he replied philosophically.
Carly leaned forward in her chair and did her best to glower. “Was there something you wanted?”
“Yes. I’d like you to go to dinner with me tonight.”
Carly was putting rubber bands around batches of letters and stacking them on her credenza. A little thrill pirouetted up her spine and then did a triple flip to the pit of her stomach. Even though every instinct she possessed demanded that she refuse, she found herself nodding. “I’d enjoy that.”
“We could take in a movie afterward, if you want.”
Carly looked at the abundance of letters awaiting her attention. “That would be stretching it. Maybe some other time.”
Idly Mark picked up one of the letters and opened it. His handsome brow furrowed as he read. “This one’s from a teenage girl,” he said, extending the missive to Carly. “What are you going to tell her?”
Carly took the page of lined notebook paper and scanned it. The young lady who’d written it was still in high school, and she was being pressured by the boy she dated to “go all the way.” She wanted to know how she could refuse without losing her boyfriend.
“I think she should stand her ground,” Carly said. “If the boy really cares about her, he’ll understand why she wants to wait.”
Mark nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, nobody expects you to reply to every letter,” he mused.
Carly sensed disapproval in his tone, though it was well masked. “What’s wrong with my answer?” she demanded.
“It’s a little simplistic, that’s all.” His guileless brown eyes revealed no recriminations.
Without understanding why, Carly was on the defensive. “I suppose you could come up with something better?”
He sighed. “No, just more extensive. I would tell her to talk to a counselor at school, or a clergyman, or maybe a doctor. Things are complex as hell out there, Carly. Kids have a lot more to worry about than making cheerleader or getting on the football team.”
Carly sat back in her hair and folded her arms. “Could it be, Mr. Holbrook,” she began evenly, “that you think I’m shallow just because I was Miss United States?”
He grinned. “Would I have asked you out to dinner if I thought you were shallow?”
“Probably.”
Mark shrugged and spread his hands. “I’m sure you mean well,” he conceded generously. “You’re just inexperienced, that’s all.”
She took up a packet of envelopes and switched on her computer. The printer beside it hummed efficiently at the flip of another switch. “I won’t ever have any experience,” she responded, “if you hang around my office for the rest of your life, picking my qualifications apart.”
He stood up. “I assume you have a degree in psychology?”
“You know better.”
Mark was at the door now, his hand on the knob. “True. I looked you up in the Reader’s Digest book of Beauty Queens. You majored in—”
“Journalism,” Carly interrupted.
Although his expression was chagrined, his eyes twinkled as he offered her a quick salute. “See you at dinner,” he said, and then he was gone.
Thoroughly unsettled, Carly turned her attention back to the letters she was expected to deal with.
Resolutely she opened an envelope, took out the folded page and began to read.
By lunchtime, Carly’s head was spinning. She was certainly no Pollyanna, but she’d never dreamed there were so many people out there leading lives of quiet desperation.
Slipping on her raincoat and reaching for her purse and umbrella, she left the Times offices and made her way to a cozy little delicatessen on the corner. She ordered chicken salad and a diet cola, then sat down at one of the round metal tables and stared out at the people hurrying past the rain-beaded window.
After a morning spent reading about other people’s problems, she was completely depressed. This was a state of mind that just naturally conjured up thoughts of Reggie.
Carly lifted her soft drink and took a sip. Maybe she’d done the wrong thing, breaking her engagement and leaving Kansas to start a whole new life. After all, Reggie was an honest-to-God doctor. He was already making over six figures a year, and he owned his sprawling brick house outright.
Glumly Carly picked up her plastic fork and took a bite of her salad. Perhaps Janet was right, and love was about bruised hearts and insomnia. Maybe it was some kind of neurotic compulsion.
Hell, maybe it didn’t exist at all.
At the end of her lunch hour, Carly returned to her office to find a note propped against her computer screen. It was written on the back of one of the envelopes, in firm black letters that slanted slightly to the right. This guy needs professional help. Re: dinner—meet me downstairs in the lobby at seven. Mark.
Carly shook her head and smiled as she took the letter out of the envelope. Her teeth sunk into her lower lip as she read about the plight of a man who was in love with his Aunt Gertrude. Nothing in journalism school, or in a year’s reign as Miss United States, had prepared her for dealing with things like this.
She set the letter aside and opened another one.
Allison popped in at five minutes before five. “Hello,” she chimed. “How are things going?”
Carly worked up a smile. “Until today,” she replied, “I had real hope for humanity.”
Allison gestured toward the Rolodex on the credenza. “I trust you’re making good use of Madeline’s files. She made some excellent contacts in the professional community while she was here.”
Madeline, of course, was Carly’s predecessor, who had left her job to join her professor husband on a sabbatical overseas. “I haven’t gotten that far,” Carly responded. “I’m still in the sorting process.”
Allison shook a finger at Carly, assuming a stance and manner that made her resemble an elementary school librarian. “Now remember, you have deadlines, just like everyone else at this paper.”
Carly nodded. She was well aware that she was expected to turn in a column before quitting time on Wednesday. “I’ll be ready,” she said, and she was relieved when Allison left it at that and disappeared again.
She was stuffing packets of letters into her briefcase when Janet arrived to collect her.
“So how was it?” Janet asked, pushing a button on the elevator panel. The doors whisked shut.
“Grueling,” Carly answered, patting her briefcase with the palm of one hand. “Talk about experience. I’m expected to deal with everything from the heartbreak of psoriasis to nuclear war.”
Janet smiled. “You’ll get the hang of it,” she teased. “God did.”
Carly
