One
There were marigolds in her salad, bright spiky orange petals among the radicchio. With a groan of disgust, Jane pushed the plate away.
Across the table, Bertha looked up from her own identical salad, crunching with gusto on a mouthful of greens. “You don’t like it?” she asked, eyes wide with concern.
“No,” Jane said petulantly, “and I don’t like this restaurant, either.” Why had she agreed to have lunch here? The establishment, called Dig, was, in Jane’s opinion, one of the most pretentious of New York’s expense-account lunch spots. Faux archaeological “finds” that looked like gargantuan stone bowls hung by massive chains from the ceiling of the cavernous room. There happened to be one of these bowls directly over Jane’s head, and every so often she cast a wary glance upward at its grimy bottom, wondering how much it weighed. A ton? Two?
“I’m sorry, Jane,” Bertha said. “I should have suggested something more . . . down-to-earth. Maybe Smith and Wollensky, or Gallagher’s.”
Jane forced a smile and shrugged. Where they ate, she realized, didn’t really matter. It was self-centered Bertha she disliked more than she could dislike any restaurant. But Bertha was one of the most successful clients of Jane’s literary agency, a writer of historical romances beloved by hundreds of thousands, and once in a while Jane was obliged to lunch with her because, unfortunately, Bertha lived here in New York City, no more than twenty-five miles east of Shady Hills, the village in northern New Jersey where Jane lived and worked.
Bertha was a pouter. That was what Jane disliked about her most. In fact, Bertha was pouting now, her lower lip pushed out like a child’s, her pale blue eyes sullenly downcast. With her index finger she played with a lock of her badly dyed yellow hair—a yellow, Jane realized, that was uncannily close to that of the marigolds in their salads.
“Jane,” Bertha said, “have I done something to offend you?”
“Offend me?” Jane feigned horror. “No, Bertha, of course not.” I just don’t like you. “What makes you ask that?”
“You’re not yourself today.”
“Oh, yeah? Who am I?”
Bertha looked impatient. “Come on, Jane, we’ve been working together too long for you not to be honest with me. We’re friends. What’s wrong?”
Yes, they’d been working together a long time—four years—and for the commissions she earned on Bertha’s novels, written under the famous pseudonym of Rhonda Redmond, Jane was grateful. But Jane rarely allowed herself to become true friends with her clients. She’d tried that once, had become far more than just friends with one of her clients, and the result had been disastrous.
Besides, Jane wasn’t sure herself what was making her so grouchy, other than having to take Bertha to lunch.
“Is it that you have a birthday coming up?” Bertha asked in a coy voice, watching Jane obliquely.
Jane looked at her sharply. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve always known your birthday. Don’t you remember—when I first met you, I asked you your astrological sign and you told me your birthday.”
“Oh, right.” Yet another reason she disliked Bertha, who had made Jane’s astrological sign an important criterion in her decision as to whether to hire Jane. Thank heavens Jane’s moon had been in the seventh house, or whatever had happened to be right for Bertha to sign on.
But despite her irritating qualities, Bertha was perceptive, and she was right—Jane had been feeling depressed at the thought of her upcoming thirty-ninth birthday.
“It’s May 26, right?” Bertha said.
“Right.”
“Mm.” Bertha nodded as if suddenly understanding everything. “You’re already lonely without Kenneth, and this is an especially bad time for you in that respect.”
“What respect?”
“Being with people. Your natural tendency right now is to avoid people, to be reclusive. But you have to fight that tendency.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else stay lonely!”
“Bertha,” Jane said with exasperation, “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” But to herself she admitted Bertha was right. She was lonelier these days than she could ever remember feeling in the two and a half years since Kenneth’s death. She had told herself that time would make the loss easier to bear, but it had done the exact opposite. The longer he was gone, the more she missed him. He had, after all, been not only her husband, the father of Nicholas, but also her business partner, the other (and principal) literary agent at the Kenneth Stuart Agency. Thus he had been the person with whom she’d spent nearly all of her time. There would never be another Kenneth—of that she had been bitterly reminded half a year ago when she had hoped to take an intimate friendship with one of her clients to an even more intimate level. In the end she had lost him as both a friend and a client—and realized how faulty her judgment could be.
The waiter approached their table. “Are you ladies finished with your salads?”
“Quite,” Jane said, watching him take Bertha’s empty plate.
He frowned down at Jane’s salad, barely touched. “You didn’t care for it?”
“I like to keep my flowers in the garden, thanks,” Jane said, but the young man didn’t hear her because he had already stepped away to take plates off a tray held by a white-aproned young woman who had followed him from the kitchen.
“Now then,” the young man said, placing a plate before Bertha, “for you we have the warm buffalo calzone with eggplant chutney.”
Bertha smiled and eyed the plate eagerly, like a child. “Yum.”
