CHAPTER NINE
Tony Freeman was having trouble believing he wasn’t dreaming. While waiting for yet another appointment with a writer, in walked the grouch of his dreams, the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about. Jessica C. LeFleur in the flesh. In his office in the flesh.
He couldn’t begin to imagine what she wanted. He got his first clue when she made no mention of her publishing history. She was—he was sure he was misinterpreting her outfit, but it seemed as though she was in disguise. She was pretending she’d never been published, that she—big laugh—needed him to succeed.
And why was she smoking a cigarette, when she obviously didn’t smoke?
“So what do you think?” she asked him, then bent forward so sharply she almost brained herself on the corner of his death, and coughed harshly.
Mystified, he stared at her, wondering if she was going to yark up a lung or what. “You have no idea.”
“Pardon?”
“Miss...uh...Hhermann—“
“The second H and the first N are silent.
(????)
He tried again. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Mutch and Munch is a very small literary house. We’re talking a dozen books a year. Maybe.”
“Wonderful.”
“And they never make the best seller list,” he continued doggedly, positive she wasn’t getting it. “Windows on the Nile sold eight thousand copies, and we threw a party.”
“Wonderful.”
Sure, he thought, wonderful for a small literary house. But eight thousand sales was peanuts for someone like her. Worse than peanuts. Sub-peanuts.
What was she up to? How did she pick him out of the crowd to try and fool? He had recognized her in an instant, despite the ridiculous disguise, but it was obvious she was unaware they had met—sort of—twice before.
“We don’t have much in the way of marketing budgets, we don’t do much promoting, and we never print more than two thousand for a first run.”
“I know. Windows on the Nile was brilliant. But literary novels about Egyptian dogs don’t make the best seller list. Too bad.”
She coughed out more smoke, her eyes watering, and looked around in vain for an ashtray. She was holding the cigarette with the ginger care of someone who’s been a smoker for all of ten minutes. Not that smoking was allowed in the building, but he’d been so amazed to see her, he said nothing about the cigarette. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had indulged a writer’s quirk/addiction/nonsense.
He decided to try once more. “I’m proud of the work we do here, and I love our writers. But our books aren’t very marketable. I’m not sure we’re what you’re looking for.”
She laughed, which was terrible and wonderful. Terrible because she might be clinically insane. Wonderful because she was gorgeous when she laughed. “Trust me. You’re exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Well...I’m actually leaving this house to open my own agency. I’m hoping to represent more...commercial pieces to bigger houses. Maybe you’d consider writing something—”
She sat bolt upright so quickly her dark glasses fell off her face and into her lap. Weirdly, this aroused him. He could actually feel all the blood start to leave his head and head south.
“No! And I don’t need an agent, thanks very much. Are you going to help me, or do I need to talk to someone else here?”
“Help you how?”
She was so angry, she didn’t notice her cigarette, which had burned down to her fingers. She yelped and dropped it, then jumped up and stomped it out before the carpet could catch fire.
Tony watched this and commanded himself to wake up. He assumed he was having this bizarre dream because he’d had a hot fudge sundae just before going to bed. Well! No more of that. Strictly milkshakes before bed from now on.
His cell phone rang and, without taking his eyes off her, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Not now, doc.” He slapped the phone shut and put it away. “You’re quite confident for a fledgling writer. Surely you know this is a tough business for newcomers.”
“You can’t get an agent without publishing a book and you can’t publish a book without an agent. Yeah, I know all about it.” Marie finished stomping out the cigarette, scraped up the ashy remnants, dumped them in his trash can, and sat back down. She carefully folding her sunglasses and put them away, and his heart broke a little at the helpless, almost desperate look on her face.
“I’m just asking for a chance,” she continued quietly. “I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier. It’s just...I don’t have a lot of use for commercialism.”
While he stared, she took out another long, black cigarette, looked at it doubtfully, then put it away. She stuck out her tongue and picked off a piece of tobacco, then longingly eyed the glass of ice water on his desk. He slid it over to her. She picked up the glass and gulped gratefully.
“Look, why don’t you put together a couple of book proposals for me, and if I think they’ll work, I can pitch my boss.”
She was so excited, she started to thank him while drinking, and water dribbled down her front. She set the glass down with a thud and water sloshed over the side, wetting his blotter.
“Okay! Great! I’ll be glad to do that—thank you very much for hearing me out.”
Under the desk, where she couldn’t see, he pinched his thigh, hard. It stung like a bastard. Definitely not dreaming. Was that good or bad? “Well, it’s clear that you’re a great—I mean, you seem like you’d be a great writer. Very...uh...deep.”
“Thanks!”
She jumped up and for one glorious moment, he thought she was going to hug him. Instead, she settled for vigorously shaking his hand hard enough to make his fingers ache. Then she gathered up her stuff and practically skipped out of the office.
His cell phone rang again. He snatched it. “Whaaaaaat?”
Dr. Simms’s voice filtered through the phone. “Is now a good time?”
“My goodness, is cheerleading practice over already?”
“Oh, please. I can’t do a cartwheel to save my life. Want to chat? Any repressed childhood memories surface recently?”
“Yeah, I dreamed I was being tortured by a psychiatrist younger than my socks. You’re not going to believe who was just here.”
“Jessica C. LeFleur.”
He had been leaning back in his chair, and when she guessed correctly he nearly fell on the floor. He opened his mouth but Dr. Simms interrupted him.
“Don’t even ask me, dude. Who else would make you sound so surprised and happy? And you wouldn’t bring it up so fast if, say, your mom called, or your boss. It was a totally logical deduction on my part.”
He got out of his chair and went to the window. He was only two stories up, so it was easy to spot the small figure in black skipping down the sidewalk. Marie Hhermann/Jessica C. LeFleur, happier to get a meeting with a small literary editor than she had been at a book signing with two hundred fans.
It was all very strange. And for some reason he was in the middle of it. God was good. “Dr. Simms, I am in love.”
“Well, duh. Like I hadn’t figured that out in two nanoseconds.”
“Oooh, you’re so smart.”
“You see LeFleur as the embodiment of all you enjoy about literature, and women. She’s passionate, articulate, intelligent...”
“Rude, snobbish, ungrateful...”
“And super cute.”
“How do you know that?”
“Got her latest novel right in front of me. Cover photo looks like something from Glamour Shots.”
He spun away from the window and started pacing in front of his desk. “Why did you buy her book?”
“Research, oh obsessive one. Don’t know how I’m going to wedge this thing into your chart, though. So why’d she come to your office?”
“Ah...I’d better not. I think I need to keep her secret for a while, until I figure out what she’s up to.”
“Dude, ever heard of doctor-patient confidentiality? I could not be more silent on the subject of La LeFleur if I had been born without vocal cords.”
“But I’m not your patient.”
“What are you, then, my pool boy? Spill. Start with, ‘Imagine my surprise when Jessica came into my office,’ and end with, ‘and then my brilliant psychiatrist called, and I told her everything.’”
He grinned in spite of himself. Shrugged. And told her everything.