Chapter 78
What does your main character wish for? Tessa smiled with genuine gratitude as she walked to the podium at Liberty Bell Bookstore, listening to the warm applause from the standing-room-only audience.
She’d read in some how-to-write essay that imagining what your character wished for was the key to every scene.
But if someone had asked her what she wished for now—she adjusted the microphone, centered herself behind the wooden podium, put her book down on the slanted surface in front of her—she would have difficulty articulating it.
She scanned the room, keeping an appreciative expression on her face, but looking for the woman in the car in Des Moines. Did she wish to see her? Or did she wish she wouldn’t?
What Harper didn’t know was that Tessa now had potential ammunition of her own. Unless there was some research land mine that librarian Constance had not uncovered, the gruesome hit-and-run story was not true.
Not true.
And though the depth of her grief for her mother’s tragic deception was unfathomable, Tessa refused to be drawn into the same manipulative trap. Question was, who had set it? And how did Tessa get out?
Since she couldn’t contact her would-be blackmailer, Tessa would have to wait.
“I’m so honored to be here,” she told the bookstore audience.
“And so delighted to see all your periwinkle.” The supportive murmur enveloped her, a contrast to the dark tension she held inside.
She wondered how many other authors were hiding a grim secret, or family drama, or fear, or disappointment.
How many of them were simply pretending, as she was now, to be content and successful?
She was presenting herself as a fictional character, she realized. Someone whose story her audience only thought they knew.
She made it through her speech, made it through the minefield of, as it turned out, benign questions—including one about the earrings, and one about Locket Mom, both of which she answered with a baffled “it’s a mystery, isn’t it?
,” persevered through the signing and, on high alert, eased out of the bookstore and into the Uber.
No one was following her. No one was watching her.
That she saw, at least. When she clicked open her hotel room door, she paused, making sure.
Everything was exactly as she had left it.
Except the red message light on the nightstand phone. Flashing.
“Is there a message for me?” she asked when the clerk answered.
“Yes, Ms. Calloway. It’s from an Olivette Iketa. She says please call.”
Tessa had dug out her cell phone even as she hung up the landline. Found her editor’s contact, clicked it. 10:00 p.m. in Philadelphia, 10:00 p.m. in New York. At least they were in the same time zone. But why would Olivette call the hotel? And so late? And not text?
“Is your phone on silent?” Olivette began before she even said hello.
“I don’t think so…” Tessa paused. Checked. “Oh. It is. I guess I… whatever. What’s up? Why didn’t you text?”
“It’s not a thing I can say in a text. Only in person.”
“Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” Here it came. Had to be. The bad thing.
“Well, it’s the good news and the bad news. Which do you want first?”
Tessa could not read Olivette’s tone. She sat on the edge of the four-poster bed, heart fluttering, and wondering why Olivette couldn’t simply tell her instead of making it into melodrama. Outside her window, the early-summer nighttime lights of the Philadelphia skyline glowed.
“Bad news first.”
“You sure?”
“Olivette. You’re killing me here.”
“We’re canceling tomorrow’s event in Pittsburgh.”
“What? No. No. Completely no. I didn’t cancel, Ollie. I have no idea what’s going on.” Which was semi-true. What would Harper have to gain from this? She sank into the white comforter, wishing she could disappear. They’d made a deal. So much for deals. “I would never—”
“No, no. We canceled. More like postponed. We’re moving Saratoga, too. We’re still puzzled about what happened in Des Moines, but onward.”
“So why—?”
“And that’s the good news. Congratulations. You made the Times list again! DJ finagled the word early. Holding on at number two. I’m afraid the dragon lady is invincible. But yay.”
“Oh. I—fantastic,” Tessa said. “I’ve been worrying all day.”
“Yeah, my bad, I thought DJ was telling you, she thought I was telling you. And then your phone was off.”
“But wait.” Tessa sat up, tried to juggle. “Then why are we canceling Pittsburgh?”
“Because you are going to Boston, sweetie. Best news ever. Annabelle is a network morning show book club pick, and they’re shooting you live in Boston. They want to do it at a bookstore, and we’re arranging that now.”
“What? Really? But I thought—it wasn’t—that’s not how it works. I thought.”
“This is a new thing. It’s incredible. You’re like, the first. Annabelle is such a star.”
Thank you, Annabelle said.
“Are you sure it’s on the up-and-up?” Tessa paused, bit her lip, fearing the worst. “That this isn’t someone messing with us? Like Des Moines?”
“Tessa?” Olivette drew out the word, wary. “Your voice is funny. If someone is—messing with you, as you say, we’re not going to put you on live TV. No matter how many books it would sell. You need to tell me. Now.”
What could she even say? She rolled the dice.
“No, all good, better than good, in every way. It’s wonderful. So—”
“Okay, then. You’ll fly out of Philadelphia tomorrow. Arriving Boston late afternoon. You can stay home overnight, if you want. And then to the bookstore by nine a.m. for the show.”
“Home?” Tessa could barely say the word.
“They’re teasing it on the show tomorrow, but the title of the book is not public. So don’t say a word, not to anyone. We told the bookstores there’s big news, and to trust us, but for now, this is a massive secret. The network’s making a huge deal of it. Having a big reveal.”
“Amazing. Amazing.” Tessa searched for words in this new reality. “I have to tell Henry, though. If I’m coming home.” She laughed. Then stopped, with a flash of imagining what she might see if she showed up unannounced. “So he and the kids can—clean up, at least. Hide all the pizza boxes.”
“Would it be awkward if you waited till tomorrow? Your plane’s at one fifteen, so you could call right before that. The network’s revealing the title tomorrow night on their socials, because they want a crowd at the bookstore. But they told us to keep this under wraps until then.”
“Sure,” Tessa said before she even thought about it.
“However they want. It’s terrific. Thank you.
” She needed to talk to Henry tonight, just to say safe safe , and how would she avoid spilling this?
Still, though, that possibly-stolen schedule would now be incorrect.
Misleading. And would send someone to Pittsburgh. Where Tessa would not be.
“ All This Could Be Yours ,” Olivette was saying. “Looks like that title is coming true.”
“Thank you,” Tessa said. “I hope so.”