Announcing Small Town Shenanigans! Now live on Amazon!
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Chapter One
*Sydney
The balloon man with his sky-high colorful bouquet skipped across the square. If I tripped him, would he lose his balloons? Would they sail into the sky like a flight of fat, pastel-colored, wingless birds?
I jogged in place, watching the cars and trucks zoom along forty-nineth. I pulled my damp blouse away from my skin with one hand and used the other to push my hair off my forehead. Even though I couldn’t see my cheeks, I knew they were pink—a color I never wear because it clashes with my hair.
It was a sauna-like summer day, and Rockefeller Center was in full swing. On the steps, a guy on the saxophone waved his instrument in the air with the beat while a girl dressed in a tight gold sheath sang, “Jack the Knife,” a song with macabre lyrics that perfectly suited my mood.
A clown in a red, white, and blue costume and a red rubber nose paraded among the crowd in his twenty-inch shoes. A bikini-clad woman, who looked as if she could be as old as my grandmother, sashayed past on a pair of sparkly red stilettoes.
Finally, the traffic signal changed from red to green, and I was back in motion. The trash in the gutter reeked of urine and cheap beer. The phone attached to my arm buzzed. I felt it more than heard it, for it was a small sound in a sea of New York noise.
If it was my boss, he would want me to cheer up one of my writers, and I couldn’t do it. I had nothing to give. I was so tired of my whiny, spoiled writers, I considered switching careers. Anything would be better.
How much does a balloon man make? Everyone seemed to love him.
And if it was my boyfriend, I didn’t want to talk to him, because he wanted to get married. And I couldn’t talk to my mom, because she wanted me to marry my boyfriend. And I couldn’t talk to my sister, because she was married, and today, I wasn’t in the mood to hear about my perfect brother-in-law or my equally perfect niece—both, by the way, I adored.
I dug out my phone. I had three messages from Bertie, one of my more needy writers. I ignored them. They all said basically the same thing. She was stuck on a scene, and she wanted me to talk her through it. I thought about texting, I’m a therapist, not a developmental editor, but decided she already knew this—since I must have told her so a thousand times before.
Determined to forget about Bertie and boyfriends, I turned up the music and picked up my pace, weaving through tourists, bicyclists, and mounted police on their scary beasts. Someone bumped me, but I hardly noticed.
Why didn’t I want to marry Reagan?
Did I have to have a reason other than he wasn’t my guy? But who was my guy? Did my guy even exist?
“Hey!”
I turned to see a tall, dark man dressed in jeans and a Columbia Law T-shirt waving something in the air. A gun? He didn’t look familiar, so I ran faster. The city was full of men and Central Park held some of the worst of them. When had the mounted police disappeared? I ran onto the open field, away from the trees and bushes. An Australian Shepherd bounded after me.
“Hey!” The man’s voice called out.
I sprinted up the hill. My earphones slipped out and the sound of children laughing and playing in the distance, the rustling of leaves in the trees, and the faint hum of conversations slipped in. The earphones, dangling on their cords, beat against my chest in time with my footfalls.
Tall trees stretched to the sky and blooming flowers filled the garden beds. The sun warmed my skin. A man on an accordion stood near the entrance of the zoo. An elephant squealed and monkeys chittered. The carousel played its canned organ music.
When I got to the Great Lawn, someone grabbed my arm. I opened my mouth to scream, but the man spun me around and waved my fanny-pack in my face.
“You dropped this.” He was tall, thin, and had a mop of curly dark hair. His cheeks were pink from running, but he didn’t sound winded when he spoke.
“Oh my gosh!” Remorse swept through me. “Thank you! I’m sorry to make you chase after me.”
He grinned. “I get it. You can never be too careful.”
We stood in the center of The Great Lawn where Frisbee players and picnickers surrounded us. Pedestrians and bicyclists rushed past. The mounted policemen reappeared.
My phone buzzed again.
“Do you need to get that?” he asked.
I checked my phone.
The text wasn’t from Bertie, as I had expected, but from Harvey, my boss.
I have an unusual assignment for you, the text read. It’s an extremely delicate situation. Come into the office so we can talk. I think you’ll be excited.
When I looked up, the man in the Columbia Law T-shirt was gone.
