The Book Critic's Bodyguard Read online

  Holly rolled her eyes comically. “Oh, just great. The life of a barista is never dull, you know? I’m thinking of getting another roommate because rent is basically an unattainable dream, and I donated plasma to fund my breakfast today.”

  Kate knew from experience Holly would never allow Kate to help her out financially, but it frustrated her to watch Holly struggle. She knew that if not for her, Holly would have left New York by now. Her plan had always been to open up a little coffee shop of her own, and the odds of it happening in the city were slim to none. A part of Kate felt guilty that her friend felt she couldn’t move and follow her dream without worrying about how Kate would fare without her, but a bigger part of her knew that she needed Holly, at least for the time being. Kate had barely survived after losing Aiden, and she wasn’t sure she could keep going without her one remaining tie to him.

  3

  Kate had all but forgotten about the nasty e-mail in her inbox by that evening. After her brunch with Holly, she stopped at the office briefly to pick up the promotional books that had been sent over for her consideration before heading back to her apartment. Most of her work could be done from home, although she enjoyed going to the office every day for a change of scenery. She thought she worked better when she was surrounded by like-minded people working towards a common goal. It kept her focused. Today, she told herself she needed to get home early to get her apartment put together before the other book club members arrived. The fact that her apartment was already nearly spotless hindered her a bit, and Kate found herself idly vacuuming a living room that didn’t really need it.

  I can’t go to the cemetery today, anyway, Kate reasoned. I’ve gotta wait for that donut delivery. The thought lifted a huge weight off her mind, relieving the guilt she felt at letting another milestone go by without visiting Aiden’s grave. It was a flimsy excuse, sure, but it was better than admitting to herself that she just couldn’t bear to see the cold stone with her sweet fiancé’s name etched on its face.

  As if the universe were waiting to squash her pitiable justification, Kate’s phone rang. Cynthia’s name flashed on the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Ms. Burt.” Cynthia sounded nervous. “Little Sweetie’s just called. Their delivery boy is out sick today and they can’t bring the donuts over. I told them you’d come down and pick them up. You’re not really doing anything, are you?”

  Kate’s heart began to pound. “What? No, I can’t. I’m busy,” she glanced at the clock. Plenty of time to head down to the bakery and pick up the desserts for tonight, with enough time left over to go just a bit farther uptown and visit a certain cemetery. More than enough time, in fact. “You’re my assistant, Cynthia. This is your task, I need you to figure it out.”

  Cynthia paused. “Well…um, the delivery guy is out sick, at Little Sweetie’s. You can just pick up your order-”

  “I heard you the first time, Cynthia,” Kate snapped. Her tenuous pretext had been ripped away from her in such a laughably easy manner, and she fell instinctively into defensive anger when faced with the bald truth of the matter. “No, I cannot go get them. I asked you to take care of this, and apparently that was asking too much. Just forget it.” Hanging up without waiting for a response, Kate rubbed her temples, trying to recall if Cynthia had sounded like she was slurring.

  So what if she was? Kate scolded herself. Alcoholism is a disease. And you screaming at the poor woman probably didn’t help.

  People were right to call her a bitch. Not only that, but she was a coward as well. If only all those writers knew, she thought bitterly. She took a deep breath and focused herself.

  We don’t need donuts, anyway. It’s just a lot of unnecessary sugar, and Little Sweetie’s isn’t even that good. That was a lie, and she knew it was a lie, but she continued. I’m a grown woman, and if I don’t want to stuff a bunch of carb-laden junk into my body, that’s perfectly fine. I have enough to do here, anyway.

  Sprawling out on the couch, Kate flipped through the manuscripts she had brought home, reading the blurbs and separating each packet into Yes and No piles. Despite the encouragement Jack had heaped upon her, Kate knew she could never bring herself to deliberately pick bad books to review. She loved hearing a good story, and she made a promise to herself to be fair and honest about the books she read. If a story was poor, she wouldn’t censor herself, but neither would she search those types out specifically.