“And for the other lady, the free-range chicken with the yucca frittata.”
“Ooh, doesn’t that look nice,” Bertha commented, leaning forward to study Jane’s plate. “Jane, you must try this buffalo. It’s simply heavenly. Have you ever had it?”
Jane had, once. It had tasted like liver. “No, thanks,” she told Bertha with a smile, and cut into her chicken. She’d figured there wasn’t much they could do to chicken. As for the yucca frittata, she had no intention of even touching it. With her knife she pushed it to the extreme edge of her plate.
When Jane looked up, Bertha was watching disapprovingly. “No sense of adventure.”
“What do you mean, no sense of adventure? This chicken is free-range.”
Bertha shrugged. “All that means is that it was allowed to forage.”
And eat bugs and worms, Jane thought. My goodness, she told herself, I am in a bad way. Maybe Bertha was right. Maybe the cure for her funk was to do something new, get out more, see people.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Bertha said, cutting her buffalo.
Good, Jane thought. Keep it up and maybe someday you’ll be a decent writer. Then she felt ashamed at such a mean thought and made an effort to listen to Bertha.
“This year,” Bertha said, “the annual convention of Romance Authors Together is in New York City. June 17 through 19—Thursday through Saturday. Why don’t you come, circulate, maybe give a workshop?”
“A workshop? About what?”
“Since it is a romance convention, what about—romance!” This was Bertha being sarcastic.
“What about it?”
“I don’t know, Jane, think of something! What your agency is looking for . . . the qualities you look for in the books you take on . . . what constitutes the perfect client!” Bertha threw back her head and laughed. “You and I should give that one together!”
Jane would have laughed, too, but there was a very good possibility Bertha was serious. Could she actually consider herself the perfect client?
“Nah,” Jane said. “I’m not a convention person. Can’t stand people swarming around me. And some of those romance writers—you know how catty and backbiting they can be.”
Bertha seemed to take her remark as a personal affront. She looked on the verge of pouting again. “Present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Oh, come on, Jane.” Now Bertha was absolutely pleading. “It would be so good for you. A workshop is about fifty minutes long, with ten minutes for question-and-answer. An hour. What’s the big deal?”
Jane had to smile. “You’ve been put up to this, haven’t you? Someone asked you to recruit me?”
Bertha seemed about to protest, then to decide it was no use. She looked down, abashed. “Yes,” she whispered. Then she seemed to fill with new courage. “You should be flattered. The people on the board really want you, Jane. You have no idea what an excellent reputation you have. Besides, after that piece in People . . .”
Not that again. Two months ago the magazine had finally run its profile of Jane and her fellow inhabitants of Shady Hills, where last fall Jane—with the help of her tortoiseshell cat, Winky—had solved the mystery of Jane’s missing nanny, Marlene.
Bertha had bent over to rummage around in her bag and now sat up brandishing the magazine, folded to display a half-page photo of Jane sitting on her sofa with her assistant, Daniel, and his fianceée, Laura. Above the photo ran a headline in bold capital letters: AGENT OF JUSTICE and below it: “Book peddler Jane Stuart is North Jersey’s Miss Marple.”
Jane rolled her eyes. The notion of being profiled in the magazine had sounded fun at first, and the whole village had gotten into the act: On the following page was a shot of hundreds of Shady Hills residents, all in matching detective-style trench coats, standing in a huge cluster on the green, the white Victorian bandstand behind them.
But now the idea of making her search for Marlene the subject of one of the magazine’s lighthearted human-interest pieces seemed obscene to Jane, and she inwardly cringed whenever she thought of it.
Bertha giggled. “I still can’t believe it. You can’t buy this kind of publicity. Anybody who didn’t know who you were certainly knows now! You owe it to yourself to cash in on this exposure.”
“I don’t want exposure,” Jane said. “I want clients.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. People who are considering approaching you to represent them will have a chance to meet you at the RAT convention. It’s the largest writers’ convention in the country! Think of the possibilities!”
It was true that Jane needed more clients. Her roster of mostly B-level writers of genre novels barely provided her with a living and allowed her to pay Daniel and Florence, her son Nick’s nanny. Jane realized now that she’d known she would eventually have to get out there and beat the bushes for new business. She supposed this was as good a time as any—a better time than any, if Bertha was right. But Jane did hate these things.
She sat pondering for a moment, while Bertha watched her, eyes wide.
“All right,” Jane said at last, “but on one condition. That Daniel present my workshop with me.”
“I’m sure that’s fine,” Bertha said. She smiled suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows. “He’s dreamy.”
“He’s also half your age, Bertha Stumpf.”
“Age!” Bertha dismissed the whole issue with a flip of her chubby hand. “I’m surprised you didn’t point out that he’s African-American.”
“I think age matters more. But it’s a moot point, because he’s engaged. To a Caucasian woman!”
