The two agreed on a stately red-brick detached house with gracious Ionic columns on Reservoir Road, just outside of Georgetown in the fashionable Palisades/Foxhall neighborhood. Their new residence was not far from their townhouse on 44th Street.
The home’s more expensive rent, and the reality that Finny was ready to start school made it clear that Nancy needed to find employment. She had already been informed that her husband did not approve of her gaining full-time employment outside the house, so she looked into the possible careers she could pursue from her home.
Short on money, and searching for a way to supplement the family’s income, Nancy invited her old college roommate, Barbara Livingston, to live with them for a reasonable rent. The arrangement afforded Barbara with a decent place to stay, and the extra income that Nancy’s friend was contributing each month helped her and Jeremy to meet their monthly bills.
It was sometime in 1983 that Nancy first had the idea to try her hand at romance writing. Her decision to leave the political arena, where she had worked first as a speech-writer, and later as a writer of political advertising campaigns for a prominent agency, came one afternoon during a conversation with her young son. Inquisitive little Finny never seemed to run out of questions for his mother. But the one he asked on this day sparked a fire under her. Turning to Nancy, the cherubic boy with the thick locks of curly brown hair asked, “Mommy, what are you going to be when you grow up?”
Taken aback by her young son’s question, Nancy began to revisit her past career choices, and realized that she had not felt fulfilled by her decisions. At thirty-two years old, she had spent the bulk of her career writing speeches for political candidates, and then spinning clever ad copy for the clients of the Washington advertising agency. Suddenly, she felt as though her previous contributions had made little impact on the world, and decided she wanted to pursue something more meaningful.
As Nancy began rethinking her options, her friend and housemate, Barbara Livingston, was also contemplating a career change. The reed-thin woman, working out of the small bedroom on the first floor of Nancy’s home, had been engaged in a very strange profession—turning a profit by arranging the mating of Thoroughbred racehorses. While she made plenty of money, it wasn’t a life choice she placed much value on. For weeks, Nancy and Barbara brain-stormed, both agreeing that they wanted to make barrelfuls of money while working in the comforts of home.
For Nancy, the latter was most important, not only because she had a young boy at home, but also because her husband had made it clear that he did not want his wife working in an office setting. Realizing that her talents lay in her ability to write, Nancy suggested to Barbara that they attend a lecture to be given by a published romance writer at the local library.
Kathleen Gilles Seidel’s enthusiastic presentation impressed both women. Wasting no time, Nancy raced to the phone book and called the author at her house to invite her to lunch.
“Barbara and I want to get to know you better,” Nancy told Kathy. She explained that she and her friend were interested in writing romances and had been wowed by her talk earlier that week at the library.
Surprised and flattered by the solicitation, and intrigued by Nancy and Barbara’s sincere interest in her and her work, the young woman from Lawrence, Kansas, agreed to dine with them at a restaurant near her home, which was located across the Chain Bridge in neighboring Virginia.
Over overstuffed sandwiches and oversized salads, Nancy and Barbara regaled Kathy with stories of their own lives. Kathy found both women warm and funny, but Nancy especially intrigued her. The pretty woman with the crazy mane of curly dark hair was dramatic and entertaining, with a wit that was clearly gleaned from a fine education and a solid knowledge of literature. Kathy was puzzled by the disparity between Nancy’s off-beat style of dress and her brilliant conversation and impeccable table manners.
She observed that the constant clicking of the dozen or so silver bracelets that encircled Nancy’s wrists, and the boat-necked stretchy black shift, cut so widely that it kept slipping down her shoulder, were in stark contrast to her almost ballerina-like poise and astonishingly literate conversation. To Kathy, Nancy Richards Akers conjured up images of the character played by actress Jennifer Beals in the 1983 film, Flashdance—a role in which the gorgeous brunette depicted a female steel worker in masculine gear who earned extra cash at night by letting down her long locks of curly hair and moonlighting as an exotic dancer in a Pittsburgh club.
Yet, what really mystified Kathy was the formal “Thank you” card she received from Nancy several days after their lunch date even though it was Nancy who had treated her. It was handwritten in perfect penmanship on elegant stationary that was embossed with the name Mrs. Jeremy Akers. Kathy recognized that she was witnessing the kind of formal protocol used only by those of the highest pedigree.
Fortunately for Nancy, and for Barbara, Kathy was president of the newly formed Washington Romance Writers, one of just four local chapters of the Romance Writers of America. She had published her first book in 1982, and was currently launching titles for the Harlequin romance series.
During their lunch, Kathy had told Nancy that she had chosen to write romances, in part, because they were what she had always daydreamed about. As a child, the attractive Midwestern girl had spent much of her time spinning fantastical tales of love and romance. In her teenage years, she gobbled up every romance book she could find. She admired the authors of the books she read, and felt that the most important thing a person could do in a lifetime was to write a book. Even as a graduate student at a prominent East Coast university, she continued to read romances in her free hours.
