Читать книгу Going to Extremes - Dawn Atkins - Страница 8

“WHY WOULD I go on a book tour when my book’s not even written yet?” Kathleen Valentine asked her agent, JJ Norris, who was puffing away on her usual coffin nails. They were in JJ’s Manhattan office surrounded by her curvy wood-and-black-leather furniture, African tribal art, spindly tensor lamps and three walls of shelves jammed floor-to-ceiling with books.

“That’s the beauty of it,” JJ said, leaning against the sofa arm—that had to be painful. Kathleen sat on the softer middle cushion, though she didn’t like leather sofas. She preferred her leather in jackets, bustiers and miniskirts, not furniture, which was supposed to hug and comfort you. Leather was too cool and smooth. Mental note: Bring brocade pillows for poor JJ’s S and M sofa when next in New York.

“The other publisher wants you because you’re famous,” JJ continued. “They want you for sparkle, for contrast with their author and because the media love you.”

“They want me because misery loves company.” Kathleen leaned forward to straighten the blooms she’d brought—cut flowers were her calling card. “Book tours are brutal. Insane pace. Crack-of-dawn talk shows. Toxic airplane food and air. Uncertain mattress quality. Pure torture.”

“Torture, Kath?” JJ scraped a fleck of tobacco from her lip with a French-tipped nail and shifted her position—to ease the pain, no doubt—making the leather squeak. Now the sound of leather Kathleen loved. It sounded…promising.

“Maybe not torture, but punishment. Severe punishment. Speaking of which, I’ll bring pillows for this sofa so you won’t cripple the other clients you seat here to browbeat.”

JJ rolled her eyes. “Please. The cool deal is that because it’s Cunningham Publishing’s author’s launch, they’re paying the tab.”

“Look, I’ll be glad to help the author with tips, even a perfect neck pillow for the plane, but I’m not, not going on book tour. Especially not someone else’s book tour. That is not the kind of excess I’m known to be queen of.”

“It’ll be a breeze. Ten days and five cities. You can do it in your sleep.”

“I’ll have to, since I won’t be getting any at night.”

JJ ignored the jab. “It’s the usual—signings, readings, a couple of college appearances, a media satellite tour or two and some radio and TV talk shows in New York, Chicago, Phoenix and L.A. The extra dollop is a pop-psych jamboree in San Francisco at the end. Talk about a visibility boost. High-end crowd of book buyers. I mean these people have to buy shelves to go with all the books they buy at these conferences.”

“It sounds exhausting.”

“You need this, hon.” JJ tapped Kathleen’s knee with a sharp nail to emphasize her point. “The Princess of Pleasure needs this. Sensual Living III tanked.”

“Don’t say tanked. It slouched a little is all. There was that political tell-all out at the same time. And I’m busy on the next one,” she said, feigning more confidence than she felt.

“Sorry to be an ice bucket, hon, but how’s that going?”

“It’s incubating.”

JJ rolled her eyes, sucked on the cigarette, then snorted out twin streams of smoke like a cartoon bull.

JJ wasn’t the only one blowing smoke. Kathleen’s current book wasn’t incubating, it was at a dead stop. Temporarily. Which was scary, since her first two books, Sensual Living and Sensual Living: The Daily Pleasures, had flowed like music. The first had been a how-to, exploring Kathleen’s philosophy of sensual awareness, which she called Healthy Hedonism. It gave list after list of ways to enhance appreciation for the gifts of the body.

Her second book contained a workbook and a calendar with practical exercises and monthly to-do lists, along with the most popular section—success stories of converted readers…weary souls reborn to life through Kathleen’s ideas.

Sensual Living III, an update of the first book, had felt as flat to Kathleen when she wrote it as its subsequent sales chart. The problem had been her life at the time—so full of speaking engagements, interviews and, yes, book tours, she’d neglected to refresh her own personal well of sensory appreciation. And it had showed.

This fourth book had to reverse the trend of dwindling sales. Tentatively called Sensual Living: Roots and Rhetoric, it would explore the underpinnings of her theories. But it had stalled. Kathleen had stalled. Fear jabbed her soul with an insistent finger.

