Chapter 69
“I ask myself: What does someone want and how far will they go to get it?” Tessa could not believe she was saying those words, now, in answer to a “How did you write such a page-turner?” question from the Oakdale Books audience.
She’d made it through her presentation, bestseller-mode fully engaged, and now calculated how much longer she had to pretend she wasn’t consumed with guilt and fear.
Fifteen more minutes of Q and A, then the signing.
She could do it. So many in her audiences wanted to be writers—“just like you,” they’d always say, which meant a bestseller and successful and happy and on book tour, which tonight almost made her collapse with sorrow.
Had they but known that “just like you” meant terrified and blackmailed and haunted and probably a criminal. That “just like you” meant about to lose your livelihood, and your family. And your freedom.
“Does the character want love, for instance? Money? Revenge? Justice? When you know what a character wants, you understand their motivation.” She gestured across the crowded audience, making eye contact, making sure they were interested.
The events manager, Judith Hensle, had rolled the store’s book-filled shelves behind dozens of beige chairs.
Tessa stood behind a wooden podium on an elevated rectangular platform.
The center of attention. Or the target. “You understand their passion. In real life, what do you do when you want something? You go after it. And that is action . And that’s what makes a page-turner. ”
Tessa paused, watching the rapt faces listening to her, nodding, some even taking notes.
The women, in pastel cardigans and pressed jeans, many in periwinkle earrings, dressed for a balmy June night in Des Moines and an hour’s worth of entertainment and conversation about books and writing.
How could the world still look so normal? How could things seem so unchanged?
“Let me ask you a question.” She leaned in, conspiratorial. “Since I’m working on my new book, I’d love your advice. What do you think makes a page-turner?”
The audience laughed, appreciative.
“Secrets!”
“High stakes!”
“Good ones.” Tessa nodded, smiling, pretended to write the words down. “More?”
“Increasing danger.” The voice came from the back of the room.
Tessa’s chin came up, alerting at that voice, and she tried to stand taller to see past the heads and shoulders that blocked it.
No mistake about it. That Harper woman. And now, standing in the back of the room, half-hidden behind a rolling bookshelf, she was taunting her, brazen and fearless.
Just like this morning, speaking words that sounded innocent on the surface, but carried deep and deadly subtext.
Tessa fingered her pearl necklace, thinking about secrets and high stakes and increasing danger. That woman was here. Menacing and audacious. But she could not be allowed to disrupt tonight’s event.
“Do you think justice should always be done?” Tessa asked. “When you read a book, are you disappointed if the bad guys don’t get what’s coming to them?”
“The bad guys should always pay,” the voice came back.
Tessa clutched the molded wood podium in front of her, grounding herself. There was nothing she could do about her knees, which were threatening to give out. She was trapped, surrounded by two hundred people. Trapped.
“Do you agree, everyone?” Tessa asked the room, making herself engaging, making this be a fabulous and memorable writerly conversation, one that the audience would cherish and remember. For better or for worse.
A murmur of agreement, and Tessa went on.
“Do you have to like the main character? Let me ask you that. If they make a mistake, can that be forgiven?”
A hand went up, a woman in a center row with tight ebony curls and periwinkle earrings.
“Yes?” Tessa felt as if she were living in a parallel universe, Happy Tessa fielding questions from an admiring audience, with Miserable Tessa cowering underneath, uncertain and terrified, every element of her life at risk. And the audience had no idea.
Except for one of them.
“Yes, you with the gorgeous earrings. Go ahead.”
“Are you talking about Annabelle?” The woman stood, her neighbors on either side tilting their heads up to watch her.
“Annabelle made some questionable decisions, and some dangerous bargains. But we love her all the same. She knew what she wanted, she knew her truth, and she went after it. Even when it was dangerous. And everyone makes mistakes.” The woman stopped, put a French-manicured hand to her chest. “Oh. Sorry for babbling, I got carried away.”
“No, that’s a terrific insight,” Tessa said.
Everything hung in the balance. It was all she could do not to look at her watch.
She was disappointed she had not heard from librarian Mayzie about the will—she’d been frustratingly unable to find it, and Mayzie had offered to search after hours, even bring it to the bookstore if she succeeded.
She’d been counting on that. “Yes, everyone makes mistakes. And we try to forgive them, if we can.”
“We love you, Tessa,” someone called out. “And Annabelle, too.”
“You’re the best,” Tessa said. “I am so grateful.”
It was only these women who were keeping her sane.
They felt she had changed their lives with her Annabelle book—and little did they know they were now saving hers.
But if she failed to sell enough books tonight, or let this bookstore down, it might be the beginning of the end.
The events manager would grumble, or send a testy report to Waverly: Tessa wasn’t herself . We expected better.
But now Judith Hensle was hurrying toward her; clapping her beringed hands, her short dark-blond hair tamed behind her ears with a periwinkle headband, her face beaming with appreciation.
“Tessa, thank you,” she was saying. “We could talk all night, and you all would stay, wouldn’t you?
We’re grateful the cancellation was a mistake, but as someone said, everyone can make mistakes. As long as there’s a happy ending.”
The audience agreed, one voice.
“Happy endings are my favorite,” Tessa said.
“One more question,” Judith said. “I’ll choose.”
Good luck, Annabelle said.
Hands shot up. Tessa searched for Harper, but she was not in sight; still hiding, or gone. And no Mayzie. She probably hadn’t found anything, and was embarrassed to show up.
Judith closed her eyes, pointed back and forth across around the room like a child’s game. Stopped. Opened her eyes. “Yes. You in the blue earrings.”
Whew, Annabelle said.
“Tessa? Did you find Locket Mom?” A twentysomething in wire-rims, floppy fuchsia T-shirt. “Why’d you take down the photo?”