The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala (3 page)

“Professor Kendrick—‘Call me Kenny.'”

“Oh, heavens, yes. Kenny! I always thought he looked a little bit like Castro. How long has it been? We haven't seen each other in—oh, what? A couple of decades.”

“Twenty-nine years,” Merle said, looking nostalgic. “Remember? We had dinner at that Italian place in D.C. when we bumped into each other after the hearing on acid rain.”

“You're right! How did we let it get to be so long? How long are you in town? You and Connie have got to come over for a drink or dinner before you leave. Joe would love to meet you.”

“Joe? I thought you and Robert—”

“Divorced not long after our D.C. dinner,” Maud said.

“I'm sorry.”

Maud shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt,” Merle said in a way that made me think he had something other than Maud's divorce in mind.

“Let's go say hi to Connie,” Maud said. She grabbed Merle's hand and plunged into the crowd.

This I had to see. I followed in their wake.

The crowd parted before the force of Maud's will (or the jab of her elbows), and in moments she was face-to-face with Constance Aldringham. The fan who was fawning over her gave way, and Maud swooped in to plant air-kisses on either side of Constance's face. “Connie! It's been a long time.”

Constance pulled away, inclined to be startled and offended, but her eyes widened as she recognized Maud. “Maud Bell. In Heaven, Colorado. Who would have thought—?”

“‘Of all the gin joints in all the world,' right?” Maud grinned.

“What have you been doing with yourself? You're so brown.” Constance put a hand to her own cheek, as if to assure herself that it was still smooth as a baby's butt.

“This and that,” Maud said. “Hunting, fishing, building Web sites, blogging. I have a conspiracy blog called Out to Get You dot com. At Berkeley, we used to see conspiracies behind every tree, under every rock. Remember?”

“Some of us outgrew that,” Constance said. “Although”—her voice turned waspish—“if you want an industry simply rife with conspiracies, you should look into publishing. I could tell you stories. . . .”

“I want to hear all of them,” Maud said. “Drinks at my house tonight? Before the ball?”

“We'd love to,” Merle put in before Constance could respond.

She shot him a speculative look, but nodded. “I've
got to get back to my fans,” Constance said, gesturing to the line of people waiting to get books signed. “Merle, it's chilly in here and I left my pashmina at the B and B. Fetch it for me, would you?”

“We'll catch up later.” Maud smiled, and scribbled her address on a bookmark before handing it to Merle. As he took it, I noticed their daughter, Allyson, staring at her parents and Maud from across the room, a plate of cake in her hand. As her gaze went from her father to Maud, her expression went from confused to hostile.

As we moved away, Maud murmured, “Constance Jakes hasn't changed a whit. She's still the same stick-up-her-butt, self-centered prima donna she always was, even at twenty-two. I never did see what Merle saw in her. She treats him like a dog.” There was a wistful note in her voice.

“Joe's a great guy,” I reminded her.

“The love of my life,” she affirmed with no self-consciousness. “But that doesn't mean I purged all my memories, like deleting photos off my computer. The glorious Maud you see before you”—she stopped and swept a mocking hand the length of her torso—“is the sum total of many experiences and adventures: good, bad, stupid, embarrassing, courageous, ill-advised, scary, wonderful, felonious, and more. Joe likes the me that my past has made me. He loves the real me. When you find a man who can say that he knows and loves the true you, the deep-down you with the bits even you don't like, hold on to him. I need a piece of cake.” She headed toward the refreshment table, where I imagined she would take pleasure in plunging the knife into the heart of the cake.

Did Hart love the real me? I put a hand to my mouth, as if I'd said the
L
word instead of merely thinking it. Hart and I had certainly not said it to each other. It was too soon. We'd known each other only since the spring, and been dating for only about six weeks. We were a long way from even thinking about thinking about saying the
L
word. A long way.

A touch on my shoulder made me start. “Miss, can you tell me where the bathrooms are?”

I spun to find myself facing the man who'd come in late. Up close, I could see scalp through his close-shorn hair, and he exuded an odor of stale alcohol. His brown eyes were bloodshot, but his tone was polite. Despite that, he had an air of menace, or maybe desperation, that made me uncomfortable. He clutched an expanding file folder to his chest, twanging the cord that held it closed.

“In the back left corner over there.” I pointed. “Past the self-help books.” Maybe he'd pick one up on the way.

“Thank you.”

I watched as he threaded his way toward the restrooms, wondering again why he was here. Maybe he was homeless and was here for the free cake. I put him out of my mind and moved toward Gemma, who stood surveying the long line of people waiting to get books signed. Her expression was a perfect blend of pride and happiness.