She wasn’t used to feeling afraid. Whenever she got scared, she just pushed through, brazened it out. Nothing kept her down for long. Until now. Now she felt…shaky.

An ache swelled behind Kathleen’s eyes. She’d slap on a wintergreen eye-pack tonight for sure. Otherwise she’d end up with black sausages under her eyes. Unacceptable. Buck up, girl. Shine it on, keep moving.

“The tour will get you back in the groove, warm your backlist and boost your buzz,” JJ said, using her silkiest coax. That meant that even her hard-bitten agent was worried.

Kathleen had hired JJ for her instincts—nearly as good as her own—so she knew the woman was dead-on. Which made Kathleen cranky. “So whose book tour are you trying to drag me onto anyway?”

JJ’s eyes lit with triumph. “I’ll show you his book.” She did a suck-whoosh on her cig, put it out against one of the serenity candles, then sprang for her desk.

Kathleen closed her eyes against the travesty of tobacco touching the Peaceful Breeze pillar, which she’d brought on her last visit as the perfect counterbalance to JJ’s frenetic style. She sighed. You could lead a harried soul to sensual pleasure, but you couldn’t make her drink it in.

Now JJ was mauling one of the trio of book towers that littered her gigantic desk. “I had it right here,” she muttered, while the stack wobbled…leaned…tilted…At the last instant, JJ righted it and started on another. She had uncanny instincts.

JJ’s secretary, Moira, ensconced in an alcove across the open space of the office, waved away JJ’s smoke with an exaggerated gesture. Years before the smoke-free workplace act was passed, JJ had declared her office no-smoking, even though she was the only one with a habit and now she risked a $200 fine for breaking the law. Maybe more, since Kathleen thought she’d gotten caught once already.

“You have to stop smoking,” Kathleen said. “If not for Moira or your flash-fried lungs, for your poor skin. You want to turn into Leather Face? I’ve got the name of a hypnotist who’s magic with smokers.” She reached into the roomy satchel she used as a purse for her contact notebook, fat with business cards, price lists and scribbled tips on personal care, health and entertainment.

“Ah-ha!” JJ said, whipping a book from the bottom of a stack like a magician yanking a tablecloth from under plates. She returned to Kathleen and thrust the book at her. On a teal background the title appeared in huge gold letters: The Magic of Moderation, by—

Oh, God, no. “Dr. Daniel McAlister?” Kathleen said, raising shocked eyes to JJ.

“You know him?”

Know him? Ten years ago she’d been madly in love with him. But she wasn’t about to tell JJ that. “I’ve, um, heard of him.” To buy herself some calming heartbeats, she busied herself fishing the cigarette butt out of the melted candle wax. “This is unsavory, JJ.” She held up the wax-coated butt, then placed it on a coaster.

JJ shrugged off her concern, but at least she’d forgotten Kathleen’s reaction. “They call him Dr. Moderate and he’s very hot right now.”

He’d been hot back then, too, but not the way JJ meant. Back in college she’d been Kathleen Dubinofsky, journalism major, not Kathleen Valentine, celebrated arbiter of taste, variously known as the Princess of Pleasure, the Queen of Excess and the Pied Piper of Hedonism. So many lovely names, so little time to prove them all true.

How could it be Dan? Of all the people in the world. The man who’d broken her heart and temporarily torpedoed her confidence. Her lungs squeezed so she couldn’t take in a full load of air.

“He’s a therapist specializing in behavioral issues,” JJ went on. “And he stands for everything you oppose—self-discipline, restraint, the absolute flatline of experience.” She handed Kathleen the book.

It didn’t surprise her that Dan had retreated into restraint. At times, she’d called him Ice Man—partly because of his icy blue eyes, but also for his too-cool-for-school affect. Her intensity had shaken him up.

Now he was Dr. Moderate? He’d been studying clinical psychology when they’d met as seniors and now he was a Ph.D. She’d changed her name and he’d earned a doctorate. Figured.

Had he suffered over the breakup? Doubtful. He’d dumped her, after all. He’d probably shrugged her off like an ill-fitting jacket and moved on.

