Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“Gee, hon. You make it sound so painful,” she says, but I was only joking. Mom’s ways of teaching were so much kinder than Dad’s.
“Lovingly drilled?” I tease, as she moves down a row of plants and bushes. She’s at her store in Wistful, Connecticut, the place she opened after spending years as a landscape architect designing gardens all over New England.
“I prefer to think of it as prepping you with useful skills for a zombie apocalypse,” she says.
“And I’m so grateful for that.” I carry the phone out to my deck, swinging the lens to show off the kale I’m nurturing. “That’s why I keep up my balcony garden. So I can trade herbs and kale during the end days. Poor Hazel though. She’ll be eaten first. No one will need a romance novelist then.”
“It’s a shame, but the zombies will probably enjoy her brain, so there’s that. And good luck today, sweetheart. You have a tasty brain too, and you can use it to impress the folks at the interview. I’m sure you’ll wow them with your knowledge and charm,” she says, and some days, she’s such a mom.
But that’s exactly why I called her. I’d never call my dad for advice. He’d tell me every error was my fault. I once said I could care less, and he made me write I couldn’t care less one hundred times before dinner. “Thanks, Mama V. I needed that,” I say.
After I hang up, I leash up my pooch for a quick walk around the hood. I’ve had a busy few days, life-hacking through joblessness Gen-Z style, posting freelance for hire signs all over the web.
So far, I’ve gotten nibbles on writing a training manual on keeping spiders as pets and editing a series of inspirational quotes on running, which I consider to be Satan’s exercise.
But I’m keeping the faith that there’s solid temporary work out there for me. Like this flower gig—the pay is decent, and the job is daily. It gives me time to stay off the radar and let the publishing world forget my faux pas.
As I walk down Eighth Avenue with my little dude sniffing the sidewalk, I click back to my texting app. Do I want to start up again with Mister Sexy Pants? Finding those earrings in the foyer—they were tacked up on the bulletin board with a note from the sweet lady in 2E who found them on the stoop—was an unexpected delight this morning.
The text exchange was the icing on the cake, and I can’t stop smiling. Come to think of it, chatting with him put me in a damn good mood pre-interview. Might as well keep it up.
But as I contemplate what to say next, my phone trills with a call from Bellamy.
My shoulders tighten. She rarely calls. What if it’s bad news? Like, the Internet figured out I’m the perpetrator and now all of kid lit has canceled me? This is the kind of week where birds poop on your head.
I answer right away, wary as hell. “Hi, Bellamy. Has anyone figured out who I am?” I ask quickly.
Bellamy was aware of my day job when she hired me. She’s also a good friend of my sister’s, and I trust her too, so she’s been briefed on what went down.
“Nope! No one seems to have connected the Mister Sexy Pants in your column and the one in your, well, your work email. Ergo, you’re still just the friendly neighborhood virgin, and no one’s the wiser to your Clark Kent identity.”
Yes! All the pooping pigeons in the city fly elsewhere. “Excellent. What can I do for you?” I ask.
“I’d normally email, but I figure when it involves money, a call is good,” she says.
“I like money,” I say as my pooch stops to whizz on a hydrant.
“And I like popular columns. So, we want to pay you a little extra since your column went viral. Readers are still having a blast speculating about who Mister Sexy Pants is,” she says, sounding amused, and my cheeks heat just hearing his secret name. Maybe it won’t be so secret much longer. “Some muse he’s a bookstore owner, like you said,” Bellamy continues as StudMuffin resumes his walk. “And they imagine he likes to read the dirty passages out loud to his lady. Others think he’s a baker who licks frosting off spoons in a most sensual fashion, and a few imagine he’s a carpenter, who sure knows how to hammer. But this is my favorite comment—I bet he’s a secret prince with a hidden library in his castle, but it’s a library that doubles as a sex dungeon so he can read to you then spank you with the hardcover.”
Damn. My Virgin Club readers have even dirtier minds than I do. “Sign me up. For all of those,” I say as I turn the corner onto a quieter block.