“It's going so well, Amy-Faye,” she said when I came up to her. “Thank you!”

“It was your vision,” I reminded her. “And you convinced the authors to come.”

“I'd met them all before, you know. At Gothicon in San Francisco. It's a convention of all things gothic for people who are into that. It attracts readers, fans of shows like
Sleepy Hollow
, historians . . . all sorts. There are panels, costumes. . . . Tim Burton gave the most amazing speech. He has such a gothic sensibility.” She sighed ecstatically.

“Sounds like fun. Look, I'm going to leave Al in charge here and go over to the high school to make sure things are set up for the auction and writing contest, okay?”

“I'll see you over there in a couple of hours,” Gemma said, turning away to answer a question from a customer.

Snagging a piece of cake on my way, I slipped out Book Bliss's back door to where I'd left my van in the small lot behind the store. It was a perfect fall day with the sky so blue and sharp it felt like I could cut myself on it, and the sunshine warm on my bare arms. It was going down into the thirties at night, but today was a glorious sixty degrees.
This is why I live in Colorado,
I thought, unlocking the van. Earlier I'd loaded the boxes from Gemma's stockroom that contained the auction items, and I peeked in to make sure they were still there. Yep. With the cake balanced on my lap, I was cranking the ignition when someone pulled the passenger-side door open and I jumped.

B
rooke Widefield hopped onto the seat. “Can I come with?”

Grabbing for the cake plate, which had slipped when I jumped, I got frosting on my fingers. I licked them. “You scared me, leaping in the van like that. I thought I was being carjacked.”

“Riiight. Like any self-respecting thief would want a van that said ‘Eventful!' in big green letters on the side.”

She had a point. My wheels weren't exactly inconspicuous. Nor were they the sexy sports car I would have preferred. However, the van was reliable and utilitarian. In my biz, it was more important to be able to cram sixty boxes of giveaway T-shirts, eight folding tables, two dinosaur-shaped piñatas, and a partridge in a pear tree into my vehicle than it was to go from zero to sixty in less than five seconds. I chuckled at the thought of my van getting to sixty in much under a minute and a half. Putting the van in gear, I rumbled out of the lot and turned onto Paradise Boulevard, the main drag through Heaven.

“What's so funny?” Brooke asked, pulling down the visor to check her mascara in the mirror. She removed a smudge.

“Nothing. What did you think of the event?”

“Went great. Your usual bang-up job.” She snitched the cake plate off my lap and broke off a bite and ate it.

“Hey!”

“You said you were on a diet. I'm saving you from yourself. It's what good friends do for each other.” She put on a saintly expression.

“Wow, what a pal.”

“Did you see Lo chatting with that man-god? What did you say his name was, the one who came with Mary Stewart?”

“Lucas. Her brother. No, I didn't notice Lola.” Our friend Lola Paget was a serious woman who'd been a year ahead of Brooke and me in high school, then had studied chemistry at Texas A&M before coming home to Heaven to turn the failing family farm into a profitable nursery. She supported her grandma and her much younger sister, Axie, who worked for me a few hours a week; in fact, she was scheduled to help with the auction setup. It had been a couple of years, at least, since I'd seen Lola show interest in a guy. She always said she was too busy.

“Yeah, it looked like they were having a real heart-to-heart.”

“Well, good for her,” I said, “although if he's only here for a week . . .”

I pulled into the Heaven High School lot, beneath a sign proclaiming that the Heaven Avengers were the 3A state champs in track and field. There were a smattering of cars in the lot, and I remembered the assistant principal telling me we wouldn't be the only ones using the
high school on a Saturday. The basketball team had a practice scheduled in the gym, a robotics group was using a lab to build their entry for a contest, and a Destination Imagination team was rehearsing in a classroom.

“Grab a box,” I told Brooke, opening the van's back doors. I had parked up against the door closest to the auditorium, where we were holding the auction. The sounds of bouncing basketballs greeted us when we entered, even though the gym was two halls over. The auditorium was a chilly, cavernous space, dark until I located a switch that turned on one tiny light, with a stage at the front, sloping aisles, and seats for about four hundred. I noted with approval that the tables and the podium I'd asked for were on the stage.

As we tramped back and forth, carting in the boxes of merchandise for the auction, the decorations for the tables the items would be displayed on, and my other paraphernalia, Brooke said, “Troy and I are meeting another mom-to-be on Tuesday evening.”