“There was a puff piece about him in Publisher’s Weekly, I think,” JJ said, lighting another cigarette. “Hang on.” She bounced up and over to Moira’s desk. “Have you seen the last PW?”

“In the pile.” Moira faked a cough. “And that’s the fourth cig in twenty minutes. Watch out. I’ll call an inspector in here.”

“We’re having a crisis.”

No kidding, Kathleen thought.

JJ launched a search for the magazine, leaving Kathleen with Dan, who stared up at her from his photo, wearing an outdated turtleneck, his face hardly marred by the coffee ring JJ had branded him with.

There was the same intellectual’s high forehead, the same crackling blue eyes. Chilly and serene as an arctic lake. But no glasses now. Nothing to lessen the impact of those icy blues. How she’d loved to tug off his glasses and kiss away the pink dents they’d made on his straight, straight nose. Those tender marks made him seem more human somehow, more open to her.

His brows were fierce and his jaw strong, but his lips were soft and full. The contrast of severe features and sensual lips had made her system hum. Especially when he talked. The luxurious excess of his lips contradicted his spare words—the sexy little secret that only she knew.

He’d been irresistible to her. Uncovering his wild side had thrilled her. She got a little quiver remembering that she’d reached him, gotten through, made the Ice Man tremble with desire.

“Dr. McAlister lives in Vermont,” she read below his photo, “where he maintains a private psychology practice and enjoys quiet contemplation, peaceful sails and moderation in all things.”

No wife. No kids. Not even a dog? Is that what moderation did for you? He didn’t look lonely. He wore the wry expression she’d disliked—as if he found the world amusing, but not quite worthy of his involvement.

She’d conquered that look for a while. Dig in to life, wallow in the lovely mess. That had been her message to him.

And he’d gone along with her. It had been a rush like the best drugs were supposed to deliver. Until he’d lost his nerve and left, conking her over the head with her own vulnerability.

She should have known better. Her mother’s mantra had always been to count on herself, to be her own best friend, not to expect anyone else to make her happy. She’d operated that way until Dan. And after him, too. Somehow, he’d swooped in under her radar—so steady, so stable, so rock solid that she went for it, fell in love. Counted on him. On them.

Just thinking about it brought back the empty feeling that had scared her so much—the hollow numbness that was way too much like how she’d felt after the childhood accident. It was as if someone had shut off the lights inside. Pure dark. Echoing and empty.

Way too scary.

And now JJ was asking her to spend ten days with the man who’d pushed her into that humiliating crash-and-burn? No way. Kathleen had to get out of the tour. She’d built a wall around those memories and had no interest in putting in a window.

“Here it is!” JJ waved a magazine in the air.

“Watch it!” Moira shoved a foam cup under the ash flaking from JJ’s swooping cigarette.

JJ madly flipped pages, found what she wanted and marched it over to Kathleen. Beside another photo of Dan looking smug was a short article Kathleen pretended to read, then handed back with a dismissive sound, her fingers trembling only a little. “A tour with this guy would be a waste of my time. He’s obviously a wrongheaded jerk.” She kept her voice steady, but her knees quivered, so she smashed them together, determined not to give herself away to JJ.

“All the better to take him down a notch. Or is that a peg?”

“Notch, peg or even iota, no thanks.”

“He’s cute for a wrongheaded jerk, though,” JJ mused, studying the face Kathleen couldn’t forget. “I sure wouldn’t kick him off my tatami mat, or whatever the hell he sleeps on—a bed of nails?”

“Not my type.”

JJ considered his picture. “I bet he seethes with inner heat.”

“I doubt it. Can’t you see? He’s so cut off from his emotions he wouldn’t know lust if it gave him a lap dance.”

“You have quite the opinion there.” JJ gave her a speculative look and tapped a nail on her bottom lip.

Kathleen had overstated the case. “The point is that I’m not interested in him—as a man or as a mate on the Good Ship Book Tour.”

JJ and her instincts honed in on Kathleen’s face.

