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A Room of One’s Own

The cursor blinks hopefully. Chapter One, I type. Finding a Mark. How hard can it be?

I dial George’s number at work. “Can you get out early?”

“I guess so.”

“Meet me at Taylor’s at six.”

“Why? That place sucks.”

Taylor’s is an upscale-ish piano bar in the business district. The only reason I even know about it is because it happens to be next door to the only place in town to get decent Chinese takeout after 11:00 p.m., probably thanks to all the late-working lawyers and financial types in the neighborhood.

“I know, G.” I tell her. “Just indulge me.”

It’s Friday, the end to a fairly crappy week. I’ve spent pretty much the whole of it tied up on a comprehensive 2500-word piece on the best fall getaways in upstate New York—a rare and pleasant change from the usual bland tasks I’m entrusted with.

Maybe they really are beginning to value me here, I dared to dream as I handed it over to Cy just before deadline yesterday afternoon. I was actually quite pleased with how the story turned out, especially the cute little sidebar on the haunted inns of the Finger Lakes district. After thanking him for the opportunity for the umpteenth time (even though it was actually Mark Axelrod, Travel Editor, who okayed the pitch in the first place), Cy cleared his throat and informed me he’d decided to bank the story indefinitely and reprint something similar he’d seen that morning in the Times’s travel section instead. “Maybe we’ll run it next fall, Holly, although you’d have to update it. No big deal.”

Not to him, maybe. But at that very moment I knew for sure that I didn’t want to be at the Bugle next month, let alone next fall. And although it was just one silly story on chintz-stuffed country inns and pick-your-own-pumpkin patches, and Cy hadn’t even read it (which meant he couldn’t possibly hate it), panic set in. The proverbial coffin was being nailed shut—I could feel it in my bones.

I had to compose myself in the ladies’ room before I could go back to my desk and begin inputting the ads I’d been neglecting all week. Getting through the stack would surely take me the rest of the afternoon…

“Holly?”

I spun around. Virginia Holt, Life & Style Editor, tapping her tweed-wrapped toes like she’d been waiting there all day.

“Oh. Hi, Virginia.”

“Did I interrupt you?”

“Uh…”

“Not working on anything important, then?” Her nostrils flared in anticipation while she smoothed back her brassy red bob.

You know perfectly well that I rarely work on anything important, Virginia, thanks in large part to you turning down every story idea I’ve ever had.

“Well, actually—”

“Good. Because I need you to run these down to accounting immediately. It’s the contributors list for last month, and the check numbers don’t match up with the invoice numbers on any of them. Wait there for those halfwits to redo each and every one of them and then bring them back up to me personally. Do not give them to my assistant—she’s been completely unfocused since she came back from mat leave and this absolutely has to be fixed before the end of the day, ’kay?”

She threw a pile of envelopes and papers down onto my keyboard and clicked away before I could refuse. Apparently, the fact that my desk happened to be within fifteen feet of her office automatically cast me as her backup lackey.

But I couldn’t. Not today. I opened my top drawer and slid Virginia’s papers inside, knowing the blast of shit I’d catch for not doing exactly what she’d asked, but somehow unable to stop myself, either. Through bleary eyes, I entered one ad after the other, vowing with each new garage sale and adorable puppy giveaway to set my new plan into motion the following day, the first day of the rest of my life.

The real first day of the rest of my life.

I meant it this time.

In Buffalo, where ninety percent of the bars cater to either the college crowd or career beer drinkers, Taylor’s is probably the best place I know of to meet an eligible young bachelor of generous means. Even if nothing happens tonight, I figure it would be a good chance to explain The Plan to George while scoping out the scene for future reference.

I see my best friend bobbing up the street from a distance. I can tell it’s her because she looks like Stevie Nicks with brown hair, all flowing scarves and bohemian bangles. A curious splash of color in a sea of gray suits.

When she notices me she smiles. “I almost couldn’t make it. The new Mists of Avalon limited-edition DVD/illustrated-hardback combo boxed set came in early and I had to call everyone on the list—”

I pull her into the alley around the corner. “My God, George. What on earth are you wearing? Do you mind if we tone this down a bit?” I giggle, tugging at a sparkly purple fringe. “We should probably try and maintain a minimum level of professionalism here, for appearance’s sake.”

