Full Dark, No Stars

“I can save you ten miles,” Ms. Norvil e said as they mounted the library steps. “Have you got a GPS? That makes things easier than directions written on the back of an envelope. Wonderful gadgets.”

Tess, who had indeed added a GPS to her Expedition’s dashboard array (it was cal ed a Tomtom and plugged into the cigarette lighter), said that ten miles off her return journey would be very nice.

“Better a straight shot through Robin Hood’s barn than al the way around it,” Ms. Norvil e said, and clapped Tess lightly on the back. “Am I right or am I right?”

“Absolutely,” Tess agreed, and her fate was decided as simply as that. She had always been a sucker for a shortcut.

- 4 -

Les affaires du livre usual y had four wel -defined acts, and Tess’s appearance at the monthly convocation of Books & Brown Baggers could have been a template for the general case. The only diversion from the norm was Ramona Norvil e’s introduction, which was succinct to the point of terseness. She carried no disheartening pile of file cards to the podium, felt no need to rehash Tess’s

Nebraska farmgirl childhood, and did not bother producing bouquets of critical praise for the Wil ow Grove Knitting Society books. (This was good, because they were rarely reviewed, and when they

were, the name of Miss Marple was usual y invoked, not always in a good way.) Ms. Norvil e simply said that the books were hugely popular (a forgivable overstatement), and that the author had been

extremely generous in donating her time on short notice (although, at fifteen hundred dol ars, it was hardly a donation). Then she yielded the podium, to the enthusiastic applause of the four hundred or so in the library’s smal but adequate auditorium. Most were ladies of the sort who do not attend public occasions without first donning hats.

But the introduction was more of an entr’acte. Act One was the eleven o’clock reception, where the higher rol ers got to meet Tess in person over cheese, crackers, and cups of lousy coffee (evening events featured plastic glasses of lousy wine). Some asked for autographs; many more requested pictures, which they usual y took with their cel phones. She was asked where she got her ideas and

made the usual polite and humorous noises in response. Half a dozen people asked her how you got an agent, the glint in their eyes suggesting they had paid the extra twenty dol ars just to ask this

question. Tess said you kept writing letters until one of the hungrier ones agreed to look at your stuff. It wasn’t the whole truth—when it came to agents, there was no whole truth—but it was close.

Act Two was the speech itself, which lasted about forty-five minutes. This consisted chiefly of anecdotes (none too personal) and a description of how she worked out her stories (back to front). It was important to insert at least three mentions of the current book’s title, which that fal happened to be The Willow Grove Knitting Society Goes Spelunking (she explained what that was for those who didn’t already know).

Act Three was Question Time, during which she was asked where she got her ideas (humorous, vague response), if she drew her characters from real life (“my aunts”), and how one got an agent to

look at ones’s work. Today she was also asked where she got her scrunchie (JCPenney, an answer which brought inexplicable applause).

The last act was Autograph Time, during which she dutiful y fulfil ed requests to inscribe happy birthday wishes, happy anniversary wishes, To Janet, a fan of all my books, and To Leah—Hope to see you at Lake Toxaway again this summer! (a slightly odd request, since Tess had never been there, but presumably the autograph-seeker had).

When al the books had been signed and the last few lingerers had been satisfied with more cel -phone pictures, Ramona Norvil e escorted Tess into her office for a cup of real coffee. Ms. Norvil e

took hers black, which didn’t surprise Tess at al . Her hostess was a black-coffee type of chick if one had ever strode the surface of the earth (probably in Doc Martens on her day off). The only surprising thing in the office was the framed signed picture on the wal . The face was familiar, and after a moment, Tess was able to retrieve the name from the junkheap of memory that is every writer’s most

valuable asset.

“Richard Widmark?”

Ms. Norvil e laughed in an embarrassed but pleased sort of way. “My favorite actor. Had sort of a crush on him when I was a girl, if you want the whole truth. I got him to sign that for me ten years before he died. He was very old, even then, but it’s a real signature, not a stamp. This is yours.” For one crazed moment, Tess thought Ms. Norvil e meant the signed photo. Then she saw the envelope in those

blunt fingers. The kind of envelope with a window, so you could peek at the check inside.

“Thank you,” Tess said, taking it.