Chapter 4
I tracked Vivienne down in a panel on “The Twenty-First-Century Mystery Novel.”She was sitting near the front, hands clasped in her lap, attention fixed on the speakers—three young writers who were clearly convinced that they had written the most important mystery novel ever, in the history of novels.(One of them was about a girl and her friends who solved mysteries while driving a pizza delivery van, and honestly, it didn’t sound bad.)
(It also made me hungry.)
Vivienne didn’t do anything nefarious.She didn’t steeple her fingers and peer over them.She didn’t glance around furtively.She didn’t have an evil cat that she petted while she listened and plotted.She didn’t cackle—not even once.
She still managed to throw the whole room into chaos.It was obvious that half the room knew who she was and couldn’t believe she was there—and they were eager to tell the other half.The amount of whispering, elbowing, and pointing could have put a high school Your Changing Body lesson to shame.One older woman, who was knitting in the back, finally got up on her chair and said, “Where is she?I can’t see her.”
Her neighbor, a pimply boy, used a laser pointer on the back of Vivienne’s head.
The panelists, for their part, didn’t seem to notice, but that’s probably because they were arguing among themselves about, quote,the death of the traditional mystery.
(Here’s a hint: it’s not dead.)
When the panel ended, Vivienne collected her purse, and I slipped back into the hall and wedged myself into an alcove next to a water fountain.People began trickling out, and excited murmurs reached me.Vivienne emerged a few moments later, pretending not to notice the people staring at her.The woman with the knitting needles stopped in the middle of the hall to announce to no one in particular—loudly—“That’s not Vivienne Carver.Vivienne Carver’s dead.”
Vivienne swanned off down the hall, and I followed.
She didn’t appear to be in a hurry to get anywhere.She stopped to check a promotional poster.She dug around in her purse and touched up her lipstick.She nodded to a middle-aged man in suspenders who was staring at her—he was so intent that he walked straight into one of the conference signs and got caught in the easel.Vivienne kept moving.
After about ten minutes of watching Vivienne examine the paintings in the gallery, fill a plastic cup with water, and produce a piece of butterscotch candy from one coat pocket, I felt the initial mixture of fear and adrenaline cooling off into a familiar, restless anxiety.I’d never seen Vivienne in the wild, so to speak.I wasn’t sure if this was how she always acted at a conference, but there was certainly a nonchalance, a refusal to behave as though this were anything out of the ordinary, that told me I was seeing how Vivienne must have acted for years and years—polite, engaged, but with a certain remoteness.
That was probably a defense mechanism; being the world’s most popular mystery writer for decades must have required a thick skin and a public persona that balanced being polite with being able to stave off raving fans.(For a moment, I thought of the florid-faced man who had been so excited to meet me.Now multiply that by about thirty million.)
Of course, Vivienne’s invisible wall didn’t stop everyone.A pair of young women—one with Frankenweenie hair and a jumpsuit that made her look like an astronaut, the other wearing a burned velvet blouse and wheeling a dolly full of books—watched her from a distance, whispering to each other and giggling until the one in the blouse approached and asked for a picture.Vivienne smiled, and the woman in the blouse snapped a quick selfie, gushed something that made Vivienne smile again and touch her arm, and then retreated.When she got back to her friend, the one with the Frankenweenie hair gave a little scream of excitement.
Vivienne checked her bag, digging around as though looking for something—probably an excuse not to have to make eye contact with the excited women—and then set off at a brisk pace.
My pulse ticked up, and I hurried after her.
She kept moving until she spotted Graeme, and then she asked the conference organizer something.I couldn’t hear what she said, but whatever it was, Graeme blanched and began fumbling through the papers on the clipboard.He held out something for Vivienne to read, and Vivienne studied it for a moment.My general sense was that Vivienne Carver tried not to let her emotions show on her face (think of the frown lines!), but I thought I detected a trace of what a writer like me would callher vast displeasuregiving way to something more prosaic like…well,befuddlement.Graeme blinked a lot, and sweat glistened at his hairline, but in all fairness, anyone in their right mind would have reacted that way if Vivienne cornered them.
I inched closer, positioning myself near a group of middle-aged writers who had chosen to share a pizza in, of all places, a public hallway.They were laughing at something that involved saying the wordhobbitsover and over again.I took out my phone, pulled up the conference schedule, and tried to figure out what Vivienne needed to talk to Graeme about.
The schedule for the rest of the day was fairly simple.There was another block of panels.Then there was a short break, followed by the welcome social.The following days offered more of the same—my panel was at the end of the final day, which I hoped (fingers crossed) meant it would be poorly attended.
“Excuse me.”The speaker had graying hair, pink-framed glasses, and a shirt that said QUOZY.He was looking right at me.
“Uh, hi,” I said and braced myself for another reader who had enjoyedA Work in Progress.
“Did you pay for the pizza?”
“I’m sorry?”
He pointed to the box of pizza—from Fratelli’s, an excellent choice.“You can’t have any if you didn’t chip in.”
“Oh, I didn’t—”
“Because we paid for it.”
“Right, I’m sorry.I’m not trying to get any pizza.I’m not even in your group.”
“You’re not?”he asked.Then, over his shoulder, he called, “Karen, is he in our group?”
Karen was apparently a bluff-faced blond woman with massive shoulders who took one look at me and shook her head.
“Then what are you doing?”the man with the pink glasses asked me.“Because you can’t have any pizza.”
