CHAPTER FIVE
Incredibly, being at the bar with Joe was probably going to be the highlight of her day, though all she had done was complain like a brat. Now she was seated in front of her editor’s desk, having a stare-down with a man she amiably loathed. She wondered: would she speak first, to complain, or would he?
The mystery was solved when Don cleared his throat. “I just had a lovely chat with the hostess of the last book signing. She was thrilled to have a famous romance novelist in her establishment. Only, next time, she hopes you remember to take your medication before you stop by.”
Marie had no comment. This was an old dance; they both knew all the steps; they did it during every publicity tour. She was certain he disliked her at least as much as she disliked him (not that either could blame the other). She supposed they were both being punished for sinful past lives.
“Since you’re not on medication...” he continued.
“Sure about that?”
“...I’ve come up with another explanation for your ridiculous behavior. That you’ve gone right out of your mind.”
“This, from a man who gulps aspirin like they were Tic Tacs and martinis like they were lemonade.”
“How shall I put this to a writer of your delicate, creative nature? Your attitude blows.”
“Also, I’m clearly unstable. You’d better release me from my contract.”
“Nice try, Jessica—”
Marie slammed the palm of her hand on the arm of her chair. The sound was very loud; she was gratified to see Don jump. “Don’t call me that. My name is Marie. I have a perfectly fine name and it disgusts me that you won’t let me use it on the books.”
“Be reasonable. Your full name doesn’t project the image we need.”
“There is nothing,” she said through gritted teeth, “wrong with my name.”
Don snorted. “Marie G. Hhermannn? You sound like a German middle school teacher.”
“What do you have against Germans? Or middle school teachers?”
“That’s not the image we want to sell romance novels. Jessica C. LeFleur has style and pan-uh-chee.”
“That’s panache .”
“Whatever. LeFleur’s got it, Hhermannn doesn’t. For the nine billionth time.”
Marie rubbed her forehead with her fingers. She felt like the “before” picture in a migraine ad. “I can’t believe they’re letting you edit my books.”
Her editor fumbled for a bottle of aspirin. He popped the cap and dry-swallowed three tablets. Marie’ felt her throat go dry in sympathy. “What ‘let’? Honey, they don’t let me, they make me. As in, I lost the bet.”
That always made her giggle. “They tried to warn you. But noooo, you were sure Tom Cruise’s legal name was Lance Pump.”
“I could’ve sworn I read that somewhere.”
“Wikipedia is not an unimpeachable source, Don.”
He waved away Sam Pump and Wikipedia. “Anyways.”
“Oh my God. How many times, Don? It’s anyway. The ‘s’ is wrong.”
“Don’t care. In addition to listening to freaked-out bookstore managers and wading through letters from weirded-out fans, I get to read through this...” He gestured to the piles of paper on his desk. “...and try to pull a love story out from the crapola you keep tossing in there.”
“Crapola? Oh, that’s nice.”
In response, he grabbed a sheaf of manuscript pages, shoved his glasses onto his face, and started randomly flipping through pages.
“I’ve never in my life seen someone put their glasses on so violently. You must spend a fortune in frames.”
“Here we go. ‘Deirdre—’ That’s changing, by the way. I’m thinkin’...Debbie. Yeah. Anyways. ‘Debbie stood at the window, her thoughts as quick and silvery as many small fish being chased by a predator.’”
“I hate it when you do this. You could pick random lines from Tolstoy and make them sound stupid.”
Don paused in his reading and looked up, puzzled. “Tolstoy? That’s the guy who wrote about hobbits and stuff, right?”
“Oh my God.”
“Whatever. Now listen: ‘She could not but help reflect upon the words of the unknown philosopher who said, ‘But at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near, and yonder all before us lie deserts of vast eternity.’ Zzzzzzzzzzz...” Don, who had no belief in subtlety, had tilted back in his chair, closed his eyes, and started fake-snoring like he was getting paid. She glanced at his desk for something to throw, and just as her fingers closed around his stapler, he pretended to wake up and leaned forward.
“And that’s on page two. It only gets worse from there. Why do you do this to me every damn time?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
He gestured irritably and leaned back in his chair. “Knock it off. You know why I called this little meeting today?”
“To further ruin my life? And demonstrate your fake snoring skills?”
“Give me a break, okay? You’ve got a great life. You’re rich, you have gobs of fans, people read your books all over the world. In a nutshell: quit your bitching.”
“I write fairly good books,” she corrected him. “You turn them into crap. Then you sell the crap to millions of women who insist on calling me Jessica. In a nutshell: you’re ruining my life.”
“It’s only fair, because you’re sure as hell ruining mine.” He flipped through the manuscript pages and picked another paragraph at random. “‘Bard—’ I assume that’s Brad misspelled.”
She clenched her teeth so hard her jaw throbbed. “It’s not a misspelling, it means poet. The hero is a sensitive man. Contrary to the example before me, that’s not an oxymoron.”
Immune as always to her insults, Don shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what it means; we’re changing it to Brad. Try this: ‘Brad gave Debbie a look of apprehension, for though he longed to make her his, to possess her utterly, he worried for her. His penis was a symbol of man’s tyranny, man’s need to rend and tear and make things his. How could she see him as anything but a monster?’”
“Good question.”
“I got a news flash for you—heroes of historical romance novels aren’t feminists, okay? They don’t read Gloria Steinem and they don’t fret about the symbolism of lovemaking in the post-modern world. They ravage. They plunder.” He gestured to the manuscript pages scattered all over his desk. “Four hundred seventy-five pages of this! Don’t you get it? I’m saving you from yourself! Women don’t want this. Romance readers don’t want this.”
“Really?”
“They want to get lost in the fantasy, they want to escape from board meetings and emergency surgery and filling potholes or whatever else it is they’re up to when they’re not reading. Your books should pull them out of that, not jam them in deeper.”
To punish him for fake-snoring, and to get her point across, she did the slow-clap.
Don flushed. “Just because my uncle owns the company doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“‘No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.’”
“Thanks a lot. Now everything’s nice and clear. Now we won’t have these fights anymore.”
“It’s from John Locke,” she explained testily. “Read a book we don’t publish some time, Senior Editor.”
She got up to leave. Don watched her, clearly frustrated. “This thing needs a title once I get done. If I can get through it without killing myself. Which, frankly, I can’t guarantee. Give it a shot.”
“You hate my titles,” she sighed.
“Just try, okay? Please. I’m begging you. I’d be on my knees, except—“
“The sciatica.”
“Yep. Keep it under five words, okay? And we’re working on the cover design—”
She sighed again. Cover design—always a special torture. “Already?”
“Hey, advance printing. Three hundred seventy-five thou, baby. We’re talking to Fabio’s people to get him to pose...”
“You really can’t help yourself, can you? Is there an industry cliché you won’t embrace?”
“No. Hey, he’s been trying to get away from that for years—“
“And succeeded, since he hasn’t done a cover in decades.”
“—but we think the publicity’d be good for both of your careers.”
This, she decided, was as good a time as any to leave. But Don jumped to his feet and shouted after her. “So for Christ’s sake, don’t pull his hair this time!”