Naked Once More (5 page)

His long, amiable face was more serious than usual, and Jacqueline responded with equal gravity.

“What’s the problem, Chris? If I am chosen, the writers who lose out will make rude remarks about my lack of talent, and about literary prostitution, but you know most of them will be choking on big mouthfuls of sour grapes. I’ve weighed the advantages and disadvantages. There are disadvantages, I know that. When people read that an author has signed a million-dollar contract, they blithely assume the publisher hands over a check reading ‘one million dollars.’ It’s more likely to be a quarter or a fifth of that sum, with the rest of the payoff extending over several years. Deduct agents’ fees and taxes—”

“Jacqueline, money is not the issue.”

Jacqueline ignored this; she was recounting old grievances, common to every writer. “Now that the damned IRS has eliminated income averaging, a writer who has starved and walked around with his toes sticking out of his sneakers for ten years while he wrote the book has to pay taxes on one year’s income. The gigantic paperback advances are even more deceptive; half the money belongs to the publisher of the hardback edition right from the start, and the other half is applied to what the author owes on the unearned part of the hardcover advance. And this deal, assuming it is made, is completely unlike the usual arrangement. Instead of getting the entire advance, I’d only be entitled to a percentage—ten, fifteen, twenty-five percent, depending on how much I can screw out of Stokes. The heirs get the rest. Ten percent of a million is a lousy hundred thousand dollars, less fifteen percent, and it will amount to two or three years’ income. I know garbagemen who make more than that.”

Scowling ferociously, she snapped into her English muffin. Chris said nothing. He knew better than to suppose she was talking herself out of the idea.

“That’s a worst-possible scenario, though,” Jacqueline resumed. “The book should sell for more than a million, hardcover and paperback. Then there are movie rights, foreign sales, and the effect it will have on my other books, including the ones I’ve yet to write. In the long run I’ll make more from this book than I would any other way. But that’s not the reason I want to do it.”

Chris didn’t ask what the reason was. He suspected she didn’t know herself. “Better also get yourself a lawyer,” he advised.

“I intend to.” Jacqueline popped the last bite of muffin into her mouth, chewed and swallowed, and then delivered the punch line. “Stokes called this morning. I’m on the short list.”

“How short?”

“Five people, including me. That narrows it down a bit, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Chris forgot his qualms in professional curiosity. “Who are the others?”

“Boots baby is playing coy. He says it wouldn’t be ethical for him to tell me.”

Chris’s dour expression brightened fractionally. “That means he hasn’t told the others either. For once he is showing good sense. If Brunnhilde is one of the chosen—”

“She can’t gun down the other candidates unless she knows who they are.” Jacqueline grinned. “See what you can find out through the grapevine, will you?”

“So that you can gun down the other candidates?” Chris did not grin. “I’ll try. What happens next?”

“We are all going to be interviewed by the heirs. My turn comes week after next.”

“So soon? There’s a hint of unusual, almost indecent, haste about all this.”

“I wouldn’t call it indecent, but it certainly is unusual—for the publishing biz. Somebody, besides me, must be desperate for money.”

“It’s been seven years,” Chris mused. “Kathleen’s will wouldn’t come into effect until she was legally dead. If the estate and the income from it have been tied up all these years… Kathleen’s half-brother is reputed to have expensive habits. He was her business manager, I believe.”

“Yes, he was. And he seems to be the one whose opinion counts. I get the impression that the other heirs will defer to his decision.”

“Is he coming here to interview you?”

“No, I’m going there—to Pine Grove, deep in the rural fastness of the Appalachians, where the woodbine no doubt twineth.”

“Take along a tube of Mace,” Chris said dryly.

“I’ve seen pictures of Mr. St. John Darcy. If the necessity arises, I can easily outrun him.”

“So you won’t change your mind?”

“I see no reason to. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll survive all this with my questionable virtue, physical and literary, unscathed.”

“I hope so.” Chris couldn’t stand it any longer. He leaned across the table and wiped the bright red stain from Jacqueline’s chin. He was not ordinarily a superstitious man.

