Paperback Romance

1 Overture Carolyn was going to be tickled lavender. Alison smiled at her own fancy ​ Carolyn would only be tickled pink. Alison was dreaming about the lavender part. Luscious lavender or merely pink ​ it didn’t matter, she told herself, as long as she was able to deliver the check in person. Waiting was excruciating. To pass the time she called out, “Any sign of Federal Express?”

Devon’s voice floated back to her, edged with impatience. “Not yet.” Unsaid, but hanging in the air was the added message, “For the tenth time in the last ten minutes.” Alison sighed. The check absolutely, positively had to be here by ten o’clock if she was going to deliver it herself, otherwise it would have to go by messenger. And I’ll miss the expression on her face, and the hug of thanks. Maybe two hugs. A part of Alison ​ the part she listened to least ​ told her she should not rearrange her life around the possibility of a hug from Carolyn. But what the heck ​ she’d suffered from unrequited love for so long it was a fixture in her life. She tried to concentrate on the contract she was going to negotiate in Los Angeles this afternoon. It was her first contract negotiation with Pullman & Sons, and the author involved deserved as much attention as Alison was presently giving to Carolyn. Carolyn was of course Alison’s favorite author, but she had to take a back seat to the business at hand or McNamara Literary would become a one-client agency ​ a situation too precarious for Alison’s peace of mind. Fortified by the specter of negative cash flow, Alison set herself to unraveling Article VI, Section A, Part 34(f).

The front door of her tiny office suite opened sometime later and Alison realized with a shock that it was almost eleven. Even as she leapt past Devon and snatched the proffered envelope from the courier, Alison silently wailed that today of all days the guaranteed ten o’clock delivery time had not been met. You’d think Sacramento was Barstow or Bakersfxeld or, God forbid, Fresno.

Back at her desk, she zipped the strip on the package and shook out the contents. She didn’t give the signed contract a second glance. She knew by heart every detail of the arrangement for Carolyn’s ​ or rather, Carly Vincent’s ​ first three romances to be distributed in Canadian and Australian supermarkets and bookstores. It was the check that gained all her attention. “Can I touch it?” Devon leaned over Alison’s shoulder. “You may look,” Alison said. She held it out for his perusal. Devon whistled. “Looks like I’m due for a bonus,” he said with his usual lack of humility. “And if she doesn’t get the hots for you after this, then she never will.” “Keep it up and there’s no bonus,” Alison said crushingly. “Okay. I’ll say no more. So I’m definitely getting a bonus. That’s nice.” Devon smiled serenely at Alison. “Con artist,” she said fondly, then she grimaced as she remembered the time. “I’m off to the bank.” As she hurried up the street, Alison could only think about what Carolyn’s portion would mean to Carolyn. It had been at least nine months since Carolyn had returned from Paris. She’d gone to do research, to give Carly Vincent an international flair. Alison’s upper lip took on a Billy Idol curl as she recalled the completely inappropriate turn Carolyn’s research had

taken. First had come the ecstatic telegram, “Got married you’ll love him. Home soon.” Alison’s world had rocked; she doubted she would ‘love him.” Matters hardly improved when two weeks

later a second telegram arrived: “Single again. Will explain when home.” Alison had remained Carolyn’s friend over the years, their ties to each other remaining strong even when Alison spent several years in New York. Though not aware of how or where Carolyn spent every night, Alison had suspected that Carolyn had never had any kind of meaningful sexual experience. That fact kept Alison hoping more and more intensely over the years that some day Carolyn would realize Alison could be there for her in more ways than just as an agent and friend. It had still been a shock to find out, while Carolyn sobbed out a garbled account of the entire fiasco, that Carolyn had indeed, like the heroines in her novels, gone to her marriage bed a virgin. Carolyn had said bitterly that she didn’t know what she’d waited thirty years for. What could I have done? There hadn’t been anything to do but listen and soothe. Carolyn had been shattered ​ her romantic, storybook marriage had ended with her new husband’s infidelity, a convenient annulment and intervention by the American Consulate. Alison suspected once the romance had worn off, shortly into the wedding night, Carolyn had not been able to respond sexually to her hero. But Carolyn, pouring the sad story into Alison’s receptive shoulder, believed she was frigid and that the entire mess was her fault. After that, Carolyn’s emotions had iced over and had yet to thaw. Before the marriage she and Carolyn regularly got together just to split a Sara Lee cheesecake and watch old movies. Since the

