Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Success. She smiles, then reaches down for the PA system microphone.
A small crowd has gathered in front of her.
Someone yells, “Holy fuckin’ shit!”
Another screams, “Security! Security!”
Leslie holds the push-to-talk button down and locks it into position. Then she clears her throat again and loudly starts her rant…
“Readers, authors, my fellow Americans, lend me your ears!”
Which makes people giggle. She maybe should’ve prepared a speech before the big moment, but whatever. It is what it is. “I am here to pull the curtain aside and show you the ugly truth behind the name… Esssssss. Esssssss.”
Murmuring begins.
“What is she talking about?”
“She’s nuts.”
“Are you getting this? Please tell me you’re filming.”
“Oh, my God! This is gold.”
People are laughing at her.
But in a few seconds, no one will be talking about her.
So Leslie pushes all the comments aside and focuses on her goal. “Yes. That’s right, my fellow pretties. I have a secret. A dirty, ugly secret about your favorite author twinssssssss.”
She’s really leaning in to those s’s. It feels appropriate.
“You see,” she continues, “they have been lying to you.”
“Yeah, right,” someone close by says.
Leslie points to this disbelieving cynic. “You don’t think so?” And then, as if on cue, there they are. The Smith twins, walking down the main aisle towards her. “Ask them yourself. Or better yet,” Leslie continues, staring Steve Smith straight in the eyes. “I’ll ask them for you. Which of you writes the books?”
More murmuring now. Louder.
“What? What is she talking about? Everyone knows Essie writes the books.”
“What the fuck?”
“Someone grab that bitch and pull her down.”
Leslie, now wearing her showmanship hat, bends her knees, extends her arm, and points at the crowd in front of her with a dramatic semi-circle sweep. “Oh, but you’re wrong. Essie does not write the books. Steve does. They’ve been lying to you for ten years, bitches. Steve is the pen, Essie is just a face.”
“What?” People are gasping. “Is this real?”
“Oh, my God. A man writes those books.”
Mr. Audrey Saint, aka James the loudmouth husband, hops up onto the table with Leslie and grabs the microphone. “You guys! You guys! Come on! She’s full of shit!”
Now there’s a commotion and people are coming back into the signing hall. In fact, there’s a huge crowd around Leslie and her table.
She grabs the microphone back from James. “Give me that. This is my moment, you jerk.” Then she leans into the microphone, forcing it to make strange breathy noises, and continues. “Not only that, they invited me here to this signing to deliberately humiliate me in front of all of you. I got the worst table placement, a table that was hit by a swinging door non-stop the whole time”—she points to her face—“resulting in a debilitating injury. They locked me in an elevator!”
“What?”
“Seriously?”
“Holy shit, that’s… evil.”
Leslie realizes she’s turning the tide. She looks over at Steve and Essie. They’re just standing there, not saying anything. Leslie wants them to shriek, and deny it, and throw a fit.
So she isn’t done yet. Not even close.
“Not only that, ladies, they put me on the last panel of the day and then canceled it. And my microphone didn’t work on the panel I had to force myself on to! Essie wouldn’t even give me a real placard! She used a piece of folded notepaper!”
Gasps. Yesssssssss.
“And were any of you in the Reader Rants panel? Did you see the riot that Steve started?”
“I was there!”
“So was I!”
“There were chairs flying everywhere!”
“I’m pretty sure someone had to be taken out in an ambulance.”
Leslie is pretty sure that was her when her nose was smashed by the swinging door. But who is she to contradict a reader’s opinion?
“Yes!” Leslie says. Then she points at the silent twins again. “They are not who you think they are. They were never who you thought they were.”
Everyone in the signing hall turns to look at Essie and Steve. Who both remain stoically quiet.
And then Leslie yells, “SS… is a fraud.”
Just as James grabs the microphone back, causing the table to tip, and Leslie Munch, aka Raylen Star, falls face-first towards the floor.
Fifteen minutes later she’s got yet another ice pack on her face and is being wheeled out on a gurney to an ambulance for the second time in as many days. But this time, she is smiling.
Because fans are holding her hand, and saying nice things to her, and one is holding up a TikTok video of a famous BookToker.
A hurricane of a shit-storm is forming.
And it’s all about hashtag #FraudTwins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Why didn’t you tell us, Steve?”
I don’t look over at my dad, who is sitting in the passenger seat as we drive home from Vegas. Mom is with Essie and Mike, probably trying to have the same conversation, only in the reverse, and stuck in the tiny back seat of Essie’s sports car. Why did you let him talk you into this, Essie?