The Pink Ghetto (32 page)

Unless…

My eyes lasered down to that hand at her elbow. That possessive hand. I gulped down more wine and pivoted away.

Fleishman and Cassie. Cassie and Fleishman. It was too horrible to contemplate.

Melissa piped up, “I have all sorts of ideas for revisions!”

“Really?” I was standing there like a normal person, but in my mind I was clutching my head and shrieking like that figure in the Edvard Munch painting.

She nodded. “One of the things you said about
The Rancher and the Lady
was that it wasn’t original enough. At first that confused me, since I thought Candlelight wanted books like what they were already publishing. But since then, I’ve come up with all sorts of ideas to make my book seem more original. For instance, instead of being a cattle rancher, Raif could be an ostrich rancher.”

“Um.”

Could they actually be sleeping together?

“Would you like to hear more?”

I told myself not to turn back. “More what?” I mumbled.

“More of my ideas.”

I lost the battle. I turned back.

He was whispering in her ear, and I could swear he was looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. She tossed her head back and laughed gaily.

“Oh God,” I said, shuddering. I leaned against the table for support.

“What?” Melissa said.

“Are you all right?” Muriel asked.

Do not lose your composure.
That was just what they wanted.

“Sure, fine!” I turned to Melissa. “Tell me everything.”

“Everything about what?” a voice asked.

I jumped. Cassie was looming so large in my mind, that I turned, girded to see her right next to me. But it wasn’t her; this time it really was Lindsay. Thank heavens. I could have hugged her, even though she did look like a kook. Somewhere, she had acquired a Yankees baseball cap, which she was now wearing as if it were a formal fashion accessory.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I must have missed you guys, but I came with the God Pod. But then, after we got out of the cab I got so confused! I ended up down in some other place with a bunch of sports guys. It was so fun. I mean,
kick ass!
It took me a while to realize that, like, there wasn’t anybody from our office there. So I asked this guy I’d been talking to was this the
Romance Journal
thing, and he laughed at me. But I got a free hat, see?”

“We were worried,” I said.

Lindsay, who was holding a plate of finger food, stuffed a tiny mayonnaisy looking sandwich in her mouth. “No way! You think I’d miss this?” She held the plate out to all of us. “Sandwich? Petit four?”

Muriel and Melissa shook their heads.

“I mean, this is amazing. Did you see Valerie Martin over there?”

I introduced Lindsay to Melissa. “Melissa wrote a manuscript called
The Rancher and the Lady.
”

“Oh! I loved that book!”

If Melissa looked stupefied, she had nothing on me. Lindsay had never laid eyes on that manuscript. “You know,” I cued Lindsay, “that book we turned down?”

“Oh! And now you’re going to fix it?” Lindsay asked. “That’s great.”

No, it wasn’t great, but Lindsay had no way of knowing. I had told her once she needed to learn how to schmooze, but this was going a bit too far.

“I didn’t know anyone else had read it,” Melissa said.

“Oh, I read tons around the office,” Lindsay said. “
Tons.
I’ve been working with Rebecca a lot. I could help you with revisions.”

“That would be so great!” Muriel exclaimed.

How could I disagree? I could barely focus on what they were saying at all. I kept cutting my gaze back to the triumvirate of terror—and then the Contessa swooped up to the microphone. The flute and harp stopped. “May I have your attention,
madames
and
messieurs
? Please take your seats! The show is about to begin.”

The lights dimmed, except for a spot at the top of the red carpet and a pinlight on the Contessa, who nudged a pair of bejeweled reading glasses up her nose and read from a script as models—always in man-woman pairs—made their way down the red carpet. I don’t know why there needed to be men involved, except as eye candy. The women were wearing all the jewelry, which you couldn’t really see too well from afar. In any event, it was the same stuff that was on the busts on all of the tables. Everybody clapped a lot anyway, and made appreciative noises. Flashbulbs started going off as if this were fashion week.