Her voice was carefully neutral, the product of two other attempts to arrange a private adoption that had fallen through. She and Troy Widefield Jr., heir to a local auto dealership, and scion of the richest family in Heaven, had married straight out of college. They'd been trying to have a baby for more than five years now, and had recently decided to try to adopt one, much against the wishes of her in-laws, who wanted only blue Widefield blood flowing through the veins of their grandchildren.

“I'll keep my fingers crossed,” I told her. “Is she another teenager?”

Brooke shook her head. “No, she's married with a couple of toddlers. Her husband ran out on her, though, and she can't afford another baby, so she's giving this one up for adoption.”

“How sad.”

“Yeah, it weighs on me some that our joy might come from someone else's misfortune. Anyway,” she continued, in the voice of someone who wants to change the subject, “I told Troy I'm planning to buy something at the auction, something expensive. I think the scholarship is a great cause.”

“What are you going to bid on?”

“I don't know what all's up for sale. That's why I wanted to ride along with you—so I could get a sneak preview.” She grinned.

Light footsteps jogged down the aisle and I looked down from the stage to see a figure trotting toward us. It was too dark to make out who it was until she spoke.

“Hi, Miss Amy-Faye!”

“Am I glad to see you, Axie,” I greeted the girl, Lola's much younger sister. Her real name was Violet, but she professed to hate that and prefer Axie, which was short for “the accident.” She had Lola's features, but none of Lola's solemnity. Her cocoa-colored skin was a couple of shades lighter than Lola's, and her hair corkscrewed to jaw-length, where Lola kept hers shorter. They had the same smile, though, and the dark auditorium felt brighter when Axie beamed at me. “I don't suppose you know how to work the lighting in this place?” I pointed vaguely upward to where I figured the spotlights might be.

“Sure do,” she said. “I took tech theater last semester.”

“Great. We need some light on the stage.”

“Not a prob.” She disappeared up a side aisle and soon the muted clangs of sneakers on metal drifted down. Moments later, three spotlights illuminated the stage, and the floodlights beamed on, as well, blinding me. I blinked my eyes rapidly until they adjusted. Then, the three of us draped the display tables in the dark blue cloths I'd brought, and arranged the auction items upon them. The visiting authors had donated copies of their books, and each offered the opportunity for a winning bidder to name a character in her next book. Gemma had put together baskets with six or eight gothic-themed books, the local movie theater had donated a popcorn bucket that they would fill for a year, and the closest winery had supplied a bottle of Cabernet. Other Heaven merchants had donated auction items, as well. Pride of place went to the three first-edition books, which I propped up on display easels. One was Victoria Holt's
Mistress of Mellyn
, the second was Phyllis Whitney's
The Moonflower
, and the third was by Mary Stewart.

“I'm going to buy this,” Brooke said decisively, running a finger down the spine of
Nine Coaches Waiting
. “I loved Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney when I was in high school. Loved them! It'll be fun to have a first edition. Maybe I'll become a serious book collector. Have you finished
Rebecca
?”

“I'm two chapters from the end. I'll be done before we meet tomorrow. I'm a little weirded out that the
heroine doesn't even have a name. What's up with that?”

“I want the new Mary Stewart to use my name for a character in her next book,” Axie said. She held the certificate that announced that opportunity. “Maybe she'd make me a vampire. That would be sick. I've got forty-three dollars saved from babysitting. Do you think that will be enough?”

“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. I wouldn't pay twenty cents to have my name in a book, but I remembered reading somewhere that people paid a lot (usually in auctions, like this one, that benefited a cause) to have a famous author use their names.

“Did you enter the writing contest, Axie?” Brooke asked.

The girl shook her head. “Nah. Lo wanted me to—she said it would look good on my college applications—but I don't much like creative writing. A friend of mine, Thea, did, though, and she's a finalist!”

Entries for the short story contest had been due two weeks ago and had undergone a preliminary judging by Gemma and my mother, who was not only a former librarian but also a prolific book reviewer. They had whittled the entries down to three, which a local actor would read aloud this afternoon. The guest authors, who had been e-mailed copies of the finalists' stories to select the best one, would announce the winner and award him or her a gift certificate to Book Bliss. I had the finalists' stories in a file folder and I placed it inside the podium's cubby.

“I'm starving,” Brooke announced. “Do your
indentured servants get lunch?” She slung an arm around Axie's shoulders.

“Sure,” I said, taking a twenty out of my wallet. “You fly, I'll buy. I don't want to leave this stuff unattended now that it's set up. And I've got to put up the signs.” I pointed to a stack of signs I'd had made, directing people from the high school's front doors to the auditorium.

“I'll stay,” Axie volunteered. “I can put up the signs and then do some homework if you'll bring me back a sandwich.”