I headed toward Shusterfield Plaza. Since COVID, I conducted most of my sessions online, so I could leave the city–move to Connecticut near my mom, or Jersey or upstate New York where coffee didn’t cost twelve dollars and parking was free. But I loved the city’s throbbing energy, and I didn’t drink coffee or even drive. Besides, Emma and Gordon lived across the hall from my rent-controlled apartment.
I pushed open the doors of Shusterfield House and flashed my clearance badge to the guard, Mervin
“Good afternoon, Miss Corbet,” Mervin called. “Hey, what did Santa Claus say to the therapist?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer.
“When I was a kid, my parents told me I didn't exist.” Mervin rumbled out a laugh.
I gave a perfunctory chuckle and headed for the elevator that would take me to the fifth floor, greeting the editors and marketers in the crowded hallway. Fortunately, I didn’t run into any of my patients. I glanced at my watch, wondering why Harvey had asked to meet at this hour.
Alicia, Harvey’s secretary, had already left her desk, but I found Harvey’s office door slightly ajar. I lightly knocked and poked my head inside.
Harvey sat behind his desk. Beyond him, floor-to-ceiling windows framed the army of buildings blocking the fading sun.
Harvey, a forty-something with a thatch of gray hair and a nose that rivaled a pig’s, glanced up and waved me inside. “Close the door.”
I did as he asked and took a seat across from him. He and Mom had been classmates at NYU, and his infatuation with her was the reason I had my job.
Harvey propped his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. “You’re familiar with the Musings saga.”
I sat forward and clutched my hands together. Musings had been my refuge during the long, lonely months after my father’s death. Even as a teenager, I recognized it as fiction, but its portrayal of eternal life—and love—had brought me peace. Getting lost in Nia and Camden’s story had saved me. “Who isn’t?”
“Exactly.” He narrowed his eyes. “You know I hired you because I feel I can trust you. I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Of course.”
Harvey slid a packet of papers across the desk.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a nondisclosure agreement.”
Curious and yet hesitant, I eyed it. “You know all therapists are–”
He interrupted me with a wave of his hand. “Special circumstances. Most people aren’t interested in who’s having an affair with whom, but what I’m going to tell you would, if the news leaked, cause a media storm.”
I laid my hand on the papers. “What are you going to tell me?”
“The true identity of MaryLu Bellemont.”
I sucked in a stunned breath. Of course, I knew Shusterfield House published the Musings books, but I never thought I’d be asked to work with the reclusive author. My heart sped, and I snatched up the papers with one hand and reached for the pen on Harvey’s desk with the other.
Harvey leaned back in his chair with a smile. “I have your attention.”
“Absolutely,” I said, without lifting my eyes from the pages.
I could hear the grin in his voice. “I thought so. You know, I got your mom those signed copies of Musings for your fifteenth birthday.”
Now I looked up with affection. “And made me the envy of all the ninth-grade girls at Darien High.”
What would those girls say now if they knew I was going to be working with MaryLu Bellemont? But if I signed this, I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. I clicked the pen anyway.
“You’ll need to go to Washington.” Harvey patted his desk.
“So, she really is from the Pacific Northwest?”
“He is.”
“He?” This surprised me. Bellemont had captured the hearts and imaginations of teenage girls all over the world, not an easy feat for the average male writer.
“He’s not anything like the persona we created for him,” Harvey said.
MaryLu Bellemont—a thirty-something woman with the creativity of JK Rowlings and Jennifer Lawrence’s wit and grace.
“What’s he like? Other than being a genius, of course.”
Harvey chuckled. “He’s the personification of a cranky old man. Sexist. Probably racist. He lives out in the boonies of Washington, and, as far as I know, the only ones who know his true identity are me, his grandson, and now, you.”
Harvey waved at me to sign the dotted line. I rifled through the papers, not even bothering to read what I was agreeing to. For all I knew, I had just signed away my first-born child, but I didn’t care. A dozen Musings memories flooded through my head. The night I sat on Aunt Monica’s deck, my cousins on either side of me. We were in Maine, the stars are brighter there because it’s not as populated as our home in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and we talked about the mythical creatures that may or may not have been hiding in the woods behind Aunt Monica’s house. I also remember a Musings themed book club meeting, a gathering of girls from age twelve to eighty, laughing until we cried. Shortly after the first movie came out, a friend confided, I’ve seen it seven times. I’m beginning to think I may be obsessed. For me, Musings became my safe place. I would hide beneath my bedcovers with a flashlight, reading all night.