That morning, I’d dug deep, deep into the back of my closet for the sleek charcoal suit purchased for my grandfather’s funeral two years ago. I thought it helped highlight some of my better assets—small waist, decent backside, well-turned ankles. Being cleavage-challenged is definitely a plus when it comes to professional wear, so I decided to forgo the more obvious choice of a crisp white blouse in favor of a lacy black camisole instead. I even punched it up with some lipstick and blush, a ton of black mascara to bring out the hazel flecks that rescued my eyes from coffee-brown, and tied my too-long dark hair back into a chignon for a change.

More than a few heads turned when I showed up at work. “Got a job interview, Holly?” Cy shouted out as I passed by his office. He was kidding, of course, but he didn’t sound overly concerned at the thought of it, either. Virginia just growled at me without looking up when I brought her the files from accounting that she’d wanted yesterday, and to add insult to injury, Jesse never even got the chance to see me in all my gussied-up glory; he was out of the office all day working on assignment.

George twists free of my grasp. “What? What are you talking about? It’s too dark in there to see anything, anyway. And besides, who gives a damn? I like what I’m wearing today.”

“Look. Let’s just go in. I have a lot to tell you.”

“You are such a weirdo,” she says, and sashays past me into the bar.

I suppose now would be an excellent time to explain how my decision to try and be…well…less poor and single doesn’t make me shallow or evil or a victim or ignorant of sexual politics or anything like that. Okay, maybe it makes me a teeny, tiny bit shallow—I can admit it!—but the honest and sincere way in which I intend to go about the whole thing will infuse that shallowness with a certain depth. I promise.

Because The Plan was not born out of greed, envy, lust or any other deadly sin, but rather from a genuine desire for self-actualization, I know I’m going to have no problem justifying it to myself or others. And I can also tell you that like all great romantic adventures, it’s about a whole lot more than just having a warm body to sleep next to or being able to buy Creme De La Mer moisturizer at $110 an ounce without thinking twice. It’s not like I’ve been sitting around for years, crying and wishing I’d simply been born rich, or anything as ugly or unenlightened as that. Yes, this is going to be a love story of my own creation, inspired by my need to write something vital and necessary, and fuelled by my desire to grow and change into the person I want to become.

I will achieve everything I’ve been working toward in therapy in one fell swoop.

And there’s one other thing…one other reason. Marilyn Monroe and her merry band of husband-hunters aside, I’ve seen the glorious effects of the marriage between love and wealth first-hand. Which is why I also had Asher and Zoe to thank for planting the idea of The Plan within me, at least subconsciously. Our lunch earlier in the summer had sparked a bit of a self-pity fest, so it should come as no great surprise to anyone that, in my weakened condition, I ended up indulging in one of those singlehood meltdowns I’d always felt so immune to. Only my meltdown was different, because from it, great change would soon be born.

Zoe and Asher were old high school friends, and I hadn’t seen them in ages. Back in the day, the three of us were thick as thieves. Sure, we were big losers—boys who wear black eyeliner and girls who wear combat boots fall somewhere between band geeks and the janitor on the popularity spectrum in suburban American high schools—but we didn’t give a shit. Cheerleaders mocked us and football players spat on us, and we loved every single minute of it.

Asher was supersmart and received a partial scholarship to Brown. His parents, though stunningly cheap, were so terrified he was gay that they liquidated their 401(k) plans to pay for the rest of their wayward son’s Ivy League education, hoping that four years at what they assumed was a nice, conservative East Coast campus might be enough to straighten him out.

Although Asher wasn’t even remotely into guys, he truly enjoyed letting his parents think he was, so he was more than a little peeved when he could no longer avoid telling them he and Zoe were getting married (“It worked!” Mr. and Mrs. Blake had apparently shouted to each other when he gave them the news). I was a bit surprised myself when I learned that they were together, since none of us had ever hooked up in high school, except for the time Zoe and I got drunk at a Pearl Jam concert and made out just to see what it would be like. After Asher left for school, Zoe says she just sort of realized he was The One, and so she eventually followed him out to Rhode Island. I suppose two years of soul-crushing, booze-blurred bar-hopping with me and George was enough to give shy little Zoe the courage she needed to profess her undying love to an old friend.

Happily, the feeling was quite mutual. Now they live in Philadelphia, where Asher works as a lawyer for the A.C.L.U. and Zoe has a dog-grooming business. These days, they’re quite wealthy, too, courtesy of Zoe’s generous dad, who had recently come into more money than he could ever spend, due to a substantial patent payout on some computer-chip thingie he’d dreamed up years ago. That’s basically it. We still keep in touch, though not as often as we should.