As she neared the end of her academic career at Johns Hopkins University, however, she began to worry about the idea of making teaching a full-time profession. Something inside kept telling her “No.” As she penned her dissertation for her Ph.D., the dreamy scenarios of her youth continued to fill her thoughts. What she finally realized was that her fantasies and the characters she so effortlessly imagined could actually be plots for books, so she secretly began putting her stories down on paper.
Determined to sell her story, Kathy packaged up her first manuscript, and sent it off to a New York publishing house. She reported proudly that in only six days, without agent representation, her submission was accepted.
Nancy found the tale enthralling. She was particularly interested in Kathy’s comment that her success prompted her and other local authors to organize a local chapter of the Romance Writers of America. Nancy paid close attention as she explained that the idea for the regional organization was to provide a way for writers to network, and a place for them to sit and exchange ideas, and that another goal was to help aspiring authors like Nancy and Barbara get published.
For Nancy, membership made perfect sense. Like Kathy, she loved romances, and had been reading them voraciously since her early teens. She wanted to use her talents as a writer, and was very interested in the financial aspect of the business, as she desperately needed to earn a living.
From the very first meeting, Nancy threw herself into the organization. She immediately introduced herself to the thirty or so people in attendance, among them such rising stars as Nora Roberts and Diane Chamberlain. Hoping to learn from the roomful of literati, Nancy chatted with as many of the members as she could. Over time, she learned that many of them had children at home, and like her, were looking for an outlet in which they could utilize their writing talents, earn a decent living, and still be home for their little ones.
One of the first members Nancy befriended was Kathleen Karr. The petite redhead with the wire-rimmed glasses had found WRW through an announcement in the local paper touting the newly formed organization as a group of professional romance writers able to help aspiring authors to get published.
Like Nancy, Kathleen had a background in English. Having completed a degree at Catholic University in Washington, DC, she had followed her husband, a fellow student, to Brown Univ
ersity, where he enrolled in a Ph.D. program in theoretical physics. Both Kathleen and her husband loved film, and spent all of their spare time working for the National Endowment for the Arts in Rhode Island. There, they helped set up the first state-run film archive in the country. The pilot project was so successful that it was used as a model for other states. When the couple completed their studies in Rhode Island, they were both offered positions with the American Film Institute in Washington. Excitedly, they packed up their belongings and headed to the Capital City. When they arrived, they purchased an old, dilapidated townhouse in an up-and-coming area of town, and spent the next few years restoring it to its original glory.
Kathleen left her post with the AFI after one year and took a part-time job running a group of motion picture houses. The Old Circle Theater Group was considered the best repertory house in the country, and she was at the helm. Standing barely five feet tall, the intelligent young writer had just given birth to her second child. Both she and her husband were avid readers and spent most of their evenings snuggled in bed with their heads in a book. But Kathleen was growing increasingly frustrated with the quality of the novels she was reading. Night after night, she would toss the books on the floor and announce that she could write better herself.
“So, why don’t you?” her husband challenged her.
“Okay, I will,” she responded with an air of confidence.
She continued her part-time work with the Old Circle Theater Group, and in her spare time, worked on what she hoped would be a saleable manuscript. Kathleen had written two complete books—neither of them publishable—when she opened the newspaper to find the blurb announcing the meeting of the WRW. “There is somebody else out there trying to do what I am trying to do!” she exclaimed. She felt her heart beating with excitement as she dialed the number for more information.
But her excitement was tempered by the response she got from the woman on the other end of the receiver. At first, the voice had seemed encouraging.
“Please come,” the woman urged Kathy, and graciously invited her to the upcoming meeting.
“I must bring my baby,” Kathleen announced, explaining that her son was just a few months old and that she was still nursing.
“I’m sorry, no babies allowed,” the woman answered sternly. “This is a professional organization, and we don’t talk about our children or our families here. This is about your writing career. We talk about how to be a better writer, and how to get published.”
Kathleen was taken aback by the woman’s pointed response, but at the same time, she was desperate to succeed as a writer. She arranged for her husband to watch her infant son and reluctantly went off to the meeting. When she arrived, she learned that the WRW had only been in existence for eight months, but had already attracted an impressive group of talented young authors.
For Kathleen, the WRW turned out to be tremendously supportive, and its rules could not have been more suited to her purpose. Most of the thirty or so women were juggling full-time jobs and children, and relished the idea of getting together once a month to talk about what was really a passion for them. They considered the organization their university and the seminars were tailored to meet their individual needs. The meetings were totally focused on a manuscript that a publishing house would find worthy of optioning. Little else was mentioned during the rigorous Saturday morning sessions.
Like Kathleen, many of the women had chosen to pursue a career in romance writing because it allowed them to expand on their own fantasies, and held greater promise of publication than did children’s books or science fiction, in which developing a following could take up to ten years. Romance writing—when successful—allowed new authors to get noticed quickly.
This was Nancy’s hope. She was certain that with her background in literature and English, and her years as a professional writer, she would be able to bang out a compelling romance book with ease. What she and Barbara discovered, however, was that writing a seventy- to one-hundred-thousand-word manuscript with a good plot and decent dialogue was an arduous chore, and that it wasn’t as easy as they thought to get published. For months, Nancy and her collaborator diligently attended the Saturday meetings that were often held in the auditoriums of the theaters that Kathleen Karr represented.
