The Pink Ghetto (26 page)

“You
are
Rebecca, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

She gave me a once-over. “You’re not at all what I expected.”

Not the
making waves
type, obviously. I smiled. At least I was wearing the newest fall lipstick color from Estee Lauder. It was my only source of confidence at the moment.

The hostess ushered us to our table. I was glad to see we were separated from the next couple of diners by one of those bamboo pots. Nothing like those awkward sidewise glances from diners too close together, pretending that they are not hearing every syllable of your conversation. Thanks to that bamboo, their voices were no more than two masculine murmurs.

Alex and I ordered our bento boxes and sat back, sipping hot weak tea. “Mercedes Coe spoke so highly of you, it really swayed me.”

I frowned. “Swayed you?”

“To include someone from Candlelight in the article. We hadn’t intended to, initially.” She shrugged. “I mean, romances are great. My grandmother buys them by the truckload. They’re just not…”

“Prestigious.”

“Right!”

I smiled as I tried to figure out how to respond to that. Getting up and walking out would have felt good, but Mercedes had really wanted me to do this interview. I couldn’t blow it.

“We’re always trying to change people’s minds about that,” I told her. “Maybe I can change yours.”

She laughed doubtfully. “Well, Mercedes changed my mind about doing this interview. Mercedes, and the fact that the person I was going to interview from Knopf got fired when I was setting everything up. Mercedes said you were terrific, and you had all these terrific new ideas. Where did you go to college?”

When I told her the name of that little liberal arts haven in Ohio, her eyes glazed over. I was losing her.

I was beginning to feel uneasy…and not because Alex Keene so looked like she wished she was eating lunch with some young blade from Random House, say. There was something else disturbing me. And then I figured it out. Those male voices coming from the next table sounded familiar to me. Very familiar.

While Alex bloviated about how worried she’d been that she would be late for our lunch because she was talking to Jonathan Franzen on the telephone, I took the opportunity to peer through the bamboo shoots at our neighbors. I’m not sure if I actually let out a bleat. I certainly heard one in my own head.

Sitting right next to me was Fleishman. But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Sitting across from
him
was Dan Weatherby.

I
stood so abruptly I caused Alex Keene to sploop tea on herself. She emitted a muted shriek and immediately dunked her napkin in her ice water. “What happened?” she asked as she dabbed at herself. “Are you okay?”

It was a ridiculous question, considering the fact that I was so obviously not okay. I stood rigid peering over the bamboo, eyes bulging first at Fleishman, then at Dan, and then at Fleishman again. At first I couldn’t make sense of it. What were they doing, comparing notes?

When he spotted me—and how could he not?—Fleishman looked ruffled, too, but he managed not to come unglued. I could tell he was upset by the welts of red just under his cheekbones. His gaze narrowed on me.

Dan composed himself first. Of course. He was half man, half Pat Sajak. One of his eyes fluttered in a wink. “Hiya, Becca.”

Hiya?
Even under the most casual circumstances, that is not a greeting I care for. I especially don’t care for it when the last time I saw the person saying it was just after a mad romp in a hotel room. It had only been three days!
Hiya.
That stung.

At the sound of a familiar voice, Alex’s eyes widened and she bobbed her head up, down, to and fro for a moment trying to see around the bamboo. Finally, she just had to hop out of her chair. “Dan?” she squealed. “Dan Weatherby?”

Spotting her, his smile broadened. He stood up, too, and they exchanged an air kiss over the foliage. She rated, apparently. Maybe
she
hadn’t slept with him yet.

“Where have you been all my life?” he said.

She rolled her eyes, turning from a no-nonsense business-woman into a six-foot coquette before my eyes. “Working!”

“I so know how that is.”

It was like old home week with those two.

“This has been a brutal couple of months,” she said. “Just a terror. Half the magazine’s out on maternity leave.”

“Must be something in the water cooler.” Dan chuckled, then winked at her. “Better watch out, Al.”

She hooted. Which was probably just as well, since it covered my groan.

It took the two of them a few more seconds to notice that both myself and Fleishman, who, not to be left out, was now standing, too, were staring at them in stony silence. Dan made the introductions. “Alex Keene, this is my newest client, Jack Fleishman.”

I gasped. “Your
client?
”

Dan’s brows wafted aloft. “Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t know,” I said hotly. I darted a glare at Fleishman. “No one told me.”

Fleishman shrugged. “It’s a new development.”

“Are you published?” Alex asked him.

He answered modestly, “Not yet.” Though I couldn’t help noticing that the gaze he aimed at Alex was so intense it was borderline smoldering.

Dan broke in, “That
will not
be the case for long. Isn’t that true, Bec?” He was smart enough not to wait for my response. “Jack’s going to be the next big thing. The new Nick Hornby.”

