Free The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) by Shane Norwood Page B

to be her biggest success ever. There was even rumored to be a film deal in the wind. Of course, the novels were absolute crap, dime novels at best: dire, implausible, unrealistic, childish drivel about some buxom pseudo-sophisticated femme fatale tripping the light fantastic around the world, robbing everybody’s jewels. But so what? They made money, and that made her a serious VIP in his book.
    He slapped his best unctuous smile onto his dial as he saw the Lexus pull up outside. The shape of the leg that appeared out of the back door temporarily stopped him in his tracks and diverted his thoughts from sales figures to figures of another nature, but he quickly drove such prurient and inappropriate thoughts from his mind, and stepped out to meet the author.
    Well-Read Ed fluffed his lines and blew his introduction. He had a speech prepared, witty and apropos, and full of literary references, inside jokes from one literatus to another. He hadn’t meant to say “Holy shit”—honestly he hadn’t. It’s just that when he saw her standing in front of him, nothing in his experience had prepared him to be in such proximity to such sexual high voltage, and he just hadn’t been able to help it.
    The woman just smiled graciously, pretending not to notice his crimson face, and allowed herself to be led to the signing desk. She sat elegantly and smiled to the first customer, waving him forward as Well-Read Ed scuttled off to his office to bang his head against the wall.
    The woman sat for two hours, signing each book with care, and fielding questions and comments she had heard a million times with patience and good humor, until the last smile had been smiled and the last hand had been shaken. There was an hour to kill before the press and radio arrived, and Ed, who had been in the office the whole while figuring out how to redeem himself, came bustling forward with a sophisticated remark busting his teeth trying to get out.
    “ My-oh-my, it’s a—”
    “ Wonderful day?”
    “ Excuse me,” Ed said, flustered again.
    “ Never mind. Listen, where’s the nearest bar, Jack? If I drink any more coffee I’ll piss in my pants.”
    “ But the interview…”
    “ Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”
    “ Yes, but…”
    “ But what, ace? You’re worried I’ll come back juiced, is that it?”
    “ No, I, er, well, it’s just around the corner, actually. It’s called Billy’s Long Bar. Perhaps I could join you.”
    “ Perhaps you could join the Moonies. See you in an hour, slick.”
    Well-Read Ed watched her spectacular derrière slinking out of the door, his face even redder than before.
    “ No wonder your books are so shit, bitch,” he said as the door closed behind her.
     
    The woman took a seat at a table at the farthest end of the bar and settled down with a vodka and tonic. It was quiet and peaceful in there at that time of the day. She was glad. She was tired—bone weary. Her mind came back to the same question that had been dogging her for what seemed like forever. When did she start feeling like this, and why? How did she get like this? Where had she taken a wrong turn? Her life was like a ring with a stone missing. Unless you looked closely you would think it was perfect, but the stone that was missing somehow devalued all the others, and made a lesser of the whole, and although she had all the other stones, her life had become a search for the one that was missing, the one that would make her complete. Except, how can you search for something if you don’t know what it is?
    Her reverie was interrupted by a large black woman who approached the table shyly. She had a very pretty, jovial face, but she wouldn’t have gotten much change out of two hundred pounds. She was wearing an old-fashioned dress and had a flower-pattern bandana tied around her head. She looked like a refugee from a Clark Gable movie.
    “ Excuse me,” she said, “I don’t mean to bother you, but I was late for the signing. I missed my bus.