The Pink Ghetto

by Liz Ireland

  I grabbed my purse, and we were out of there.

  The stress of the day fell away from me the moment I was settled in front of a chalupa plate. I always order them, telling myself that I will eat the stuff off the top and leave the chalupa shells—really just a giant round tortilla chip. It rarely works out that way, but as my weight counselor used to say, sometimes you have to applaud the impulse even if you don’t follow through.

  “Have you spoken to Dan Weatherby lately?” Fleishman asked as he began to tuck into some enchiladas. They looked better than what I got. His plate was a sea of melted cheese.

  “No,” I said. “I guess I’ll see him at the big conference in Dallas.”

  His eyes widened. “Really? That’s soon, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t mean I’ll see him, see him. I’ll probably just see him.”

  Somehow, this made sense to Fleishman. “Maybe you should do more than see him.”

  Why would Fleishman possibly be asking me about Dan at this late date? I had just now stopped kicking myself over how I had handled all that. I should have played it more cool, I’d decided. Like Fleishman’s showing up was just no big deal. I looked uptight and paranoid…which is, of course, a pretty accurate description of my personality type.

  “I guess I really mucked things up there,” Fleishman said.

  I was amazed. He had already apologized. It wasn’t like him to dwell on wrongs he had committed. “It’s okay,” I said. “Obviously, it was not meant to be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If he liked me, he would have called. It’s not like he couldn’t have come up with an excuse.”

  “He wouldn’t have called if he thought I was in the picture.”

  Are you in the picture? I wanted to ask. Fleishman wasn’t seeing anyone, and we had reached a comfortable détente. Part of this had just been because he had been working so hard. We hadn’t really had the opportunity to squabble. But there was also this thought in the back of my mind…

  I’d had thought that before. Foolish.

  “I don’t think Dan was ever interested in me. His natural schmooziness just bamboozled me into thinking he was.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “When I saw you two together, he seemed interested.”

  “After you saw us together, you called him a baloney sandwich.”

  “Because I was jealous,” he admitted.

  My heart stopped. Jealous? Fleishman? Of Dan?

  “But that was selfish of me,” he went on, “I can see that now. I probably broke up something that could have worked out.”

  “No,” I said, forcefully. “I mean, I seriously doubt that.”

  He shook his head. “There you go again—undermining yourself. The smallest obstacle makes you retreat. The thing you should be asking yourself is, who do I want?”

  You, dumbass, I could have said. I tilted my head. After all these years, couldn’t he tell?

  “Have you ever considered calling him, asking him out for a drink?”

  So now he wanted to throw me into the arms of Dan Weatherby? I was confused.

  Or maybe he was just testing me, to see if I was still carrying a torch.

  “It seems awfully altruistic of you to want to matchmake Dan and me.”

  He shrugged. “I owe you.”

  “No you don’t.”

  He leaned forward, practically pushing his plate aside. “But I do! Oh, I know we fought—you were right about a lot of things, Rebecca. You really gave me that swift kick in the pants I needed. I feel like I’m really back on track again.”

  I couldn’t remember a time when he had ever been on track to begin with, but he seemed so optimistic I didn’t want to point that fact out to him.

  “You do seem to be getting a lot done.” Of course, it helped when you had a mother bankrolling you.

  “It’s all because of you.”

  I shook my head. “You’re obviously forgetting your mom.”

  “Oh sure, Natasha gave me some financial support. But you really got me going.”

  “I’d love to read what you’ve done,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to jinx it.”

  “Thanks!”

  “What I meant was, I respect your opinion too much to give it to you before it’s the best I can make it.”

  It seemed odd. In college he couldn’t wait to show me whatever he was writing for class. And I had already read five drafts of the first act of Yule Be Sorry.

  But how could I argue when he was showering on compliments this way?

  “I think you’re going to be surprised,” he said.

  Chapter 12

  Someone called my name, but I didn’t hear them at first. I was in that Xerox machine daze, waiting for retina burn to set in as I made a copy of Joanna Castle’s edited manuscript. Publishing seemed to be the last bastion of the pencil and paper world. Edits were done in pencil; copyedits in red pencil. A single original manuscript was shuttled between author and publisher and production, piling on corrections as it went. And every stage had to be copied. Mass tree slaughter.

  “Mademoiselle Abbot!”

  That got my attention. If someone was speaking French to me, it had to be Mercedes. And if Mercedes wanted to see me it was probably bad news. More Cassie backstabbing, perhaps. Or who knows what else. I’d felt vulnerable ever since I’d killed Mary Jo’s coffee mug.

  “Come see me, s’il vous plaît,” Mercedes said. It wasn’t even a question.

  “Sure—just finishing up here.”

  I was filled with dread as I trudged back to her office. Mercedes gestured to the squirm chair and I dutifully sank down into it.

  She placed her hands on the desk in front of her and threaded her fingers together. “I got a call from Bookworld Monthly. A reporter there is doing an article called ‘Making Waves,’ which is going to be about up-and-comers at different publishing houses. I told her she should give you a buzz.”

  “What about?”

  Mercedes gave me a good strong eye blink, and who could blame her? “About being an up-and-comer.”

