“I know.” Yikes, I had completely forgotten. “I taped it but I haven’t watched it yet.”
“Thanks to you and that first book you appraised, we’ve had a tremendous increase in requests from people who want to bring in rare books, so we’re going to add one more book segment to your day.”
“That’s great,” I said cheerily. “I just hope I’ll be able to do justice to the appraisals. The research is what takes most of my time.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “We’ve hired two more prescreeners. One of them starts today and the other one will be here tomorrow. So now you’ll have more people getting the books from the owners and checking them out. They’ll write up their usual short reports and all you’ll have to do is a little fact-checking.”
I didn’t tell him that I would still be compelled to conduct my own research. I couldn’t make an appraisal based on someone else’s notes. It wouldn’t be ethical.
But he probably didn’t care, and why should he? The show was basically entertainment. He wasn’t worried about my ethical issues.
Still, I was happy. It was so good to hear that the show would feature more books. “That’s wonderful, Tom. I can’t wait to meet the new appraisers.”
“Yeah, let me introduce you to one of them right now.” He led the way outside and I saw the throngs of people lined up to enter the guest hall. Tom looked around and pointed. “There she is. You wait here. I’ll bring her over.”
He jogged off into the crowd. There were so many people standing around, I couldn’t catch a glimpse of who he was talking to.
Without warning, the sun slipped behind a dark cloud and I trembled involuntarily. I wasn’t cold, exactly, but I felt a darkness enveloping me.
A sharp spasm of pain stabbed at my stomach. What the hell was that?
As I rubbed at the pain, the woman talking to Tom turned to look at me. And I knew the dark forces had collected to try to destroy me.
“No, no, no,” I groaned under my breath.
Minka!
Like in the movie Beetlejuice, I usually hesitated to say her name aloud, just in case the devil was summoned forth. But despite my precaution, here was Minka LaBoeuf in person. My worst enemy.
She took one look at me and her upper lip curled in a snarl that only a mama dingo could love. She was wearing too much lipstick, as usual, in a shade of orange that could not be found in nature. From ten yards away I could see the oil slick it left on her front teeth.
She wore a plaid skirt seven inches too short, with black pleather boots that stretched up and over her knees. Her sweater was so tight that anyone in the immediate vicinity could be in danger of losing an eye if it unraveled and her boobs sprang loose.
Seeing her here brought to mind all the hateful things she had ever said or done to me. There were too many and they were too vile to mention.
Otherwise, it was just dandy to see her.
I rarely had such unpleasant thoughts about anyone, but she brought out the meanie in me.
Who could’ve possibly recommended her for this job? If it was Ian, he’d only done it to keep her from begging for work at the Covington Library. Still, that was no excuse to ruin my life.
I was going to kill him.
“Minka tells me you two know each other,” Tom said jovially. “I guess it’s a small world.”
I nodded and she grunted.
Tom glanced back and forth, still smiling. “I’ve got to get back inside, so I’ll leave you two to chat with each other. Glad to have you with us, Minka.” He ran off, deserting me.
I mentally girded my loins and waited for the insults to roll off her tongue.
“I can’t believe they hired you for this job,” she said in a hiss. “I would look so much better on television than you.”
“Because orange teeth are so photogenic,” I drawled. As an insult, it was weak, but when she was around I always felt winded. The air grew thick and oppressive and it was hard to breathe.
Rather than listen to more of her slurs, I turned and walked away with only one thought in mind.
Ian was a dead man.
? ? ?
Twenty minutes later, I was still fuming in my dressing room. I couldn’t believe I was being forced to work with Minka. She was useless! She didn’t know a thing about appraising books. She barely knew anything about bookbinding. She couldn’t tell a kettle stitch from a slipknot. And I was still certain she’d tried to stab me back in college when the knife she’d handed me had “slipped” and almost sliced the tendon in my hand. She’d physically attacked me more than once and blamed me for every bad thing that had ever happened to her. Not to put too fine a point on it, but she hated me with the heat of a thousand suns and I felt the same way about her.
I knew that if she could find a way to sabotage my job, she would do it. I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about what she might do, but now I would have to anyway.