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her eyes behind the Buddy Holly glasses (is this some trendy New York thing?) are a pleasing shade of violet.
    He wishes there w as a smile on her unpainted but quite generous lips.
    “Are you an honest man, Gordon?” Jane asks, those violet eyes drilling him.
    He tries for levity.
    “As the day is long.”
    “Or the night?”
    “Hah,” he says, “touché.”
    “If I asked you a question would you give me a straight answer?”
    “I would do my best.”
    There is a suspenseful pause as Grace delivers Gordon’s coffee and tries to interest Jane in a slice of Vermont apple pie.
    The agent politely refuses but Grace persists and Gordon has to bite his tongue to stop himself from telling her exactly where she c an shove her pie.
    At last she waddles off and Jane adjusts her glasses on her nose and fixes her eyes on Gordon again.
    “Ask away,” he says.
    “Are you Viola Usher?”
    The question that he has feared most robs him of his breath, and he tries to cover his distress by taking a sip of the coffee.
    A mistake.
    The java is scalding hot, getting him to spray it onto the table top in a fit of coughing.
    He scrambles for napkins and wipes up his mess.
    “My apologies,” he says, wheezing.
    When he regains his breath, he says, “Why on earth would you ask me something so absurd?”
    “You’re answering a question with a question,” Jane says.
    “Of course I’m not Viola Usher,” he says. “There, asked and answered.”
    He tries to meet her eyes but finds his gaze drifting out to where the geezer of a postman is in conversation with the local reverend.
    “You’re lying,” Jane Cooper says.
    “I beg your pardon?” he says, shocked at how forthright she is.
    “I said, you’re lying.”
    He stands.
    “I refuse to be insulted like this. I’m leaving.”
    “I doubt it,” she says, gaze unwavering.
    She could win a fortune playing poker in Las Vegas.
    Gordon subsides into his seat.
    “The only reason I’m staying is that I feel I deserve to hear your opinion of my novel.”
    “Which novel is that?” she asks. “ Too Long the Night or Ivy ?”
    “You’re toying with me.”
    Jane shrugs.
    “ Well,” she says, “I read the first seven chapters of Too Long the Night. ”
    “And?”
    “I was overcome . . .”
    “You were?”
    “Overcome with the realization that there were far too many glaring similarities between it and Viola Usher’s book.”
    “This again.”
    “Okay, Gordon, indulge me. Both books have their protagonists leaving small towns in Vermont for unnamed Ivy League colleges.”
    “Hardly conclusive.”
    “Both Sarah Oatman in Too Long the Night and Suzie Ballinger in Ivy spend an awful lot of time talking about The Catcher in the Rye .”
    “Well, they’re both rights-of-passage novels of sorts, so is it terribly surprising that they would reference the greatest bildungsroman of them all?”
    “Did you honestly just say bildungsroman ?”
    “I did.”
    “You’re pompous and a liar.”
    “I don’t have to sit here and be insulted, ” he says, but he stays in his seat.
    “Gordon, I know about Suzie Baldwin.”
    He stares at her.
    “How?”
    Jane shakes her head.
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    Gordon points toward Grace who has her back to them, delivering an order to another table.
    “That old gossip monger told you, didn’t she?”
    Jane waves this away.
    “Look, I don’t want to trample on your feelings—”
    “Oh, think of them as little purple grapes and trample away.”
    “—but I know you and Suzie were close. Clearly, her death inspired you to write Too Long the Night .”
    “Wow, you are perspicacious. No wonder you’re a literary agent.”
    “I understand you’re upset.”
    “ Upset doesn’t come close.”
    “Gordon, please: Suzie Baldwin, Suzie Ballinger? Is that a coincidence?”
    “Yes, along with all the others.”
    “Okay, I’m going to be straight with you.”
    “And what have you been so far?”
    “I was just warming up.”
    “Okay,