  After considering each title, she narrowed it down to two. A period piece by a young woman about two sisters finding themselves supporting husbands fighting on opposite sides during the Civil War, or a book whose description she found enigmatically captivating.

  “The inner thoughts of a troubled young writer, struggling to find his authentic voice to share with the world.”

  Kate glanced back and forth between the two, but before she could decide which to read, her door buzzer went off.

  Kate hurried to the door, pressing the speaker button. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Kate!” A chorus of voices responded. “We’re here!”

  Grinning happily, Kate buzzed the group up. Within minutes, a flood of six pre-teen girls came bursting through her door, chattering with excitement.

  “Kate, look! Stephen King retweeted me!” Abbi Larson excitedly shoved her phone into Kate’s face. Before Kate could adequately respond, Sarah Mowen was tugging at her arm.

  “Kate! My mom said I can go to the J. L. Williamson book signing next Tuesday! I can’t wait!”

  “I got a Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday, Kate! Look, fifty dollars!”

  The girls clamored for Kate’s attention, and she heaped it on them, exclaiming over the prestige of a retweet, the joyful anticipation of a book signing, and the vast potential of a gift card. Kate had started the book club as a once monthly event, wanting to contribute positively to the literary community, but not wanting to commit too much of herself. At the time of the club’s inception, she hadn’t had much experience with children, and was positive that she wouldn’t be able to relate to them. After two months of meetings, she had decided to turn the club into a weekly endeavor, and it had been one of the most satisfying aspects of her life since then. Meeting with the girls and sharing their love of the written word amongst themselves reenergized Kate, and renewed her passion for reading.

  “Ok, guys,” Kate said as the girls settled themselves into various seating arrangements around her living room. “Before we get started on our discussion tonight, I have a favor I wanted to ask of you.” The girls leaned forward, intrigued. “I have two different books that I’m considering for my review this week, and I was hoping you guys could pick which one I read.”

  The girls began chattering excitedly amongst themselves. Quickly splitting themselves into two groups, they waited eagerly while Kate read the short blurbs aloud to them, grabbing at the manuscripts as she handed them out.

  “Anyone want any sodas?” Kate asked as the girls began flipping through the pages. A chorus of affirmatives answered her question, and she headed to the kitchen to procure refreshments. A small wave of annoyance rippled through her when she remembered she didn’t have any snacks to offer the girls—but it was annoyance with herself. She should have sucked it up and gotten the donuts. Oh, well, Kate told herself. What’s done is done.

  When she returned to the living room, the atmosphere had grown notably quieter. The girls looked nervous, some even looked afraid.

  “Hey, what’s going on? What’s the matter?”

  Abbi, a diehard horror fan with long brown hair and big blue eyes, held out one of the manuscripts to Kate. “This one’s…not very good,” she said softly.

  Kate smiled. “Sometimes that happens. It’s what keeps me in business,” she joked. Her smile melted away when none of the girls returned it. “What’s wrong?”

  Abbi wordlessly handed the manuscript over to Kate. Days by the Pond. Kate flipped to the first page.

  For my mother, the dedication read. And the
many ways you ruined my life.

  “Wow,” Kate muttered in mild surprise. “This guy doesn’t pussyfoot around.”

  Scanning the first chapter, Kate discovered the work was actually a collection of short stories, not a novel…and it quickly became abundantly clear that it was not the introspective tome she was hoping for. The first story, a disturbing essay about the mutilation and murder of a rat, was so nauseatingly and gratuitously violent Kate couldn’t imagine finishing it. Flipping through the remaining pages, she realized with revulsion every story was in a similar vein, each describing horrifying acts of unspeakable cruelty and perversion with no external plot at all.

  Shocked, Kate checked the publication company, and rolled her eyes in disgust. Penton House. Of course Penton House would send her a bunch of the most offensively pointless short stories in existence and market it as a novel.