  “Oh!”

  She chuckled. “Of course modesty is a good thing…”

  I hadn’t intended to be modest. I was just slow on the uptake.

  “…but in this instance,” she continued, “your job is not to be too modest. In this interview, we need you to highlight all the fabulous things we’re doing at Candlelight. Toot your horn about your own achievements, by all means, but we need you to crow a little about all of our products—Signature, MetroGirl, the revamped Pulse.”

  I nodded. I was still trying to think what on earth I could toot my own horn about.

  “You’ve got to be our cheerleader,” Mercedes said.

  “But with no skimpy outfit,” I joked.

  Mercedes’s smile froze, and I saw a cloud of doubt cross her face. I chose the wrong one, that look seemed to say. I should have picked Cassie.

  That thought sobered me. Maybe I did feel insecure and unworthy, but damned if I wanted to let Cassie grab any glory. In fact, just the prospect of my being a subject of the “Making Waves” interview filtering down to Cassie made me giddy with glee.

  Mercedes got down to particulars. The woman from BM, Alex Keene, would be getting in contact with me, but I probably wouldn’t be meeting with her until after the Dallas convention.

  “And of course, I don’t have to remind you that you must keep your ears open in Dallas.” Mercedes always wanted us to keep our ears open. “New trends, that’s what we’re looking for. No one but Cassie is giving me manuscripts marked N. We need to stay hot on the trail of the next big thing!”

  When I left Mercedes’s office, Lindsay came running up to me. “What happened?” Her whisper was loud enough to carry all the way to Jersey. “I saw her ambush you in the hallway.”

  “She just wanted to talk to me about some magazine article.”

  She sagged an arm around
my shoulder in relief. “That’s good. For a minute I thought…”

  I tilted my head. “That I was going to be fired?”

  “We’ve all been worried, ever since Mary Jo’s mug…”

  It was sort of comforting to know that someone had been that anxious on my behalf.

  “Not that you need to worry,” she hastened to assure me. “Rita likes you. And hell, they still haven’t fired me, so their standards must be pretty low.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” I said.

  She practically bobbed on her heels. “Oh, I don’t. I’m a world champion fuck-up.”

  Say one thing for Lindsay. She hadn’t let incompetence damage her ego.

  As I was talking to Lindsay, I caught sight of Muriel walking out of my office. I frowned. It was rare to see Muriel away from the reception desk, much less venturing back here. Obviously, she wanted to check up on her friend’s book. That book! It was now the albatross around my neck. I still hadn’t written the rejection letter, though I had a few notes.

  Actually, they were transcriptions of Fleishman’s notes.

  When Muriel was gone, I went to my office, determined to finally have that troublesome book out of my life for good. And I meant for good. When I started typing the rejection letter, I tried to use terminology that would let the person know in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want to see The Rancher and the Lady in a new and improved incarnation at any point in the future. I didn’t even tack on a “I would be happy to see any future projects…” blah, blah, blah that I usually wrote as my final paragraph. The truth was, now that I was finally ridding myself of this thing, I hoped never to see this author’s name again.

  And this was after only reading twenty pages. I tried to rationalize my strong feelings on such limited evidence by the fact that Fleishman had read the whole book and hated it. It had been given a thorough reading…just not by me. As a love interest, Fleishman had his shortcomings, but the man knew his romance novels.

  I printed the letter, signed it, stuffed it all in an envelope, and carried the package to the mailroom. Dropping it into the outgoing mail folder, I felt as if a hundred-pound weight had fallen from my shoulders. I felt like toe dancing.

  On my way out of the office that afternoon, I told Muriel that I had returned the manuscript to her friend.

  Her mouth was twisted into a frown, but she nodded. “I had secretly predicted that would be the end result,” she confessed. “Thank you for the time you took with it, Rebecca. At least I can assure her that it was given every consideration.”

  Did I feel guilty? Well, no. I had spent a lot of time with the book. It had been my houseguest, even.

  As I clung to a subway pole on the way home that night, I suddenly had a psychological surge. I don’t know why. Maybe it was finally getting that manuscript of Muriel’s friend off my desk, or the fact that Mercedes had called me an up-and-comer. I felt almost self-confident.

  The sensation was disconcerting.

  At home I found Fleishman in an expansive mood, too. In fact, if I was in a good mood, then he was off the charts happy. “I’m done!” he exclaimed before I had even shut the door.

  I was amazed. “When can I read it?”

  Whatever it was…I still wasn’t sure about that. He hadn’t even told me the name of this new play of his.

  “I want to go over it one more time,” he said. “Maybe when you get back from Dallas.”

  “Okay, but you should let me take you out for a celebration. I believe I owe you something.”

  I had told him he would never complete anything, and now he had proved me wrong.

  But he was hearing none of it. “Are you kidding? I owe you—big time. You’re my muse.”

  I have to admit, those words did something to me. First of all, they made me imagine myself perched atop Fleishman’s desk like that famous picture of Lauren Bacall on Harry Truman’s piano. Only I pictured myself in a diaphanous gown, one that both covered all my flaws and made me look inspiring. I saw a spark of admiration in Fleishman’s eyes that I hadn’t noticed in…well, too long. I’d been hungry for that.

