SECOND CHANCES: A ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA® COLLECTION

by ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA®

  On their first date, Neil took her to dinner at an upscale Szechuan restaurant and then out to see a romantic comedy. He liked her, and Jessica worked hard to maintain appearances. A startlingly domineering streak and more than a hint of jealousy would find its way into her voice on occasion, but she did her best to minimize that and she scored a second date with him. That one culminated in a long kiss goodnight, which managed to erase—temporarily—the newly forming doubts from Neil’s mind.

  Then Neil was thrown a curve.

  Bryan and Anita, wanting to promote the fledgling relationship, pressed him into service as a host. It started when they invited Neil and Jessica to their house. Even though the event had been billed as casual, the meal was lavish, since Bryan took great delight in the culinary arts. A few years older than Neil and a few levels up in the office hierarchy, Bryan was well versed in the evening’s wine selection. He made the crab and scallion appetizer dip and had grilled the filet to tender perfection—even offering a delectable mushroom sauce as an accompaniment.

  Anita did her part as well with an impressive seven-layer fiesta salad, sage-seasoned wild rice, and a homemade apricot torte.

  Neil was floored by this. He usually microwaved his food or had it delivered.

  Protocol, of course, required reciprocation, so he masked his reluctance and invoked a sincere-sounding invitation to the other couple for the following Saturday night.

  Nearly a week passed. Not yet frantic but feelings of worry escalating, Neil raced to change out of his work clothes, asked Jessica to meet him at the local bookstore, and together they spent the first hour of their Friday night in search of helpful information.

  This was where I came in. Well, a character very much like me.

  Neil bumped into me on purpose, and somewhat more dramatically than in the original scene, but instead of turning away when Jessica said, “You just want to see what she’s writing,” Neil replied spiritedly, “Yes. Maybe she’s got the book we need.”

  I smiled, the epitome of warmth and graciousness, and said, “Perhaps another book will help you, but would you mind if I offered a suggestion?”

  Neil agreed at once. Even Jessica, walking toward me with scorpion-like wariness, appeared politely attentive.

  Upon hearing about the event they were planning, I drew upon my extensive background knowledge, obtained from so many years of information gathering, and recommended a book series that had full menus along with a coordinating selection of song choices to add the right musical atmosphere to the evening.

  “My sister is married to a school principal,” I told them. “She does a lot of entertaining and swears by these sets.” This was true, by the way.

  Well, of course they were grateful, even more so after I helped them find the menu/music sets on the shelf.

  “So,” Jessica said, not quite able to expel the snottiness from her voice, “how do you know so much? Do you, like, work here?”

  “Oh, no. I’m a writer.” The pride accompanying this announcement always made me stand up straighter. “And I spend a lot of time at this store … improving my mind through extensive reading.” I doubted she’d catch the Jane Austen reference (“extensive reading” being one of Mr. Darcy’s requirements of an accomplished woman), but I tossed it in there anyway. Take that, you uncivil trollop.

  She narrowed her eyes at me.

  Before she could speak again, Neil insisted on making formal introductions. He told me their names, and I told them mine, as well as a little bit about the article I was researching. “So you see, nothing I wrote down would have been of much interest to you, unless you were planning to have a group of three-year-olds at your dinner party.”

  Neil laughed at my joke and I grinned at him, certain that Jessica missed it since she was playing stupidly with the straps of her expensive handbag. He told me they were going to grab a late dinner and, while they were at it, select one of the recommended meal combinations to make the following night.

  “Well, good luck,” I replied, hoping to come across as encouraging. “I’m sure everything will turn out beautifully.”

  Jessica nodded, growing a fraction friendlier as she realized my departure was imminent. Neil, however, grasped my hand and said with genuineness and warmth, “Thank you, Lily, for your help! You rescued us from the complexity of Martha Stewart.”

  We both laughed at that and, then, said goodbye. Within moments, I was out the door, pleased with myself for being of assistance to someone so nice and—well, let’s face it—so handsome.

  Anyway, weeks went by and I was as busy as ever, bringing in a higher-than-usual income from my articles and making tremendous headway on my novel at last. On occasion, my mind wandered back to the evening I met Neil and Jessica. I wondered about them—him in particular. How had their Saturday dinner gone? I wished there would have been a way I could ask. Discover more. Or, better yet, run into him again. My love life was the only thing that had remained stagnant. Aside from some promising flirtations at the gym, which amounted to nothing, the only romantic overtures I experienced at all in recent weeks were in my imagination.

  One rainy Wednesday, I was at Between the Pages—this time trying to dry off from the inside out with their strongest espresso. I wasn’t actually depressed, because things were going pretty well in my life overall, but I’d managed to get into one of those reflective moods that turn melancholy if not immediately remedied. I needed a prescription in the form of some good escapist fiction.

  I’d just read the first page of a Wisconsin author’s debut romance with awe and envy—more or less equally mixed—when I caught a peripheral movement and looked up.

  “Lily?” the voice asked. My ears registered its owner sooner than my eyesight.