When the two of them walked into the restaurant, they were as luminous as the last time I’d seen them, at their wedding almost a year earlier. Asher and Zoe were one of those couples who were completely unaware of how wonderful they were together. You know the type, I’m sure—that they didn’t make you sick is almost enough to make you sick.

After the usual catching up, complete with mutual berating for not visiting more often, I could see that they were anxious to tell me something. Naturally, I figured they were pregnant.

“Are you kidding? Me? Pregnant? No way!” said Zoe.

Asher rolled his eyes.

“Why not?” I asked. “What’s so crazy about that?”

“She tells me we’re not even close to ready yet,” he sighed.

“But you’re the only married friends I have,” I pleaded. “You’re also the only normal people I know who are married. I need you to have kids. You’ve got to restore my faith in the whole process.” Thinking of my nieces and nephews, I figured it would be nice to know there was such a thing as a non-obnoxious child before having one myself.

“Have your own damn kids,” Zoe laughed, pushing her long blond bangs out of her eyes.

“Maybe later,” I said.

“I’ve told her I’m ready to plant my seed,” Asher said, grinning.

“My field needs to lie fallow for a while. But you can plant your seed in the shower, if you like.”

“Mock me, hun, I don’t mind,” he said as he turned to face her. “But the simple truth is, I want to decorate the earth with as many beautiful babies as you’ll let me give you. It’s the only thing I know to do to keep from sliding into the abyss, to make it all mean something. Otherwise, it’ll be like we were never here at all.”

Zoe stared at him quietly for a moment. If a guy ever said anything like that to me, I’d be on my back with my legs in the air praying for fertilization before the waitress even noticed we were gone.

“Sorry.” She sniffed a little and tried to smile.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “He can wait until you’re ready.”

“It’s not that…” Asher said as he squeezed her hand. “It’s her dad. He’s not well.”

“What?” My heart tightened. Douglas Watts was a true sweetheart—a hardworking single dad who’d raised Zoe and her sisters into three strong, self-assured women.

He leaned in and said quietly, “They found a spot on his liver. He’s having a biopsy tomorrow, but it doesn’t look good. That’s why we came home for a bit.”

Zoe looked at the wall behind me and blinked back tears.

And I’d thought they were pregnant. I knew there wasn’t much I could say to reassure her.

“I’m here if you need me.”

That was more than three months ago—when all this started, I suppose.

In a typical addition to the Bad-Things-That-Happen-To-Good-People file, Mr. Watts’s spot did turn out to be cancer. He had surgery, followed by a round of chemo, and he’s doing okay for the time being, but there’s really no way of knowing for sure. On the plus side, Zoe and Asher visited as often as they could throughout the summer, so at least I was able to see them a bit more than usual. And there’s nothing like the heady combination of hanging out with a great couple and a reminder that death can knock on your door at any moment to make you sit up and reassess your own life.

The more I saw of my two old friends—truly in love, free from money trouble, oozing career satisfaction, leaning on each other in a time of crisis—the more I wanted what they have for myself. If that makes me a pathetic throwback to the 1950s, unable to feel complete without a man on my arm, then so be it. I can live with that.

But I also began to see how Zoe’s substantial cash flow likely has a lot to do with their overall happiness, their success, both as a couple and professionally. It’s what has allowed each of them to be living exactly the lives they want to be living, which in turn frees them from ninety percent of the stresses the rest of us have to deal with every single day—the little things, like mortgage payments and business trips and mean bosses, which, in turn, all too often lead to the bigger things, like bankruptcy and divorce and broken dreams. Zoe and Asher are blessed with the freedom to put into their relationship the tremendous effort it requires to sustain a happy one, no matter how perfect or loving, while the rest of us are left bickering over bills, too exhausted by the end of the day to do anything but watch TV and not have sex.

Yes, the money really does seem to be a crucial part of the equation. And if actively looking for a partner who has some makes me materialistic, shallow, whatever…then I can live with that, too, provided he’s there by my side to lovingly fib to me and tell me it isn’t at all true, that I’m not like that, while we toast each other’s successes in the hot tub.

“Virginia Woolf said that a woman can’t write without a room of her own.”

“But Holly, you already have a room of your own,” George points out. We are well into our second drinks, huddled in a dark booth at the back of the bar. So far, she isn’t overly impressed with The Plan. Bringing her onside isn’t going to be easy.