To avoid detection, she pretended to sniff the flowers, inhaling the cool green of the carnations, the thick syrup of the sweet peas, the dense musk of the roses. Flowers packed a lovely sensory wallop.

“What’s up?” JJ said. “Do you see him as a threat?”

“How could I? He’s completely wrong.”

“So, show him the error of his ways. It’ll be an experience. Experience is your whole modus operandi.”

“Now you’re giving me Latin?” she said, though JJ was right about her focus on experience. Her column in PulsePoint magazine, which had launched her career, had been called “Experience It!”

In it, she shared her views and adventures with all things sensual—food, music, art, fashion, recreation and sex. If it felt good, she’d done it…and written about it in dripping detail.

In love with the column, JJ had sought her out as a client. With JJ’s bulldog support Kathleen had zoomed to the top of the bestseller lists with her first book. Also the second. The third had wilted. And the fourth, unwritten, was in limbo. Was she bored? Burned out? Had she exhausted her topic? Her life? She refused to believe that.

“The point is that he’s a streaming comet, book-wise, Kath. Hook your cart to his tail and tag along for the sky ride.”

“Does he know about this?” Kathleen said, seizing on the hope that Dan would nix the plan from his end. She’d been the dumpee, so he’d be more embarrassed than freaked about seeing her again. He hated interpersonal tension, though, so he would surely dread the reunion. “I can’t imagine he’d want me to steal his thunder.”

“His agent said he was hesitant at first, but, being new, he didn’t understand how important a tour is in terms of publisher support.”

Hesitant, huh? She wished she’d seen his face when he heard the news. Even the Ice Man must have gasped. He obviously hadn’t revealed their past or JJ would have said something. What would people think if they knew Dr. Moderate had had an earth-scorching affair with the Queen of Excess?

For that matter, what would Dan have to say for himself after all these years? She was curious, now that she thought about it.

Then she caught herself. This was Dan. She didn’t want to face him again. “I can’t do it, JJ. Dr. McAlister and I are anathema to each other.”

“Anathema? You mean where Disneyland is? I can’t believe you’d make fun of my Latin, little miss word-a-day. Your anathema-ism is the very reason they want you. Reporters love conflict. Two appealing experts at polar extremes? What could be more delicious?”

“A million things. Can’t happen. No way.”

But JJ didn’t flinch, didn’t even shake the lengthy ash from her cigarette, and her eyes said, Yes, way. “After the lag, this is a gift, Kath. You need this.”

“What I need is a writing retreat. No phone, no Internet. Just a laptop and the beach house at Gualala.” But the idea gave her a desolate feeling, as if her writer’s heart had been swept as clear of ideas as a beach at low tide.

“You’ve been there, done that and come up with bupkis.”

“So, I need a little more time,” she bluffed.

“No point arguing.” JJ finally tapped the snake of ash into her palm and leveled Kathleen a look. “It’s happening.”

“It is?”

“It is.” JJ sucked in smoke, blew it out. That meant Herman Maxwell, her publisher, had spoken.

She swallowed hard. “I’m sunk?”

“Sinking. But we’ll turn this around.” JJ picked up her gold cigarette case, opened it and tilted it at Kathleen, as if for sustenance.

Kathleen waved it away. Things were really bad if JJ was offering her a smoke—like a prisoner before a firing squad. Which didn’t feel that far wrong.

“You need to shake things up, Kathleen. This will do that.”

Oh, yes. Dan McAlister could shake her up, all right.

She took a deep breath, gathering her strength, her determination, her sense of humor. If she had to do this tour, and it looked as though she did, then she’d make it work. Meet Dan head-on and not miss a step.

That would not be easy, since she was no poker player when it came to emotions, but she’d manage. She had too much pride to do otherwise.

At least she knew she wouldn’t be attracted to him. She’d learned her lesson. Repressed guys were way too much work when there were so many available sensualists in the world. She had a lovely romantic life. Well, except for the odd emptiness that had crept into her lately. But she wouldn’t think about that now.

She had enough on her mind, what with her blocked writing, her possibly sinking career and being forced to spend ten days in close quarters with the man who’d delivered her one and only broken heart.

Dr. Anathema himself.