“ ‘My man done lef’ me for another, / So I turned to the arms of my ever-lovin’ brother, / I’m a low-down sinner and so is he, / We’ll fry in hell for eterni-tee.’ ”

The song ended in a mournful wail of guitar chords. “That was Joe Jackson and the Sons of the Soil,” the announcer proclaimed. “And now for a word from Blake’s Hog and Cattle Feed.”

Jacqueline reached for the can of soda wedged into the car seat next to her. The fact that she had never before heard that particular masterpiece of melody had not prevented her from singing along with Jake and the Sons. The tune was so banal, it practically sang itself, and the words—in justice to Joe let it be said—were her own. Jacqueline loved to sing. It was a source of honest bewilderment to her that people wouldn’t let her warble in public.

The road wound in hilly curves through a countryside newly brushed with the soft watercolor shades of spring. Trees raised branches draped in pale chartreuse or blossoming pink; rows of jade-green sprouts undulated across fields of rich brown. Streams ran quick and clear over mossy rocks, and on either side the fir-clad mountains hemmed the valley, their slopes brightening from deep moss-green to emerald as the sun rose higher.

Jacqueline let out a deep sigh of contentment. She had been on the road for two days. It was just what she had needed—a lull between storms, a time of detachment from the struggles behind and the battles that lay ahead. The first morning had been tiring, as she fought through the smog and congestion of the East Coast urban sprawl, but by mid-afternoon she was cruising comfortably along the back roads of western Pennsylvania, and her spirits were soaring. She had stopped whenever she felt so inclined—at farmers’ markets, garage sales and antique shops—and when she stopped for the night, at a motel near Thurmont, Maryland, it would have been hard to say what pleased her more: the basketful of home-baked pastries, country ham and cheese she planned to devour while she reclined on the bed and watched something utterly mindless on TV, or the fact that no one on the face of the earth knew where she was. She had picked up a few brochures at the desk, and before she went to sleep she had located another antiques mall within a few miles of the motel.

Now, as she proceeded south and west, she reflected complacently on the bargains that filled the trunk and overflowed onto the back seat—a pressed-glass berry set with bright red berries and gilt leaves, a hooked rug (only slightly moth-eaten) bearing the images of two red chickens and a purple rooster, and an original “primitive” oil painting depicting a heavy thunderstorm on a moonless night in some locale that could not be determined.

She had lived in the East for many years before the offer of a job at a university library in Nebraska had given her a chance to return to her midwestern roots. It had been a mistake; some people might be able to go home again, but Jacqueline wasn’t one of them. The unexpected success of her first book had allowed her to quit her job and move to Manhattan, in order to “assist” her publisher and agent. (Chris, and Jacqueline’s sorely tried editor, might have chosen another verb.)

At first she had enjoyed every minute of her new life. She had seen all the Broadway shows, fought off a mugger or two with the aid of her trusty purse, eaten more exotic food than was good for her, and mingled with the rich, famous and intellectual. But in the past month or so she had realized that New York was no longer her scene. Her clothes were getting tight, and so was her mind; it was hardening, focusing more and more exclusively on the gossip of what was, for all its seeming sophistication, a very small world. This was what she yearned for—fields empty of life except for an occasional herd of picturesque cows, clear skies, quiet hills. And, of course, an airport not too far away in case her publisher needed her help in a hurry.

I’ll do some house-hunting on the way back, she decided. A few hundred acres, with a nice antebellum house; fireplaces in every room, double-hung windows with the original glass.… Or a gracious old Victorian. Huge verandas, gingerbread, a couple of towers from which to look down on the peasants. It shouldn’t be too expensive to install central air-conditioning and a modern kitchen and—

She hit the brake. Coming over the crest of a hill, she found herself imminently approaching a tractor chugging down the road at ten miles an hour. The driver waved an apologetic hand. Jacqueline waved back. She was in no hurry. The Darcys weren’t expecting her until the following day. The plodding pace she was forced to set—for the road was too narrow and winding to pass safely—allowed time for meditation.