marriage, it was business and business only that brought them together. Carolyn dodged discussions of anything except work. The entire affair had

altered the foundation of their long-standing friendship, but on the bright side ​ if there was a bright side ​ Carolyn had finally come to the conclusion that she was not sexually compatible with men. This was good news for Alison. The bad news was that Carolyn had decided she wasn’t sexually compatible with anyone. Alison had taken Carolyn’s lead ​ and she’d been waiting for nine long months for an offer to do anything together that didn’t involve business. She was in luck at the bank, although the speediest teller in the world wouldn’t give her the half hour she needed to get to Carolyn’s and then to the airport. The bank teller, Alison’s favorite for reasons other than efficiency, completed the transactions quickly and with a smile that was a little more intimate than the job required. One of these days Alison was going to follow up on the invitation the teller had been discretely extending to her ever since they’d seen each other at the Sacramento Pride Faire. Maybe this one could cure her addiction to Carolyn Vincense. Back at her desk, Alison swept the contract file into her briefcase and confirmed that she did indeed have her plane tickets. She checked her watch again, but time had not stopped. If only Carolyn didn’t live all the way out in the ‘burbs ​ it was a twenty-five minute struggle up J Street, over the American River and then on up Fair Oaks Boulevard, just seven miles or so, on surface streets. By the time she drove to Carolyn’s, hugged her (with intense

savoring) and then drove to the airport, she’d miss her flight by a good half an hour. Sacramento was getting more like Los Angeles every day. She considered holding onto the cashier’s check until tomorrow evening, but Alison-the-prudent-agent knew that such a large chunk of money shouldn’t be sitting around not earning interest. Since she wouldn’t be back in town until tomorrow evening, she resigned herself to giving Carolyn’s check into Devon’s safekeeping with strict instructions to messenger it immediately. Alison-the-unrequited-lover was quite depressed.

When her plane was finally airborne, she closed her eyes and imagined the ice around Carolyn melting at last, imagined Carolyn reaching for Alison’s embrace in gratitude. Her fantasies did not stop at a mere embrace. They never did.

2 Prelude du Oblivious “Why don’t you take a long trip or something? Maybe you’ll get over being blocked.” “I’m not blocked, I’m just taking a break,” Carolyn protested with as much conviction as she could muster. Terminal goose bumps broke out over the uncovered parts of her body ​ which was most of her. She was in the kitchen; she wished she had a longer cord on the phone so she could stand on the carpet. She was not about to tell Margot she

had still been in bed; “I’ve just been trying out some new themes. Thinking about other things.” Like the nature of time and space and why anyone would want to eat frozen Twinkies. Deep, complicated thoughts that had nothing whatsoever to do with romance or sex. “If you say so, honey,” Margot said. “It just seems to me that ​” “Tell me about the plans for Curt’s party,” Carolyn broke in. She loved her sister-in-law dearly, but she just couldn’t bear to have Margot explain one more time that love was like riding a bicycle. Margot should talk. Curt had been her first love and eight years later, he hadn’t given Margot any regrets Carolyn knew of. “​ Doesn’t it sound like fun? You did keep tomorrow night free, didn’t you?” Margot finished. Carolyn realized she hadn’t heard a word and that she couldn’t feel her toes. “Yeah, I’ll be there,” she promised. “Give the two munchkins an Auntie Carl hug.” Carolyn hurried back to the bedroom where she thrust her frozen feet into mismatched old, thick socks and pulled yesterday’s sweatshirt ​ I love Sacramento ​ over her head. All her sweatpants were dirty, so she