If Harvey had told me Bellemont was a bazooka-totting neo-Nazi, I would still want to thank him for giving me an escape from my grief. I got a little teary-eyed thinking of my tweener-self and her obsession with Musings. “You’re making my childhood dreams come true,” I told Harvey.
“Let’s talk once you get to Cascadia. You might think you’re walking into a nightmare. I have to warn you, Bob won’t be welcoming you with open arms. In fact, he might try to chase you off his property with a shotgun.”
I lifted an eyebrow and waited for Harvey to continue.
Harvey tapped his desk with the end of his pen. “Someone who knows, or has guessed his identity, is dropping clues.” His tone hardened. “Bob suspects we’re responsible.”
“Why?”
“Well, it makes sense in a twisted way. I’ve been…” he stopped to search for the correct word, “encouraging him for some time to write another book. It wouldn’t even have to be another Musings. If he wrote a directory of wounded cats, I could sell it if he would put his name on it. But he’s not interested.” He rolled his eyes and dropped his pen. “I get it. He’s old. Cantankerous as all get out. Likes his privacy. And he’s looking for someone to blame.”
“Sort of like Shrek protecting his swamp?”
Harvey pointed his pen at me. “Exactly.”
“And you want me to play the donkey?”
“Aw, my dear. You could never be a donkey. You’re too much your mother’s daughter.” He paused. “How is Justine, anyway?”
“She’s good. Busy with the usual suspects. Gardening. Singing in the community choir. Golfing.”
“Do you think we can ever convince her to move to the city?”
“If Bailey couldn’t do it, no one can. She loves her quiet life.”
Harvey grunted. “Speaking of a quiet life. What I’m about to show you is the antithesis.” He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a remote, and pointed it at the screen behind me. I swiveled to watch a news clip.
An attractive reporter stood on the corner of a small town with a snow-capped mountain in the background.
Mobs of people, some of them dressed in togas and carrying harps, others wearing T-shirts that read, I’m a-MUSING. The crowd ringed the reporter, jockeying to get on camera. No one seemed deterred by the drizzling rain.
“This is Kelly Carlton, reporting from downtown Cascadia,” the reporter said, “the alleged home of MaryLu Bellemont, the reclusive author of the international literary sensation, Musings. Two days ago, this was a sleepy town, but now, Musing fans from all over the world are descending.”
Kelly shoved her microphone in the face of a florid, middle-aged man with an auburn-colored Santa Clause beard wearing a sweatshirt that had BROOK BOOKS blazed across the chest. “Mr. Brook, you own the local bookstore that’s causing all the excitement. Can you tell us what’s turned this Hallmark-like haven into the focal point of the literary world?”
“Well, Kelly,” Mr. Brook puffed out his chest, “two days ago, when I opened the shop, I found a note from MaryLu Bellemont saying she was ready to reveal her identity, but first, she wants to play a little game.”
“A game?” Kelly echoed him, cocked an eyebrow, and smiled at the camera.
“A scavenger hunt with a series of clues leading to the home of Miss Bellemont,” Mr. Brook said. “The winner will receive a special, illustrated edition of all five of the Musing books.”
Harvey clicked off the newscast.
I turned back to the desk and faced Harvey. His expression was nearly as dark as the TV screen.
“Is there an illustrated edition of the Musings books?” I searched my memory, because if there was such a thing, I wanted it.
“No,” Harvey said in a hard voice. “And if there was, it would be in violation of Bob’s contract. Shusterfield owns the Musing world. No one can publish the books without our consent. Bob insists he has nothing to do with this, and I believe him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t believe that we’re not behind this.”
“So, who is?”
Harvey shrugged. “That’s why I’m sending you. I need you to convince Bob this isn’t a publicity stunt.”
“Although, it’s a good one.”
“Absolutely, but I wouldn’t do this to Bob. He’s a coot, but if he wants to be left alone, that’s his prerogative.” Harvey picked up his pen and pointed it at my face. “I want you to not only find out who is doing this, I want you to win that contest. If there are illegal illustrated copies of Musings, we need to collect them and shut them down.” Harvey swore. “Nowadays, anyone can publish anything.”
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