book open with a knife and have to keep moving it. Sometimes I forget I've used it and smear up a page with mayonnaise or catsup.'
'I'm going to save my salad as a late-night snack, so I have room for desserts.'
'Plural?' Jane said.
'Of course. I've been to things like this before. They cut lots of different desserts into really tiny pieces and let you try out a lot of them. You know, I came here not only to snoop and enjoy this suite, but also to help you out. I'm having more fun than I expected. Wasn't all the inside gossip your friend Felicity told us neat stuff to know?'
'She's such a nice woman, isn't she?' Jane said. 'I'm amazed she took such pains to fill us in on the people here. I'm only sorry that awful woman Vernetta was so rude to her.'
'I suspect a lot of other people here will feel that way before this conference ends,' Shelley speculated. 'I have my laptop along. Later on, we must take a look at her book on the web. As illiterately as she speaks, I can't imagine it being any good.'
'To be fair, she might have a good story in her head in spite of it,' Jane said, doubtfully.
'You don't need to be fair to a person like that, Jane. She's scum.'
'I guess you're right. And I'm sure the publisher will clean up her grammar and spelling for her if they paid big bucks for it. I wonder if Vernetta will even notice.'
'Probably not. Jane, I can't finish my fries. Do you want them?'
'No, thanks. Let's just put this away in the little fridge. It's only half an hour until the opening remarks. Plenty of time to wash the catsup off our faces.'
At the start of the opening session, Sophie Smith took the podium. She stood silently for a moment, waiting for the conversations to stop.
'She's sort of swaying,' Jane observed.
'Yes,' Shelley said. 'Nerves?'
'I wouldn't think so. She must have done this dozens of times, and everybody says she's a tough cookie.'
Sophie began to speak, paused a moment, and disappeared behind the podium.
The young man, Corwin, who'd been checking in at the desk with her that morning, and a couple of the staff of the conference who sat at the head table, ran over. Conversations broke out, all wondering what had happened. Had she been standing on some sort of box and fallen off? 'No, she's a tall woman, she wouldn't need a box,' somebody piped up.
'Let's get out of here,' Jane said.
As they headed for the door, they heard someone come to the podium and say, 'Ms. Smith has been taken slightly ill. There's no need to be worried. She's being well taken care of. She's left her written introduction to our speaker. Everybody sit down and I'll read it on her behalf….'
Jane and Shelley closed the door behind them.
'I think she was taken a bit more than 'slightly' ill,' Shelley said. 'Did you see the look on her toady Corwin's face as he bent over her? He looked horrified.'
'I hope she's not dead,' Jane said. 'It would cast an awful pall over the rest of the conference. They might even cancel the rest of it. Oh dear, I shouldn't have said that. It sounds so selfish.'
'I think if she is dead, it might be the highlight of the conference,' Shelley said. 'She seems to be heartily disliked by everyone but Vernetta.'
Other attendees were slipping out as well, either having heard how boring the speaker was, or out of dismay at the scene they'd just witnessed.
Jane and Shelley took over a couple of chairs and a table in the hotel lobby. 'I could ask John, the hotel manager, if he knows what happened. If he's on duty this shift,' Shelley said.
'I don't think he'd tell you even if he knew.' 'Probably not. But I'll give it a try.'
Shelley returned a few minutes later. John was in a meeting and couldn't be disturbed, she reported.
The lobby was filling up with writers and fans, all speculating about what had happened. Some said, sounding knowledgeable, 'She's had a heart attack.'
Others stuck with the theory of her just fainting. Or falling off whatever she might have been standing on.
One suggested that the wiring was bad and as she touched the microphone she'd been electrocuted. This was hooted down. 'The woman who ended up reading the speaker's introduction
touched it, too, and nothing happened to her,' someone said.
'This is driving me mad,' Jane said. 'Nobody knows what they're talking about. Let's go somewhere else. We have half an hour before the next seminars.'
Shelley picked up her purse. 'There are some nice shops in a tunnel under the hotel. Let's go shopping for therapy.'
'I'd rather go to the book room again,' Jane said.
'No, you wouldn't. It would be full of other attendees saying the same things. Come with me. Last time I was in the tunnel shops, I saw a lapel pin I thought you'd like, and now that I see you in this sweater, I know it would be perfect. Let's see if it's still there.'
The last seminars of the day both seemed exceedingly boring, so Shelley and Jane went upstairs and finished the salads they'd put in the tiny fridge. Jane checked in with Todd and Katie again on their new cell phones. Katie said the omelettes were almost ready and she couldn't talk right now. Apparently this overrode the thrill of receiving a call on her new phone.
Shelley and Jane arrived five minutes after the dessert party started. It was already crowded. Shelley had been right. The desserts were all about one and a half inches square, set in little paper baskets. Jane picked up a plate and selected only three. She didn't want to look greedy. Andshe could always dispose of the plate and go back, pretending it was her first trip.
Both Jane and Shelley were keeping a wary eye out for Vernetta and Gaylord Strausmann. They didn't want to be taken unawares again.
'I'd have thought a big hefty woman like that would be the first through the line,' Shelley commented as she forked up a sliver of cherry cobbler.
'I'd have thought so, too,' Jane said around her mouthful of a bread pudding square liberally iced with sugar and brandy. 'Oh, there's Felicity surrounded by fans, while we're nobodies who have our own table so we can stuff ourselves without being noticed.'
At that moment Vernetta and Gaylord entered the room. As she did in the restaurant, she shouted, 'Howdy, y'all. I'm Vernetta Strausmann and this is my hubby, Gaylord.'
The pair had abandoned their country-western look and gone for pure June and Ward Cleaver. Vernetta was in a patterned shirtwaist with the buttons straining at the bodice. A little fifties hat, high heels, and even white gloves, a bit grubby at the fingertips. Gaylord was in a gray suit and wore a fedora and shiny black shoes. The outfit would have looked more authentic if the trousers hadn't been a bit short and his black-and-redstriped socks hadn't been showing.
'Do they think this is a costume party or Halloween?' Shelley said. 'Where did they find that stuff? At a secondhand store?'
Most of the people in the room were staring at the couple, but nobody approached them. Vernetta looked over at the crowd surrounding Felicity and glowered. Gaylord took her arm in a firm grip and whispered something to her. She nodded and smiled hungrily at the other partygoers.
'Gather round, y'all. Lookee-loo at the plans for our mansion.'
