Missing Marlene (2 page)

“Oh, poor Winky!” Nick wailed.

The doorbell rang.

“Pizza man,” Jane sang out, grateful for the distraction, and they hurried to the front door.

At nine-thirty the next morning Jane stumbled into the office, her arms overflowing with the manuscripts she’d read the night before. Daniel sat at his desk against the far wall, engrossed in a single manuscript perfectly centered on his otherwise empty desk.

He looked especially handsome today in a starched white shirt, which contrasted nicely with his coffee-colored skin, and a narrow maroon tie. His navy blue blazer hung on the back of his chair. Dear Daniel, always so professional. He was one of the most honorable people Jane knew, a young man she felt lucky to call her friend. If she’d been ten years younger, she’d have been jealous of his fiancée, Laura. Oh, hell, Jane
was
jealous of Laura.

Jane dropped the manuscripts on the credenza, where submissions waited to be rejected. She glanced out the window. Across Center Street on the village green, falling leaves swirled around the white Victorian bandstand. A toddler chased the flying bits of color while his white-uniformed nanny looked on.

Jane crossed to the closet, hung up her coat, and pushed the sliding door a little too hard. It shut with a bang. She dropped into the armchair facing Daniel’s desk. “Mail yet?”

He nodded. “Opened, sorted, and on your desk.”

“Any checks?”

“Just one small one. The signing advance on Marilyn McKenna’s Regency romance.”

Jane wrinkled her nose. The commission on that check wouldn’t even cover a week’s expenses. She felt that stab of fear that had visited her so often since Kenneth’s death, when his clients had offered their condolences and decamped to the William Morris Agency and International Creative Management and the other super agencies. Leaving Jane with what had previously been gravy: her roster of about thirty writers of genre fiction—mysteries, romances, horror novels, and the like. Not that Jane didn’t make money selling their books. Most of these writers wrote two or three books a year, earning handsome if not extravagant livings from their advances and royalties. But none of Jane’s clients was at the level that Kenneth’s had been.

She gave Daniel a benign smile. “What else interesting?”

Grinning mischievously, he opened a drawer of his desk, whipped out a cover flat—the cover of a paperback not yet bound onto the book—and held it aloft for inspection.

It was for a historical romance Jane had handled.
Sunset Splendor,
read the swirling gold-foiled title at the top, and at the bottom swirled the author’s name,
Rhonda Redmond.
In between, against a purple-and-gold prairie sunset, an impressively muscled man lay naked on the ground while a voluptuous woman, equally naked, sat astride him, her head thrown back in ecstasy, her mass of fire-colored hair hanging straight down behind her. All that saved the painting from being all-out pornography was a spray of roses in the foreground, their delicate peach and yellow petals strategically positioned.

“Subtle,” Jane said dryly.

“I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Wait till Bertha sees it,” Jane said, referring to the author by her real name—Bertha Stumpf.

“She has. She called this morning. She loves it.” With a chuckle Daniel dropped the cover back into the drawer.

“I don’t think I can take any more mail,” Jane said. “Any calls?”

Abruptly Daniel’s face turned serious, uneasy. From the same drawer he removed a pink message slip.

“Let me guess,” Jane said. “Roger called.”

“He’s still furious. He wants to know what Arliss said.”

Jane stared bleakly into the middle distance.

The continuing problem of Roger Haines, her biggest client....

She and Roger had met, of all places, at Kenneth’s funeral. Jane, standing on the steps of Shady Hills’s St. John’s Episcopal Church after the service, greeting mourners, had found herself face-to-face with this distinguished-looking man in his late forties who explained that when Kenneth had been an editor, he had bought Roger’s first novel. Roger had always admired Kenneth tremendously, he told Jane, offered his sympathy, and left.

Six months later he called Jane and asked if she would meet with him. He had left his agent, he said, and was looking for new representation. He wondered if Jane would be interested. Jane felt insecure at the prospect of handling books without cleavers or cleavage on their covers, but she met with him nonetheless. They agreed to work together. She found him charming—self-effacing yet stinging when he chose to be.

She also found him extremely attractive—a feeling she suppressed as long as she could. After a year she could suppress it no longer. It was a feeling she knew Roger shared. One afternoon he invited her to his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to discuss a new manuscript. By page six they were locked in a devouring kiss. They made love, and if Roger wasn’t Kenneth, he was special in his own way, tender and kind.

But then Jane pulled back. It wasn’t right, it was too soon, he
wasn’t
Kenneth. She needed more time, she told Roger, and he said he understood, he would wait.

