Chapter Thirty
Thirty
I told Tony I’d call him later. Then I stood up and set about scanning the crowd for Melanie Joan, who was much less imposing physically than she was vocally.
When I spotted her, she was elbowing her way past two college-aged guys in Red Sox T-shirts, nearly upending their beers in the process.
“Melanie Joan!”
“Sunny, thank God.” Melanie Joan rushed at me and threw her arms around my shoulders. She smelled of Bottega Veneta perfume and gin.
She took a step back and smiled. “You look wonderful,” she said, as though she hadn’t just seen me a few hours ago.
“Thanks,” I said. “You, too.”
Melanie Joan had changed into jeans and a black silk blouse and slicked her hair into a chignon. Chic as ever. But her cheeks were flushed, her eyes a bit wild. I wondered how much gin she’d had, and where she’d been drinking it.
“Where have you been?”
“Terrorizing your poor assistant again,” she said. “Good thing he’s never been trusted with any state secrets. He gave up your location very easily.”
“Did Blake tell you why I’m here?”
She shook her head.
“I was going to meet Leila Donnelly. She said she had some important information for me, and to keep it to myself.”
“She contacted you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Couple hours ago,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve obviously been stood up, so all bets are off.”
“Wait,” Melanie Joan said. “You haven’t talked to the press about her yet, have you?”
I shook my head.
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Just Tony. He said we should keep it to ourselves.”
“Thank God.”
“Why?”
A huge group of patrons started chanting Bregman’s name so loudly, you’d have thought he’d just been chosen as Pope.
“Can we go somewhere quieter?” Melanie Joan asked.
“Absolutely,” I said.
She waited for me to settle my tab, and we walked out onto Causeway Street.
It was well past six, but the air was as warm and thick and bright as it had been at noontime.
These endless summer days were starting to feel oppressive.
We moved to the side so a cluster of twentysomethings could get past us and into Banners.
It was hard to believe they were going in there willingly, but obviously I was in the minority as far as mass baseball viewings were concerned.
“It’s good to be out of there,” I said.
Melanie Joan nodded. “Let’s walk,” she said.
We walked in silence for a little while. As always, I found myself racing to keep up with her. I wondered how many steps she got in on an average day. The number was probably staggering.
Once we’d cleared a few blocks, I touched her arm. “What is going on with you?” I asked.
She let out a breath. “Sunny, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said. “And I’ve made a decision.”
“Yeah?”
“We should just let this whole Leila Donnelly thing go.”
I stopped walking and stared at her. “What? Why?”
“I’ve been replaying everything I’ve done over the past few days over and over in my mind. I pretended all of those things had been done by someone else—an acquaintance I was hearing about. And it hit me, Sunny.”
“What?”
She started walking again. “I don’t like the person I’ve become.”
I took off after her. “What are you talking about? You were trolled by an arrogant bitch and her sock puppet,” I said. “She tanked your memoir before it could even be released. Who could blame you for acting out a little?”
“You’re being too charitable.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I want you to get your fans back. And I want to get even with Leila Donnelly. Don’t you?”
She shrugged.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Melanie Joan Hall?”
“I don’t know, Sunny. Maybe Leila Donnelly was right. Maybe I really am washed-up and out of touch. And old.”
“Stop it.”
“Maybe I’ve been privileged for so long that my memoir is unrelatable. Maybe Leila Donnelly’s books are better than I think they are, and this was the universe’s way of showing me that I should…I don’t know. Stop writing. Travel. Live a different kind of life. Maybe go back to Utica.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not.”
She stopped walking. I was grateful.
Melanie Joan turned and faced me. Her mascara was smudged.
Her eyes glistened. “For the last thirty years, I’ve put every ounce of my energy into being a bestselling author.
I’ve worked so damn hard on the books and even harder on this…
this persona I’ve created. And look where it’s gotten me. The entire world hates me now.”
“We can change that.”
“I don’t think I want to,” she said. “I know that might sound weird.”
“Might?”
“Everything happens for a reason, Sunny.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does. And you know what else? I should thank Leila Donnelly.”
I stared at her. “Are you drunk?”
“No. I’m just seeing myself. Realistically, for once. And what I truly am…is too old for this shit.”
I took her by both shoulders and stared into her eyes.
“Listen to me,” I said. “I’m going to get us an Uber.
We’re going back to your hotel, and you’re going to eat a nice meal and get a good night’s sleep.
And then tomorrow morning, I’ll come by and you can tell me whether or not you still feel the same about yourself, your life, and Leila fucking Donnelly. ”
She sighed.
“Please.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve put in a lot of hard and dangerous work for you, Melanie Joan Hall. It’s the least you could do for me in return.”
She took a long, deep breath, in and out. It reminded me of the yogic breathing Natalie Blythe had done the previous afternoon.
“I’ll do it,” she said, “if you join me for dinner.”
“Of course,” I said.
We Ubered back to the Ritz-Carlton and I went up to Melanie Joan’s suite with her. Together, we called Tony, and Melanie Joan promised him, with Harold and me as her witnesses, that she would not attempt to escape again.
We ordered up steaks and Caesar salad and champagne from room service, and the three of us talked about our favorite TV series and the brutal summer weather and the best restaurants in Boston and L.A.
and London and New York. Melanie Joan and I reminisced about the case that first brought us together—that deranged, homicidal ex of hers—and how our lives had changed since then.
We talked about Richie and Rosie and Spike and my parents and Harold’s grandson and cooking and music and politics and Broadway shows.
We talked about anything and everything in the world and in our lives—except for where Melanie Joan had been during the past few hours.
I was aware of that omission, but it didn’t seem to matter. Not until the next morning, when I was back at my loft and in bed with Rosie and I was awakened yet again by a phone call from Tony Gault. “Can you and Spike come to Connecticut with me?” he said as I struggled to open my eyes.
“Why?” I said.
“State Police want to question us.”
I said it again. “Why?”
“Leila Donnelly has been murdered. And as far as I can tell, Melanie Joan is a suspect.”