The Pink Ghetto

by Liz Ireland

  “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.”
<
br />   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.

  The 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.

  The bulk of the magazine, though, was devoted to brief book reviews in which practically every book published under the umbrella of women’s fiction was given a rating of one to five kissy lips. According to authors, those lips could make or break a career. I’d had one woman call me in hysterics over getting a one kissy review—in romance review terms, the kiss-off. I had a hard time convincing her not to file suit.

  How had Fleishman even found out about the Journal?

  “Look, you’re scaring me. I’m grateful for all your interest, but it’s my job.”

  “But I need to go.”

  Was he nuts? “Why would you need to go to a romance conference in Oregon?”

  He folded his arms. “I just do.”

  There was more to this than what he was telling me. “Fleish…”

  He lifted his chin. “Well, if you must know, I haven’t been idling away my days while you’ve been at work. I’ve been at work, too. Writing a play.”

  So? He was always writing a play.

  And then it hit me. This was a new play. About Candlelight Books.

  About my job.

  “A play!” I stood back, aghast. This was worse than I could have imagined. Fleishman was going to write some horrible play making fun of romance writers; by some fluke it would be produced, become a Broadway hit, and I would be fired. That’s why he wants to go to the conference. To find material to write a play that would wind up deep-sixing my career.

  “No way,” I said. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not? It’ll be funny.”

  Funny. Oh God.

  “No, that’s not right,” he said, bobbing his head to one side in thought. “It will be more than just funny. I want to tell all sides of the story, not just the lampoony cartoon side that people think of when they imagine romance writers. I mean, these writers are pros, Rebecca.”

  “Yes, I know.” I bit my lip.

  “Well, did you know that romances are forty-eight percent of paperback book sales? Did you know those sales amount to over one billion dollars each year?”

  “Where did you hear this?” I asked.

  “Off the RAG Web site.”

  How did he even know about RAG?

  He shook his head in apparent wonder. “The most interesting thing is, most of these authors didn’t even set out to be authors. They didn’t attend graduate writing programs in Iowa. They started out as nurses, or lawyers, or teachers, and then just started writing because they had this burning urge to tell a story. I mean, that’s astounding. You don’t hear about people becoming concert violinists after being nurses, do you?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Yet these women manage to write their way into new careers, and hit the New York Times Bestseller List! If you hear their stories, a lot of them have had to spend years writing before being published, working before everyone else in the family is awake, or after putting the kids to sleep. They had to steal time to teach themselves to write. Some of the most famous writers spent years getting manuscripts rejected, but they kept going. It’s amazing!”

  “Right, but—”

  “The thing is, everybody dismisses these books. Like there’s some kind of formula. But the formula’s no different from a mystery, or a sci-fi book. The formula is the author’s own creativity. Plus time. Plus determination.”

  I gave up trying to interrupt him. He seemed possessed.

  “Can’t you see?” he asked. “I really need to go.”

  “You don’t need to do anything but chill out,” I argued. “I’m sure you could write a fine play, Fleishman, but going to Oregon is out of the question. I don’t know a lot about business, but taking your roommate along to a writer’s conference doesn’t sound professional to me.”

  He sighed. “Well could you take some notes? I know—I’ll give you a tape recorder. You can tape record people’s conversations for me.”

  “No! I’m not going to spy on these people. They’re paying my way, you know.”

  “My God, you’re a killjoy.”

  “And you’re a pain in the ass.” It had been a while since we’d had a fight like this. Once he got an idea in his head, he could buzz on incessantly about it, like a whiny mosquito.

  “I thought you were still working on Yule Be Sorry,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “You didn’t want me to write that play, either.”

  No, I didn’t. But now it sounded pretty good. If Fleishman humiliated my family on stage, they could disown me, but they couldn’t fire me.

  Chapter 8

  “Hello, Miss Plot Expert!”

  When I heard Dan’s voice on the phone, I swiveled in my chair and kicked my office d
oor closed. Down the hall, Mercedes’s assistant, Lisa, was singing “Stormy Weather” again. She had a great voice but a limited repertoire. This was the tenth time I’d heard it today.

  Plus, I wanted privacy. “What are you talking about?” I asked Dan.

  “Check your e-mail. They just sent out the weekend schedule for Romance on the River.”

  My spine was suddenly ramrod straight. “Are you going to the Portland conference, too?”

  “You betcha.”

  If there had been any confetti handy, I would have thrown it. I had a schoolgirl crush on Dan Weatherby. That bedroom voice and that super schmooziness of his were hard to resist. In the most offhand way possible, I had asked Andrea about his looks and his marital status, and she had burst out laughing.

  “If you didn’t skip lunch so often, you would know from lunchroom scuttlebutt that you aren’t the first person in this office to ask that question.”

  “And the answer is…?”

  “Yes, he’s good looking—like a soap opera actor. Early thirties. Divorced.”

  “So he’s…”

  “Up for grabs, apparently.” Then she leveled a forbidding look on me. “Unlike Mr. Incredible the elevator man, who of course is mine. But as far as Dan is concerned, you go, girl. I haven’t heard of him squiring anyone around for months.”

  “Months?”

  “Yeah, he’s a little bit of a lothario. Rumor has it that he broke poor Clea Shafransky’s heart. Clea was an associate in the Hearthsong pod. She got sort of cozy with him. Then, right after a conference in Minneapolis where Dan was spotted flirting with an editor from Venus books, she left publishing altogether, moved back home to Buffalo, and opened a knitting store.”

  “So it wasn’t clear that it was actually Dan’s fault.”

  “The evidence was inconclusive,” Andrea admitted, “but damning.”

  It was hard to keep poor Clea Shafransky out of my head when I was talking to Dan now. It was equally difficult to banish the phrase “up for grabs.”

  “Imagine my surprise.” He chuckled. “I thought Rita was going.”

  “Her niece is getting married.”

  “Oh, so she’s not losing a conference, she’s gaining a nephew.”