Gladys never missed an opportunity to thank her fans. They were everything, hence why
at nine thirty p.m., she was still sitting behind a table at Books Galore, signing copies of
her best-selling historical romance novel and smiling for selfies three hours after her
book signing ended. Dinner could wait. Her car service could wait, and Edith, especially,
could wait—no matter how hard she scowled.
A middle-aged woman, wearing a black calla lily brooch above her heart, just like
Mildred Wiltsey—the heroine in A Lady of Spite and Intrigue—timidly presented two
copies of the novel to be signed, one dog-eared, the other brand-new.
“One item per person, please,” the store manager said.
Gladys waved him away. “What’s your name, dear?”
“I love your books so much. I am Mildred Wiltsey.”
“Oh my, that’s a lucky coincidence.” Gladys smiled at the blushing woman before her.
“I mean, I feel like I am. Everything she’s gone through. The fight to save her sister and
all that heartache, only to have George ripped from her life on their wedding day.” She
sighed, the weight of a thousand pounds of angst resting on her shoulders. “Please say
there’s a sequel.” Her eyes pleaded for a yes.
Other women in the line leaned forward, breaths caught in their throats.
Gladys gave them a coy shrug. She scrawled her name in both books and allowed the
manager to move the line along.
“Fraud,” Edith whispered behind her. The word an arrow shot into Gladys’s back.
She jerked up from a slouch.
The manager leaned down and spoke into her ear. “You all right?”
Edith notched another arrow. “Imposter.”
Gladys surged from her chair. “Actually, I feel a migraine coming on. I haven’t eaten since
this morning.”
Taking her cue, the manager clapped his hands and told the remaining women in line
that the event was over. He instructed staff like a drill sergeant to fold up chairs and
customers to take their final purchases to the cashiers. Books Galore would be closing in
a half hour.
The sound of disappointed moans broke Gladys’s heart, but she knew Edith wouldn’t
stop once she got started. Their partnership had been a dream come true for Gladys and
a new beginning for Edith, but over the past year, their personal and professional
relationship had soured.
Gladys stormed into the waiting sedan and stewed in silence on the ride back to her
hotel. Edith provided the occasional smirk with a cold yet vacant glint in her eye.
The second she shut the hotel room’s door, Gladys flung her purse across the room and
tore off the locket from around her neck. She clutched the chain as if it were Edith’s
throat. “Never try to humiliate me in front of my fans again.”
“Perhaps you mean my fans.”
“We have an agreement.”
“If I had only known it would entail years of haunting in the shadows while someone
else reaped fame and fortune at my expense, I would have declined.” Edith’s voice was
ethereal vapor despite the harshness of her words. She roamed back and forth in front
of the windows, staring at the cars, traffic lights, fast-food restaurants, and pedestrians
below. The heartbeat of New York City no longer delighted her.
Gladys sank onto one of the twin beds in their mid-priced hotel room and took off her
shoes. This old argument again.
The arrangement hadn’t bothered Edith the first couple of years they were partnered.
After spending an eternity in the query trenches and submission hell, Gladys had been
desperate. Edith had been searching for an escape. Gladys’s agent made the
introductions, set the rules, and prepared the agreement.
Everything changed when the second book hit the bestseller lists. Occasionally, at first,
one or two snide remarks would drizzle down after an interview. A bestseller became a
best-selling five-book series. Which spawned another best-selling series. National book
tours had followed. Fan mail. Speaking engagements. Requests for television interviews.
Ten years later, Gladys was drowning in a deluge of backhanded compliments and verbal
attacks.
Tiptoeing around Edith’s delicate ego drained Gladys on a cellular level. Was it so wrong
that she loved her career? Finally, she had bona fide fans, not a bunch of strangers in an
online writing group who thought her stories were good. Books with her name on them
were sold in airports, and her mother stopped telling people she was a financial adviser.
Gladys put down the black dress she had been changing into. She didn’t have to put up
with this. “You’ve benefited just as much as I have.”
Edith snorted. “Hardly in the same respect.”
“I work damn hard, too, and I’m sick of you belittling me.”
“Which one of us do you suppose needs the other more, hmm? There is no career
without books and no books without me. Face reality, my dear—there is no you without
me.”
“The work doesn’t promote itself. Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean people care. I
make them care.” Gladys stabbed her own chest. “People line up in bookstores because I
shed blood for hours every day marketing and blogging and posting and networking and
practically tap dancing.”
“Oh, please.” Edith folded her arms and resumed pacing in front of the windows. The
drapes swished lightly in the breeze.
“I don’t need you.”
Edith sneered.
“I’m a household name. You’re not necessary anymore.” Gladys smirked.
Edith stopped pacing and whipped around. That had gotten her attention.
“I wrote my own books before you, and I can do it again.”