“Excellent!” Alex exclaimed.

While I gnashed my teeth, I tried to remember that I was supposed to be a business person. I tried to distance myself professionally. Dan was just another agent; Fleishman was just a commodity. Mercedes had ordered me to go forth and buy that book. There was something else at stake here besides my own personal pride. There was my job.

Unfortunately, those stakes involved future public humiliation.

“Mercedes was full of praise for
Cutting Loose.
” I spoke the words so reluctantly, so resentfully, they came out a mere rasp, as if they had been through a meat grinder.

There. I’d done it. I had officially swallowed my pride and brought up the subject. I had inched one step closer to buying that odious book. With his agent, no less.

His agent!
That was still confounding me. When had these two joined forces?

But rather than seeming pleased that I was putting professional interest before my personal ones—waaaaaaaaay before—Dan merely smiled blandly.

He and Fleishman exchanged a look.

“That’s a good sign, I guess?” Fleishman asked.

He guessed?
He knew who Mercedes was. I could feel the wrinkles gathering on my forehead like thunderclouds. “I would say it’s a very good sign,” I said.

The dastardly duo exchanged another look, and I took more time analyzing it this time around. It contained an off-putting combination of amusement and discomfort.

“Actually, Bec,” Dan said, “Jack and I aren’t quite sure yet which way we’re going to go with the project.”

Which I interpreted to mean that the cabal I had just interrupted was a strategy session.

“Naturally he was happy to give the manuscript to you when you asked for it, since you’re a close personal friend….” Dan said.

I could only hope they couldn’t all hear my teeth gnashing.

Fleishman grinned at me. “The long and short of it is, I’ve had nibbles.”

“How?” I was aware of my voice rising, but I couldn’t help it. There was an awful ringing in my ears. “A few nights ago you told me I was one of the first people you had shown the book to, and I haven’t had it for two days!”

How could he already be getting responses from other publishers? How could they already be thinking of acquiring it? How could anyone else already be
nibbling?

Obviously, I had been lied to. The big surprise there was that I was still surprised. I hadn’t known that Fleishman had an agent, either. Dan Weatherby!

The waitress came by, carrying two elaborately carved bento boxes. She seemed surprised to see us all standing and chatting across the bamboo. Or rather, to see three people chatting and me yelling.

“Here’s our food,” Alex sing-songed, looking relieved to have an excuse to put an end to the conversation.

The waitress nodded to the empty seats on the other side of Dan and Fleishman. “You would like to move?”

“
No!
” they all chimed.

We all sank back into our respective seats.
Back to our corners,
I thought.

Alex balanced her chopsticks in her perfectly manicured hands. “Small world.” Her voice lowered to adjust for eavesdropping.

Mine did not. I was too mad. “Smaller than you know.”

She tilted toward me. “So I take it you know that author well?”

“We live together.” I added, “
Lived.
”

Maybe it wasn’t kosher to give personal details, but I couldn’t help myself. I was in a swivet. I stared at the neatly ordered quadrants of my lunch and tried to sort out the mess that was unraveling. It wasn’t making any sense. All I knew was that I was feeling murderous. I grabbed my chopsticks, lamenting the dull edges.
Just when a sharp object might have come in handy…

Alex started talking about her ideas for the magazine article, and somehow in a conversation about up-and-coming editors, she managed to drop the name of half a dozen very famous authors. I half listened. Actually, I half listened for about thirty seconds and then I was off in my own world again.

All the implications started to pile up on me. Dan and Fleishman couldn’t be a completely new development. They hadn’t just gotten together this week. An agent didn’t decide to represent someone overnight. Chances were that even before I had gone to Dallas, Dan had read the book. And that he had known, or at least suspected, that I was the pathetic, needy, easy-to-seduce Renata. I had inspired every word, after all.

And how had I come across in Dallas? Pathetic, needy, and easy to seduce.

In this light, a few of the things Dan had said to me over the weekend began to make sense. Cryptic comments about my wanting the lights out and being clingy. I mean, I had thought at the time that it was weird to call someone clingy five minutes after waking up from a one-night stand. Now it seemed worse than weird. It seemed sinister.

Oh, yeah. This explained a lot.

Like the way Fleishman had practically pimped me out to Dan. I had forgotten about
that.
Those flowers, that whispered comment on the way to the airport. They had been a sort of
You go, girl!
nudge. Had he thought it would improve his chances to have his agent and his editor sleeping together?

Except now he didn’t even seem to need me as an editor. Or no, he just wasn’t sure. He had
nibbles.

Nauseating.

Alex leaned across the table and peered worriedly into my face. “Is your lunch okay?”

