It crossed Tess’s mind to suggest that perhaps two thousand dollars would be more appropriate for what was, in effect, a triage mission, but she dismissed the idea. It would be taking advantage. Also, she doubted if all the Knitting Society books put together (there were an even dozen) had sold as many copies as any one of Stephanie Plum’s adventures. Like it or not—and in truth, Tess didn’t mind much one way or the other—she was Ramona Norville’s Plan B. A surcharge would be close to blackmail. Fifteen hundred was more than fair. Of course when she was lying in a culvert, coughing out blood from her swollen mouth and nose, it didn’t seem fair at all. But would two thousand have been any fairer? Or two million?
Whether or not you could put a price tag on pain, rape, and terror was a question the Knitting Society ladies had never taken up. The crimes they solved were really not much more than the ideas of crimes. But when Tess was forced to consider it, she thought the answer was no. It seemed to her that only one thing could possibly constitute payback for such a crime. Both Tom and Fritzy agreed.
– 3 –
Ramona Norville turned out to be a broad-shouldered, heavy-breasted, jovial woman of sixty or so with flushed cheeks, a Marine haircut, and a take-no-prisoners handshake. She was waiting for Tess outside the library, in the middle of the parking space reserved for Today’s Author of Note. Instead of wishing Tess a very good morning (it was quarter to eleven), or complimenting her on her earrings (diamond drops, an extravagance reserved for her few dinners out and engagements like this), she asked a man’s question: had Tess come by the 84?
When Tess said she had, Ms. Norville widened her eyes and blew out her cheeks. “Glad you got here safe. 84’s the worst highway in America, in my humble opinion. Also the long way around. We can improve the situation going back, if the Internet’s right and you live in Stoke Village.”
Tess agreed that she did, although she wasn’t sure she liked strangers—even a pleasant librarian—knowing where she went to lay down her weary head. But it did no good to complain; everything was on the Internet these days.
“I can save you ten miles,” Ms. Norville said as they mounted the library steps. “Have you got a GPS? That makes things easier than directions written on the back of an envelope. Wonderful gadgets.”
Tess, who had indeed added a GPS to her Expedition’s dashboard array (it was called a Tomtom and plugged into the cigarette lighter), said that ten miles off her return journey would be very nice.
“Better a straight shot through Robin Hood’s barn than all the way around it,” Ms. Norville said, and clapped Tess lightly on the back. “Am I right or am I right?”
“Absolutely,” Tess agreed, and her fate was decided as simply as that. She had always been a sucker for a shortcut.
– 4 –
Les affaires du livre usually had four well-defined acts, and Tess’s appearance at the monthly convocation of Books & Brown Baggers could have been a template for the general case. The only diversion from the norm was Ramona Norville’s introduction, which was succinct to the point of terseness. She carried no disheartening pile of file cards to the podium, felt no need to rehash Tess’s Nebraska farmgirl childhood, and did not bother producing bouquets of critical praise for the Willow Grove Knitting Society books. (This was good, because they were rarely reviewed, and when they were, the name of Miss Marple was usually invoked, not always in a good way.) Ms. Norville simply said that the books were hugely popular (a forgivable overstatement), and that the author had been extremely generous in donating her time on short notice (although, at fifteen hundred dollars, it was hardly a donation). Then she yielded the podium, to the enthusiastic applause of the four hundred or so in the library’s small but adequate auditorium. Most were ladies of the sort who do not attend public occasions without first donning hats.
But the introduction was more of an entr’acte. Act One was the eleven o’clock reception, where the higher rollers got to meet Tess in person over cheese, crackers, and cups of lousy coffee (evening events featured plastic glasses of lousy wine). Some asked for autographs; many more requested pictures, which they usually took with their cell phones. She was asked where she got her ideas and made the usual polite and humorous noises in response. Half a dozen people asked her how you got an agent, the glint in their eyes suggesting they had paid the extra twenty dollars just to ask this question. Tess said you kept writing letters until one of the hungrier ones agreed to look at your stuff. It wasn’t the whole truth—when it came to agents, there was no whole truth—but it was close.
Act Two was the speech itself, which lasted about forty-five minutes. This consisted chiefly of anecdotes (none too personal) and a description of how she worked out her stories (back to front). It was important to insert at least three mentions of the current book’s title, which that fall happened to be The Willow Grove Knitting Society Goes Spelunking (she explained what that was for those who didn’t already know).
Act Three was Question Time, during which she was asked where she got her ideas (humorous, vague response), if she drew her characters from real life (“my aunts”), and how one got an agent to look at ones’s work. Today she was also asked where she got her scrunchie (JCPenney, an answer which brought inexplicable applause).
The last act was Autograph Time, during which she dutifully fulfilled requests to inscribe happy birthday wishes, happy anniversary wishes, To Janet, a fan of all my books, and To Leah—Hope to see you at Lake Toxaway again this summer! (a slightly odd request, since Tess had never been there, but presumably the autograph-seeker had).
When all the books had been signed and the last few lingerers had been satisfied with more cell-phone pictures, Ramona Norville escorted Tess into her office for a cup of real coffee. Ms. Norville took hers black, which didn’t surprise Tess at all. Her hostess was a black-coffee type of chick if one had ever strode the surface of the earth (probably in Doc Martens on her day off). The only surprising thing in the office was the framed signed picture on the wall. The face was familiar, and after a moment, Tess was able to retrieve the name from the junkheap of memory that is every writer’s most valuable asset.
“Richard Widmark?”
Ms. Norville laughed in an embarrassed but pleased sort of way. “My favorite actor. Had sort of a crush on him when I was a girl, if you want the whole truth. I got him to sign that for me ten years before he died. He was very old, even then, but it’s a real signature, not a stamp. This is yours.” For one crazed moment, Tess thought Ms. Norville meant the signed photo. Then she saw the envelope in those blunt fingers. The kind of envelope with a window, so you could peek at the check inside.
“Thank you,” Tess said, taking it.
“No thanks necessary. You earned every penny.”
Tess did not demur.
“Now. About that shortcut.”
Tess leaned forward attentively. In one of the Knitting Society books, Doreen Marquis had said, The two best things in life are warm croissants and a quick way home. This was a case of the writer using her own dearly held beliefs to enliven her fiction.
“Can you program intersections in your GPS?”
“Yes, Tom’s very canny.”
Ms. Norville smiled. “Input Stagg Road and US 47, then. Stagg Road is very little used in this modern age—almost forgotten since that damn 84—but it’s scenic. You’ll ramble along it for, oh, sixteen miles or so. Patched asphalt, but not too bumpy, or wasn’t the last time I took it, and that was in the spring, when the worst bumps show up. At least that’s my experience.”
“Mine, too,” Tess said.
“When you get to 47, you’ll see a sign pointing you to I-84, but you’ll only need to take the turnpike for twelve miles or so, that’s the beauty part. And you’ll save tons of time and aggravation.”
“That’s also the beauty part,” Tess said, and they laughed together, two women of the same mind watched over by a smiling Richard Widmark. The abandoned store with the ticking sign was then still ninety minutes away, tucked snugly into the future like a snake in its hole. And the culvert, of course.
– 5 –
Tess not only had a GPS; she had spent extra for a customized one. She liked toys. After she had input the intersection (Ramona Norville leaned in the window as she did it, watching with manly interest), the gadget thought for a moment or two, then said, “Tess, I am calculating your route.”