rummaged in the laundry basket for the least dirty pair and pulled them on. She promised herself she’d start a load of laundry sometime soon. It wasn’t as if anyone would be around to catch her in this disreputable state. She warmed her face over boiling ramen noodles while she gulped her first cup of Morning Thunder tea. Mama, she thought, I know this is a rotten meal, but I’ll get back on the right track soon. She

wondered if her parents were watching her from some heavenly perch, shaking their heads over the rise and fall of their once-independent daughter. After breakfastylunch was accomplished without the actual intake of nutrition, she knew it was time to go to work. If she got some work done at least she wouldn’t be lying to Alison about it anymore. All Alison wanted to know about lately was work, work, work. As Carolyn forced herself to her study, she wondered when she would stop feeling as if she were on her way to an all-day calculus exam without a pencil and without having taken the class. One long greenhouse window, filled with ferns and African violets and a dozen other plants in declining stages of health, stretched along the outer wall. The opposite wall was lined with sturdy bookshelves which housed everything from Dickens to Danielle Steele. One shelf she reserved for the collected writings of Carly Vincent. There were five paperbacks there already and room for many more. Carly Vincent, Carolyn thought, has just one little problem: Carly’s inspiration was like a can of warm soda gone flat. She’d done everything she could think of. She’d turned the computer away from the window three months ago but now she just swiveled the chair around to look out at the garden and its hint of new greens. The white and purple-streaked crocuses had already started to fade. Some days she would stare for hours, thinking about going back to school for her

doctorate. Except she was pretty sure you couldn’t get an undeclared doctorate. She didn’t feel up to making declarations. She’d tried rereading her favorite romances to get

the right mindset but every time the hero growled or the heroine swooned Carolyn either burst into laughter or felt vaguely sick. Romance no longer gave her a thrill on any level, and so Carly Vincent had nothing to write about. Carolyn was now at a stage where she felt that if she left her writing alone long enough a new twist might occur to her ​ something she could believe in again. In the meantime, this room was the only one in the house that was spotless because she had spent hours cleaning instead of writing. There was a fresh piece of paper in the printer which was waiting patiently for something to print. Yesterday it had printed the grocery list (item three had been laundry detergent) but she hadn’t felt up to going to the store. She slid into her ergonomic chair, turned on her computer, adjusted her screen height and the desk lamp, then clicked into her document for her untitled outline. She set the margins just so, again, and made sure the typeface was her preferred serif, again. Her fingertips poised to start the outline, list the settings, make bios of the characters, but she was hypnotized by the bright March sun as it streamed through the window at her back. Then she noticed how dirty the windows were. She spent the rest of the morning washing all the windows, inside and out, and then she thoroughly dusted all of the mini-blinds in the entire house, just for good measure. The sun no longer streamed in, it poured in, forming huge pools of gold that illuminated every threadbare spot in the carpets and every dust bunny lurking in the corners.

Carolyn sighed. How on earth did a piece of Kleenex get tracked into the

entry way? After a snack of cereal ​ during which she had the revelation that her cereal tasted like the box it came out of ​ she sorted a bag of M&Ms by color. She ate the orange ones first, since they were the least plentiful, then quickly polished off tan, green, red, yellow and dark brown. She told herself to call Alison and make arrangements to meet at the gym before it was too late for her thighs. M&Ms devoured, she considered getting a soda, but then decided she must do something on the book. At least she could choose names. Her heroine was going to be Delia, but in Alison’s draft the heroine would be Heather, which would nauseate Alison. Carolyn saw the reflection of her wicked smile in the computer screen. She still needed to name the hero. Fingers poised, she mulled over a name to go with Delia ​ well, Perry or Mason was obvious. “Perry. Mason. Remington. Steele. Hamilton. Burger. Blake. Carrington. Egbert. 0*