  Once one of the most prestigious small publishing houses in the country, Penton House had gone downhill fast in the last two years. When Alphonsus Penton died, he passed the company on to his only child, Edgar. Edgar had absolutely no idea how to handle the business, and was making choices like the sleazy snake oil salesman he was at heart.

  Known for being cheap, he fired nearly every experienced professional he employed in any capacity, and hired a bunch of people with little more knowledge of the publishing world than he had. As a result, Penton House authors had become more and more amateurish, and they frequently sent out works with unfinished or missing manuscripts, poorly designed covers, or misleading blurbs. It drove Kate nuts.

  “Girls, I am so sorry you had to read this,” Kate apologized. “Really, really sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Abbi answered for the group. As Kate looked them over, she noticed just how pale they all were. The parts they had read must have really freaked them out. Hell, it freaked Kate out, and she was an adult.

  “Let’s forget these, and talk about The Handmaid’s Tale, okay?” Kate suggested. A few more of the girls smiled, and soon the group was engaged in a lively discussion on Margaret Atwood’s work, the troubling novel pushed from their minds.

  Sarah Mowen’s mother picked the group up a little after seven, and smiled in polite disinterest when Kate disclosed the incident with the manuscript.

  “Well, it’s not like they watched a scary movie or anything, right?” She laughed. “How traumatic could a book really be?”

  Kate had smiled tightly, not bothering to attempt to explain how impactful the words could have been to the girls. Some people just don’t get it, she thought, closing the door behind the group. What empty lives they must lead.

  Looking at the work now, in the quiet of her apartment, Kate saw just how bad a book could be. She couldn’t bring herself the read the ghastly, pointless work in its entirety. She seethed, thinking of the poor girls’ faces when they had read it.

  “God damn it, Penton,” she said irritably. She tossed the manuscript into her work bag, intending to send it back to Penton House with a strongly worded letter, and fumed. What a useless waste of time and energy. She could not wait until Edgar ran out of money and ran Penton House into the ground, but it seemed that his more capable late father’s vast fortune would see him continuing on for quite a while. It annoyed Kate that the literary world just turned a blind eye to Penton’s incompetence. She picked up the Civil War novel when it struck her.

  Kate wasn’t going to condone Penton House’s unprofessionalism with her silence any longer. She would review the book she received, and she would review it hard.

  When I opened Days by the Pond, published by Penton House, I was expecting to find a work of quiet reflection and self-discovery, she wrote. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find a steaming hot pile of garbage, instead.

  Smiling with wicked satisfaction, Kate finished her review with gusto, secure in the knowledge that this time, her bad review was more than deserved. Allowing herself to become lost in her work, the lingering guilt over failing to visit her late fiancé’s grave floated out of her mind.

  4

  The bright, sunny breakfast nook of Zelda Wash’s kitchen was picture perfect, straight out of a magazine spread. Perhaps “Better Homes than Yours,” or a similar publication. A small vase with freshly cut daisies sat atop a cheery yellow tablecloth, and the faint aroma of maple syrup hung in the air like a light spring wind. Bacon sizzled on the stovetop, and Zelda herself deftly flipped perfectly sized pancakes on her griddle, beaming with pleasure at their evenly browned tops. The gray-haired, pleasantly plump woman hummed a tune as she danced around her kitchen, her domain, with the seasoned confidence of a 50 year ballroom dancing vet--which she occasionally daydreamed she was.

  Zelda’s eyes weren’t what they were when she was a girl (or even what they had been a few decades after that), and her hearing wasn’t the best, but when someone had been doing something for as long as Zelda had been cooking, it became second nature, and the basic senses became less necessary.

  Yes, it was promising to be an absolute gem of a day, and Zelda sighed contentedly as she peered out her little window above the sink. The birds were chirping happily from the adorable little house she had put up last summer, and the day itself was looking to be just lovely. The only dark spot to be seen was behind Zelda, in the face of her thirty year old son, Rodney, and that was hardly anything new.

