Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series)

by Stephie Smith

  “There’s no cure, is there?” I asked.

  “No, but I think there are drugs you can take to keep from having an outbreak. Outbreaks are caused by stress.”

  Great. It flared up under stress. It was definitely herpes, then, because stress was my middle name. No way was I going to my family doctor about this. I’d have to get online and find a gynecologist who was as far away as possible but still within driving distance.

  As I mulled this over, I noticed Sue’s bag. Rather, I noticed the bottle of tequila sticking out of it. I raised my eyebrows just as the doorbell rang. I checked the peephole; my visitor was Mark Brady.

  Mark had been one of those long-haired surfer boys Sue and I had our eyes on in the tenth grade. Then we ended up on the same committee in our ecology class and became friends. Mark was still into ecology but now he had a Ph.D. and a research job in marine biology to show for it.

  Mark’s a hunk—tall with a great body, thick blond hair and hazel eyes. When I moved back to Florida, he came by every evening to help me paint, lay wood and tile floors, hang ceiling fans, put in bathroom vanities, and make all the other improvements inside the house. I’d asked him why he hadn’t married, and he said he hadn’t found the right girl. Because he spent all his spare time helping me, I wondered if he thought I was the right girl. I hoped not. I did love him, but it was more like the love for a brother.

  He dumped a newspaper and a couple of limes out of a bag onto the table. It was yesterday’s paper. Now I understood the reason for the visit, and I wished I hadn’t told Sue what Hank Tyler had said about the article. There’d be no escape now.

  Mark grabbed the limes and took them to the kitchen, where he proceeded to cut them into wedges.

  “How do you know I haven’t already read it online?” I asked while I pulled out the salt and shot glasses.

  “Because you avoid reading anything about yourself,” was Sue’s quick reply.

  So true. The thing I hated about the Internet was that you didn’t just get the facts, you got everybody’s opinion. Since most people didn’t bother to post a flattering opinion, the Internet was clogged with the unflattering ones. I’d made it a rule not to look myself up after reading the first review of one of my books, and I’d stuck to that decision.

  “Why don’t I read the article aloud?” Sue suggested.

  She set up shots for the two of us. Mark couldn’t drink alcohol because he’d been cleared to donate a kidney to his little sister. Not that he’d ever been much of a drinker. I was more of a light beer or wine person myself, but I could handle tequila just fine and I didn’t have to drive. Sue, on the other hand, could get drunk smelling alcohol, so even if she only had one shot, Mark would have to drive her home.

  In preparation for what was sure to be embarrassing—regardless of what my new neighbor said—I went ahead and took my first shot. Sue began to read aloud, her voice sounding like that of an upbeat newscaster.

  Bestselling Romance Writer Finds There’s No Place Like Home

  In spite of her name, local resident Jane Dough has led a life that’s been anything but ordinary.

  Leaving home at the tender age of 16, she went on to do things other girls only dream about: becoming a swimsuit model for a major sportswear brand, dating rock stars and millionaires, and finding success in her own right as a USA TODAY bestselling author of historical romances written under the pseudonym Janie Jansen.

  “Jane was nothing like her sisters,” said her mother, Barbara Dough. “Not from the minute she was born. All her sisters had that nice, thick, curly dark hair and there was little Jane, completely bald.”

  I closed my eyes. Why my mother would think anyone might find this tidbit of bald-headed information fascinating was beyond me, but then, I’d never had a clue what might come out of Mom’s mouth. Did I really want to hear the rest of this? I was pretty sure it could get worse. Much worse.

  I opened my eyes to see Mark nodding, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

  “It starts out pretty good,” he said. “Women like to read about that kind of stuff, don’t they? Babies and hair and such …”

  I rolled my eyes and Sue read on.

  “She was different in other ways too,” said Barbara Dough. “Always reading books. Used to walk up to the library when she was just seven and check out books all by herself. She loved reading biographies of women from the 1800s. I guess that’s why she liked those historical romances … but some of them were too racy. I remember when she was twelve she was reading one where the scullery maids were stealing the large cucumbers from the kitchen. I took that book back to the library myself.”