  Or was I imagining it?

  He reached out for my hand, playfully threading his fingers through mine, and oozing charm at me via those gray eyes of his. Like I was his favorite person in the world.

  His muse.

  Anyway, it was as if by some miracle all the friction between us had seeped away and left us as we had been—as more than friends. I felt that old spark of hope flickering inside me again.

  “C’mon,” he said, tugging on my hand. “White Dragon.”

  White Dragon had our favorite Chinese food outside of Chinatown. Usually I had to hold myself back from making a pig of myself, but tonight it felt like my appetite was gone. Another miracle. I picked at a potsticker while Fleishman gulped them down like vitamins.

  “I can’t tell you how great I feel,” he said.

  “You seem…exuberant.”

  “This time I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. I feel like I’ve created something worthwhile, and lasting.”

  “That’s great.”

  He jabbed another dumpling with his chopsticks. “And the greatest thing is, it’s not just some juvenile masturbatory thing like the stuff I did in college.”

  “I loved those plays,” I said.

  He shrugged. “They were great, too, of course—but not for a wide audience. I mean, I don’t want to start saying that what I’m doing now is commercial—”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  He blinked. “Jeez, you’re right. Listen to me! And the truth is, I wanted to write something commercially viable. What’s the matter with that? I mean, you think if any writer could change places with Stephen King, or Nora Roberts, or Tom Clancy, they wouldn’t?”

  “You’re going to be the Nora Roberts of the New York stage?”

  He laughed mysteriously. “Just wait till you read it.”

  I felt a prick of doubt just then, but I ignored it. I was having too good a time.

  The Szechwan pork arrived, and for the next hour we drank Tsingtao and talked about how my job had changed his whole outlook. Fleishman and I hadn’t talked like this in such a long time, just riffing on our lives. Of course, right now we were just talking about his life, but I was sure we would get around to me eventually.

  Three beers later, eventually had still not arrived.

  Maybe when he said I was his muse, he really meant that I was his microphone.

  He was still in an ebullient mood as we stumbled back to the apartment, but by this time I was feeling a little disgruntled. And frustrated. Just like old times.

  Why was I such a dope?

  “I think I have to go to bed now,” Fleishman said, yawning. “I don’t know how I got so tired.”

  Maybe from running your mouth for two straight hours, I thought.

  “Max still needs a walk,” I said.

  “Having a dog is such a pain in the ass, isn’t it?” he said.

  I grabbed the leash.

  “Thanks for doing that,” he said, volunteering me. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Renata.”

  I froze.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “You called me Renata.”

  He laughed. “No way.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Okay, maybe I did. Rebecca. There. I couldn’t live without you, Rebecca.”

  “Thanks!” I hooked the collar around Maxwell’s neck. “That makes me feel super special.”

  “God, you are so bipolar tonight. First you seemed so happy and now you are acting like I insulted you.”

  “We’ve been best friends for six years and you just called me by the wrong name!”

  He looked like he was beginning to get miffed. “So I have early Alzheimer’s or something. Jeebus, get over it. It wasn’t as if I called you the wrong name while we were having sex.”

  I snarled, “No, that wouldn’t be likely to happen, would it?
”

  He blinked at me. “Well, no.”

  I let out a roar of frustration and steamed out of the apartment.

  On the street, I just let Maxwell drag me around the block. It was hard to be annoyed with a creature who took such exuberant pleasure in parceling out pee to every tree, hydrant, and other protuberance along his route. But I just couldn’t shake off my irritation with Fleishman—which of course was partially irritation with myself. One reference to being a muse, and I’d started thinking wild thoughts. I’d started having hopes again.

  Idiot.

  Renata, he’d called me.

  I had to get over him, once and for all. I had to stop thinking that I would suddenly become the dream girl of this guy, who, let’s face it, had passed me over twice already. Maybe I should even move out.

  That thought left me paralyzed until Max tugged me onward to a newspaper box.

  I’d think about all this later, I decided. After Dallas.

  During the following week, when I was getting ready to go to the big convention, Fleishman became a hermit. He disappeared. He was revising his masterpiece, he said, and he couldn’t have any disturbances. During the day he went to the branch library; at night he took his iPod and his computer and haunted the coffee shops.

  On my last day of work before Dallas, I loaded up everything I needed—the conference schedule, a fistful of business cards, tip sheets to give out at the author appointments. Even though it was July and Dallas was reporting a record heatwave, I couldn’t wait to go. Maybe this little break would be good for me. I was so focused on getting away from Fleishman that I didn’t even worry about the flight, or the panel I was going to be on, or the million other things that could go wrong.

  As I was leaving the office that evening, Cassie called out to me. Startled by this unusual summons, I peeked into her office. “Have a good time in Dallas, Rebecca.”

  For a moment, I was stupefied. Impressed, even. Tossing out even that little crumb of graciousness had probably cost her a day of agonizing.

  Then she added, with extravagant sarcasm dripping in her voice, “I just know you’ll be making waves.”

  So she had heard about the article. A little voice inside my head did a gleeful cheer.