Jane Bites Back (21 page)

“I was afraid I was going to look like Marie Antoinette,” she told Lucy.

“The bird-shit-facial look went out a few years ago,” Lucy teased.

Jane touched her face. “I had no idea I could look like this,” she said. Then, to her immense surprise, she began to cry. “I had no idea,” she said again.

Lucy put her arms around Jane. “You’ve been a lady for two hundred years,” she said softly. “But somewhere along the line, you forgot how to be a woman.”

Jane laughed as Lucy tried to keep a straight face. “That line is worthy of Bulwer-Lytton,” said Jane. “But I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you.” She dried her eyes with a tissue Lucy produced from a pocket. “I’m never going to be able to do this on my own, you know.”

“It’s really not that difficult,” Lucy said. “Now, let’s see what you have in that closet.”

“Wait a minute,” Jane said. “Just sit with me for a little bit.”

Lucy sat back down on the bed. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Not wrong,” said Jane. “Just a little overwhelming. It really
has
been a long time. For everything. But now I’m a writer again. It’s all happening so quickly.”

“You didn’t think it would, did you,” said Lucy.

Jane shook her head. “No,” she admitted. “I sort of … well, I gave up hoping.”

Lucy hesitated a moment. “Have you really not … been … with anyone since Byron?”

“Oh, I have,” said Jane. “I mean, I’m no Marie Duplessis, but I’ve had a number of affairs of the heart.”

“Affairs of the heart,” Lucy repeated. “In other words, you haven’t had
sex
.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Jane said primly.

“Not even with other vampires?” asked Lucy.

“Especially not with them,” Jane said.

“You never talk about any of that,” Lucy said. “Why not? Don’t you have any vampire friends?”

Jane gave a little laugh. “You make it sound like a garden club,” she said. She thought for a moment, trying to decide how much she wanted to say. It was not a topic she was particularly comfortable speaking about. “I did associate with others,” she said. “For the first fifty or sixty years, I found it pleasant to be with them.”

“Were there a lot of you?” Lucy asked.
“Are
there a lot of you?”

“Not so many,” said Jane. “But at that time we banded together more than we do now. I did have friends,” she continued. “Some of them you’ve even heard of. And no, I’m not going to tell you who they are,” she added before Lucy could ask. “One of the rules is that we don’t expose one another unless it’s absolutely necessary. Anyway, when you first turn, you want to be with those
like yourself. It’s comforting. But over time, I found that beyond
what
we are, we had little in common. I spent less and less time with the others. For the last hundred years, I’ve had virtually no contact with that world.”

“Until now,” said Lucy. “Until Byron showed up.”

“Until Byron,” Jane agreed. “But I’m not doing this for him,” she added. “I’m doing it for me.”

“And maybe a little bit for Walter?” Lucy teased.

“Don’t ruin a lovely moment,” said Jane. She took Lucy’s hand. “You really are very special to me,” she told her. “I hope you know that.”

“I do,” Lucy said. “And you’re special to me.” She stood up, pulling Jane with her. “Which is why I’m going to make sure you don’t wear anything tragic on national television.”

Chapter 22

J
ANE WATCHED THE BAGS GOING AROUND ON THE CONVEYOR BELT.
One by one they were picked up by waiting passengers and wheeled away. They had stopped coming out from the depths of the airport’s underbelly some time ago, and now only three forlorn bags and one box marked
FROZEN FISH
remained. They slowly circled the baggage claim until with a
chunk-chunk-chunk
the machinery ground to a halt.

“Looks like we’ve been stranded on the Island of Lost Luggage,” said a man standing next to Jane. “Might as well get in line.”

He turned and walked away. Jane followed his path and saw that he was heading for a line of about twenty people. They were queued up outside the airline’s baggage claim office, and all of them wore a look of resigned frustration on their faces. Scanning the remaining bags once again in the hope that she’d somehow overlooked her suitcase, Jane gave up and joined them.

Half an hour later she stood in front of a grim-faced woman who didn’t look at her as she said, “Claim ticket.”

Jane handed over the sticker that was stapled to her ticket folder. “Do you know when I can expect my bag?” she asked.

The woman’s grunt held more than a hint of mean-spirited glee, Jane thought. She wondered what kind of person could do such a job day in and day out, dealing with miserable travelers and wayward luggage for hours at a time.
Sadist
, she thought as the woman typed something on a keyboard with undisguised hostility.

“There’s no record of it,” the woman said. “Sorry.”

“No record?” said Jane. “I don’t understand. I have a claim ticket.” She nodded at the ticket, which was still in the woman’s hand.

“There’s no record of it,” the woman repeated.

Jane gave the woman her sweetest smile. “Surely there must be
some
record,” she said.

The woman sighed deeply. “It could be anywhere,” she said in a weary voice. “Albuquerque, New Delhi, Paris. Take your pick. If it’s not in the system, it officially doesn’t exist.”

“But surely—” Jane began.

“Fill this out and send it in,” the woman interrupted, sliding a form toward Jane. “We’ll reimburse you up to a hundred and fifty dollars.” She looked past Jane. “Next,” she said.

Jane started to argue but, sensing the growing irritation of the people behind her, decided there was no point. The woman was clearly not going to be of any further use. Besides, Jane was already going to be late getting to the hotel. It was half past nine, and her interview with the
Entertainment Weekly
reporter was at eleven. Feeling more than a little put out, she headed out the door to the taxi stand.

The trip from O’Hare to the hotel took much longer than Jane expected, and when she finally reached her room after ten minutes at the registration desk it was a quarter to eleven. She barely had time to use the toilet and wash her face before there was a knock on the door.