  “Oh, hi, Neil,” I said, surprised, though not at all unpleasantly so. It was funny how you could forget certain details about people: his smile displayed two fabulous, but previously overlooked, dimples. His eyes were a piercing, Chris Hemsworth kind of blue. How had I missed that? What I said aloud, though, was simply, “How are you?”

  “Good, good. Thought that was you over here. Working on another article?”

  “No, not this time.” I pointed to the books in front of us. “Just admiring the narrative styles of these authors.”

  “Hmm,” he said, nodding as he cast his eyes along the rows of new titles. Then, he looked up at me. As before, I was startled by the intensity of his gaze. My mind went blank for a nanosecond before I remembered.

  “Hey, how did the big dinner turn out?”

  “Oh, yeah. Everything worked well, thanks to you.” And he proceeded to tell me details about the menu they’d selected and the accompanying music. “Those sets were a great idea.”

  “I’m so glad,” I said, sincerity gushing forth and overflowing. But then Neil went silent, and I was left trying to figure a way out of the creeping awkwardness. “So, um, where’s Jessica? Did she come with you tonight?” I swiveled from side to side, expecting her to materialize at any second.

  “No, um … we haven’t gotten together much these days. I haven’t seen her at all, in fact, for a few weeks, so …” Neil shrugged but didn’t look particularly despondent about the situation.

  “Oh.” I bobbed my head, struggling to appear calm, empathetic, understanding. Internally, I was hip hopping.

  We moved on to other topics: the changeable summer weather, the state of world affairs and, in deference to our meeting place, good books we’d read recently. As I blathered on about some of my favorite romantic comedy authors, I could hear an odd, inflated tone hijack my voice and force it to rise to a delighted coo. Neil looked duly impressed with my monologue before embarking upon one of his own—featuring thriller writers and romantic suspense. I listened, attentive as a spellbound disciple.

  All that remained now was the long-hoped-for setup for a future date.

  Neil pointed t
o my espresso. “Hey, I love those, too. Did you get a double shot?”

  “How did you know?”

  He smiled. “That’s the only way to do it. Decaf, herbal tea, and the like—those are for weenies.”

  I laughed and told him I agreed.

  “Well, maybe we can grab a couple sometime soon,” he said, “and, you know, just talk for a while.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” I replied, beaming my best grin at him. Then, with pride at my casual assertiveness, I added, “I need to browse through some materials on promoting heart health this weekend. I was thinking of coming back maybe Sunday morning to check out their books, so if you want to join me—”

  “Definitely!” Neil broke in. “What time were you thinking of getting here?”

  “Maybe ten or ten thirty. I only need to do about a half hour of work.”

  “Why don’t I drop by at about ten thirty then? If you still have some stuff to finish up, you can spend as much time as you need. There’s always a lot to look at here. Then, whenever you’re ready, we can take our espressos to go, stroll a bit if the day’s clear, maybe even grab some lunch or something later …” He shot me one of his preppy lawyer grins. I was charmed.

  We quickly exchanged cell numbers and then parted company with matching smiles and nearly matching fantasies of eternal love, which now seemed closer than ever.

  And this was where my imagined tale concluded, complete with all the hopefulness and optimism that filled the heart of every romantic. That blissful, mystical time in a relationship’s beginning, before anything could swoop down to erode the magic of infatuation. Only in soap operas, fairy tales, or love ballads by eighties hair bands could one find a rival to such a glorious moment. Oh, the sweet sensation!

  I adored my little love story and called it “Browsing.”

  After several revisions and at least seventeen mocha frappuccinos, I submitted it to a regional magazine—Midwest Fiction Forum: Stories for the Modern Genre Writer—a journal that published monthly issues in print as well as weekly features online. They’d accepted a poem of mine about two years before, so I was positively inclined toward their publication. But what I liked best about them was this: their response time was a shockingly prompt three weeks or less.

  I sweated out the days, always with that fluttery impatience just below my lungs whenever a new email would appear. Then one Monday, sometime in late June, I got a ping in my inbox. It was from the magazine … I crossed my fingers and clicked open the message.

  An acceptance!

  “Yes!” I exclaimed to no one but the ants in my otherwise-empty apartment. My story would not only be on the web, it would be included in one of the print issues, too.

  After celebrating my good fortune alone with a dark Colombian roast/brandy concoction I mixed, I added this publishing acquisition to my short list of fiction credits. Cheerfully, I marked my calendar with an asterisk and the word “Browsing” next to the notes box for September.

  In the weeks that followed, I continued to stop by my favorite bookstore with some frequency. Admittedly, thoughts of Neil and Jessica always accompanied me there, but I’d grown less hopeful of ever seeing either of them again as the summer progressed.

  One time, shortly after my birthday in mid-July, I thought I spotted Jessica. I saw someone, anyway, who was a leggy blonde with an identical designer handbag. Could it have been a coincidence?

  The woman was near the first floor information desk with her back to me, and I was on the escalator heading down. By the time I reached the ground level, whoever she was had vanished. But, since we’d never actually spoken, I supposed I wouldn’t have known what to say if I’d met up with her face to face anyway. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have had a clue who I was.

