by Hope Tarr
It was not long after his heavenly acceptance letter that I gained an agent. Not long after that that I gained a contract. We moved in together. I published more books. My internal war over which of my art would take precedence—my books—was won, and so was my heart.
Years later, on our seventh anniversary, he would propose at my favorite spot in Central Park. He did a perfect job. (Well, I’d written a sort of guidebook in having one of my characters propose in that same spot, only my character botched it. Marcos, as always, paid attention.) He played me a proposal song he wrote for our anniversary, went down on one knee at the beautiful Bethesda Terrace during the proposal verse, and presented the most unique and exquisite cameo dating to 1875, a ring for which he’d searched several states over, having listened to my request for a non-traditional, conflict-free ring that was a piece of my beloved late 19th century. He said the figure in the cameo reminded him of Miss Percy Parker, heroine of that debut series he had accepted on behalf of God years prior.
Not only had he kept reading me through the years, but he’d acted upon his knowledge. What a good student of me he had become. (I hope to earn the same passing grades.)
At the time of writing this piece, Marcos and I are recently married, our bilingual ceremony presided over by his ninety-eight-year-old Puerto Rican grandmother, the first island-born woman to be ordained in the Lutheran church. She is a brilliant, headstrong woman, quite a character, quite a role model. Marcos celebrates in me that same feisty, fierce and intelligent independence he’s seen in the powerful women in his life.
A good partner requires a good partnership. We’re a work in progress. I’m still trying to learn Spanish. He owns more black clothing than he used to, and we trade off going to dance salsa and to a Goth club. I dress him up as the hero of my Strangely Beautiful saga—he’s such a good sport and looks so fetching in a frock coat—and I attend his musical and dance performances as a supportive audience member.
Our purposes and our callings have been affirmed by each other and by our spirituality. We’re an ongoing acceptance letter to one another.
Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, and the award-winning, nationally bestselling author of Gothic Victorian fantasy novels with romantic elements, such as the Strangely Beautiful saga, the Magic Most Foul saga and the forthcoming Eterna Files from Tor/Macmillan. Her acclaimed Strangely Beautiful saga will re-issue in new editions from Tor/Macmillan in 2014. A lifelong Goth girl, she lives in New York City with her husband and their beloved rescued lab rabbit. She owns more corsets than is reasonable, channels Narcissa Malfoy at various conventions, loves hearing a good ghost story or creating one on the spot, and can be found in full Victorian regalia (in various shades of black) at all public appearances. A proud member of performers unions Actors Equity and SAG-AFTRA, she works in film and television on shows like Boardwalk Empire. For more, please visit her at www.leannareneehieber.com, follow her on Twitter @leannarenee, and like her on Facebook at facebook.com/lrhieber.
Unexpected Treasures*
By Lisa Renée Jones
I believe your true love should be your best friend, and I’m writing about mine from my honeymoon hotel. I found my true love in a Barnes & Noble in Austin, Texas. I had a cozy seat there that I loved for writing. It was my escape and my place to get lost in my stories. I’d write awhile, order a white mocha, and then take a break to go stroll the romance section of the store. Diego, my husband as of yesterday (November 9), used to go to Barnes & Noble to study for his MCAT for medical school and to get lost in the books he, too, loves.
One night we were both there, and being the gym rat that I am, he recognized me from the gym. He came up to me, and we started talking. After that, we ran into each other often at Barnes & Noble, and soon we were friends, but the kind that makes you tingle all over. The best kind! During one of those talks, I remember him asking my age. He dodged the question when I wanted to know his, though I didn’t realize he had until later. Weeks after that conversation, after our bond had really grown, I learned that he was nine years younger than I am and that he had held back that fact because he just knew it was going to freak me out. It did! But it was too late when I found out. I’d already fallen hard.
One thing I love about Diego is that he is a smell-the-roses kind of person. I remember walking along a sidewalk with him early on in our romance when he spotted a chocolate store. He grabbed me and pulled me across the street toward the store and was so excited to go inside and experience it with me. I remember wondering when I’d ever been SO excited about something as small as visiting a chocolate store ever in my life, and yet I was in that moment. I knew I was in love that day. He made me stop and enjoy the moment, and he has done that over and over so many times since I met him. And I need that, as I’m truly a workaholic. Diego and I have these little things we do together that have become special to me and my way of relaxing. I think the little things were really missing from my life before I met him.
Another special part of our relationship is our shared belief that taking actions to achieve your dreams means happiness in life. His support of my dreams has been unbelievable and touching. When he met me, my writing career barely had legs. I’d left the corporate world to be a starving artist, and he supported that decision in a way most of the people in my life didn’t. He truly believed in me, even at times when I did not. Sometimes, I wonder how he did and how he knew it was all going to be worth the fight.
The story behind the Inside Out series is a fun part of how Diego is invested in my dreams and how his belief in me and my writing led to me finally establishing myself as a writer. We had limited funds to pay the bills, as my writing wasn’t paying much, and my fiancé was working at a physical therapy clinic that closed down suddenly. I’d read an article on buying and selling storage units and I thought…hmm. Of course, we had little cash to invest and everything to lose, but Diego was intrigued and wanted to check out the next auction posted. Back then there was no amazing online resource like Storage Treasures. We had to dig in public postings and call around to storage facilities to find out what was happening when.