In the meantime, they remained close, working to build his career.

Then the quality of his work started to fall.
A Better Place,
his tenth novel, was not his best work, and both Jane and Millennium House, his publisher, told him so. But Millennium accepted the book, hoping it was an anomaly.

It wasn’t. Roger then gave Jane the manuscript of a new novel, something he’d kept a secret until he was finished. He had called it
In the Name of the Mother
. It was, he said, his finest work yet.

After Jane read it, she was sure that either Roger had lost his mind or she had. So she gave the manuscript to Daniel, whose judgment she trusted even more than her own. Daniel was unequivocal. “This,” he pronounced, “is garbage.”

How to tell Roger? Jane stalled as long as she could, until Roger demanded to know what she thought. So she made an appointment to meet with him and, at this time yesterday, arrived at her office resolved to tell him the truth.

The trouble was, she’d left the manuscript, on which she’d written her many comments, at home. Freudian, no doubt. Roger was due in the office within the hour. Daniel, always eager to help, drove to Jane’s house to retrieve it, while Jane waited for Roger.

By the time Roger arrived, Daniel had returned from Jane’s house with the manuscript, and Jane had it ready on her desk. But when she began to talk about it, Roger cut her off. He was clearly agitated; she could tell he’d been drinking. They could discuss the manuscript later, he said. He had more urgent business.

There had been no advertisement in Sunday’s
New York Times Book Review
section for
A Better Place.
He was incensed. He reminded Jane that Millennium had promised them a “big push” for this book. So far they hadn’t given it even a gentle shove. Roger demanded that Jane force the publisher to make good.

After Roger left, Jane phoned his editor, Arliss Krauss, who with characteristic bluntness informed Jane that A
Better Place
was dying in the stores and that Millennium had no intention of throwing good money after bad by promoting it. Or by publishing Roger again.

Jane had hung up in shock, confounded as to how to break this devastating news to poor Roger.

Motionless behind his desk, Daniel was watching her. “So ... what
did
Arliss say?”

“The book’s dead. The returns are already flooding in. They’ll probably get back more copies than they shipped.”

Daniel looked outraged. “Well, they haven’t
done
much for it. I thought they planned a big—”

“Push, that’s right, a big push. Forget it. Not after they got those low advance orders. But you haven’t heard the worst of it. They’re dropping Roger.”

Daniel just stared. The phone rang, and he shook himself from his amazement and answered it. “Jane Stuart Literary Agency. . . . Oh, yes, Roger. . . . Yes, she’s just come in. Let me see if she’s free.” He pressed hold and raised his thin brows in inquiry.

Jane regarded him briefly, then sighed. “All right.” She took the receiver. “ ‘Morning, Roger,” she said with forced cheerfulness.

“Did you speak to Arliss?” Roger’s gravelly tones were anything but cheerful.

“Yes. It’s not good.”

“What did she say?”

“Can you come in? We need to talk.”

“Not today, no. I have an appointment in New York.” He sounded irritated. “Don’t be coy, Jane. Just tell me.”

“No, I want to see you. How about breakfast tomorrow?”

“All right, fine. Meet me at Whipped Cream at ten.”

She handed the receiver back to Daniel.

“Is he going to rewrite the book?” he asked, obviously already thinking ahead to the process of finding Roger a new publisher.

“He will if he wants a career.... This is the last thing I need right now.”

“Did you find Marlene?”

“Sure didn’t. She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yup. Flown the coop. Without even a ‘Dear Jane’ letter.”

“But why?”

“Guess she disliked us as much as we disliked her. I can’t ask her, ‘cause I don’t know where she is.”

“How did she leave?”

“Good question. The car she used was in the driveway. So she either called a cab or got a ride.”

“To where?”

“No idea. Her mother thinks she’s with a friend from Detroit who came out here at the same time Marlene did. Girl named Zena. She’s in New York.”

“So you think someone gave Marlene a ride to Zena’s?”

“Maybe. Maybe Zena herself. We don’t know.”

“Did you call Zena?”

“Not yet. Ivy’s getting her number.”

“How do you know Marlene isn’t with someone else?”

“I don’t. Trouble is, I don’t know any of her friends. She never talked about them. I don’t even know where she went all those late nights.”

Daniel gave her a funny look. She knew what he was thinking: Jane should have made it her business to know what Marlene was up to, where she went. And he was right. Jane had owed the girl at least that. After all, Marlene was the daughter of Jane’s oldest friend, Jane’s responsibility.

