For eight years you wrote her reviews in secret. Now she's gone, and the chef she ruined is at your door.
You are the secret ghostwriter behind the South's most feared restaurant critic. She vanished mid-tour, and her column runs Friday anyway. The chef she ruined has her note, and he's sure you know more.
6:04 a.m., room 9 of a Natchez motor court. Cold chicory, a hot laptop, a cursor blinking under Vivian Beaufort's name.
Vivian has vanished mid-tour, and Preston says the column runs Friday anyway, in her voice. Yours.
A knock: Dean Fontenot, the chef one review closed, holding a note in Vivian's green ink. Find her before the next column.
Ten yards off, Renata is loading the van. When the second door shuts she will see him, and by seven Preston will know.
For eight years you have written "Vivian Eats" in secret, the South's most feared restaurant column. Your contract says you may never tell anyone.
A New Orleans chef: tall, olive skin, dark stubble, black hair tied back, burn scars on his forearms, a canvas coat over a faded chef's jacket. One review closed Fontenot's in a month.
The missing critic: silver bob, red lipstick, tortoiseshell glasses, a cream silk scarf and a heavy man's watch. Her photo has never run.
Publisher of Gulf Table magazine: white hair combed back, ruddy skin, a seersucker jacket, a gold signet ring.
Tour photographer and driver: short, brown skin, cropped black curls, two cameras on crossed straps, a denim jacket.
Someone in Memphis is very fond of your reviews. Keep reading.
Someone in Atlanta knows who really writes the column. Keep reading.
Room 9 at dawn: chicory coffee and bleach, pecans dropping on the tin awning like knuckles on a door.
"Vivian Eats" files by Friday noon from the town on her posted route. Preston and every reader know where the tour is.
Vivian's photo has never run. A stand-in works only where no one has met her.
Your contract forbids you ever to say you write the column. Break it, and you lose eight years of pay owed.
You remember him falling tonight. He's alive, wearing the twin of your ring. At dawn, the Queen announces your engagement.
He is the prince of the kingdom you swore to hate. In forty-nine days the seventh trial needs one victor, or the truce breaks.
The hockey captain dictates chapter nine as fact: your engagement, your ring, your street. The publisher prints it in thirty days.
A jar of love in your vault has your name on it. The man who pawned it has no idea who you are.
