The Ghost and the Dead Deb

Friday night closing time.

Aunt Sadie and Mina were still ringing up customers, and I stood in the corner wringing my hands. With a theatrical sigh, Dana Wu sidled up to me.

“Rough night?” she asked.

“At least nobody was murdered,” I blurted out, remembering our store’s first ever author appearance, the one Seymour had mentioned, which the author hadn’t survived.

Dana stared at me blankly for a moment—clearly it wasn’t a response she’d expected.

“Oh my goodness,” I told her instantly. “Please forget I said that.”

“Why?” she said. “It’s pretty much how I feel about most of my author tours.”

Now it was my turn to stare—until we both burst out laughing.

I’d liked Dana from the moment I’d met her. Now that I’d seen her in action, I was also impressed. I invited her to sit down in one of the comfortable corners set up in the main bookstore.

“Wow, you’ve really transformed this place,” said Dana, pausing to study a framed picture of the old store hanging near the register.

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to beam too much.

I truly was proud of saving this old store, which my aunt had run for decades and was about to close when I’d swept in the year before. Using the money from my late husband’s life insurance policy, I’d revitalized the inventory, done away with the ancient fluorescent ceiling fixtures and old metal shelves, and brought in an eclectic array of antique floor and table lamps and oak bookcases. I’d had the chestnut-stained wood plank floor restored, and throughout the stacks I’d scattered overstuffed armchairs and Shaker-style rockers to give customers the feeling of browsing through a New Englander’s private library.

“Can I get you something? Coffee, tea—bottled water?” I shuddered ever so slightly at the mention of the bottled water, considering its role in Timothy Brennan’s death the year before.

“No thanks . . .” said Dana, scanning the nearly empty Angel Stark display and table. “It looks like you sold most of your books.”

“We did. We’d ordered a lot of copies, but I was afraid we’d run out before the end of the night.”

“Don’t worry about that when I’m around. I have fifty copies in the trunk of my car, just in case.”

“God, you are amazing,” I gushed, remembering some of the high-handed publicists I’d had to deal with when I was a publishing professional. In my experience, most were primarily good for forgetting to wear bras when chaperoning male authors to television appearances, cutting cakes for executive birthday parties, and planning their weddings on company time, before giving notice that they were quitting to marry that investment banker who made high six figures. “How did you ever get hooked up with a character like Angel Stark?”

Good God, I’d just insulted her author, I thought, the second I’d said it. Now I was two for two. “No offense . . .” I quickly added, deciding maybe I was too hard on those braless publicists. From the way I was sticking my foot in my mouth, I could probably use one.

“No worries,” Dana said with a wave. “Actually, I’m a freelance publicist these days, and Angel only belongs to me until her book tour ends next month.”

“You don’t work for Angel, or the publisher?”

“I’m the go-to girl when the hard cases come along.”

I must have looked confused, because Dana kept on explaining things.

“When a publisher has a problem client—like a certain beloved children’s writer who had to be reminded to bathe and be nice to the little children, or the world-famous literary author with the obnoxious trophy wife—I get the job. But I have to admit, Angel is a special client to me.”

“You are brave.”

“It’s nostalgia, mostly,” said Dana. “I was a publicist at Saul and Bass when Angel published her first book. I had just been promoted from ad assist to junior publicist, and my first assignment was Angel. I wouldn’t have gotten the job except that nobody thought her book had a chance, and absolutely nobody thought it would end up on the bestseller list for nineteen months.”

Dana sighed. “Angel was a pill—and if you read Comfortably Numb, you know she took a lot of them, too. I’m pretty sure she’s cleaned up her act since then, though—at least on that score—but Angel is still careless. . . .”

“Careless? What do you mean?”

Dana shrugged. “Angel is careless in the way a lot of wealthy people are careless. The way John F. Kennedy, Jr. was careless when he got into that airplane. Their money cushions them from the true impact of things, and sometimes their judgment is off where real consequences are concerned.”

“I follow. You mean, careless like Jay Gatsby’s Daisy. Yes, I’ve actually had some experience with people like that myself.”

“Well, sometimes it’s more than just careless. Sometimes, I think Angel’s simply mean.”

I knew something about that, too, but I didn’t say it. Of course, in my head, Jack said it for me—

You’re thinking about that rummy late husband of yours. The overeducated, over-pampered, trust-funded depressive who found fatherhood and husbandhood a bore, verbally abused you, stopped taking his medications, and threw himself on the mercy of the Upper East Side concrete—from thirty stories above it.

“Right,” I silently replied. “Now be quiet, Jack. Please.”

Dana rubbed her eyes. “I shouldn’t say that . . . She’s never been mean to me. Or cruel to her readers . . .”

I saw my opening, and took it.

“That scene tonight . . . Does that kind of thing happen often?”

Dana laughed. “Last week, actually. A pill-pushing New York doctor she practically named in her book is facing charges now—he confronted Angel at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue. Turned out to be a lot of yelling and screaming, that’s all.”

Then Dana grinned as her professional instincts took over. “It wasn’t a total downer. Got a nice mention in the New York Post.”

On the other side of the room, Angel finally stood up and shook hands with her two remaining fans—Goth girls in black lace skirts, black midriff T-shirts, and matching navel rings. When they exited, she stretched and yawned and headed for the front door.

“Girlfriend,” Dana called to Angel, “can I get you anything?”

Angel shook her head. “I signed all the books in the store. I’m just going outside for a smoke and some fresh air.”

“Don’t get lost,” Dana said, rising. I stood up, too.

“God,” Dana whispered. “In the old days, when Angel said the word smoke, I had to check to see if there were any policemen around—there were states in this country I couldn’t take her back to when she was using. Felony states like Texas. Now you know what I mean when I say careless. Fortunately she can afford people like me to take care of things when they get out of control.”

“So . . . any clue who that girl was who confronted Angel tonight?” I asked quickly, before Dana got away.

“I think it was someone from Bethany Banks’s family. So far, the Bankses have been pretty quiet—but just between you and me, the publisher fully expected to fight a lawsuit. And the press has been stirring the pot, trying to start a feud between Angel and the Banks family. In the end, though, all publicity is good publicity because it’s good for the bottom line . . .”

I was about to ask Dana another question, but I never got the chance. From outside, we heard angry words, a loud scream, then the squeal of tires on pavement.

“Gee-zus. Not again,” Dana Wu cried as she raced to the door.

CHAPTER 5

Hit and Run