So, knowing virtually nothing about what he was doing, Diego took off to his first auction with the understanding he would spend no more than three hundred dollars. Back then, auctions were not competitive because they weren’t very well publicized. I proceeded to work on a book and wait. The next thing I know, he’s telling me he spent eight hundred dollars. “But don’t worry! It’s worth at least three thousand.” I was freaking out. We had rent to pay. Let me tell you, the romance almost ended there! I was really freaking out when our tiny apartment was suddenly filled with furniture and boxes and I couldn’t even move around in it. The unit ended up doing well for us, so I decided I’d keep him.
Several years later, we were heavily into auction hunting, and I was still a struggling writer. After purchasing several units, Diego got the flu and was in bed sick. He’d stumbled onto a journal in one of the new boxes, and I have no idea what possessed him to do it, but he grabbed it and took it to bed with him. From there it was pretty funny. He’d sit up suddenly and say, “Someone died next door and the police are there!” Then later, “Oh my God, she’s pregnant again.” We did a lot of laughing over that journal, and Diego decided I had to write a story about a storage unit with a mystery. “Do that sexy thing you do, but someone has to die!”
At the time, I was very busy with books I owed to publishers and didn’t have time to write the story he kept pressing me to write, but that didn’t discourage him. He kept at me about it, and the idea churned in my mind. He just knew in his bones this idea was going to be magic for me. Finally, I was done with the contracts I had in place, and I knew deep down on some level Diego was right about this premise. I needed to write the story about the journal. I’d developed an idea and characters who were begging to be brought to life. So I started writing, and when I was done, I knew this series was the best I’d ever been as a writer, and I hoped readers woul
d feel the same way. Fortunately, not only did readers respond well, but my agent loved it, and so did a cable network and Suzanne Todd (producer of Memento, Alice in Wonderland, Austin Powers, and more), who is now developing the television series.
It’s amazing to me how that decision to go to that first auction changed our lives, but even more so how the man in my life inspired me to write the series that changed our lives. It’s truly a joy for me to have him by my side to celebrate the way it turned out, but not because of the success. What makes this special to me is that he was there when I was ready to quit, and when I cried and doubted, he never doubted. He was my strength when I didn’t have it. He was a friend when I wasn’t one to myself.
And finally we got married. Some people have asked why it took us years to get married. The answer is that we’d both been married before and we knew we loved each other. We didn’t want to do it in the middle of a struggle. We wanted to do it in a moment that felt like a real celebration of our life together. That’s exactly what our wedding was, too. It was a wonderful chance for us to look at where we have been and what we have built together and to celebrate it as man and wife and best friends.
*Previously published in Love Letter Magazine. Reprinted with permission of the author.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lisa Renée Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed Inside Out Trilogy, which has sold to more than ten countries for translation with negotiations in process for more, and has now been optioned by STARZ Network for a cable television show to be produced by Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland). Since beginning her publishing career in 2007, Lisa has published more than thirty books with publishers such as Simon and Schuster, Avon, Kensington, Harlequin, NAL, Berkley and Ellora’s Cave, as well as crafting a successful indie career. Prior to publishing, Lisa owned a multistate staffing agency that was recognized many times by the Austin Business Journal and also praised by Dallas Women Magazine. In 1998 LRJ was listed as the #7 growing women-owned business in Entrepreneur magazine. Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at www.lisareneejones.com, and she is active daily on Twitter and Facebook.
Part II: How We Wed
A “Killer” Wedding
By J. Kenner
I very rarely write epic romance. On the contrary, in most of my forty-plus books, the hero and the heroine get together, fall in love, and win their happily-ever-after in a span of months, sometimes even weeks. Why do I lean that way? Because, to me, whirlwind is reality.
I met my husband in January of 1993, and we were married in October of that same year. Although, when you factor in my deep, dark secret—I don’t actually remember meeting him that January—our courtship was much, much shorter.
It all happened because of football. More specifically, because I don’t watch it. (Seriously, I’m doing well knowing that the Super Bowl is a football game and not a very large culinary dispensing device.)
But back in 1993, I was living in Los Angeles and working as an attorney. I’d used my 1992 Christmas bonus to buy a Fabulous Couch. You know—the kind of furniture that requires capital letters. And this one was truly Fabulous. Deep enough to double as a twin-size guest bed if you took off the back cushions. Overstuffed with goose down. Designed in a shabby chic style. And white. Very, very white. And I was desperate to keep it that way.
When Super Bowl day came, my BFF from high school, Steve, asked if he could borrow my apartment to have some friends over to watch the game. He actually lived next door, but his roommate (another high school friend from Texas) had non-football-related plans. Plus, they didn’t have a television in the living room—only in their separate bedrooms, and that really wasn’t the Super Bowl vibe he was going for.
Since I was going to happily shop in the mostly empty stores that day, I agreed—then left to explore IKEA while he hosted a gathering. But, of course, I had to first strictly warn him not to get my new couch dirty.