“And I spend fifty hours a week at work so that I can have that room! How can I be expected to write if I work fifty hours a week?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But you rarely work fifty hours a week, Holly, and if I’m correctly remembering the bedtime stories of my youth, Woolf was talking about the dearth of women writers throughout history and how the root cause wasn’t that women were inferior to men, obviously, but rather how having the physical space in which to write and the time to devote to it are necessary prerequisites to sustaining any kind of artistic endeavor. She was bemoaning the fact that most women didn’t have that luxury, as well as the fact that even the wealthier ones who did also had to contend with meddling husbands and demanding children and a spate of oppressive sociocultural expectations that stifled their creativity beneath the endless, mindless minutiae of everyday existence. I don’t think she was urging women to marry rich so they don’t have to work. Quite the opposite, actually. Woolf believed that—”

“George!” I interrupt. “Never mind all that right now. I was just trying to make a point.”

“And that point would be…”

“Well, basically, that if you want to turn your dreams into reality, you need more than a goal, G. You need a plan. And in order to execute that plan, you need a time line. And this…” I gesture expansively to include the entire bar, from the shiny black piano at one end to the velvet-draped windows at the other, “…this is the first step in the process.”

“Huh? What process?”

“It makes perfect sense.”

Still, a blank stare.

I sigh. “We’re here to find rich men.”

George practically chokes on the honey-roasted peanuts she’s been inhaling. “Oh… My… God… Did you really just say that? How completely disgusting. What a disgusting concept.” She shakes her head and stares at me in disbelief. “What happened? What’s going on with you? How did you get sucked into this whole Must-Find-A-Man syndrome all of a sudden? And a rich one? Even worse…”

“Don’t you see, George? It has nothing to do with that, it’s about the big picture, although I have been feeling a little down and out these days, as you know. First with the whole Jean-Jean thing…” I shake it off. Better not to think about that anymore. Those days are behind me. “Look. It’s not just about ‘finding a man.’ That’s just a secondary perk.”

“I suppose the money’s the primary reason, then?”

“No, no. Of course not. The writing is the reason. The motivation. The call to arms! G, you know I’ve been crazy lately, with work, with my love life, with Zoe. But something’s finally changed. It’s like I’ve been trying to read the writing on the wall for years and just now it’s coming into focus for the first time.”

George raises a skeptical eyebrow. “So what does it say?”

“It says, ‘You’ve got to do something, Holly Hastings, before it’s too late!’”

“I see. And tell me, how exactly do you plan to justify this scheme of yours?”

“Because ultimately, The Plan is to realize my own potential and make positive life changes—to write my book. The Plan is not just to hook up or get rich. Those are just parts of the process. Fringe benefits, if you will.”

“I don’t know, Holly. Those are pretty small distinctions.”

“Not to me! Nothing’s changed, except that I’ve finally figured out a way to do what I’ve always wanted to do. Besides, I’ve pretty much lost my faith when it comes to finding Mr. Right. And what sense does it make to wait around forever for someone I don’t really believe exists anymore? So I figure I might as well start looking for Mr. Financial Stability instead.” As I explained it to her, the whole thing was beginning to make even more sense than it had at the outset.

“Mr. Financial Stability? Sounds romantic…”

“For the first time, I feel empowered, George, actually empowered. Like something great is about to happen. I am no longer going to accept being a leaf blown about by the breeze. I will be the mistress of my own destiny! I will do what I want with my life, and what I want is to be a writer. A real writer. Not an obituarist at a small paper or a drill-press operator who writes on the weekends…a real writer. Full-time. And the only way I can think to make it all happen is to find a sweet but wealthy guy who believes in me just a little bit. Is that so wrong?”

“I don’t know. Is it?” She seems genuinely confused.

“And I’ll tell you something else…” I pause just long enough to prepare her for the enormity of what I am about to say.

“What?”

“I can now see that my existence makes very little difference to the vast majority of people on this planet. Whether I like it or not, I don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. And quite frankly, I want to change that.”

“Well, Holly, we can’t all be Ghandi or Oprah,” she intones seriously.

“Can’t we, though? I’ve been thinking…”

“Haven’t you done enough of that lately? Maybe you should just take it down a notch for a while and—”

“Bear with me please. A big part of what I’ve realized is that I want to help people. I want to make a difference in real people’s lives. I want to be a philanthropist. A writer-philanthropist. And since I don’t have any money, and I can’t make any money writing until I actually write something, and I can’t write something until I don’t have to worry about making money, marrying rich—no, wait. That sounds so ugly, doesn’t it? Let’s call it ‘actualizing financial freedom.’ Yeah, so actualizing financial freedom is the perfect solution. It’s like killing two birds with one stone, see? Because once I’m a successful author, I will not only be deliriously happy and personally fulfilled, but I will able to use my various sources of wealth to do some good on a much larger scale!”

