I write for several hours, sobering up from the plane ride all the while. A phone call interrupts me as I am cutting words from a scene where Beth is getting ready to go out. Readers, I’ve decided, will not care what color lipstick she chooses for her revenge date.
I think David is finally getting back to me and am surprised when I don’t recognize the New York number. Likely, a telemarketer has obtained my information. I answer anyway. It could be my gynecologist. “Hello, this is Liza.”
“Sergeant Perez. Sorry to phone on a Sunday, but a friend got back to me with some news, and you’d seemed so upset before . . .”
A tingling sensation pricks my fingers, as though they were wet and touching the end of a battery. “Yes. Thank you for calling.”
“Your husband reported Mr. Landau missing when he didn’t show up for work that Monday and he couldn’t get in touch with him. According to the detectives on the case, the last person to report seeing him was a bartender at a local cocktail bar near Mr. Landau’s apartment. Some fancy French-styled place.”
A mental image of the bar Christine described flashes in my head. I can see the red-cushioned French chairs and gilded mirrors.
“The bartender said that Nick came there that Saturday night with another man. They had several drinks. Apparently, shortly after they left, a woman asked about him. He remembered because she seemed angry and left before finishing her drink.”
“Did the bartender see what this woman looked like?” I ask.
“He said she was good-looking.”
I think of Nick’s exes. They were all attractive women, albeit a bit severe in appearance. Did he break up with the wrong one? “Did she have short hair, by any chance?”
“No. Why?”
“Nick’s past girlfriends all had short hair.”
“Oh.” The sergeant’s tone seems surprised.
I realize that, if Nick had dumped this girl, she might have changed her look. Women did that after bad breakups. “Did she have blonde—”
“Unfortunately, I can’t provide any more details without compromising the investigation.” Sergeant Perez clears his throat. “So as you already agreed to, none of this gets written up. I thought you and your husband would feel better knowing that detectives don’t suspect Mr. Landau’s disappearance had anything to do with a hate crime or that case against the city. They’re leaning toward some kind of romantic spat.”
I thank Sergeant Perez and hang up. With the phone still in my hand, I consider calling David. Ultimately, I decide against it. If he can’t even deign to return my multiple messages, why should I rush to give him this new information?
My first scheduled appearance is in forty minutes on the first floor. I shower, fix my hair, and change into a navy pencil dress that I hope will transition from day to the nighttime reception. When I examine the reflection in the mirror, I’m disappointed. I look like a side chair upon which someone has hung a promotional tote. The judgment sends me to my makeup bag for red lipstick. Painting my mouth helps. I may still be background furniture, but I now have a decorative pillow.
The exhibition booths are identical long desks covered in printed tablecloths. Behind each are makeshift shelves featuring the latest titles. I notice a kiosk about a hundred feet away that has an electric coffeemaker and giveaway cups. Now that will draw a crowd.
The cloth draped over our table is red and printed with this year’s book covers. The same curtain is pinned to the wall behind me. Painted milk crate shelves are stacked on either side of the fabric display, showing off the house’s latest hardcovers. My new book is there, bottom shelf, where liquor stores keep the rotgut spirits.
In the center of the wall tapestry is the image for the latest from Brad Pickney, my publisher’s star author. I could have designed it. Basically, it’s a navy background with his name in bold, orange letters. A title is scrawled beneath, along with a tinier subscript announcing that the book is “the latest” in the Trent Cross series. Pickney needs nothing else to sell his work—no image of an attractive man or woman looking off into the distance, no bleakly rendered city or foreboding suburban landscape.
Two gray chairs wait behind the dais. One is for me. The other is for the marketing chaperone who will accompany our house’s better known scribes. For me, the second chair will remain occupied by the ghost of sales past. I take a seat, drop my tote, and scan for the swag that my publisher always brings. What do we have? Coffee cups? Stress balls? Five months ago, someone in marketing had asked my opinion on giveaways. I’d suggested plastering a quote from the book on a T-shirt. The woman had thanked me in an unexcited manner. Whatever the team decided on, it wasn’t that.
There’s nothing save some generic pens. So that’s what I have to offer. My signature and some of the bookmarks and business cards that I always bring to these things. I force a smile that I hope could land me a job as an Olive Garden hostess and scan the sparse crowd.
There’s a well-dressed man at the other table who reminds me of Nick. They have the same dark hair worn long enough to have a slight curl at the nape. Same deep-set eyes. As I look at him, the room grows fuzzy, like I’ve moved from a sunlit space into a dim hallway. Suddenly, the overhead lights explode with shocking brightness. My head pounds. I hear phantom traffic sounds followed by an explosion. Instinctively, I press a hand to my left temple. Why is this happening now?
My stomach cramps from the blinding pain. I open my eyes just enough to take in my escape route. The elevators are to the left, a hundred paces beyond this room’s exit. I weave around the convention attendees, avoiding people by the placement of their feet on the gray hotel carpet.
By the time I enter my room, the worst of the migraine is over, though my temples still throb the rhythm of my accelerated heartbeat. The suddenness and severity of the headache makes me feel as though I was sucker punched. I want to speak to my husband.
His phone rings five times. I expect to leave a voice mail when an unfamiliar male voice answers.
“Hey. It’s Liza. I was calling for my husband.”
“I’m sorry. David is meeting with his secretary. May I . . .”
An orange sunset creeps through the hotel window, staining the pale-brown walls with rust streaks. The remnants of the migraine have made me light sensitive. I shade my eyes with a lazy salute and struggle to draw the curtains. Once the room is dark, I regain focus. The man is asking if he can take a message. From the tone of his voice, it’s not the first time he has posed the question.
“Sorry, I . . .” Talking hurts. “He’s meeting with Cameron?”
“I’ll tell him you called.”
The man hangs up. I flop on the center of the bed and bury my face in the pillowcase. Why am I suffering a stress migraine? Is it my fear of selling a so-so book? My anger with David for refusing to return my calls? Learning that Nick had been souring David on the idea of a baby? David’s desire to work all week? Cameron?
I groan into the fabric. David isn’t going to cheat on me with that girl. She’s too pretty for him. Too young. He probably spends all day ordering her around: “Take dictation.” “Where is my dry cleaning?” “Hang these missing posters.” But then, why do I feel so nervous about him in the office? Why the blinding pain in my brain?
My limbs are trembling from the migraine aftershocks and fear of another attack. I always travel with medicine. I dig in my bag for an Excedrin bottle and shake out two pills, swallowing them with bottled water from the minibar.
Afterward, I stumble into the bathroom, vision still blurry from the receding pressure in my head. I splash water on my face, over and over, until my breathing normalizes and the room no longer resembles a club at closing time. Then I flop on the bed and reach for my laptop on the nightstand table.
Deadlines do not stop for migraines. I send the marketing team a quick e-mail explaining that I left my signing early due to “illness” and then open up my most recent document. No more thinking about David or Nick. It’s time for Beth to have her revenge.