  Rodney always looked like someone had just knocked the ice cream cone out of his hands, and Zelda attributed that to the stress he had been under since their family bakery had closed. She just couldn’t keep up with the necessary output at her age, and Rodney had never been much of a baker himself. She didn’t like to nag her son, but he was her only living relative now, and she was just too darn old to take care of the both of them. Sitting at the quaint little nook, with an untouched plate of eggs and bacon in front of him, Rodney had the morning paper clenched in his fists, knuckles white with rage. His face was a storm cloud of anger and disbelief.

  “What the hell?” He muttered to himself. “What the hell?”

  The worst phrases kept jumping out at him over and over again. A hilariously pretentious work of true garbage…reads like an angst-filled teenager just discovered dirty words…avoid at all costs.

  Hands shaking, Rodney exhaled a hot breath from flared nostrils. With hate in his eyes, he glared at the grainy picture of the woman, arms crossed, above the review. Katherine “Queen of the Scene” Burt was regarded as the most influential book reviewer in the country, with the ability to make or break a writer’s whole career, never mind singlehandedly determining the success or failure of one single book. Rodney had always had a bit of a crush on her, and had dreamed of having her review one of his books once he got up the courage to actually submit a manuscript for publishing. Rodney had paid good money (more money than he could afford, really; his savings account was now entirely depleted) to a literary agent to get his first book to the sexy rock star of the reviewing world.

  And for what? Rodney thought to himself dismally. For this stuck up, New York City elitist to publicly destroy my life’s work and bankrupt me in the process? Humiliated, Rodney wanted nothing more than to stop torturing himself with the shameful paper…and yet he couldn’t.

  “Rod,” Zelda sang from the stove. “Would you like some more pancakes, dear?”

  Rodney hadn’t touched his first serving, but he didn’t bother telling his mother that. She wouldn’t hear him, anyway. And if she did hear him, it would only hurt her. Zelda was a woman who lived to bake, and now that her health had restricted her to her own small kitchen, Rodney couldn’t bear to take away her few pleasures left in life. Choosing instead to not respond, he slapped the paper down on the table and strode out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.

  Zelda took no notice of this, and bustled over to his plate. She tipped a pitcher of orange juice into the empty glass, and carefully rearranged the eggs and bacon on the plate into a smiley face.

  “There!” She beamed. “It’s going to be a wond
erful day!”

  ***

  Rodney paced around the makeshift office in the basement. He had wanted to buy every copy of the paper with the disastrous review in his small town. Had, in fact, stopped at the gas station just down the street from his house with a pile of them attempting to do just that. When the cashier gave him his total, Rodney had paused. Buying out the paper everywhere it was sold in town was going to be expensive, to say the least.

  “Never mind,” Rodney had muttered, leaving the stack of papers on the counter. It pained him to do so, knowing that the entirety of his hometown would be seeing the acerbic column. Zelda had told everyone she knew about Rodney’s upcoming review, and Zelda was beloved in the town, even if Rodney was not.

  Just a few years ago, the Wash Family Bakery had been an icon among the locals, but it had been destined to die with Rodney, who had not an ounce of interest for the industry in his body. That alone marked him as a villain in the eyes of Forest Lake, and his perceived strange behavior did nothing to soften that image.

  People would want to see what the college educated young man was doing with his life since he had, more or less, turned his back on the family business. That he paid the bills on the home seemed not to matter to the local gossipmongers; it was much more interesting to paint Rodney as the loner who lived in his mother’s basement. A social outcast since junior high, Rodney was something of an enigma in Forest Lake, and he was rapidly achieving Boo Radley levels of infamy.

  Rodney’s dream had always been to support himself and Zelda solely with a writing career, and he had thrown himself and everything he had into his work, determined to achieve what no one else thought he could. He had heard more than once how foolish he was to let a successful family business die just to chase a silly dream, but Rodney refused to let statements like those deter him.