breathe for a few days before polishing them to a gleam and sending them to Will. Her glance at the calendar brought her eye to the fan letters she’d pinned to the bulletin board. Smiling, she detached them and read the phrases she’d highlighted in each.
“Miss Em: Your words made me practically see the place,” said the first. “Thanks to your recommendation, Em, our anniversary was the most romantic ever,” went the second. And the third really moved her: “Oh, to have E.M. Samuels’s vision. What would we do without you?”
Her readers counted on her. She would not let them down.
But when the phone rang, she was grateful for the delay. “Hello?” she said eagerly, and her mother greeted her with equal cheer.
Beth rocked back in her chair, knowing the conversation would take a while. Her mother leaned on Beth for comfort and advice, a habit that began when Beth’s father had left them twenty years before, but she had to be coaxed to ask for the help she needed with practical things—repairs and finances.
It took a few minutes, but Beth finally extracted the fact that the AC unit was broken. AC was essential in Phoenix, even in April. Her brother Timmy, who lived with her mom, had patched it before heading to work, but it had wheezed its last shot of cool air shortly afterward.
The landlord, George Nichols, was insisting he’d replace it with a unit from another of his properties, but her mother didn’t want that. Her rent was low because they’d stipulated in the lease that they’d handle repairs, and Tim was good at that. The offer of the AC was too much like a favor, her mother said, which it undoubtedly was. George seemed to really like her mother.
A fact her mother seemed to be ignoring. She’d dated a few men during the twenty years since Beth’s father left, but the relationships never lasted long or amounted to much. George was a good guy—handsome, intelligent, kind—a little older, probably, than her mother’s fifty, but he acted youthful. He’d retired from some high-tech firm and managed properties to stay busy.
Today, she wished her mother would just let the guy give them the unit, favor or not. They needed to cut costs wherever possible. Beth’s work as a technical writer paid her living expenses, but the column funded the extra help her mom and brother needed. Yet more reason to make the sex column work.
She convinced her mother to let George give her the unit, without telling her about the column crisis—she didn’t want her to worry—and agreed to come to dinner before hanging up.
Staring at her blinking cursor, she thought about something else her mother had mentioned—Timmy’s latest invention idea. He needs investors, Bethie, if you have any ideas. Her stomach tightened another notch. In the past, she would have offered help from her savings. Now there were no savings. Not since Blaine. How had she been so wrong about the man?
They’d been together for nearly a year, spent most of their free time together, and Blaine had behaved as though she hung the moon, set the sun and fluffed up the clouds to boot. In truth, she’d felt a little uncomfortable because she didn’t feel quite as connected to him as he’d seemed to her.
But when he’d disappeared, she’d been stunned. She’d thought she had good people instincts. Basically an optimist, she expected the best from people, and they usually delivered. Yes, toward the end, Blaine had seemed more distant, unusually preoccupied about his business. He’d mentioned some difficulty with funding for his limited partnership, and his enthusiasm about their long-planned Caribbean cruise had ebbed, but she’d never doubted that he cared for her, loved her, wanted to be with her.
Maybe his infatuation had blinded her to what was really going on. Something had, because somehow, right under her nose, he’d forged her name on a check from her money-market account and taken twenty-thousand dollars, leaving her with a balance of just two hundred.
The experience had destroyed her confidence, for sure, and it would be a long time before she got serious with a man. Or even stuck her toe in the dating pool—no matter what Sara said about getting right back on that board and diving in.
She wasn’t risking another belly flop anytime soon.
Back to the column. Beth played the tape of Sara’s words, closed her eyes to picture Sara, so comfortable in her body, so easy with her sexuality. If Beth could just channel Sara, she would be fine.
Four hours later, she had a draft that held enough detail to be believable and was as refined as she could manage. She’d described the specifics of the experience vividly, but tastefully. She’d been frank, not vulgar; erotic, not graphic. Pleased with the result, she shot a courtesy copy to Sara and was just about to e-mail her draft to Will—early, to make sure she was on the right track—when her phone rang.
“Tell me you haven’t submitted this,” Sara said without preamble.
“I’m about to. Why?”
“I’m sorry, Beth, but you can’t use it.”
“What?”
Sara lowered her voice. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but Rick thinks it’s too personal.”
“You’re kidding. No way could anyone tell it’s him or you.”
“But we know, he says, and that’s enough.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. Personally, I thought it was pretty hot. And, get this, now he wants us to only date each other.”
“But you don’t do exclusives,” Beth said, her brain struggling to absorb the bad news about her column. “What about ‘a pair and a spare’?” This was Sara’s dating philosophy: date two guys with another one in the wings…just to keep things interesting.
“I know, I know. But it’s kind of cute. He’s, like, zap, all protective and sentimental. About the tongue swirly thing, can you believe it? I said I’d try it for a while and see how it goes. If he goes weird on me—possessive and jealous—I’m outta there, of course.”
“I’m glad for you, Sara. I hope it works out.” She sighed, trying not to think about her nixed column.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Beth,” Sara said, reading her mind. “Maybe you could modify the column a tad? Snip out the detail?”
“The magic is the detail. Let me see…” She clicked open the file and scanned its contents. Removing all signature elements, she was left with a measly two paragraphs. “Without you two, I’ve got an introductory blurb. And a week to fix it.”
“You know the answer—go pick up a guy. Fresh is better than canned in more than spinach, you know.”
“Can you honestly see me doing that?”
“Yeah, if you don’t bring a book.”
“That was one time. And it was a great novel.” Sara was notoriously late and Beth had happened to have a paperback in her purse while she waited for her. Reading in a bar. Sara had never let her hear the end of it.
“You can do it, Beth. Wear something slinky and look friendly.”
“I’ll just fake the column, I guess. Fictionalize it.” She sighed. “Maybe add some statistics on favorite kinds of foreplay or something.”