“Homework?” I said suspiciously. “On a Saturday afternoon?”

She grinned sheepishly. “Well, there's this guy I like, Josh, and he's on the robotics team, and he said he would help me with my physics assignment. When I told him I'd be here today, he suggested we study together when the robotics guys break for lunch.”

Something about her airy delivery made me ask, “Do you actually need help with physics?”

“Nah. It's pretty easy. But Josh doesn't need to know that.” She kept her mouth primmed, but her eyes danced with mischief.

“That's a good lesson to learn early,” Brooke said, laughing. “The men in your life don't always need to know everything.” She high-fived Axie and we left.

*   *   *

Brooke and I returned half an hour later, coming in through the high school's front doors, where Al was now seated at a small table, prepared to register bidders and hand out paddles. He was chatting with two
high school girls, friends that Axie had recruited, who were ready to hand out the auction sheets I'd made up and had printed.

“All set?” I asked him.

“Good to go, boss.”

“Can I register now?” Brooke asked, printing her name on the clipboarded form and taking the paddle with the numeral 1 on it that Al handed her. “I'm number one,” she clowned, waving the paddle in the air.

“El supremo,”
Al confirmed.

“No fair using foreign words,” I said. People were trekking in from the parking lot, so I told him to holler if he needed me for anything, and Brooke and I headed to the auditorium. We found Axie and a geeky guy seated decorously in the front row of auditorium chairs, poring over a physics book. Axie introduced us, and the boy shook our hands before making a hasty exit, telling Axie he'd text her later.

“He's cute,” Brooke told Axie.

We didn't have time for a more in-depth assessment of Josh's charms because a voice twanged, “We about ready to get this show on the road?”

Cletis Perry came down the aisle toward us with his bowlegged gait, grin splitting his seamed face, which was the color and texture of a well-used saddle. A white Stetson sat back on his head, showing a shock of white hair tinged with yellow, and a bolo tie dangled from around the neck of his checked shirt. “Dang, it's good to see you again, Amy-Faye. And who are your pretty friends?”

“Brooke, Axie, this is Cletis Perry, auctioneer
extraordinaire and the biggest flirt this side of the Colorado. Don't be fooled by his age.”

“Eighty-two and still goin' strong,” Cletis said, hugging me hard enough to prove the “strong” part. “Let me see what I'm selling. We're going to raise some money today, yes, sirree.” Climbing the steps to reach the stage, he took out a notepad and began examining the items set out on the table.

Before he finished, people started to trickle in. When the clock rolled around to two o'clock, the auditorium was full. Gemma and the authors arrived last, seating themselves in the places I'd reserved for them in the front row. I saw quite a few people from the morning's event, plus my mom, who waved to me from the last row, and my brother, Derek, whose brewpub had donated a beer-tasting party for a group of eight. Kerry and Maud arrived together and joined Brooke, who was standing in the front left corner; they had all volunteered to serve as spotters to figure out where bids were coming from. I was just wondering if Lola was going to make it when she came in, trailing Lucas Stewart and Allyson Aldringham, who were chatting away like they'd known each other for years.
Huh.
Mary Stewart turned and waved to her brother, pointing to the open seat right beside her, but he opted to follow Lola and Allyson to where the rest of the Readaholics stood, and gave his sister a casual wave back. Mary tightened her lips as she faced forward again. The two open seats beside Constance remained unfilled, as well, when Merle didn't appear.

“Are we ready to spend some money, ever'body?”
Cletis shouted into the microphone. He got a loud chorus of
yay
s and
you bet
s in response. Reminding the crowd that they were spending money for a good cause, he opened the bidding on the opportunity to name a character in Constance Aldringham's next book. When the bids reached five hundred dollars in a couple of seconds, I noticed Axie's shoulders slump.

“What's your name, sir?” Cletis asked the winning bidder after bringing down his gavel with a resounding
whack
.

“Nestor Niedernecker,” a rotund man shouted from midway back. “That's a great name for a hero, right?”

The crowd roared with laughter. Constance paled and I could see her planning to make Nestor Niedernecker the smallest of bit characters.

Cletis kept the auction moving as efficiently as he always did, and the Readaholics did a great job as spotters, marking down the winning bidders' numbers. Brooke got the book she wanted, and my mom bid on a basket of books but didn't win it. Only two or three items from the end, Cletis held up a fat manila envelope. He opened it and peered inside. “This item doesn't appear to have a lot number, but there's a note here that says it's an original manuscript of
Never Again, My Lovely
, donated by the author, Fran—”