“Jane.” Bertha leaned forward, her tone that of a parent trying to be patient while lecturing a child. “Love is love! Love is the answer! C’est l’amour! Love knows no color or age. Love doesn’t even know time!”
Oh, brother. Jane remembered that Bertha’s last novel had been a time-travel romance. Jane felt a wave of nausea coming on. Bertha was quickly sliding into Rhonda Redmond mode. Was it too soon to leave?
“Speaking of love”—Bertha leaned even farther forward, eyebrows rising—”who knows who you might meet at the convention?”
Jane looked at her aghast. “You mean a man? At the RAT convention?”
“Why not? There are male romance writers, you know. And some of your fellow speakers are eligible male agents and editors. It’s just one more reason you should attend.”
“I’ve already said I would!”
“I know, I know,” Bertha said, as if deciding to let up on Jane. “Now,” she said briskly, “I’ll need a brief bio on both you and Daniel, and also a nice photo of each of you for the convention program booklet. Oh, and a line or two describing your workshop.”
Jane, who was fully aware of her own absentmindedness, pulled a small notebook from her purse and jotted these things down.
As their waiter appeared to remove their plates and take their coffee order, Bertha changed the subject to the plot of her current romance, a vintage Rhonda Redmond about a prim English heiress who is separated from her party during a tour of the Sahara and found wandering half-dazed by a darkly dangerous sheikh. Bertha was calling it Casbah.
It was a good forty-five minutes more before Jane felt comfortable looking at her watch and exclaiming that she’d better get back to the office.
Outside on the sidewalk, Bertha gave Jane a hug. “Happy birthday. Now don’t forget those things I need. And thanks for lunch, sweetie. We really must do it more often.”
Sweetie? Jane forced a big smile and waved as she backed toward Seventh Avenue, where she would hail a cab that would take her to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and her bus to New Jersey.
At the corner of Forty-eighth and Seventh, she turned her head sharply when she passed a man who for an instant she thought was Kenneth. Like Kenneth, he was tall and lanky, with sandy hair and light green eyes. She almost called out to him before catching herself.
It wasn’t the first time that had happened. Bertha was right. Jane needed a man in her life.
Well, Jane reflected, at least she wouldn’t have to see Bertha again until the RAT convention, which Jane was already regretting having agreed to. Beyond that, who knew when she would have to see Bertha again? Lunch with Bertha Stumpf was like jury duty: Get it over with and you’re left alone for two years. Laughing at this thought, Jane stepped off the curb at Seventh Avenue and hailed a passing cab.
At the Port Authority she started for her bus’s gate, then realized she was starving and veered toward a snack bar for a slice of pizza.
At the precise moment Jane entered the office, Daniel uttered a curse she had never heard him utter before. Hearing her come in, he turned to her from his computer, a sheepish smile on his handsome coffee-colored face. “Sorry. I’m having trouble with this database.”
Recently Jane had bought a software program created specifically for literary agencies, and it had fallen to Daniel, whose knowledge of computers far surpassed Jane’s, to supervise the entering of client and deal data into the program’s database.
Jane plopped her bag on his desk and sat down in his visitor’s chair. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem is me. Instead of pressing Tab after entering information in a field, I keep pressing Enter, which saves the record and takes me to a fresh record.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”
He frowned at her as if she were crazy. “We paid a fortune for this program.” He nodded with assurance. “We’ll get it right. It’s just a matter of getting used to it.”
He was right; they had paid a fortune for it, and every time Jane thought about that, she felt a pang of money anxiety that tied her stomach in knots and kept her awake nights. But the representative from the software company had convinced her and Daniel that in the long run, the software would save them money—”more than pay for itself,” as he had put it. So, trying to think like Kenneth, who had always been up for a risk, Jane had said yes and invested in the program.
Daniel had turned back to the computer and was typing something. He pressed Enter and immediately slammed his hand down on his knee. “Damn! I did it again.”
“Why not take a break,” Jane suggested. “How did the morning go?”
He swiveled away from the computer, his composure returning. “Pretty well. Quiet. Oh—Angela Nightenson called. She has some questions about her Harper contract.” He referred to a small pile of pink slips on his desk. “Agnes Enright at Fawcett says it’s too late to change the back cover copy on Joanna Fairman’s mystery.”
“What! Joanna’s going to be livid. That copy gives away the whole solution!”
He gave her an indulgent smile. “Now, Jane, it doesn’t really.”
“Yes, it does! The caretaker did it, and the copy describes him as sinister.”
Daniel opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it and instead just shrugged. “It’s too late.”
She blew out her breath. “You know, sometimes I would like to march into these editors’ offices and wring their necks. How the hell would they like it if someone just whipped out the cover copy for their books as if it mattered as much as a—shopping list!”
“My, my,” Daniel said, pulling back in surprise. “And what kind of a day have you been having?”