Edith started giggling, then broke into a full-scale fit. Her laughter echoed around the
room, rolling over Gladys and through the walls to frighten guests walking the hall
outside.
Red-faced, Gladys sat down at the desk in their room with purpose. “I’m going to write
the first chapter of the sequel tonight.”
“This should be entertaining. Do you even remember how to write a scene?”
Gladys bit back a retort. Actions spoke louder. She opened her laptop and brought up
the notes and outline and started typing, jabbing the keyboard hard each time.
Edith hadn’t moved from the window or made a sound, but her smugness was like icy
claws on Gladys’s neck.
“Leave. I need to concentrate.”
“Of course. How rude of me to disrupt the genius who bled for fame.” Her soft chuckle
lingered, even after she left.
“Bitch,” Gladys spat but slumped in her chair. The word hung in the air like a missile
looking for its target.
She read what she had written.
Rubbish.
She highlighted the page and then hit Delete.
What if I really don’t remember how to write a scene?
What if I’m not good enough to write the sequel?
What if fans can tell the difference in writing styles?
What if …
What if …
No.
“I can do this.” Gladys turned and scowled at the necklace she’d thrown on the bed. “I
can.”
She turned back to her laptop and started typing.
Gladys fiddled with her mouse. She rechecked the settings to make sure the audio and video worked.
Did she have the correct time? Was the meeting supposed to be today or tomorrow?
Oh shit! Was it yesterday?
Panic took hold. Audrey Benjamin, super-agent to the most successful writers this century, was never late.
Gladys’s hand shook as she opened the Calendar app on her phone again.
“Hey, girl!” Audrey appeared on-screen in front of a blurry background. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Not a big deal.” Gladys mentally fumed. The nerve of her. Who works for whom here? “I
have another appointment, so if we could wrap this up quickly …”
Audrey did the half-smile, half-frown grimace thing that she did when she was unhappy.
Oh Lord. Gladys’s belly flip-flopped, but she said, “All I can give you is five minutes, ten
tops.”
“We’re going to need more than that.” Audrey picked up a thick pile of paper and shook
it for emphasis. “What is this?” She dropped it down on her desk with a heavy thud.
Gladys pretended to not notice the title, A Gentleman of Taste and Virtue, on the top
page. She folded her arms and shrugged.
“Is something wrong with Edith?”
“Why would you ask that?”
Audrey looked at her sideways. Her expression questioning. “After reading this, I’m
guessing either Edith is falling apart or deliberately trying to ruin your career. I didn’t
take it seriously when you two were bickering years ago, but clearly, I should have.”
Gladys gaped. “It’s a draft. I went in a different direction. She always writes from the
heroine’s perspective. Why not the hero this time?”
Audrey massaged the bridge of her nose.
“That draft is good.” Gladys’s voice rose in volume and in octaves. “Harrison is every
woman’s dream and who men want to be.”
“Where’s Edith?”
“He’s not some uppity aristocrat who argues about tea and pretends to not want a wife
while secretly pining for some boring plain-Jane goody-goody.”
“Where is Edith?”
“I take readers outside of stuffy, upper-class society and into a brutal common man’s
world with gang warfare and violence.”
“Where. Is. Edith?!” Audrey’s voice snapped like a whip.
Gladys jumped in her chair. “So what if the story is a little different? Fans will love it!”
“A little different?” Audrey leaned toward her screen. “Are you kidding me or yourself?”
“How—”
“Harrison is a rogue with the heart of a thug and the intelligence of an imbecile with no
goals outside of fucking every cliché woman he meets every other chapter.”
“He’s finding himself. Leonora’s love saves him in the end.”
“It’s not just him. It’s the entire poorly written, meandering hot mess of a novel.”
“Draft!”
“Plot points go nowhere or make no sense at all. Modern expressions are said in the
Victorian era. Random characters pop up, exposit a boring backstory, and then
disappear. Side story on top of side story on top of flashbacks that last for eight chapters
with no bearing on the main plot, such as it is.”
“But—”
“Four hundred pages later, and I still don’t know or care about Harrison. Leonora exists
in chapter two, disappears until the second-to-last chapter, in love with him for some
unknown reason, then marries him in the last chapter. Why? I still can’t figure it out.”
“Love at first sight!” Gladys yelled at her laptop. “Harrison told off Kelly for humiliating
Leo at the ball.”
It was so obvious. Audrey had missed the entire theme of the book.
“You wrote this, didn’t you?” Audrey made it sound like a crime.
“So? And what? I don’t need Edith anymore. Fans will love this new style once they get
used to it. You’ll see.”
“Your publisher won’t publish this.” Audrey sighed. “The writing doesn’t sound close to
any of your other books.”
“Good!”
“You knew the terms of the contract you signed.”
“And now, I’m done. You can take Edith back. I’m the best-selling author Gladys Hilton.
My fans will love it, or … or … I’ll make new fans.”
Audrey flattened her lips together.