George, by now completely stunned, shakes her head in amazement. “You’re being manic, Holly. Are you okay? Do you want me to call Dr. Martindale?”

“I just want to make a difference, G. That’s all. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“God help me for even getting into this with you, because you’re obviously beyond out of control with this, but I don’t think being a philanthropist qualifies as a real aspiration. With all due respect to Grace Kelly, it’s like saying you want to be a princess when you grow up. It’s ridiculous.”

“Well of course it sounds ridiculous when you put it like that, but it isn’t. It’s complicated, and it may be hard to justify in some ways, but it makes perfect sense to me. I’m sure of it. This is what I want.”

“Do you really think you need a man to get what you want out of life?”

“A valid question, George. But look at it this way instead. I want a man so I can get what I need out of life.”

“That’s very cute.”

I pull out my notebook and write it down so I won’t forget.

George looks at me wearily. “What’s this about, now?”

I scooch over so that we’re right next to each other. “So this is where it gets really good,” I whisper.

She begins rubbing her temples with her thumbs. “I don’t know if I can take any more of this.”

“I can admit that on the surface it might seem like I’m just some run-of-the-mill gold digger. But as you now know, nothing could be further from the truth. Because even though my motivations may be personal, they’re also political. And that’s where my book ties in…”

“Ah. Here it comes.”

“Okay, so this is the thing… I’m going to write a book detailing the entire process…”

“Ha!” she practically shouts. “The process of selling out and setting the women’s movement back about one hundred and fifty years?”

“Shhhhh! Keep your voice down, would you?”

“Why? If it’s such a great idea you should shout it from the rooftops!”

“That’s very funny, George. And you’re a fine one to talk about the women’s movement—you’re sleeping with the original Doctor of Misogyny! Professor Bales could write his own book on how to convince big-boobed undergrads that sleeping with him was their idea!”

“Don’t make this about me and Stuart. You’re the one planning to completely prostitute herself.”

“It’s not prostitution. Technically, it’s emancipation.”

“You say tomato, I say tomahto.”

“Cute. Don’t you want to hear about the book?”

“Go ahead,” she sighs. “Why stop now?”

“Okay, so on the surface, it’s going to be a step-by-step guide on how to marry a millionaire, complete with informational boxes, exercises, worksheets, all that stuff. A blueprint for my weary, downtrodden, working-for-the-man sisters around the world. That alone should make it sell a million copies.”

“Can’t argue with that. Go on.”

Her curiosity is getting the better of her. A good sign.

“But when you read between the lines,” I continue, “it’ll be an ironic commentary on male-female relationships, the history of the women’s movement, and the plight facing the modern woman/artist.” The idea is as close to brilliant as I can probably ever expect to come. “Tell me I’m wrong, G, but I think this book might have a little something in it for everyone!”

George twirls a curl around her finger. “I see what you’re saying, but what if the subtleties of sexual politics are lost on the average girl next door who buys your little manual or manifesto or whatever. It’ll just come off as an endorsement for gold digging.”

“It’ll be plainly obvious to anyone looking to debunk it. Trust me—How to Marry a Millionaire (And Still Love Yourself in the Morning!) will be immune from criticism. I do tongue-in-cheek very well, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“The irony, of course, is that I don’t know how to marry a millionaire, so I’ll have to find a rich guy in order to write this puppy. For realism’s sake.”

“I got that already, thanks. What a happy coincidence for you, by the way. And I don’t mean to nitpick, but if you ever read the New York Times or even Vanity Fair once in a while, you’d know that irony is dead. Been that way since 9/11…”

“Romance is what’s dead!” I slam my fist down on the table for emphasis. “This is not a quest for romantic love. It’s a quest for self-love, a pursuit of knowledge and insight and creativity which on the surface might seem like a grab for cash. But this is a search for something real. You’ve got to understand that.”

“Okay, now you’re just making me sad.”

“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean that romance is dead dead. Just that it seems that way to me lately.” Losing one’s faith is contagious, and I certainly don’t want George suffering as I had. All I need to do is convince her there are plenty of other good reasons to come along for the ride. “Look, George. Maybe romance and love and chivalry are just hibernating for a while. Maybe in a few years, it’ll be trendy again to commit to an honest, monogamous relationship and all the men who’ve been holding out will come back from the dark side and flood the market. Who knows? But for now, my writerly persona will have to assume a detached skepticism when it comes to matters of the heart, or how else will I be able to push the pursuit of cold, hard cash over holding out for true love?”

