“Sorry,” Ray said. He ran a hand over his face, which had become red and sweaty. “It’s just been a while.”
Angie held up a hand and closed her eyes. “Things a little sister does not need to hear.”
Ray shook himself from head to toe, like a dog shaking water off its coat, and said, “I’m good. I got this.”
The three of them stood smiling at the incoming crowd. Well, Mel and Angie smiled while Ray maintained his resting bitch face. Mel was pretty sure that alone kept people from coming any closer.
Once the crowd settled, Cassie appeared on the platform. She did a quick mic check.
“Good evening, everyone,” she said. She paused to smile at the crowd. “Can everyone hear me?”
Mel and Angie, being at the back of the room, gave her a thumbs-up. The sound was a go.
“Great,” she said.
She surveyed the room, trying to acknowledge everyone with her bright blue gaze. Her tousled brown hair was cut in a pixie style that accentuated her heart-shaped face. Cassie was somewhere in her forties, although Mel wasn’t sure if it was on the younger or older end. She was funny and vivacious and whip-smart, so Mel knew that this interview with Elise would be entertaining on Cassie’s end for sure.
“I want to thank you all for coming tonight,” Cassie said. “Before I bring out our guest author, I want to thank the Orange Blossom Resort for letting us meet here. There are just too many of you to cram into my little shop. Also, I want to thank Mel and Angie from Fairy Tale Cupcakes for providing the refreshments. If you haven’t had one of their amazing cupcakes, you are in for a treat.”
Mel and Angie waved when most of the crowd turned to glance at the cupcake towers behind them.
“She didn’t mention me,” Ray said. He sounded grumpy.
“Why would she?” Angie asked. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Ray said. “Standing right here.”
Angie shook her head and Mel concealed her laugh with a delicate cough. What Ray lacked in fashion sense, he more than made up for in self-esteem.
“And now, I’d like to bring out our guest author tonight,” Cassie said. “Please welcome Elise Penworthy.”
The crowd applauded, a few more enthusiastically than others, and Mel wondered how many of them knew Elise from before she was published. How many of these people could really call her a friend or neighbor or even an acquaintance? Was the crowd mostly known to her or was it people who just wanted to pretend they knew her before she was famous?
Mel squinted to get a good look at Elise as she strode through a side door into the room. It was quite the grand entrance. She was dressed in pricey designer clothes—white slacks and blouse with a beige cardigan that flattered her middle-aged girth, topped by a long white-and-brown silk scarf looped around her neck with one end trailing behind her almost down to the floor.
Perfectly manicured and coiffed, Elise had bloodred fingernails and her hair was styled in a choppy shoulder-length bob that had been hit so hard with copper and platinum highlights that it dazzled almost as much as the diamonds at her ears and wrists under the overhead lights.
She had the face of a woman who had once been a looker, but wrinkles marred her forehead and the corners of her eyes, jowls pulled at the once delicate face, and her teeth, while blindingly bright, were a bit out of alignment, with one incisor protruding on one side of her mouth, giving her smile a sarcastic twist.
She paused as she made her way through the room to clasp people’s hands or give them an air kiss and a gentle hug. If this crowd adoration was honey, Elise was lapping it up.
She blew the room a kiss and climbed the three short steps up to the platform, where she enfolded Cassie in a hug. To Mel, it was the first one that seemed genuine. The two women took their seats, Cassie handed Elise a mic of her own, and the crowd settled in to listen.
“Tell us, Elise,” Cassie said. “What inspired your novel The Palms?”
“Well.” Elise drew the word out, moving her gaze over the crowd as she let the anticipation weave its way around the audience, tightening about them until the tension had them in a stranglehold, barely breathing as they waited for her disclosure. “I was inspired by my hus—”
“Liar!”
Six
The shout came from the middle of the crowd. Elise drew back as if she’d been slapped. She scanned the crowd and her eyes narrowed as she found the source of the disruption.
“You husband-stealing slut!” Elise jumped up from her seat. She clutched the mic in her hands as if it were a club that she intended to use to bludgeon someone. “How dare you show your face here!”
“How dare I?” The accuser stood. She ripped the wide-brimmed hat off of her head and her long blond hair fell in fat curls down her back. “That’s a laugh. How dare you write these horrible disgusting lies?”
Collectively, the crowd turned from Elise to the angry woman and back. It was a volley of accusations and insults and no one wanted to miss a single serve.
“I’m guessing that woman is the one Elise’s husband left her for,” Angie said out of the corner of her mouth so that only Mel could hear.
“I’d say that’s a safe bet,” Mel said.
Cassie stepped forward as if she thought she might need to restrain Elise from doing a stage dive to get to the other woman.
“Ladies, this is not the appropriate forum for this discussion,” Cassie said. The words were right, but her voice lacked the authority to subdue the two angry women.
“This is my book signing. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, I suggest you leave,
