* Book Maker: Merry McInerney, wife of...

* Book Maker: Merry McInerney, wife of author Jay McInerney, says she made the writer what he is now by supplying him with love and money while he kicked a cocaine habit. Now she wants a divorce--and a share of his profits. Her Michigan divorce suit seeks $500,000 in cash and $5,000 a month. McInerney also claims she wrote passages for her husband’s novel “Bright Lights, Big City.” Kenneth Prather, the author’s attorney, said she contributed only her secretarial skills.

* Busing Plan: Chicago’s deputy mayor of education says she is sending her eldest daughter to a suburban private academy because the quality of education in the city is poor. Lourdes Monteagudo said the girl is a high school freshman in Winnetka. “I don’t have to apologize for it,” she said. “I could not support her staying in Chicago until the system can be reformed, because the system is bad.”

* Mediation Scheduled: Dorothy Bush LeBlond, President Bush’s daughter, will go before a mediator in Portland, Me., April 17 to work out terms of a divorce from William LeBlond. Can the two reach agreement? William LeBlond’s attorney, Thomas H. Allen, said: “I don’t make predictions.” The couple’s children are Samuel, 5, and Nancy, 3.

* Island Injury: O. Stillman Rockefeller, an heir to the Rockefeller fortune, was flown to New York City Tuesday for treatment of apparent shark bites he suffered off a Fiji island. Rockefeller was swimming Saturday when he was bitten. “I swam to shore and dragged myself about 1,000 feet or so to the resort,” he said. Dr. Eddie McCraig, who treated him in Fiji, said: “I don’t know what bit him, but it was a fish with very sharp teeth.”