I came home hours later, the proud owner of a humongous as-is dining room table from the chip-and-dent section of IKEA. The guys in my apartment helped out—all except one who, I learned later, had injured his back not long before. The guy, Don, who I would later marry.
From his perspective, he thought he was watching the game at Steve’s apartment and wondered why my friend was so incredibly paranoid about getting pizza sauce on the couch. “It was a great couch, but the fastidiousness didn’t seem Steve-like,” he told me later. He was right, of course. After the Northridge quake, we were all hard-pressed to say whether Steve’s then-non-roommate-shared apartment had actually been shaken up, because it really didn’t look much different than normal. Steve, I am assuming, is not reading this essay. Let’s keep it that way, shall we? At any rate, Don-the-husband-to-be offered to guard the couch while the rest of the guys schlepped my table up from the car to my apartment. Who says chivalry is dead?
So much for the cute meet, huh?
Fast-forward to summer. Jurassic Park is opening, and Steve and two of his friends from work are coming along, Richard and Richard’s roommate, Don. I join them, and Don and I hit it off. It’s nice. We share popcorn. I am blissfully unaware that he didn’t help move my table, or that he was ever in my apartment, much less that he had spent hours leaning against my couch drinking beer and watching football.
Movie, then Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, all lovely and sweet and sweaty-palm-inducing. Especially since we’d shared a tub of popcorn and the inevitable hand brush. And far too quick to come to a tame and friendly close. But there were vibes. I was sure there were vibes.
Since I’d already planned a July Fourth party at my apartment complex’s pool, the next weekend I wandered down to the Ventura Boulevard Book Star, where these three guys worked, and casually asked Don if he’d like to come, too. Richard was coming, after all; they could come together.
They did, and thanks in part to the power of my amazing margaritas, Don and I hit it off even more. While most of my guests stayed outside by the pool, we were inside near the kitchen having Deep, Meaningful Conversations over many, many margaritas.
We talked about everything from friends to books to music to movies. We learned that we both went to the same undergraduate school and that we were both from Texas and had moved to Los Angeles to seek our fortunes. He learned that I’d never seen a Hong Kong film.
And so we set a date. The next Friday, we went to see John Woo’s The Killer (awesome movie) at a wonderful theater in Santa Monica. If you’re not familiar with the story, the hero is a paid assassin. In the course of a job, he accidentally blinds a singer, who he then takes care of. Naturally, she gets caught in the midst of a mess.
There’s a beautiful song near the beginning of the movie that she sings (she was played by a well-known Hong Kong singer). And the soundtrack is just amazing.
I say all that not just to set the stage, but as foreshadowing. (And, now, hopefully, you’re wondering what it is that I’m foreshadowing!)
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
After the movie, we did the typical LA date stuff. Walked on the Third Street Promenade. Window-shopped. Had dinner at a sadly horrible Indian food restaurant. (But it does make a good story to laugh about now.) My friend Steve called me Sunday night to ask how the date went. My answer? “It’s still going.”
Yeah, you could say we hit it off.
A few weeks later we decided to take off for a weekend in Vegas. Later, Don told me he’d thought about asking me to marry him that weekend but decided it was too soon. Instead, he waited until July—the day before I went home to Austin for my high school reunion!
We ended up getting married in Texas in October that year—ten months after we met, but only four months after we really met.
The ceremony was small—and here’s the part that I foreshadowed: We wanted it to be truly ours. More than that, we wanted it to represent our growing love of Hong Kong action films, especially The Killer, which we’d watched on our first date. (It doesn’t sound romantic, I
know, but the song is truly beautiful.)
Now, this was in the days before iTunes and MP3s and easy access to everything in the world over the Internet and with Google. For that matter, to get most of the movies that we wanted to watch, we had to drive across Los Angeles and poke around in Chinatown. We did that for entertainment…and then later we did it to find The Killer, because we wanted to rip the music and use it in our wedding.
We managed to find three different versions, both with different translations of the song we loved. Two were happy and romantic. One was more or less a funeral dirge. We pretended the third translation didn’t exist.
We hired a friend who was good with tape manipulation to pull the soundtrack for us. It wasn’t perfect, but we figured it would work.
Then we saw that the laser disc Criterion edition of The Killer was being released—and that John Woo himself would be signing at Virgin Records on Sunset. (I told you, this was the Dark Ages.)
Off we went. We were on a wedding mission. Determined to get a wedding present to each other and to ask John Woo if a soundtrack for the movie existed in any way, shape, or form. (As far as we could tell, no such creature existed.)
We went. We stood in line. We gaped at Mr. Woo, who is an incredibly nice man. He signed our laser disc set, and we told him that the movie was our first date, that we were using the song in our wedding, and we were having trouble finding that soundtrack. He informed us that soundtracks to movies aren’t as common in Hong Kong as they are here. (That may have changed since then; I don’t know.)
He asked for our address and we gave it…and a few weeks later we received studio-quality cassette tapes with the movie’s music! (Not only that, but for many years after we received holiday cards from Mr. Woo. How cool is that?)
So we were able to use the music from The Killer in our wedding, much to the mortification of my grandmother, who had expected the bridal march, even though I had warned her ahead of time.