“What kind do you think? I was having lunch with Bertha.”
“Was it that bad?”
“You know I can barely stand her simpering face. But it gets worse.” How should she tell him? She smiled her little-girl smile. “Daniel . . .”
“Uh-oh.”
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“Mad at you?” He frowned in puzzlement. “What have you done?”
“I . . . volunteered you.”
“Volunteered me? For what?”
“Bertha begged me. The steering committee or whatever it’s called put her up to asking me.”
“To do what?”
She winced and forced the words out fast. “To present a workshop at the RAT convention.”
“The RAT convention! But you hate conventions. And you hate giving workshops even more.”
“That’s true,” she said reasonably. “But I agreed to it on one condition.”
He sat back in his chair and exhaled in tired resignation. “Me?”
“Yes,” she said meekly. “Please don’t be angry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it, but Bertha begged me and said it would be good for the agency, especially after the People article. I knew she was right, that I should do it, but I . . . I didn’t want to do it alone. You know how nervous I get speaking in public.”
He smiled understandingly. “I’m not angry. I do know how scared you get—though I’ve never understood it. You’re certainly not shy one-on-one.”
“No, that’s true,” she said thoughtfully, “but it’s a proven fact that some people fear public speaking more than they fear death.”
“I see. Well, even without the statistic, I’m not mad. I know how hard it must have been for you to agree. I’m happy to help. What is our workshop about, if I may ask?”
“I thought about it on the bus. How about ‘The Changing Face of Romance’?”
He shrugged. “We can do that.”
She rose happily. “Thanks. Really. Guess I better return those calls.” She started for her office.
“Jane?”
She turned.
“Is something else bothering you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem . . . down.”
“X-ray vision!” she said, pointing at him. “I am down. It’s silly, though. It’s my birthday a week from Wednesday.”
“That’s not silly at all.”
She cheered slightly that at twenty-six he could understand this. “You don’t think so? After all, in nine days I’ll be turning thirty-nine.”
He frowned slightly. “I understand being a little depressed at growing older, but does thirty-nine have some special significance?”
“Of course! It’s one year from forty!”
“Ah.” He gave this some thought, then brightened. “Look at it this way. Kenneth was forty when he met you! You see—that’s proof positive that wonderful things can happen even at that advanced age.”
He was right; she had met Kenneth when he was forty. Suddenly, not for the first time, she could envision Kenneth emerging from the office at the far end of the reception room, a room she and Daniel now used for storage. In her vision he was giving her that huge white smile he had used so freely. He was as handsome as he’d been the last time she’d seen him, the day he’d left for a meeting in New York City, only to emerge from the Simon & Schuster building, step off the curb, and get killed by a careless truck driver.
She fought down the lump growing in her throat.
“Jane,” Daniel said, sitting up, “I’m so sorry. That was thoughtless of me. I didn’t mean to make things worse.”
“I know, I know.” She smiled. “It’s not you. And I’ve already got a plan for dealing with this thirty-nine problem.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going to do like Jack Benny and stay thirty-nine forever.”
“That works.”
She laughed and walked into her office, throwing her bag onto the top of the work heaped sloppily on her desk. She realized that the image of Kenneth was still with her. She sat at her desk and looked at the phone, thinking of the calls she had to make to Angela Nightenson and Joanna Fairman.
She had a better idea. She’d call Nick. He’d be home from school by now. She punched out her home number.
Florence answered in her lilting Trinidadian tones. “Ah, missus, and how has your day been going?”
“As well as can be expected, Florence. Is Nick there?”
“He sure is, sitting right here having Yodels and milk. Hold on.”
Jane made a mental note to speak to Florence about giving Nick fruit for his after-school snacks.
“Hi, Mom.”
Jane felt her face break into a smile. “Hello, darling. I love you.”
“What? Why are you saying that?”
“Aren’t mothers allowed to say that to almost ten-year-olds?” Nick had a birthday coming up too, three days before hers.
“Mom,” Nick said impatiently, “why did you call?”
“Aside from telling you I love you? To ask how your day is going.”
“Fine,” he said. “Can I go now? Aaron will be here in a minute, and I promised I’d have my army men set up when he got here.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up, feeling better.
Nick always made her feel better. He was all she had left of Kenneth. If only Kenneth had lived to see Nick now; he’d have been so proud. In six days Nick would be ten, only three years from being a teenager.
Jane supposed she would have thoughts like this at various times throughout her life. When Nick graduated from college. When he got married. When his first child was born. And perhaps by then the pain would have lessened. But now that pain was still raw. She glanced at the photo of her and Kenneth and Nick on her credenza, the picture of the three of them in life jackets in Cape May. Had Kenneth known how much she loved him? If she could just be sure that he had, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
With a deep sigh, she reached for the phone again, finally ready to call her clients.