G Malliet - Death and the Lit Chick

"It's fine," he said at last. "The first fifty pages are really quite good, I think." He neglected to mention he had been stuck at page fifty-one for perhaps the last three months, and was growing more certain those pages would soon join the ever-growing pile of fifty-page beginnings in his bottom desk drawer.

"Do you think Ninette Thomson is really doing the best job for you?" Mrs. Chatley asked, with one of the stunning reversions to her old self that kept him alive in hope for her condition. "I keep reading in those publishing magazines of yours about this Jay person."

"Jay Fforde?" Winston asked. Did she seriously think that was an option? Jay was far out of Winston's league, a star agent dwelling amongst the Lotus Eaters of Hollywood and Pinewood. Winston had a realistic enough assessment of his gifts to recognize that they didn't translate well to the cinematic.

"I couldn't leave Ninette, mother. After all these years, it wouldn't be right," he said. "More tea?"

Joan Elksworthy said, "I'm surprised you didn't just stay in Edinburgh with the conference so near, Rachel."

The two friends were splashing out on afternoon tea at Fortnum amp; Mason's-a rare, guilty indulgence. They had seen each other seldom in the decades since they'd been girls at school together. Rachel had married a Church of Scotland minister, Joan an American who had carried her off to Washington, D.C. When she left the brief marriage, she retained the name and remained in the United States-moving to Santa Fe to write her crime stories. The only sign she was sometimes homesick was that she chose to set all her books in the west of Scotland.

"Didn't I say? I had to fly up to London to stay with my daughter's infants. She's got legs, you know," said Rachel.

Joan interpreted this correctly to mean Rachel's daughter was again having trouble with her legs. Varicose veins, most likely, from the three stone of extra weight she carried around since the twins arrived, but Joan would have stabbed herself with one of the tearoom's lovely pudding forks before saying so.

"I see. You had to come down, did you?" she said.

Rachel Twalley smiled. "Can I help it if they're the world's most beautiful-not to mention gifted and intelligent-grandchildren?" A waiter approached to verify they had enough hot water in the pot, then glided soundlessly away. Rachel looked around her at the white tablecloths and glittering glassware, sank further back in her plush chair, and sighed. This, indeed, was the life.

"I'll be taking the train Thursday to Edinburgh," Joan said. "Should we arrange to travel together then?"

Rachel shook her head.

"Can't. I have to head back straightaway-even though most of the work for the conference is done. I'll never volunteer for this sort of thing again, I can tell you that. What with the program, registration, sponsorships, coordinating everything with the hotel-getting volunteers for all that is well nigh impossible these days. Then there's all the usual internecine squabbling. I should have known: The village fete last time took years off my life."

"I wish you were staying with us at Dalmorton Castle," said Joan. "We could've treated ourselves to the mud cure, you and I."

"I wish, too. I've always wanted to wallow in mud-in a manner of speaking. But I have to be on the ground at the Luxor, rallying the troops, who only lurch into action when someone is keeping an eye on them. I must say, it was jolly nice of your publisher to arrange all this for you. I've heard Dalmorton is such a lovely place."

"It's all in lieu of bigger advances, you watch. I can't imagine why I'm included, to tell you the truth. Kimberlee Kalder is all that's on Lord Easterbrook's mind these days."

"Humph," said Rachel. "I don't care if I never hear the name again."

Joan smiled. "The cozy mystery is dead, haven't you heard?" She waved an imaginary (pink) flag. "Long live Chick Lit."

"I tried to read that thing of hers," Rachel said, adding hastily, "I didn't buy it, never fear, I got it from the library. It was just absurd. Pink, and silly. 'Will he call, or won't he?' Romance via mobile and e-mail." She sniffed. "Not the way things were in my day. And what is it with the shoes, anyway? If I'd spent that kind of money on shoes my Harry'd have shown me the door tout de suite and no mistake, minister's wife or no. As for plot-the whole thing seemed more an excuse to skewer people she didn't like. Which seemed to be everyone."

"But you read the whole thing," said Joan. It was a gentle question. Why shouldn't Rachel have read the whole thing? She'd have been nearly alone among the women-and many of the men-of the English-speaking nations had she not.

Rachel, crinkling her face apologetically, admitted, "They are sort of like chocolates, those books. Actually, more like swallowing a box of licorice all-sorts. But I do try to move with the times. I don't exactly approve, mind."

"Well, if there's one thing these books do prove," said Joan, "it's that men haven't improved one bit since we were girls."

Rachel nodded somberly. "Have you met Kimberlee Kalder?"

"Once."

"Really? And what's she like?"

Joan hesitated, toying with her butter knife. It went against her grain to disparage a fellow author. In the latest incident, Joan's American publisher had approached Kimberlee about writing a blurb for the back cover of Joan's latest book-since Joan had been instrumental in bringing Kimberlee to the attention of the Americans. But Kimberlee had flat-out refused. As the publisher reported later, Kimberlee's exact words were, "There's nothing in it for me, so why in hell should I?"

"What is Kimberlee Kalder like, you ask?" Joan looked straight at Rachel. "Pure poison."

Lord Easterbrook sat at his desk, staring at a spreadsheet on his monitor, scrolling back and forth with his computer mouse to read the numbers in the outer columns. He accidentally struck the wrong key and the whole thing disappeared. He let out a bellow that set the eighteenth-century glass rattling in the windowpanes.

His youthful assistant, well-used to these technical emergencies, came rushing in-a pretty girl in her mid-twenties, dressed in black and white. A no-nonsense type whose crisp demeanor nicely kept Easterbrook's querulousness at bay. She'd become adept at coping whenever he threw his toys out of the pram. Now she deftly tapped at Easterbrook's keyboard until the vanished document reappeared.

"Haven't I told you then?" she said. "Stay away from that delete key and you'll be fine."

"I was never near the blasted delete key. Print the infernal thing out for me, will you? On good old-fashioned paper. Oh, and tell my wife I'll be late."

"Yes, sir." And the young woman went to do as she was told. Her great-gran was the same way: She'd never quite resigned herself to any invention introduced since the telephone, and even that she thought was full of "rays," whatever that meant.

Left alone five minutes later, Lord Easterbrook perused the rescued document, now safely consigned to paper. On the mend, he thought, on the mend. Like Scholastic before J. K. Rowling came along, his was a tiny press, its prestige and respectability owing more to longevity than anything like profitability. Who, after all, would expect to turn anything like a real profit on a house specializing in crime novels?

Rumor had long had it in the City that Easterbrook simply kept Deadly Dagger Press on as a rich man's hobby. Like those fools knew anything, he thought. But then, Kimberlee Kalder had come along, rising from the submission pile like-well, like Venus rising from the sea. That his assistant, not he, had recognized the potential at once was something he often conveniently forgot. Thanks to Kimberlee, silly name and all, Dagger was, to continue the metaphor, afloat.