Published authors such as Kathy Seidel and Nora Roberts, who were both members of the group, gave seminars on various aspects of writing, providing instruction on how to improve dialogue and tips on how to get published. Agents and editors from New York City also took the hour-long plane ride to Washington to teach members how to target their work toward the publishing houses that were most likely to be interested.
At first, Nancy and Barbara collaborated, choosing to focus on short, contemporary romance because, they learned, the slim volumes promised the greatest financial reward. For months, the women wrote and rewrote scenario after scenario, but in spite of their efforts and the coaching they received from members of the WRW, they were unsuccessful. Later that year, Barbara packed up her things and moved out of state, leaving Nancy determined to succeed on her own.
Nancy had grown fond of the women of the WRW, and found the environment both nurturing and supportive. Its members provided a lot of positive energy and encouraging feedback, and the monthly work sessions enabled her to escape her harried life and concentrate solely on writing. As it turned out, Kathleen Karr lived not far from Nancy and Jeremy. Kathleen’s older child, Suzanne, was the same age as Finny, and the two children were enrolled at the same private school. Sometimes they would arrange to get together and talk about their work, while Finny and Suzanne played in Kathleen’s basement.
On many mornings, Kathleen stopped in on Nancy on her way back from dropping off her daughter at the prestigious St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School. She was always impressed to find her friend seated in her first-floor office, clad in a bathrobe and slippers, and sipping from the oversized cup of coffee she kept beside her on the desk.
Kathleen knew all too well that the life of a writer was one of isolation and that sitting for hours at the typewriter, laboring over every word and turn of phrase could be both frustrating and discouraging. Yet, there was something oddly thrilling about hovering at the keyboard in pajamas for much of the day, slurping down cup after cup of coffee while spinning tales of love. Neither woman could think of anything else they would rather do, and both were convinced they would surely succeed.
Kathleen knew from her visits to Nancy’s place that her friend had a penchant for amusing pieces of furniture and whimsical artifacts. In the center of her living room, which was decorated in bold colors and showy prints, she kept a pair of huge, ornate birdcages inhabited by the birds that her husband had purchased when the family lived in Florida. On some afternoons she opened the tiny wire doors to let her feathered friends spread their wings. Nancy could not stop raving about the antique dressmaker’s form that she had found tucked away in a corner of Kathleen’s basement. She fell in love with the wiry figure and was thrilled when Kathleen gave it to her as a special gift from friend to friend.
Kathleen could not help but smile each time she stopped by for a chat and saw the way Nancy had dressed the figure, which she proudly displayed at the entranceway of her ornately decorated home. It amazed and amused her that nearly every week, Nancy would change the mannequin’s attire, clothing it in everything from fancy dresses to glitzy boas. Her friends didn’t find Nancy’s interest in costuming the wiry figure at all unusual since she did everything with style and flair, outfitting herself in vivid, prismatic clothes, and embracing an exotic collection of family pets that included snakes, a macaw, a parrot, a ferret, and a spindly old cat.
It did not take long for Kathleen to benefit from her affiliation with the WRW. After only six months, she was ecstatic to learn that her third manuscript had been accepted for publication. Bursting to share her good news, she jumped into her car and raced over to Nancy’s house, finding her, as usual, seated in her first-floor office, w
rapped in a robe that barely concealed her frilly nightgown. Barely able to contain her excitement, Kathleen blurted out the details of her publishing arrangement as the two women jumped up and down and squealed with delight. Word that Kathleen had successfully placed her book was genuinely thrilling to Nancy, and it made her believe even more that she would be next. With renewed optimism, the determined young mother continued to write.
By the spring of 1984, Nancy had not yet found the recipe for a successful manuscript. As much as she struggled to conjure a winning formula for short contemporary romances, she was finding it impossible to find the voice that love stories set in the twentieth century require.
She did, however, change the way in which the women of the WRW hosted their meetings. Before Nancy joined the group, the members served coffee in white Styrofoam cups and set out cake and pastries on paper plates. Forever the gracious host, Nancy insisted they make a change.
When the vivacious Junior Leaguer learned that the WRW was planning an event at Kathy Seidel’s house in nearby Virginia, she quickly offered her help. “Ladies,” Nancy informed the meeting, playfully affecting a King’s English accent, “we simply must use china.” When she arrived at Kathy’s front door, she held a large wicker basket with enough crockery to stock a small specialty shop. Delicate porcelain cups and saucers, arranged tastefully alongside cloth napkins and tablecloths, had been packed with care.
As she stepped into the foyer, the spirited brunette in the colorful print dress threw back her locks of long, curly hair with dramatic flair, and with a wave of her hand announced in the perfect tones of an upper-class Brahmin: “We don’t have to use the china, but why not?” Without missing a beat—and to the delighted giggles of Kathy and the other members—she transformed herself effortlessly into a Cockney-accented Eliza Doolittle, making it clear that she had not only brought fine china to the occasion but also that she was completely prepared to peddle a pocketful of posies.
Fatal Romance: A True Story of Obsession and Murder Page 12