“Fine!” I gritted out. To demonstrate how fine I was, I gulped down a piece of sushi whole. Then another. I was barely chewing. Just shoveling. Meanwhile, waves of clammy cold and then heat washed over me.

“Maybe you could tell me about what you did before coming to Candlelight. Mercedes said you worked for Sylv—”

Rocket propelled by anger, I exploded out of my chair again. “Did you think it was funny?” I demanded of neither one in particular. It was hard to say whom I was the most angry at anyway.

Dan and Fleishman glanced up, startled.

“The book?” Dan asked. “I thought it was hilarious.”

“Not the book,” I said, disgusted. “Or, yes, the book. The book, me, and your pathetically easy Saturday night seduction. You knew just what buttons to push—and no wonder!”

Dan’s face went red, and he arched a brow in the general direction of my dining companion. “Bec…”

I rolled my eyes. “My name is
Rebecca.
It’s not Bec. It’s not Becca. And it’s sure as hell not Renata.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this here…”

“Where, then?”

“In private, maybe?”

“Oh sure,” I said with a sarcastic snort. “Sure. I’ll just wait for you to call. In fact, I’ll bet you were about to call me at any moment, weren’t you?”

“Actually, I was,” he said.

“To tell you the truth, Dan, I didn’t care if you called me or not. Still don’t. I haven’t given you much thought since Sunday. I’ve had other things on my mind. But to find out that you slept with me because I was easy game because of something you’d read in Fleishman’s crappy book, that makes you an even bigger sleaze than I was already beginning to suspect you were.”

Fleishman jumped into the fray. “I
told
you she didn’t like the book!”

For some reason,
that
comment almost did me in. Literally.

So far I had been venting mostly on Dan, maybe because what I felt toward Fleishman went so much deeper. I felt betrayed. I was seeing him, really seeing him, for the first time, and it was painful. He had exposed me, betrayed me. Worse, he had made a mockery of six years of friendship.

I sucked in a breath to speak—it was a deep breath, because I had a lot to say—but when I did so, some half-chewed piece of sushi that had been buried behind a molar suddenly jumped into my throat. My diaphragm contracted, then began to spasm, but there was not a whisper of air coming down my windpipe.

I started to make desperate motions with my arms. At first, no one seemed to notice.
Great. Just great.
Death by sushi inhalation would top off my week nicely.

The faces staring at me began to screw up in confusion. “What’s the matter?” Alex asked.

I jerked my arms around in a frustrating charade as my companions continued to gape at me. Maybe they thought I was just having an apoplectic fit, but I was sure I was turning blue by this point.

Alex grabbed my arm. “Omigod!” she exclaimed. “She’s
choking!
She needs help!”

The words would have made me feel better had I not feared they would be the last I heard on this side of eternity. Which, even though I consider myself mildly spiritual, happens to be the side I tend to prefer.

After registering a moment of surprise, Fleishman jumped up and yanked me away from the table. Then he started pounding on my back. Hard. And just in case you ever need to know, when you can’t breathe, it’s not so great to have people beating you.

“Wait!” Dan said. “That’s not right.”

No kidding.

“I remember!” Alex flicked Fleishman aside. “You have to grab her like this.”

Like a rag doll, I was grabbed from behind by Alex.

“That’s right,” Dan said, “you punch her diaphragm.”

“With your fists!” Fleishman said. I guess all that first aid knowledge was coming back to him.

Alex followed their instructions and miraculously managed to perform a perfect Heimlich maneuver in one thrust. She was, not surprisingly, strong. I could practically hear a pop as I unclogged and that troublesome piece of sushi went flying across the bamboo, landing with an audible plop in Dan’s miso soup.

I’ve known a lot of embarrassing moments. More than my share, I would say. At the age of twelve I had started my period at camp on trail ride day and spent the rest of my time at Camp Promise hearing snide renditions of that stupid “There was blood on the saddle” song. Actually I pretty much consider my first eighteen years of life one bad moment after another, all strung together.

But choking during my “Making Waves” interview in front of two ex-lovers definitely rated. Not only were Dan and Fleishman gaping at me (actually, Dan was staring at his soup bowl), the entire restaurant had turned to watch. There was no sound, either, except that burbling fish pond.

It is hard to recover your dignity after an episode of public regurgitation, and my dignity had already been on the verge of collapse.

Only Alex seemed at all animated. “Omigod!” she yelled, delighted. “It worked. I saved your life!”

I mumbled my thanks. I
was
thankful. I just wanted to be out of there.

“I hope I can work this into the article!” she said.

I grabbed my purse. Call me a coward, but I didn’t really see much point in continuing on with my publicity lunch. The only waves I was making were the ripples still in Dan’s miso soup. “Actually, we might have to continue some other time.”