“It’ll work out if you give it a chance. Edith’s writing is stale now anyway. This is fresh!”
Audrey sighed and looked away. “I’ll send someone for Edith.”
“It’s better this way.” Gladys babbled, “We’re both unhappy. The arrangement stopped
working years ago. She’s bossy and rude and jealous, and I can’t look at myself in the
mirror anymore. I need my writing out there. I can’t live this lie anymore. Who can feel
proud of their accomplishments when it’s not really their accomplishments people are
praising? I need to see this through. If I fail, then at least I’ll have failed because of my
actions.”
Audrey still looked skeptical.
“This novel is good—different but good—because I wrote it from my heart with my own
two hands.” Gladys spoke with more conviction than she felt. Still, at her core, she knew
she was right. The joy she used to feel at seeing her name on bestseller lists faded years
ago.
She loved the lifestyle she’d gotten, but it had come at the cost of her soul. For the first
time in a decade, she felt free.
“It’s never too late to start living your truth,” Gladys said. “I hope, one day, you
understand this.”
“Whatever.” Audrey rolled her eyes. “This means I can no longer be your agent.”
“It’s been a pleasure working with you, I guess.”
“The terms of the contract—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll never say a word or contact you again.”
“Have Edith ready for pickup.” Audrey signed off the video call without a goodbye.
Gladys rubbed her shaking hands together before deciding to stick them under her
thighs. She hadn’t been here in at least fifteen years, but somehow, the back room of
the fortune teller’s cramped shop smelled the same. It was a mix of decayed fruit and
stale perfume.
Gladys surmised Connie was deliberately making her wait. The fortune teller had
finished with her last customer a half hour ago and was futzing around in the front,
doing whatever it was fortune tellers did to waste time and stretch patience. Not that
Gladys could complain or do anything but stew. She was the one without an
appointment after all.
Connie sauntered in, drinking diet soda. “Sorry for the delay. You know how my sister is.
Once she starts, she can’t stop.”
Gladys gave her a tight smile. “Sure.”
Connie sat down on the chair across from her, swirling her neon-pink-and-green skirt,
and then drank a long pull of her soda. She put the can down on the side of the table
and searched for her glasses, which she eventually found on a chain around her neck.
Gladys gritted her teeth and waited for Connie to settle down.
After smoothing down the tablecloth and adjusting her chair several times, Connie
asked, “So, what can I do for you today?”
You know good and damn well what. Gladys composed herself and spoke as calmly as
she could muster. “I need the same service as before.”
“A palm reading?”
“Ah, no.”
“Psychic connection to your deceased grandmother?”
Gladys refrained from diving across the table to strangle her. “No. You know, the other
thing.”
“Whatever do you mean? It’s been years. Maybe you’ve forgotten. I provide psychic
readings here. The happy-endings massage parlor is two stores down.”
Gladys’s fingernails dug into her thigh. “My career is in the toilet. My last three novels
flopped. My agent dumped me. My publisher dumped me. Critics hate me because they
can’t get their own heads out of their asses, and I’m losing followers online in droves.”
Gladys tried not to scream but lost. “For fuck’s sake, I need Edith back!”
“Who?”
Gladys glared.
Connie didn’t hide a smirk, and Gladys hated her for it. “Ooh, right, that service.”
“I can wire you the cash today and will sign the same contract as before.”
“I have to ask my sister if she’ll even take you back.”
“Please, just get me Edith. I’ll find a way to deal with her.”
Connie leaned back and crossed her legs. “Aren’t you supposed to be living or writing or
whatever-ing your truth?”
“I was wrong, okay? I want it all back.”
“Again, you dissolved the last contract. I have to ask Audrey if you are allowed back in.”
“I’ve never said a word to anyone about this. I kept that part. Please.” Gladys clutched
the end of the table, bunching the tablecloth in her fist.
Connie rolled her eyes. “I’ll ask Audrey, but getting Edith back will be impossible.”
“But … but I need her. It has to be her.”
“Edith is with another writer—Maya Hayden.”
I knew it! Gladys could have kicked herself. As soon as she had seen the bestseller lists
and read Maya Hayden’s bio and first book, she had known Edith had found another
home. Everyone online claimed Maya Hayden was a better version of her.
“Well—well,” Gladys stammered, “there’s got to be someone else. Anyone. Is Fitzgerald
or maybe Austen available?” Gladys shook her head at the last name. “No, not Jane. I
don’t think I could stand it. Ooh, maybe Kate Chopin?”
Connie shrugged. “All I can do is search and see who is hanging around in the afterlife.”
“I’ll wire the funds today. Just find me someone.”
Gladys stared past Connie at the wall of necklaces hanging behind her. The gaudy
baubles all looked so dull, considering the immensely weird voodoo magic they
performed. Hopefully, she’d be wearing one again soon.
You can buy my books here.