The extent of the acreage and the size of the mansion depended on the result of her present trip. Compared to the way she had lived on the salary of a librarian, she was well off, but she was still a long way from the millionaire status the naive public believed to be true of best-selling authors. Nor had she as yet any genuine job security. Public and publishers were fickle; today’s best-seller could be tomorrow’s flop. It was like climbing a long, steep hill (she touched the brake again); once you got to the top, sheer momentum would carry you on to greater and greater success, but she had not yet reached the summit. The sequel to
Naked
could get her there.

The next day’s interview was crucial. The heirs—or more specifically, St. John, who was clearly in charge—would inspect each of the five candidates and then make their recommendation to Stokes. The final decision would be made “after consultation between the heirs and their designated agent,” as Booton coyly put it—he himself being, of course, the agent in question. This left Jacqueline in the dark as to whose opinion carried the most weight. It behooved her, therefore, to make a good impression on Kathleen’s half-brother. She had done everything possible to prepare herself, searching through old newspaper files, reading the biographies of Kathleen Darcy, talking to people who had known her and her family.

The picture of St. John that had emerged wasn’t pretty. “A sleek, slimy lecher,” according to one woman who had been a secretary at Kathleen’s publisher and who swore she still bore the scars of St. John’s pinches; “a pompous, egotistical hypocrite; he actually implied he had written
Naked in the Ice
”—according to a former editor, now retired.

Ah, well, Jacqueline thought philosophically; a few pinches never hurt anybody. But I’m damned if I’ll let him “collaborate” on the book.

She stopped for a lunch at a roadside diner which had excellent hamburgers and a waitress who called her honey. A jukebox blared out, “Don’t go to town in that red dress, It ain’t the way to find happiness,” and the Formica-topped table held a vase of plastic daisies in addition to bottles of catsup and mustard. Jacqueline consulted her map. After asking where she was going, the waitress informed her that 483 was a pretty road but the bridge was out, washed away by spring floods and them damn fools in the highway department hadn’t got their asses around to fixing it yet, so she better take 46 instead to Boonesville and then bear south on Whitman Brothers Road. She added cheerfully that a nice snappy lady like her oughtta be heading toward the bright lights instead of the ass-end of noplace, ’cause there sure was nothing in that part of the state worth spittin’ on. Or perhaps “spittin” wasn’t the word she used; her accent was a trifle broad. She had never heard of Kathleen Darcy. “Who? Is she on
General Hospital
?”

Jacqueline thanked her for the advice and the compliment; she rather liked being called a snappy lady.

Route 46 was a pretty road too. At first it followed a rushing river through the valley and then turned up into the hills, where it wound in sharp curves along streambeds. The slopes beside the road grew sheer and for some miles there was no sign of habitation, only tall pines overhanging the narrow road. Signs warned of deer crossing; Jacqueline saw none of them, but the moderate pace she had obediently assumed enabled her to avoid hitting one fat, stupid ground-hog and a lean but not overly intelligent rabbit who lost his head and hopped furiously along the road ahead of the car for a quarter of a mile before veering off into the woods.

After an hour without so much as a sign reading “Antiques,” Jacqueline began to get bored. The only stations on the radio broadcast country-western music, and she wearied of inventing obscene lyrics. Flipping channels, she encountered a hoarse voice that exhorted her to stand up and proclaim that she had let the Lord Jesus into her heart. Jacqueline switched back to music. “Don’t tell me who to let into my heart,” she snarled.

She never did find Whitman Brothers Road. The shadows of late afternoon stretched across the road when she arrived at an intersection adorned by a filling station and a weather-beaten wooden building with a sign reading (oh, bliss) “Antiques.” Other signs indicated that the building was also a general store and a post office, and that beer and ice were available.

Jacqueline stopped and went in. The antiques consisted of several cracked jugs, a rocker that tipped over backward as soon as someone sat on it, and a number of doilies crocheted out of iridescent polyester yarn. She asked for a beer and for directions; two customers, identical in faded overalls and cowboy hats, bent their heads over the map in solemn discussion and finally agreed that mebbe she better not try to find Whitman Brothers Road after all. She’d come too far south, that was her trouble, but if she turned left at the intersection and then hung a right onto 346…

Jacqueline finished her beer and parted from her newfound friends with mutual expressions of goodwill. For a wonder, the directions turned out to be accurate. An hour later she was driving up the main street—called Main Street—of Pine Grove.