, and he was pretty good about darting away once a dog decided he’d had enough sassy-cat teasing for the day.

  “What do you think?” I asked the judge. “Should I start letting him outside again? I mean outside of the cat run? He’s so unhappy trapped in here or in the pen, but if something ever happened to him…”

  “It’s your call, Kay.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “That’s not helping me. Stop being a lawyer and weigh in one way or the other.”

  He chuckled and sat my cat down on the floor. “I know this is going to come back to bite me when I start whining about not wanting Madison to go out on a date, or Henry to go skydiving or something, but you can’t wrap Taco in bubble wrap and keep him safe from life. Do everything you can to make sure he’s healthy and taken care of but let him be a cat. Life is short. And cat lives are even shorter. Shouldn’t he be happy chasing grasshoppers and rolling in Suzanne’s catnip patch, even if it means there’s a risk something might happen? Heck, Kay, something might happen here. He could…choke on a chicken bone or run out of lives falling down the stairs or something.”