She opened it to find a woman who seemed impossibly young to be a journalist. Thin as a willow, she was dressed impeccably and her makeup was flawless. Her auburn hair fell about her shoulders in waves and perfectly complemented her green eyes. Jane hated her immediately.

“Hi,” the woman said cheerfully. “I’m Farrah Rubenstein.”

“Farrah,” Jane repeated.

Farrah laughed. “I know, right? My mother was a huge
Charlie’s Angels
fan. My sisters are Kate and Jaclyn. It’s all too retro.” She entered the room without further invitation. “What a great room!” she enthused. “It’s so red!”

“Yes,” Jane said. The young woman’s manner had caught her off guard. She’d been expecting someone older, someone more reserved.
I probably should have looked at the magazine
, she thought. She’d bought a copy to read on the plane, but had fallen
asleep shortly after takeoff and woken up just before landing in Chicago.

“I was so excited when I got this assignment,” Farrah said as she removed her jacket and sat down on one of the chairs in the suite’s living room area. “I love books.”

“Do you?” said Jane politely.

Farrah nodded. “I was a
huge
fan of the Cherry High Gossip Club series when I was in high school,” she said.

Jane suppressed a laugh. The Cherry High books were some of the most vapid books she’d ever come across. They centered around a group of girls who published an anonymous gossip magazine about the goings-on at their upper-class high school. Not surprisingly, the series sold millions of copies, particularly after the television show based on it became a hit.

“Do you know Felicity Bingham?” Farrah asked, naming the author of the series.

“I’m afraid not,” said Jane.

Farrah took a small tape recorder from her bag. “Too bad. I assumed all of you writers know each other,” she said.

Jane sat down on the couch opposite Farrah. “Brakeston isn’t exactly the literary capital of the world,” she said.

“Brakeston?” Farrah repeated, a frown creasing her flawless brow.

“Where I live,” said Jane. “It’s in New York.”

Farrah nodded. “I remember now. Sorry. I’ve been crazy busy this week.”

“It’s quite all right,” Jane said.

Farrah fussed with the tape recorder for a minute while Jane waited. Then she placed it on the table between them. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s start. You’re English, right?”

Jane repeated the story she’d rehearsed in preparation for the interview, and for all the interviews Nick assured her she would be doing. She was from England but had moved to the United States at a young age when her father, a diplomat, was transferred there. She had no siblings. Her parents were both dead. It was tragic and convenient, and Jane told it well.

“That’s pretty much what the bio your publisher sent over said,” Farrah told her. “I tried to find out more on the Internet, but there isn’t anything. Don’t you have a website?”

Jane shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not terribly up-to-date on technology,” she said. “I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“Old-fashioned,” Farrah repeated. “That’s kind of sweet. Usually when I interview people they’re texting and checking their email at the same time.”

She asked a few more tedious questions (What did Jane do for fun? What was her writing day like? How did it feel to have her first novel come out at her age?), all of which Jane answered with what she hoped was charm and wit. Then Farrah cleared her throat and adopted a more serious demeanor.

“Where did you get the idea for the novel?” she asked.

“It’s something I’ve worked on for a number of years,” Jane told her. “The idea first occurred to me when a friend was having a new house built. I started thinking about how intimate the relationship between the builder and the homeowner is. It’s almost a marriage of sorts. Then I came up with the characters of Constance and Charles, and the rest grew from there.”

Farrah nodded vigorously. “I see,” she said. “So they’re real people?”

“Well, no,” Jane replied. “They’re fictional characters based on the experience of a friend.”

“What’s your friend’s name?” asked Farrah.

Jane hesitated. “I don’t think she’d want to be mentioned by name,” she said.

“If it was someone else’s experience, don’t you feel like you—I don’t know—stole it?” said Farrah.

“Stole it?” Jane said, shocked. “No.”

“But it isn’t your story,” Farrah persisted.

“It’s
fiction,”
Jane said. “All fiction is based on some kind of truth. My book is not literally about my friend. It is
inspired
by her.”

“I see,” said Farrah. “Still, don’t you think you should have come up with something of your own?”

Jane looked at the reporter for some time, unsure how to respond. Finally, Farrah spoke again. “I’m sorry for asking these questions,” she said. “But I think we journalists owe it to our readers to print the truth.”

“The truth?” Jane said. “I don’t understand.”

Farrah turned off the tape recorder. “I shouldn’t do this,” she said. “But I love your book, and you seem like a nice person.” She pursed her lips, as if she were trying to solve a math problem. “I got an email,” she said eventually. “A couple of days ago. I don’t know where it came from. It was anonymous. Whoever sent it said that you … borrowed the idea for your book from someone else.”

“Borrowed it?” said Jane. “You mean plagiarized it?”

“I don’t like to use that word,” Farrah said. “But yes, that’s more or less what it said.”

Jane was at a loss for words. Who would accuse her of such a thing? She hadn’t the faintest idea. She had no enemies that she knew of.
Except possibly Byron
, a voice in her head said.

Byron. Would he really do such a thing? She could think of no one else who would want to. But this was low even for him. Did he
really despise her so much?
You did wound his manly pride
, the same voice reminded her.

She could sense Farrah waiting for an answer from her. But how should she proceed? She could protest all she wanted to, but the accusation had already been leveled. Anything she said would sound disingenuous, especially to someone like Farrah, whose idea of investigative journalism was based on the reporting skills of the girls of Cherry High.

“I think it’s important that I address this,” Jane said carefully. “But would you excuse me a moment? There’s something I have to attend to. It will only take a few minutes.”