Read Online Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister - Free Book Online Page B

am?”
    â€œOf course. How could anyone forget that upholstery?”
    â€œI’m afraid not,” Norah said.
    â€œAre you playing games with me?” the woman asked. “I know they talk about me in the office.”
    â€œI’m sure that’s not true.”
    â€œOf course it’s true! And I’m
glad
. You know why? Because the only thing worse than being talked about is
not
being talked about. Dorothy Parker said that. You can look it up.”
    â€œOh please, Norah dear, find out where she lives so you can poison her food.”
    â€œI believe that was Oscar Wilde,” Norah said.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œOn second thought, use your bare hands and strangle her now.”
    â€œYou never heard of Oscar Wilde?”
    The woman bit her lip. “Oh, right. He’s that gay guy with all those famous quotes.”
    â€œI’m thinking of one right now: Some cause happiness wherever they go; others
whenever
they go.”
    â€œI’m afraid I don’t know what you want from me,” Norah said.
    â€œI’m Edie Coates.” She put her hands on her hips for punctuation.
    â€œGreat-niece of Percy Coates. She’s suing the hotel for the guest book.”
    â€œWhat floor do you want, Ms. Coates?”
    â€œI want my book.”
    â€œIt’s not hers.”
    â€œIt’s not yours.”
    â€œIs too.”
    â€œNow, children.”
    â€œI have nothing more to say to you, Ms. Coates.”
    â€œ
Why don’t you just give me the book and save yourself a lot of trouble?”
    Norah put it behind her back. “I’ll call security,” she said.
    The woman balled her fists. “It’s my book!” Her face contorted like a child’s when she’s about to cry.
    â€œIt is not.”
    â€œIt is too!” She tried to reach around Norah to grab it.
    â€œDon’t close the book!”
Dorothy Parker said, but Norah didn’t know what choice she had. The woman was after it, and Norah couldn’t possibly get a grip on it otherwise. She slammed it shut and pressed her back against it, wedging it between her body and the rear wall of the elevator.
    Norah tried to stand her ground as the crazed woman shoved her, but the book began to slide downward. The woman gave Norah one hard push and her bottom hit the floor.
    Edie snatched the prized possession just as the elevator doors opened. She tried to make a run for it, but Norah grabbed her ankle and she went sprawling. The guest book fell open upon the carpeted hallway, emitting a cloud of dust. As the two of them watched, the particles rose and joined together, forming a fuzzy image resembling a small woman in an old-fashioned hat.
    â€œWhat the hell?” cried Edie Coates, scrambling to her feet.
    The image became more vivid until the particles were inseparable, and the form quite human. Edie stared, frozen in place, her eyes wide in terror.
    â€œI thought I told you not to close the book,” Dorothy Parker said to Norah. She turned to Edie. “And as for you, my dear,
boo
.”
    Edie Coates shrieked and ran, ducking into the stairwell.
    â€œCome along,” Mrs. Parker said to Norah, who picked up the book and followed her.
    â€œWhat on earth was that about?” Norah asked, dusting her hip as they walked down the hallway toward Ted Shriver’s room.
    â€œAbout six months ago, a small article about the guest book appeared in the
New Yorker
, along with speculation that it waspriceless. This attracted far too much attention, and within days some awful vandal ripped out the last page, depriving me of my most precious companion, Cliché, a French poodle who kept me company in some of my darkest hours—both in life and in death. About that same time, this odd woman slithered into the hotel insisting she was the sole heir to Percy Coates’s estate and that the book was rightfully hers. But of course, it belongs to the hotel. It has always belonged