I took advantage of the relative darkness to watch Fleishman and Cassie interacting. He was constantly leaning in to her and whispering little comments in that conspiratorial way that would make her chuckle or give a little eye roll. It was the same behavior I remembered from college lectures when we would have a class together.

Every once in a while I would have the fortitude to look away, but I couldn’t keep my focus off of them for long.

Once I looked back and saw Fleishman staring not at me, but at everyone else at my table. From Muriel to Melissa to Lindsay in her Yankees cap. I darted my eyes toward the red carpet before that critical eye could land on me. My cheeks burned, both because I knew what he was thinking—I was at the freak table—and because I was embarrassed for being self-conscious. I was just like Andrea not wanting to be seen next to the aquamarine dolphin shirt.

Worse, actually. It was as if I were back in high school, embarrassed to be sitting at the loser table in the high school cafeteria. But these people were only losers to Fleishman, because he didn’t know them, and because he was a twit.

Defensiveness welled in my chest. Maybe she was crazy as a bedbug, but Muriel was a more original personality than the underappreciated wit and genius that Fleishman pretended to be. His book wasn’t any more original than Melissa MacIntosh’s; she might have been a pale copy of other romances, but he had simply plagiarized my life.

I was steamed, and naturally, some of the heat found its way to Cassie. How pathetic was she, sitting there with that smug little smile on her face, as if she’d been made valedictorian at last. Hadn’t she bothered to read the book she’d spent so much money to get under contract? She was a perfect overlooked gal for Fleishman to attach himself to.

The show ended, the lights came up. I gulped down the rest of my glass of wine and looked around desperately for another waiter. Everybody was standing up in preparation for more socializing.

Fleishman and Cassie got up. They were coming my way.

To gloat.

I set my jaw. They would not get the best of me. I would not act jealous. What had Luke told me?
Success was the best revenge.

On second thought, that advice wouldn’t serve me well…I hadn’t succeeded at anything yet. Maybe in this instance not caring was the best revenge.

Damn. Where is a waiter?

Fleishman stopped and I stood up. “Well hello, stranger.”

“Hi.”

Cassie smiled at me. The thought of smashing my fist into her upturned little nose flashed through my mind.

I smiled back. “Hi, Cassie. Or is it Nibbles?”

She pouted at me in confusion.

“Congratulations on your new job,” I said.

“My new job, or my new find?” She clutched Fleishman’s elbow.

Oh yeah. A real discovery.

“Both!” I chirped.

Fleishman was gazing beyond my shoulder and I could tell that my table was gathering behind me. Which meant that I would either have to make introductions or look like a rude bitch. “Fleish, this is Lindsay and Muriel, who work with me, and this is Melissa MacIntosh…”

I wasn’t going to tell him who Melissa was. Let him think she was a coworker of mine. But I should have known I wouldn’t have to tell him. He always remembered names.

His jaw dropped. “Not the the author of
The Rancher and the Lady?
”

A waiter was coming. Oh thank God.

Fleishman’s voice carried such astoundment, Melissa could be excused for thinking that he considered her opus to be the second coming of
The Flame and the Flower.
Maybe only I saw the mischievous gleam in those eyes of his. I hoped so.

“I read that book!” he exclaimed.

Melissa turned to me in confusion. Everyone, it turned out, had read her manuscript. No doubt she was wondering how a book I had circulated so widely could have received such a harsh rejection.

“Fleishman’s a fellow author,” I informed her.

Melissa stammered, “Oh, I’m not published yet.”

“But you will be!” Lindsay exclaimed.

I wanted to kick her. Or kick something. Mostly, I just wanted to grab a drink off that tray that was inching ever so slowly our way…

Fleishman turned to me, and his expression was one of sheer astonished dismay mixed with a hint of glee.
Surely you haven’t sunk that low,
that gaze said.

I felt a thunderbolt of anger, both at him and myself. What had I seen in this person? He was all preening ego, and for so long I had indulged him in his ambitions. I had been an accessory, just like these foolish paste creations on the busts in the centerpieces.