“She hung out at the Roadside Tavern,” Daniel said.

She looked at him, nonplussed. “How the hell do you know that?”

“She told me.”

“When?”

“At your party.”

Three weeks ago Jane had thrown a party to celebrate the publication of
A Better Place.
Her home had been the perfect venue for the party, because three weeks earlier Roger had moved from his New York apartment to a rented bungalow Jane had been only too happy to find for him in Shady Hills, only half a mile from her house.

Roger said he had fallen in love with the village during his visits to Jane’s office. He told Jane the peace and quiet would help his writing. And since Shady Hills was only twenty-five miles due west of New York, he could still pop into the city whenever he had to.

Jane went all out for the party. She had it catered by Special Occasions, the people a few doors down the street from her office. She invited Arliss, of course, and Bill Parent, Arliss’s editor in chief, and various others at Millennium who had been involved in the book’s publication. Just for fun, she invited Audrey and Elliott Fairchild from across the street. And, of course, Daniel and Laura were there.

So was Marlene. Jane had considered asking her to help with the party, but then had thought better of it. Everything had to be perfect. So Marlene had mingled as a guest.

“The Roadside Tavern?” Jane said.

Daniel nodded. “On Highland Road.”

“I know where it is.” It was the worst kind of sleazy low-life dump.

“I figured you knew,” Daniel said.

“No.” Jane put a hand to her forehead and shook her head. “But I should have.”

At ten the next morning Jane sat at her usual table in the back left corner of Whipped Cream, the coffee shop across the green from her office.

Jane loved it here. It was just a little storefront shop, but its walls were of old used brick, and in the fall and winter a fire always roared in the fireplace that occupied most of the wall near where she sat. Jane’s friend Ginny had brought Jane’s usual coffee and apple-raisin muffin, and Jane sipped and munched as she made notes on a proposal for a romance novel by one of her clients.

This late in the morning most of the tables were empty. At the other back corner a young woman with frizzy black hair, whom Jane had seen here before, sat reading the
Wall Street Journal
while feeding chunks of muffin to her little girl in the stroller beside her.

Ginny appeared with the coffeepot. “Heat you up?”

“Mm, thanks,” Jane said. The coffee made a satisfying gurgling sound as Ginny refilled her mug. Ginny surveyed the shop with its one other customer, then cast a surreptitious glance behind the counter. Charlie, the shop’s often-grouchy owner, was nowhere in sight.

“He’s still at the post office,” Ginny said softly. “Mind company for a minute?”

“No, I’d love it,” Jane said, grateful for the distraction. Ginny grabbed a mug for herself from the counter, filled it with coffee, and plunked down opposite Jane.

Jane was awfully fond of Ginny. They were both members of the same knitting club, which met every other Tuesday night, and occasionally they went to movies or shopping together. The light of Ginny’s life was Rob, a struggling silver-jewelry designer who was never as romantically demonstrative as Ginny would have liked. Often she and Jane discussed their relationships: Ginny confiding her uncertainty about a future with Rob, Jane confiding her wish to take her relationship with Roger to the next level. Ginny, ever brutally honest, made no secret of her dislike for Roger, whom she called an insincere opportunist. Jane felt her assessment was completely wrong, and they agreed to disagree.

“Roger meeting you?” Ginny asked.

Jane stared at her in surprise. “How’d you know?”

Ginny gave a little shrug. “The way you’re acting. Kind of expectantly nervous.”

Jane laughed. “That about describes it. I am nervous. We’re having major trouble with his publisher.”

“And he thinks it’s all your fault, right?” Ginny shook her head slightly in indignation, her dark curls shaking.

“Well . . . yes, partly,” Jane admitted. “The agent often gets blamed for what the publisher does—or doesn’t do,” she added ruefully.

Ginny said nothing, clearly restraining herself.

“I know you don’t like Roger, Ginny, but I do, and I want to help him. Even if I didn’t . . . care for him, I’d still want to help him as his agent.”

“I know, I know,” Ginny said, and sipped her coffee. “Let’s talk about someone else. How’s that adorable little nine-year-old of yours?”

Jane smiled. “Nick’s fine. But—I forgot to tell you—Marlene left us on Monday.”

Ginny’s eyes grew large. “Left you? Why?”

“I don’t know yet. She must not have liked the job. Tonight I’m going to drive up to a place where she hung out, try to find someone who knew her.”

“What place?”

“The Roadside Tavern.”