“I guess it all sounds okay,” she says, scratching her head with a swizzle stick.

I lean in and hug her. “If you want, the real real irony could be that I actually do fall head over heels along the way. I mean, hey—I’m only flesh and blood! I’m definitely hoping to live happily every after when all’s said and done here.”

The more I explain it, the better it sounds. I would be free from a senseless job, perhaps even madly in love, artistically productive and obscenely wealthy—at first by association, but then, as the critically acclaimed author of a runaway bestseller, by my own merits.

Before I can prove to George why it’s in her best interest to be my partner every step of the way, a waitress interrupts. “Excuse me, ladies. Those gentlemen over there thought you might like these.” She plops two fruity-looking concoctions down on the table in front of us.

A couple of middle-aged suits a few booths over raise their martini glasses and smile. One of them has badly crooked teeth and neither has much hair to speak of.

“I… I… I don’t think so,” George stammers. I can’t tell if it’s the calorie count or our shiny-skulled suitors that has her spooked.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “It’s just one drink. They seem okay. Don’t they seem okay?” I ask the waitress.

She shrugs. “They’re in here an awful lot, so they’re either single, unhappily married or alcoholics.”

“Umm…yeah…well, thanks for clearing that up for us. Would you please just ask them if they’d like to join us?” She takes off for their table, shaking her head.

“Don’t say a word, G. This is just a trial run. And I think this place has just the right demographics, so let’s put our husband-catching hats on, just for fun, and—”

“Our whats? And did you just say we? So now it’s we? I don’t think—”

They slide in beside us before she has a chance to object any further.

“Hi guys! Thanks for the drinks,” I say to the better-looking one sitting next to George.

“Yeah, thanks,” she grumbles.

“You’re welcome,” he say. “I’m Trevor. And this is Ron.”

“Hi,” says Ron.

“I’m Holly, and this is George.”

George half smiles and looks down.

“George?” Trevor says. “Bit of a funny name for a pretty lady like you, isn’t it?”

“Maybe that’s, you know, like her work name or something,” Ron says to Trevor out of the side of his mouth.

“Her work name. I get it,” he nods.

George and I exchange glances. Who knows? Maybe they’re into names or something. “Well, even though I’m a Holly, I wasn’t born in December or named after Christmas or anything silly like that, though people often assume that I am. I guess my parents just thought it was a nice name, you know?”

But Ron and Trevor just stare at George as she proceeds to deskewer her sword of maraschino cherries with her teeth.

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Ron says. “That’ll do it.”

Trevor apparently agrees. “Let’s get to it, then! I assume you ladies are working tonight?”

“Huh?” I am utterly confused.

For a change, George is not. “They think we’re hookers, Holly.”

The burgundy leather banquette squeaks as the offending parties shift uncomfortably.

“What?! Are you joking?” Three drinks have not dulled my capacity for righteous indignation.

“Wait! It’s okay if you’re not!” Ron suggests frantically.

“Yeah, that’s totally fine, too. We just thought—”

“You just thought what?!”

“Holly, let’s get out of here…”

“No, G! I want to know why they would think we’re hookers!”

“Maybe it’s her hair,” Ron points at George. “And her…her…wow. Those right there. And your lipstick! I don’t think bright red is the way to go at happy hour.”

Trevor shoots him a nervous look. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“My sister works for Avon,” he explains.

“Man, you’re so queer…”

“You can go now,” I tell them.

I whip my compact out of my purse while George slumps down as far as she can without completely disappearing under the table. True, I am a little more made-up than usual, but I figured the occasion called for a touch of sophistication. As for George’s hair, it is undeniably large.

Scanning the room, I suppose we’re a bit out of place. The only other women in Taylor’s are the waitresses and a few frumpy accountant types. I am definitely the only one with an attempt at an updo, while George’s cleavage apparently speaks a thousand words.

“Can we get out of here, Holly? Please?”

“Fine. But don’t look so glum. This is going to make a great ‘What Not to Do’ appendix for the book.”

George reluctantly agrees to give my tactics some more thought as we scarf down Chinese takeout in the cab on the way back to my place. If it were easy, I reason, then everyone would be doing it. Chapter One will just have to wait until we are a little further into the game.