  My romantic short story came out in the September issue as scheduled, and I was pleased to see my name in print for something this lighthearted and creative. I pulled out my box of novel notes and began sifting through them at more regular intervals—gathering, organizing, refining ideas. I could feel my confidence in storytelling growing.

  In early October, as Halloween approached, I was assigned an article on simple children’s costumes for a citywide parenting publication. I went to my trusty bookstore on a Thursday night to peruse the shelves for costume ideas. I found myself drawn to my favorite lounge chair on the second floor.

  I’d lifted four promising titles off the shelf and was scanning the table of contents page in the third book, when I noticed somebody stealthily taking a seat a couple of chairs to my right. I didn’t look up immediately. I just registered that the invading individual was male, turned a handful of pages, and scribbled several notes on “baby bumblebee” trick-or-treat attire.

  But I had that feeling—that inexplicable sensation that occurs whenever you first become aware that you’re being watched. A weird The Sixth Sense kind of thing—minus the dead people. Reasonably sure I could identify the source of the gaze, I glanced over at the man who’d come in a few minutes before.

  In truth, I probably wouldn’t have recognized him if it hadn’t been for his loafers.

  He was watching me intently—this guy I’d once named Neil—only he wasn’t quite like my memory’s image. Seeing him in person for just the second time in my life, I realized I’d glossed over some significant details in my recollection: the dark blond chin stubble, the moderately protruding ears, the serious set to his jaw, and the astuteness in his light blue eyes (although they were as blue as Chris Hemsworth’s). The eyelashes were unchanged, but a more accurate picture of the other features was starting to come back to me. Dressed in a dark sport coat this time, rather than a black leather jacket, with tan slacks instead of jeans and a fat briefcase touching the toe of his right loafer, he regarded me with a steady, unsmiling expression.

  Damn.

  I looked away, expecting him to turn his attention elsewhere now that I had.

  He didn’t.

  I took several yoga-style cleansing breaths—despite the fact that I never did yoga—and counted slowly to five before looking back at him. He was still staring, with a gravity that led me to mark the nearest exits if a quick escape would be required.

  Crapola.

  He couldn’t know about the story, could he? Or be angry because of it, right? It was fiction, after all. I mean, I didn’t even know his real name!

  I was tempted to say something to him, but what? These fears had to be my overactive imagination working the late shift again.

  Maybe he was just absentmindedly staring in my direction.

  Maybe I looked like somebody he knew from Sunday school when he was ten.

  Maybe this was his idea of flirtation, you know, smoldering like one of those television network vampires. (They do that.)

  I’d nearly convinced myself of one of these scenarios—the Sunday school one—when I saw the corners of his lips curl slightly upward.

  At long last, he whispered, “So, you write for Midwest Fiction Forum, eh?” It was presented as a question, but I could tell from the undisguised sarcasm that he already knew the answer.

  Oh, shit, shit, shit!

  “Uh, w-well,” I stuttered, “I’ve had a c-couple, um—why?”

  He didn’t reply. He got up from his chair two seats away and moved right next to me as I shot glances around the room in panic. I put the kiddie costume books on the floor and gripped my pen, dagger style, just in case.

  Then he leaned in toward me. “I remember you,” he whispered. My eyes widened while his crinkled at the corners. “You were the one here that day, weren’t you? You lifted our conversation. Verbatim.”

  Oh, no. A psycho guy … who reads. Short story and poetry journals, no less. Just my luck.

  Then I thought, hey, if only I could escape the bookstore unscathed, this would make a wild story. Maybe even a novel. Consider the fun premise, the natural, built-in
conflict. It had so much potential, but first I needed to slip away from the tall, hunky man with the dangerous glint in his very blue eyes.

  “Um, look,” I began, using my most placating tone. “It’s just fiction, you know? I didn’t mean to offend you or, or, anyone—but, it’s—well, people are always asking writers where we get our ideas, and you can tell them it’s in the ‘random stuff’ we encounter in real life but, a lot of times, no one believes us. You two were in a public location, talking kind of loud, and, and … I mean, the things you both were saying made an interesting place for a story to start. So—” I ran fresh out of babbling steam right about then, but I forced myself to meet his gaze and hold my ground.

  He snickered and sat back in his chair. I loosened my grip on the pen—a little.

  “I should’ve known you’d be some writer. You had that shrewd, information-gathering look about you.” He raised his eyebrows at me, and his gaze raked me over very deliberately before returning to my face. I felt myself turn pink.

  “I must have reread the first conversation, especially your descriptions of us, and that sitcom-like elbow-bumping incident about fifteen times before I could believe it.” He shook his head. “And you were hardly objective in your narrative. But, I guess,” he said, wrinkling his nose, “it was a pretty bizarre night.”

  “Why?” I asked, careful to show both respect and interest. I needed more information for the psycho-bookworm story.

  “Because my girlfriend and I broke up about ten minutes after you left.”

  “What? Really? The blonde?” Excellent. Crisis and several plot points already in place. Now I just needed more character details.

  “Yeah. The blonde. Jessica, as you know her,” he said, mocking me. “Her name’s Kira, by the way, and she’s the lawyer.”