Chapter Twelve
Twelve
Melanie Joan placed her phone back on the mahogany table face up, presumably so that she didn’t have to touch it. Spike, Tony, and I stood next to her, reading the texts as they came in.
HACK
TALENTLESS BITCH
DRUNK OLD P.O.S.
DIE
“Lame bunch of insults,” Tony said.
“Very,” Spike said.
Melanie Joan said nothing. I knew how she felt.
It wasn’t the texts themselves. It was the sheer volume of them.
And they kept coming, seconds apart, most of them in all caps, many of them from blocked numbers.
There were pictures, too—photoshopped depictions of Melanie Joan in grotesque situations.
Those were a lot worse than the texts. She stared at her screen.
“Why is this happening?” she said. “People like me. They’ve always liked me. ”
I understood. Melanie Joan Hall thrived on the love of strangers. She had worked for decades to earn it. But now she was seeing them turn on her, in real time. On her own phone. It seemed almost like a coordinated attack. “Turn your phone off,” I said.
“I can’t. What if…What if Evan calls…Or…”
“He can call me,” I said.
“Or me,” Tony said. “I’m your agent. Come on, MJ.”
Another picture text arrived. Melanie Joan reached out to enlarge it, but I got there first. I took the phone and handed it back to Harold and told him to keep it in a safe place. Obligingly, he slipped it back into his jacket pocket.
“You should go to a hotel, Melanie Joan,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because,” I said, “if they have your number, they might also have this address.”
“Oh…” she said.
“Sunny’s right,” Tony said.
“I’m sorry to have distressed you, ma’am,” Harold said. “I hadn’t read any of the texts. I thought it might be something urgent.”
“It is urgent,” Melanie Joan said. “It’s my entire life falling to pieces.”
Tony told Melanie Joan that he’d book a room for her at the Four Seasons under an assumed name. He asked if she wanted to use the one she usually did.
She shook her head. “Make it for Joanie Chandler,” she said.
“Okay.” Tony walked to the corner of the room and put his back to us.
“Joanie Chandler?” Spike said.
Melanie Joan crossed her arms over her chest, a faraway look in her eyes. “When I was in eighth grade, I had a crush on a boy named Eric Chandler,” she said. “I must have written Joanie Chandler in my notebook a thousand times. Joanie Chandler, Joanie Chandler, Joanie Chandler…”
Spike cast a worried glance at me. I returned it.
“The Spring Revels happened at the end of the year. The last song was ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Eric asked me to dance. I felt like I was dreaming. We kept slow-dancing, even after the song got fast.”
“We’ll fix this, Melanie Joan,” I said.
She kept talking, as though she were alone in the room.
“Eric owns a diner now, back in Utica. A couple years ago, I did a signing there at the library. First time I’d been home in probably thirty years.
Eric showed up with his wife and five kids.
The place was packed. But I recognized him instantly…
” She looked at me finally. “Five kids, could you imagine?”
“No,” I said. “I couldn’t.”
“It’s interesting, isn’t it? Thinking about what your life might be like if you’d been more open to the roads not taken?”
“Melanie Joan, I promise I will make you glad you don’t have five kids and a diner in Utica.”
“That’s a tough promise to keep.”
Melanie Joan’s phone vibrated in Harold’s pocket, again and again and again. He plucked it out and turned it off. “My apologies,” he said.
I told Melanie Joan and Spike that I was going to head back to my office and do what I could as far as finding Natalie Blythe.
“Can you stay with me, Spike?” Melanie Joan said.
“Of course,” Spike said. He put Rosie on the floor.
I reattached her leash. I called out a quick “See ya!” to Tony while he was still making the reservation.
That was the best way to say goodbye to Tony Gault—no fuss, no awkwardness.
No conversation. Talk about the road not taken…
Though, to be fair, Tony had always been more of a pit stop.
—
Rosie and I had just about reached my office when I heard someone shouting my name. I turned around. Tony Gault was jogging toward me in that perfect suit of his. “Oh, for God’s sakes,” I whispered.
“Man, you walk fast,” he said, once he reached me. “You and that little stubby-legged dog. What do you do, take her on the treadmill?”
“Rosie is naturally athletic,” I said. “What do you want, Tony?”
Rosie strained at the leash. I pulled a non-rawhide bone out of my purse and gave it to her.
I figured that would occupy her for about two minutes, which was all I needed to spend with Tony Gault.
He was still catching his breath. I wasn’t winded at all, which I found strangely satisfying.
He ran a hand across his forehead. His Rolex gleamed.
“Back at Melanie Joan’s place,” he said, “you asked me what I know about Natalie Blythe.”
Now he had my attention. “Yes? What is it?”
He took a step closer to me. Instinctively, I took a step back. “Promise me first,” he said, “that you won’t tell Melanie Joan.”