The Mysterious Disappearance of the Reluctant Book Fairy Read Online Free PDF Page B

closet until she could get control of herself. But this, too, proved to be impossible, for the Red-Hatted Ladies, the computer gentleman, and—God forbid—Mildred Banfry (who had left her electrical bill on the library counter as things happened) all stormed the environs of the supply room door upon which Monie began to bang with great force.
    â€œIt was Mrs. Danvers’ idea for her to dress like Caroline de Winter and how could he possibly be so stupid not to know that?” she cried. “Let me out of here, Annapurna. Send me back there. I want to rip her eyes out.”
    Annapurna understood immediately what had happened but she hardly knew what to do about it. Somehow, her friend had opened to the wrong page in the novel, and instead of finding herself a witness to a marriage proposal, she’d found herself caught up in the nameless heroine’s humiliation on the night of the Manderley ball. Of course she hadn’t intended to torment her husband by dressing as his former, black-hearted wife had done in years past. It was the evil Mrs. Danvers who had suggested it. Had Maxim possessed a conscience less guilty and sense more common, he would have known this. But that would have wrecked the scene’s drama. As, frankly, sending Monie back there to allow her to sort him out would do.
    Not that she could have managed this anyway because there was plenty of explaining to do. And while Annapurna did her best with the idea of her old friend napping her way into a terrible nightmare, she could tell that not everyone was buying that story. But she managed to get the Red-Hatted Ladies to return to their discussion and the computer gentleman to return to his perusal of New Guinea. She didn’t notice Mildred Banfry, however. That was a game changer for her.
    Monie was not to be consoled. Once Annapurna had the supply room door open, Monie’s outrage at Mrs. Danvers turned itself on poor Annapurna. This was to have been her blessed escape from her life among rambunctious children and a husband who, it had to be said, had all the passion and imagination of a Texan horsefly in the middle of summer. To have arranged her schedule; to have dressed herself in a time-appropriate costume; to have managed what it took when it came to laundry, cleaning toilets, ironing, baking brownies for the church group, and all the rest and all the rest … only to have her one escape from all that to be turned into a tormented witnessing of such a scene of horror …
    Annapurna listened to all of this with patience. What she wanted to say was “You want horror? I’ll show you horror,” while she plopped a copy of The Gulag Archipelago upon Monie Reardon Pillerton’s chest. But what she said was, “Oh dear. Monie, it was the page! You were supposed to be sure you had the right page, you know.”
    To which Monie said, “You’ve got to make it right. I can’t go home feeling like this, knowing what it was like, witnessing first hand her utter and complete humiliation and you know he wasn’t the least understanding, Annapurna. Did he really think she would be so heartless? Didn’t he even know her?”
    Well, considering that all they’d done was drive around Monaco for a few days before he asked her to marry him, no he didn’t know her, Annapurna wanted to say. But Monie was in such a state of outrage and umbrage and disappointment that it seemed to Annapurna that the only answer was to whisk her back into the supply closet as quickly as possible and send her to that breakfast terrace in Monte Carlo where the marriage proposal had taken place.
    She hurried her back in. She went in after her. She got her settled. She made absolutely certain that the page was correct (“He was ready, as he had promised, in five minutes. ‘Come down to the terrace while I eat my breakfast,’ he said.”) before she set the book on Monie’s chest, folded her hands