The Pink Ghetto (12 page)

“You know his name. He was at your house last Christmas.”

“Right. Maybe now you can tell him he needs to scoot. Though I don’t know why you didn’t do that years ago. You’re an attractive girl now, you know.”

Now,
he said. As opposed to all those years when he’d
told
me I was attractive in spite of being a blimp.

I tried not to let his words stir me up. I knew he didn’t mean it that way, really; over the years I had programmed my brain to root out the hidden insults in the most innocuous of comments. Like right now, and all his talk about wasting my time with Fleish. I couldn’t help thinking that my dad worried I wasn’t going to strike husband material before I ballooned back to obesity.

“Fleishman’s my friend, Dad.”

“You know, I was reading something in a magazine about men like him. I was at the doctor’s office. See,
I
take advantage of my healthcare options.”

I squinted at the wall. “Wait. You were reading about Fleishman?”

“Oh, sure. They’ve come up with a whole new category for his type. He’s what they call a
metrosexual.
”

I covered the receiver so he wouldn’t here me whoop. I loved to envision my square dad at the doctor’s, catching up on his pop sociology. “I think you’re right.”

“Do you think that’s a good thing?” he asked me in a worried tone.

“Well, they’ve done studies, Dad. It’s innate. Some men are just born to exfoliate.”

“If you’re going to be a smart aleck, I’m going to hand this phone back to your mother so she can tell you more about what all the world and its wife have read for the past thirty years.”

I laughed. I knew he wasn’t going to do that, because he was one of those people who would talk for ten minutes and then start exclaiming that the call was costing somebody a fortune. (Which I believe was code for
half-time’s over.
) He made me promise to work hard and go to the doctor, and I promised not to get fired before I had.

“Fired!” he exclaimed. “Why would they do that? They’re lucky to have you, Becca-bunny.”

I hung up the phone quickly, so I wouldn’t start snuffling. That was my Dad in a nutshell. He could put you through the ringer, and then slap you on the back and try to tell you you were the greatest thing to come down the pike since twist-off bottlecaps.

But after a few weeks I was beginning to think he might be right. Not that Candlelight was lucky to have me, but that I might not need to be quite so paranoid. I began to relax a little. To socialize. I was calm enough now that I didn’t always panic when I heard my phone ring, or feel my stomach churn with dread when I stepped on the elevator every morning.

In fact, I almost looked forward to getting on the elevator in the morning. There was always a chance that I would be able to share a solitary ride with Suave Guy.

That’s how desperate my romantic life had become.

One morning I got on and found myself sharing the car with Andrea. She looked slightly depressed.

“What’s wrong?” I assumed it was another job interview disappointment.

She shrugged. “Just the usual letdown of getting on the elevator and not seeing Mr. Incredible.”

Mr. Incredible?
“You mean Suave Guy?”

“Who?”

“The man on the elevator. Blond hair. Dreamy brown eyes.”

She brightened. “Do you see him, too?”

It was like discovering another person in the world saw giant white rabbits.

I nodded. “I’ve talked to him several times.”

“I’ve been talking to him for years!”

I tried not to feel jealous. “I wonder where he works.”

She smiled knowingly. “I used to imagine he was something exciting—a spy, maybe. But I finally decided it’s best not to think about it. He’s just floating somewhere above us all. He’s heaven-sent.”

We compared notes, trying to determine which of us the elevator Adonis seemed to favor. Andrea argued that she was secretly his true love, but I was sure she was wrong. We were arguing when we got off the elevator.

“So what if he held the door for you?” Andrea said. “One time he touched
my
elbow.”

“He gave
me
a Kleenex once.”

She gasped. “When?”

Before I was compelled to confess that the Kleenex had been given to me to mop up an unsightly lipstick smudge, Muriel called out to me. “Rebecca, may I speak to you for a moment?”

I skidded to a stop. “Whassup?”

Slang—even decade old slang—made Muriel uncomfortable. “I wanted to inquire whether you had the opportunity to read my friend’s manuscript.”