Ginny grimaced. “Nice crowd she hung out with. Wear your black leather and studs.”

“Ginny,” Charlie growled. She jumped. Charlie, barely five feet tall, glared at them over the top of the high counter.

“Back to work,” Ginny whispered, and poured more coffee into Jane’s mug.

Alone again, Jane returned her attention to the proposal but soon realized she could no longer concentrate and put it back in her briefcase. She dreaded this meeting with Roger. He was so sensitive behind his facade of urbane cynicism. This news would crush him.

How would Kenneth have handled this? That had always been a little joke between Jane and Kenneth— how would he handle it? But the fact was, Kenneth always did know how to handle a difficult situation, always sailed through with a minimum of ruffled feathers.

He was her mentor in the truest old-fashioned sense of the word. At twenty-two, fresh from the University of Detroit with a B.A. in English and a head full of romantic notions about book publishing, she landed a job at Silver and Payne, one of New York City’s oldest and most prestigious literary agencies. She would be assistant to Kenneth Stuart, former editor’s editor, now one of the city’s hottest agents. During their five years together, Kenneth taught Jane more than she ever imagined about being a literary agent and about publishing in general.

It was during their fifth year together that Kenneth (never “Ken,” he’d told her from the start) encouraged Jane to take on clients of her own. It was also at this time that Jane and Kenneth became lovers. He called her his tall auburn-haired beauty. She moved into his apartment.

For Jane, living with Kenneth was a natural step. She’d been in love with him since the day she started working for him, because he was, quite simply, the most wonderful human being she had ever met: a truly generous man, innocent in his brilliance, totally devoid of pretension.

Leaving Silver and Payne with Kenneth when he started his own literary agency was an equally natural step for Jane. They set up shop in an office Kenneth rented on West Forty-third Street. Every one of Kenneth’s clients left Silver and Payne to go with Kenneth. Jane’s own client list grew.

A year later they married. One month before their first anniversary, Jane discovered she was pregnant. They were overjoyed. “Kids need grass and trees,” Kenneth pronounced, and they embarked on a series of weekend explorations of Connecticut, Westchester, and northern New Jersey, searching for The Perfect Town. That was how they found Shady Hills, six square miles of woods and rolling hills in northern New Jersey’s Morris County.

Hidden among the village’s oaks and maples and pines sat snug Tudor, Colonial, and Victorian homes, many occupied by urban transplants like Kenneth and Jane. In the center of this pastoral haven lay the village green, its centerpiece an ornate white bandstand nestled among lilac bushes. The town still used the bandstand on the Fourth of July. Shading the green were massive oaks, among which ran brick footpaths that connected the bandstand to Center Street, which formed three sides of the green. Along Center Street stood gabled Tudor-style shops—the very picture of an English village.

One of these shops, a former real-estate office tucked between a gift shop and an old-fashioned druggist, was for rent.

From that point everything happened quickly. Jane and Kenneth bought the house on Lilac Way, rented the office, and within two months were living and working in Shady Hills.

Jane worried that the agency’s image would suffer outside New York City, but Kenneth laughed and said a good agent was a good agent in New York City or in Shady Hills or on the moon. Anyway, the New York commuter train passed right through town, so they could travel easily to the city whenever business demanded— making them still “New York agents.” But any clients who didn’t like it could leave. No one did.

Life was good, very good. And when Nicholas was born, Jane, an only child whose parents were both dead, felt her world was complete.

Heaven lasted six years. It ended on the day Kenneth, forty-eight years old, walked out of the Simon & Schuster building on Avenue of the Americas, stepped into the street to hail a cab, and was hit by a produce truck whose twenty-two-year-old driver was tearing into a sandwich and didn’t see Kenneth at the curb.

Jane was told Kenneth never felt a thing. She wondered. She always would.

On the morning of the day Kenneth died, Jane had asked him for some advice on a difficult situation involving one of her clients and her publisher. Later, as Kenneth had walked out of the office to catch the New York train, Jane had reminded him about her problem. So handsome in his navy blue suit, he’d turned to her with a dazzling smile and said he’d come up with a brilliant strategy that he’d explain to her when he got back. He was excited that day, like a little boy, because of the deal he expected to make during his meeting at Simon & Schuster.

As it turned out, the editor he met with wasn’t ready to make the deal. Later, much later, after Kenneth died, Jane, who had taken over representation of the client Kenneth had hoped to make the deal for, called the editor to follow up. The editor was no longer interested, and it seemed to Jane that the reason was that Kenneth was gone.

