Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Steve rubs at his eyes, hums out a tiny, guttural moan, and turns to face the woman who is now right upon us. “What’s up, Leslie?”
“Call me Raylen, please call me Raylen, just call me fucking Raylen, please,” she says redundantly. Repeatedly. Over and over and over again. (Ahem.)
“Sorry. Yes. What’s up, Raylen?”
“You’re Raylen Star?” Britney asks. And the woman—Leslie or Raylen or whoever—ignores her.
“Why am I in the corner?” she asks Steve.
“What?”
“I’m in the corner. My placement. My booth. I’m in the fucking corner. Why am I in the fucking corner?”
“I… dunno, Ray. I—”
“Ray-len!”
“I’m not in charge of placement. There’s a whole team who handles that stuff.”
“So, your sister didn’t put me there? On purpose?”
“I don’t know if my sister even knows you’re here. I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Why wouldn’t I come?”
Her lips are very red. I’m no makeup expert—I don’t really wear any unless I absolutely have to—but even I know that you don’t usually wear lipstick that red this early in the day. Eh. Live and let.
“I don’t know, Raylen,” Steve says, “I wasn’t sure you were still writing.”
Her lips curl like a snarling wolf’s, exposing the slashes of bright red that have marked her teeth. “Oh, I’m writing,” she says. “I’m writing.” The second time is a little pointed in a creepy and kind of… threatening way? “See?”
She pulls back the banner behind which we’re standing and points to the far end of the room where we can see her massive promotional banner. At the top, it reads…
RAYLEN STAR: THE AUTHOR YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT
And even though all the banners and artwork I’ve seen around are cheeky or kind of risqué (mine included), Raylen’s are flat-out porn-y. If she tried to use one of those images on Facebook for an ad or something, she’d probably be banned for life. Thrown in Facebook jail. And maybe real jail, for that matter.
“Good for you,” Steve says, deadpan. “But, like I say, I’m not the placement committee. You should take it up with whoever’s handling your event submissions these days.”
“I am,” she says.
“Oh. No assistant?” Steve asks. She shakes her head, slowly and tersely. “Wow. Well, then, yeah. Don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you need to give yourself a talking to.”
Watching her try to contain her frustration is like watching a five-year-old try to control a jackhammer.
Then she looks down and sees my open boxes of books. Reads my name aloud from the cover. “Cynthia Lear?” I nod, smile. “I’ve never heard of you.”
Harsh.
“Oh... Yeah, this is my first—”
“How the fuck did you get placed right behind SS?”
“I… don’t know,” I say, looking to Steve, who shrugs.
“Me neither,” he offers up. “Like I say, not my department.”
The mean woman, Ray-Leslie, grits her teeth and looks down at the copy of Filling the Gap that Steve is holding. “What’s that? An ARC?”
“Yeah,” I volunteer. “It’s a—”
“It’s an ARC? Of one of your books?”
“Uh. Yeah. Like I was saying, it’s—”
“You’re letting Steve and Essie have it?”
“Um… yeah. Yes. Yes, I am.”
She looks at me, then at Steve, then at me one more time. She makes her tongue cluck, or click, or some combination of the two. Then she says, “Be careful.”
“About… what?” I ask.
“About getting involved with liars,” she says, giving Steve one last pointed look.
Then she sweeps past the banner, dramatically, and makes her way back over to the far corner of the hall.
CHAPTER SIX
“Holy shit.” Britney, the assistant, looks up at me with an incredulous expression of ‘what the fuck.’ “She’s a… a…”
I volunteer a noun. “A bitch?”
“Yeah!” Britney laughs this word out with gusto.
And I’m laughing too, but then I look over at Cordy, and she’s… not. “What did she mean by that?”
That question is directed to Britney, not me. And immediately I feel cut out of the conversation.
What did she mean by that? Translation—Did Raylen Star just caution me, Cordy, about handing over my ARC to SS’s brother, Steve, because she was insinuating they, she, he might steal my words?
That is exactly what Leslie fuckin’ Munch just did.
I had a good thing going with this girl. She and I were having a moment. And even though Britney kinda busted in on us, Britney wasn’t obtrusive. I was winning her over. Which is important. As the number one romance writer in the world, I wholly and completely understand that the new love interest must befriend the BFF.
And fine. Maybe ‘new love interest’ is a premature title for me? We were still on introductions. We hadn’t made any concrete declarations of intent or anything, but we were on our way. We were getting there. Would’ve gotten there if fuckin’ Leslie hadn’t showed up.
And now, as I watch Cordy and Britney exchange a look and in the next moment watch, in real time, as Cordy’s eyes drop down to the book gripped firmly in my hands, I have to tuck down a moment of rage.