Already? What did she think I was, a speed reader? It had only been a few weeks since the Indian buffet. Or maybe…

Well, okay. A month and a half.

“Not yet. It’s on the top of my pile, though.”

I had learned this response from listening to the other editors.
It’s on the top of my pile!
was somehow supposed to be soothing to authors who had been on pins and needles for months and months. Maybe they were supposed to imagine their words rising like cream to the top of the slush.

“Terrific,” Muriel said. “I’ll let Melissa know.”

That was the woman’s name. Melissa MacIntosh. I remembered it from that moment a month and a half ago when I had glanced at the cover page and then tossed it onto one of the piles, where it remained to this very day. Feeling that now-familiar twinge of editor guilt, I made a vow to go straight to my office and read this manuscript. And I did. At least, I went straight back to my office and retrieved the book from the shelf.

As I looked at the front page, my heart sank.

The Rancher and the Lady
A novel
By Melissa MacIntosh

I knew you couldn’t tell a book by its cover, but wasn’t that what everyone did? Wasn’t that why Candlelight spent hundreds of thousands on the art department staff and focus groups? Likewise, you weren’t supposed to be able to tell a book just by looking at its title.

Then again, you sort of could. And a book titled
The Rancher and the Lady
was starting off at a disadvantage. For one thing, there had been about two hundred or so ranchers and ladies in Candlelight book titles. I hadn’t even been here two months yet and even I knew that.

The thing to do was turn the page and plunge right in. Maybe it would surprise me. Maybe the rancher would be different from all other ranchers. And the heroine would not be the overly prim stereotype whom I saw over and over, the kind of woman who didn’t know which end of a cow was up. It could happen.

Rita knocked on my door, looking frazzled. “My niece is getting married the weekend of the fifteenth.” She collapsed in my chair. “That’s Romance on the River weekend.”

I was confused. “What’s Romance on the River?”

“A RAG conference.”

The Romance Author’s Guild was a nationwide writer’s organization whose local chapters held meetings all year long. Editors traveled to them frequently. Then, in the summer, RAG held its national conference, which apparently was a huge deal. Entire hotels were overrun with romance authors for a full week of seminars, speeches, and a fancy awards banquet where they gave out their industry awards, known familiarly as the Raggies. That year the conference was going to be in Dallas.

“I’ve decided to send you in my place,” she said.

I assumed I wasn’t being asked to sub at the wedding (although, given that this was Rita, maybe I shouldn’t have). A conference! My first. It was sort of exciting.

What river were they talking about, I wondered. It couldn’t be the Seine. I wouldn’t be that lucky.

“Where is it?”

“Portland, Oregon.”

Oregon. For just a moment, I felt a surge of interest. I’d never been west of Chicago. Oregon was far away. Far, far. Like, a five-hour plane ride.

I hated planes. No, not just hated. Was terrified by.

My palms started to sweat.

“You’ll love the conference. All you have to do is make a short speech…”

I stopped her right there. “
Speech?
” I squeaked. “I haven’t given a speech since high school—a world history presentation on Latvia that had put the entire class to sleep. Including my teacher.”

“Yeah, but you were probably nervous back then. What did you really know about Latvia?”

What do I really know about romance novels?

I left that question unspoken.

“You’ll do fine. They’ll love you.”

I had serious doubts about that. “What is this speech supposed to be about?”

She thought for a moment. “Plot.”

That was it? “Just…plot?”

“Well! There’s a lot to say about plot.”

There probably was, but I wasn’t sure I was the one to say it. I wasn’t the one to say anything in front of groups of people. The very idea made me break into flop sweats.

“I wouldn’t lose sleep over it,” Rita said. “When I give a speech, I always like to tell them some of my pet peeves. Authors like that.”

I leaned forward. “Like what?”

“Well, like how authors will start a chapter with
Two years went by,
or
Nine months later,
or something like that.”

“What does that have to do with plot?”

“Nothing, really. I just like to work it in.” She shook her head. “
Nine months later.
I can’t stand that.”

I chewed this over a little bit. “But what if nine months
have
gone by?”

