CHAPTER FIVE

No Pain, No Career Gain

When I got into work the next morning, I could almost believe that Dragon Lady had forgotten all about the article idea, the book, the image of me in pink and purple. Six extra-strength aspirin and a double-espresso hadn’t put a dent in my hangover yet. Olivia had to be feeling the same or worse.

Two hours passed in headache-dulled efficiency, as I crossed off the twenty queries I’d decided to reject with form letters, the three phone calls to follow up about articles I’m expecting, the call to Cynna in Art, requesting a photo of a very surprised young woman, with a half smile and nothing else. As usual, she tried to convince me I wanted something else. Today, however, I was strong. I was righteous. We find a compromise.

It wasn’t until the staff meeting at eleven that I regretted I didn’t bring Nick’s gift for show and tell. I could have used it when Dragon Lady announced in front of everyone that she wanted to assign Tandy Baker to go with me to visit all of my past boyfriends as I re-rated their mate potential—for our readers, all 100,000+ of them.

“I don’t even know where half of them are.” Even as I realized with a jolt that I was telling the truth, I wondered why I never thought to update the addresses. It occurred to me that my friends and former roommates may have a point about my compulsive nature. I had no doubt that Emily found the contact info for everyone at the party last night from my scrupulously updated organizer. But I never contacted the serious boyfriends I’d dumped. Or the ones who’d dumped me.

Unfortunately, there was no stopping the Dragon Lady train with a few inconvenient facts. Tandy shook back her perfectly colored blonde hair. “Don’t worry, I’ll put research on it.” She smiled at our boss as if she wasn’t afraid of her in the least. Maybe she wasn’t. She wasn’t the brightest of bulbs—she once told me that she thought plagiarism was an overrated problem. Apparently, in her view, the writer who is quoted without attribution should recognize the compliment and not make “too big a deal out of a missing citation or two.”

“What if they don’t agree? They won’t want to be humiliated like that.” I was rapidly talking myself out of the assignment, I realized. What I wasn’t doing was talking the Dragon Lady out of assigning the piece with or without me.

“Everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame, don’t be naïve.”

Clearly, it was Tandy Baker, or—“Then I want to write it.”

She frowned and stared at me as if she hadn’t ever seen me before. “You haven’t written for us.”

This article would be written, I could read that in Olivia’s eyes. “After all, isn’t this one article that only I can write? And didn’t you say you’d assign me a story as soon as I found that idea?”

Botox or not, she was frowning at my argument. “I found the idea.”

“I am the idea.” For a moment I flashed back to the schoolyard and endless “does not-does too” arguments. “It’s my book.”

I could see the slightest flare of her nostrils as we both realized I actually do hold the critical ace. “Where is it?” I felt my rush of confidence begin to dwindle.

Tandy’s cream blouse tautened on her shoulders, almost as if she planned to race me at a sprint to whatever location I revealed. “At home.” Tandy relaxed, apparently she recognized that, for the moment at least, she was defeated.

Olivia closed her eyes and raised her face to the ceiling. Her Pitch-It-To-Me pose. “Make your case, Diana.”

I considered and rejected a straightforward defense of my criteria. What would I look for if someone were pitching this to me? I closed my eyes. “There are days when I wonder if I did make a mistake. Did overlook the guy who was perfect for me. And then I look in my book, and I know my criteria are right. I’d like to give the readers of The Female Eye a chance to go with me, revisit those relationships, and then vote whether they think I was right.” I opened my eyes.

Olivia scratched something down on her pad, looked at Tandy and shook her head. She didn’t look at me. “You can do it, then, Diana.” Unexpectedly, she turned her head and her bright green eyes bored into me while I wished she had kept staring at her pad. “But if you screw it up, your ass is mine.”

She moved right on to new business, but I had no idea what she said. I pretended to take notes, but they made no sense. All I could see was that damn book and all those neat pages of notes. Maybe my friends are right and my list making is a demon to be exorcised. I forced myself to focus on the positive–I had my very first writing assignment, after seven years of patient work and a bucket load of planning. A simple little expose of the failures in my love life, and I’d have a byline, a tear sheet, an article of my very own. I’d be able to call myself a writer. My mother would be able to call me a writer.

Emily was going to be very pleased with me.

I felt a little numb. I’d pictured celebrating my first pitch acceptance with a champagne toast. But after my party last night, the only toast I wanted was dry, and accompanied by a strong hot mug of tea. TGIF. In more ways than one.