I lifted my head. “We think
The Rancher and the Lady
shows great promise. After revisions, it could be a bestseller…”

As the words came spilling out, I knew I would regret them. Moreover, I was using some poor author’s career as a way to bicker with my erstwhile boyfriend and ex-roommmate. It was shameful.

But not as shameful as what I did next. That waiter finally made it to me, and I reached out my hand for another glass. But as I reached—just by accident, mind you—I jutted my elbow so that the wine tray tipped over. The waiter tried valiantly to make a save, but he was not successful.

And wouldn’t you know that the tray would have to spill all its contents on poor Cassie?

Glasses broke as they hit the floor and each other, and gasps went up all around us.

I lifted my hands. “Oh, I’m
so
sorry!”

Cassie hunched in shock and flapped her arms, which sprayed burgundy on everyone. People who cared about their dry cleaning bills hopped out of her range, clearing a circle all around us. Making us even more of a spectacle, you might say.

I was beyond caring.

I quickly turned and grabbed a napkin off the table and began mopping up Cassie. “What a shame!” I exclaimed. “And it’s such a great dress. Mainbocher, isn’t it?”

She glared up at Fleishman, seeming to will him to do something terrible to me to retaliate. But he just looked on in amazement as I continued to pat her down. I wasn’t really worried about his reaction anyway. There was nothing more he could do to me.

“Of course it’s a Mainbocher,” I cooed. “I know that. It used to be in my closet.”

She swatted my hand away. “Leave me alone!”

I stood back and looked from her to Fleishman and then back again. Then I pressed my sodden napkin into her hand. “Honey, you’re alone already. You just don’t know it yet.”

A
fter leaving the Contessa’s shindig, I fled into the park and flopped myself onto the first bench I came across that didn’t have bird poop or a person sleeping on it.

I was still shaky from having to apologize to the Contessa, and Cassie again, and then to Mercedes. Not that Mercedes seemed to care too much. (“
It was an accident!
” she had assured me as she looked on in satisfaction as Cassie was led away to the ladies’ room.) As Andrea said, I might have represented Candlelight badly, but I had scored one for the home team.

I sank down on the bench, wishing I felt some kind of satisfaction. A wine waterfall cascading down on your rival only took you so far, I discovered to my dismay. This was the third public spectacle I had made of myself in the three industry events I had attended. Before I started working for Candlelight, I had never created a scene. I had always been a quiet person by nature. Now I felt as if I were regressing into a tantrum-tossing, sippy-cup-throwing toddler.

I needed to stop.

I needed something in my life besides this crazy job. By some miracle I might have reinvented myself as an editor, but though others were buying my performance, I hadn’t convinced myself. But was that really so surprising? I had been a size ten, give or take a size, for six years, but when I looked in the mirror I still saw a size sixteen.

That was the difference between Fleishman and me. Some people have delusions of grandeur; I had delusions of failure. I was my own underminer.

I wondered if there was a self-help tome for people like me. Or maybe they were
all
for people like me. But I’d never seen my double on
Oprah
. Whenever she focused on people who had lost weight, they were always jubilant about their transformations. They were ready to go out and conquer the world in their new jeans. Or they were men who became women and went out to conquer the world in lipstick and new brassieres.

But what about the people who didn’t buy the personal transformations?

I got up to go home, but instead of walking west, I went the other way. Toward the subway, and to Queens.

Thirty minutes later I was knocking on Sylvie’s apartment door. They knew me in her building now. Ever since I had donated four boxes of Candlelight books to the community library, I was welcomed with open arms.

When Sylvie opened the door, she seemed surprised to see me. Or maybe she was just surprised to see me alone. “Where’s Luke?” she asked, poking her head around to see if he wasn’t behind me somewhere.

She liked Luke. Who didn’t?

“He’s at work, I guess. I came over spur-of-the-moment.”

“Yes, that’s obvious.” She shrugged. “Come in. Would you like a cookie?”

She was still eating those chocolate orange cookies. Old habits died hard. “No thanks,” I said.