She shrugged. “I just don’t like it. It shows a lack of finesse. I can’t stand twenty-page prologues, either. Oh, and you might tell them to go easy on the adverbs. That’s always good advice.”

“Yeah, but…” What did any of that have to do with plot?

She chuckled. “Well, I’m sure I can count on you. You’ll do great. Make sure you keep receipts, though. Kathy Leo is a stickler for having receipts stapled to the expense report.”

When she left, I sat in my office, paralyzed. I hated public speaking.

And then there was that plane ride.

Maybe it was better to concentrate on the speech. I immediately started drafting ideas…then tossing them one by one in the wastepaper basket. Every time I got beyond “Hi, my name is…” I started imagining a hundred romance writers staring up at me expectantly and a fine film of sweat broke out across my brow.

What would a roomful of romance authors look like? For that matter, what would one romance writer look like? I hadn’t actually clapped eyes on one yet.

There was a sharp rap at my door. Cassie was standing there. She looked like she had just been fuming in her office until she had to explode out of her chair. “Did I hear Rita tell you that you were going to Portland? To Romance on the River?”

I nodded. Man, these walls were thin. I needed to be careful.

“Why is she sending
you?
”

“Uh…I’m not sure. You’d have to ask Rita that.”

She shifted from one foot to the other. “Darlene Paige is
my
author and she lives in Portland.”

Darlene Paige was one of the authors Cassie had snatched away from me when I first arrived.

“And Cynthia Schmidt is my author, too! She’s from Medford, Oregon, and she’s already told me she’ll be there. Why isn’t Rita sending me?”

Moments before I would have done anything for someone to offer to take my place on this business excursion. But now…

“I’m sure Rita has her reasons, Cassie.” I was loving this! “In fact, she seemed to think it was important that I go. Maybe she didn’t think you were ready.”

Cassie’s eyes flashed. “Don’t condescend to me. I’ll have you know that last year I was sent to the Gardenias and Grace-land conference in
Memphis!
That’s a much more prestigious conference than something in Portland, Oregon!”

I curved my lips up in a smile. “Like I said, Cassie, you’ll just have to take the whole matter up with Rita.”

“Don’t think I won’t!” She let out an angry huff, turned on her heel, and stomped away. Five seconds later, Andrea was at my door. “Me-
ow!
” she cried, with tacit approval.

I scrunched down in my chair and put my forefinger to my lips to shush her. “She’s really angry.”

“I know. She just stomped into Rita’s office!”

“What is her problem?” I wondered aloud.

She shook her head. “You know, she was a halfway normal person when she got here, but ever since you got here she really seems to be going ’round the bend.”

“I have that effect on a lot of people.”

“Well! Rita’s had it up to here with Cassie’s backbiting these days, so you don’t have to worry about not getting to go. She’ll
never
back down from sending you now.”

I tried on a triumphant smile for size. The lump that had taken hold in the pit of my stomach let me know this was a Pyrrhic victory.

Five minutes later the sound of Cassie’s slamming office door rattled the building’s foundation. It looked like I was West Coast bound.

T
he moment Fleishman got wind of my upcoming conference trip, he was beside himself. “I want to go!”

“Where?”

“To Oregon.”

“Fleish, you can’t go on my business trip.”

He looked bewildered. “Why not?”

I craned my head toward him. “Because it’s
my
job.”

“But I’ve helped!”

I couldn’t deny that. Fleishman had become a little manic about reading romance novels—especially after learning how much Rita and everyone had liked
Heartstopper.
The week before I had even found him perusing the latest edition of
Romance Journal,
a glossy monthly that I had never known existed before I started working at Candlelight. The
Journal
was full of romance author interviews, profiles of the latest hottie cover models, and dispatches from the publisher, a woman from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, named Peggy Murfin, who in the June 1989 issue of
Romance Journal
had mystifyingly transformed into Marguerite, Contessa of Longchamps. She wrote a column detailing her travels and her brushes with celebrity, and plugging her perfume line,
Contessa,
which she apparently gave away as professional courtesy gifts. I had found three bottles of the stuff, plus a tube of the body lotion, stashed around my office.