That was how it had been with Kenneth. He had the kind of magical enthusiasm that got editors excited about a project simply because he was.

Kenneth’s client eventually left the agency.

As for Kenneth’s strategy about her own client, he of course was never able to share it with her. To this day Jane wondered what it was.

Life was funny. Cruel. Or just indifferent. Kenneth would have laughed, and said, “Better get on with getting on, my love,” or something like that. And of course she would. Did. She still had Nick. And the agency.

At that moment Roger appeared through the steamy shop window. He waved to Jane and strode in, smiling heartily. He was underdressed, as usual—no overcoat, just a gray tweed sport jacket over black slacks and a cream-colored silk shirt.

He looked very handsome. She remembered the kiss they’d shared as he’d left her party, the softness of his lips against hers, the tickle of his trim mustache. She felt her face flush hotly.

“ ‘Morning, my dear.” He kissed her cheek, then dropped into the chair opposite hers. “Feeling all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s warm in here.”

He gave a little nod, glancing back at the fireplace. “And how are things?”

“Hectic till I find a new nanny,” she said, though she knew those weren’t the things he meant.

He stared at her. “Why? What happened to Marlene?”

“That’s right—you don’t know. She left Monday.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t spoken to her, so I can only guess she didn’t like the job.”

“Why haven’t you spoken to her? Where did she go?”

“No idea. She never picked Nick up at school. When we got home she was gone.” She was getting tired of telling this story. “Her mother and I are trying to track her down at a friend’s place in New York.” Ivy still hadn’t called with Zena’s number.

Roger looked thoughtful, then seemed to shake himself from his reverie. “So! How is my old friend Arliss Krauss?”

Jane looked down at her half-eaten muffin.

“What is it?” he said. “You’ve got to tell me now.”

“Roger, it’s not good. The book’s doing badly. You know they didn’t ship as many as they’d hoped to, and the returns are heavy already.”

Ginny reappeared with the coffeepot, smiling sweetly. “Coffee, Rog?” she asked, winking at Jane. She knew he hated it when she called him that.

For a moment he didn’t seem to hear her, his gaze locked on Jane. Then he looked up distractedly and nodded. Ginny filled a mug for him and hurried off. Roger looked back at Jane. His lips were pressed tightly together, his nostrils slightly flared.

At last he said, “And they refuse to take any responsibility for that, don’t they?” Before Jane could respond, he rushed on, “How do they expect the book to do
anything
when they do nothing to promote it? They’ve pushed me before. Why won’t they now?”

“Roger, you know they’ve never felt this book was as strong as your others . . .”

“And therefore decided it wouldn’t sell as well, and therefore didn’t bother pushing it, and so what we have here is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” He leaned forward ominously. “They promised us advertising and promotion on this book, and they will keep that promise. You have to be firm with them.”

“It won’t do any good, Roger. They’ve made up their minds. They don’t even—” She stopped. She hadn’t wanted to tell him like this.

“They don’t even what?”

She put down her mug. “They’re dropping your option.”

“What!”

She nodded.

He sat way back, blew out his breath, and looked down at the floor, clearly mortified. “Oh boy.”

Her heart went out to him. “Roger, we have to move forward. There’s no point in fighting Millennium about this. They’re unmovable. The important thing is to start showing your new book right away, find you a new publisher. The sooner the better.”

“You mean before the other publishers find out how badly this book is selling?”

She gave a tiny nod.

He laughed at her. “Don’t be naive. They can find out all they want to know right now.”

“Maybe, but you’ve had too many successes for another publisher to turn you away because of one flop. I know I can place the new book . . . but you’ve got to rewrite it.”

His gaze snapped to her. “I can’t believe you’re harping on that again,” he said, his voice rising. The young mother glanced over, then looked quickly away.

He was stubborn—a quality Jane hated in anyone. She forced herself to stay calm.

“I’m ‘harping’ on it, as you put it, because if you don’t rewrite it, you won’t sell it. It’s as simple as that.”

“Are you saying you won’t submit the book as it is?”

“Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

He shut his mouth tightly, took another deep breath. “Let’s put aside the manuscript for the moment. I’m still not willing to give up on
A Better Place
as easily as you seem to be. I am asking you, as my agent, to meet with Arliss and that cretin she reports to, and demand that they advertise the book and set up the promotion they promised. I’d come to the meeting, but I’d wring Arliss’s neck. Besides, it’s what I pay
you
for. Tell them we’ll sue for breach of contract.”

“Roger, it’s not
in
your contract.”