  Sue dropped the paper, laughing so hard that she choked, and I just shook my head. The cucumber book is my mother’s only mental association with historical romances. When I read the book, I didn’t get the author’s joke. I just figured young English girls loved cucumbers and didn’t get to eat them in their tiny scullery maid rooms. But in every interview, Mom talked about the cucumber book, and the reporters must have gotten a kick out of it because they always used it in their articles.

  The irony is that Mom’s retelling of the story made it appear as though she had wanted to protect me from shocking literature when in fact she wasn’t the least bit interested in what I read. The only reason she returned the book was because a lady from church who stopped by for a visit saw it on the coffee table and said it was inappropriate reading. The woman relayed the cucumber bit to my mother, who was promptly horrified. Not because I was reading the book, but because a lady from church knew I was reading it. No one asked the lady how she knew about the scene.

  I reached for my second shot of tequila. Sue and I downed one in unison.

  I tried to remember what other embarrassing things Mom liked to tell reporters, but it had been so long since someone had written about me, I couldn’t. And those other articles hadn’t mattered. They’d come out when I was trying to increase my readership, and any publicity was good publicity. But now? What possible good could come from an article now? I hadn’t published in two years.

  “It adds a touch of humor,” Sue said. “Good journalism is all about holding the reader’s interest, and I for one think this journalist is doing a fantastic job.” She stopped abruptly, poured and downed a third shot, grimaced as she took some lime and salt, and went on.

  “Jane returned home briefly when she was seventeen,” Barbara Dough reminisced. “But her father kicked her out when he found a naked man in her closet.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” I wailed. “A naked man? Joe was barely eighteen. I sound like a degenerate, like a teenage prostitute doing men in the family coat closet.”

  Sue giggled as she dropped the paper again. “Why have I never heard this story?” she said. “It sounds so … inneresting.”

  Sue had never heard the story because it happened two days after we’d been busted for mushrooms on school grounds. Sue had a lot going for her—cheerleader, class president, future prom queen—and all her accomplishments would have gone away if she’d been expelled, so I took the blame. Sue’s father was pretty mad, though, and he warned me to stay away from Sue.

  I shrugged. “I left home right after it happened; I didn’t see you again to tell you. But it was no big deal. My parents had been out of town and returned early. Dad pounded on my door, and Joe jumped into the closet to hide. Dad went straight to the closet, opened it, and there was Joe, naked as the day he was born.”

  Except not exactly, unless he was born with a gigantic shlong. Joe being my first, I had no idea how he compared to everyone else, but he could have found fame in porno movies.

  My poor father must have had quite a shock when he saw Joe standing naked in the closet, but I doubt it equaled the shock I’d had when Joe took my virginity. There were several attempts on two separate occasions and when it finally happened, I was certain I’d been impaled by a sword. This is probably the reason I don’t like medieval romances.

  I shook my head to cl
ear it of those memories. “I can’t believe my mother brought that up. I can’t believe she remembered it.”

  “Why did your Dad think someone was in your closet?” Mark asked.

  “Because Joe’s car was out front with a flat tire,” I said. “The thing is, the car would have been there with a flat tire regardless. Joe was planning to hitchhike back to his place, but I talked him into staying. So there was a fifty-fifty chance my father would have found zilch in the closet, but he didn’t trust me, so instead of bothering to ask, he marched in and looked.”

  “Imagine your father not trusting you,” Sue said indignantly.

  Mark let out a snort. “So if your Dad had asked, you’d have told him the truth?”

  “Well, hell no. I was seventeen years old with a naked man in my closet. What do you think?” I downed another shot. I deserved it.

  Sue picked up the paper again. She squinted, moved the paper up close, then held it at arm’s length. It was a few more seconds before she resumed reading.

  By the time Dough was 21 she’d moved to Los Angeles, taking on temporary jobs such as modeling. She even had a few bit parts in films.

  Dough’s mother recalled those times. “I think Jane was waitressing in a topless bar when she met that Pete—you know, the rock star. I don’t think they actually met there, but that’s the job she had at the time.”

  Please, God, just shoot me now. I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud until Mark patted me sympathetically on the back.

  “We like you too much to shoot you,” he said, chuckling at my mortification. “And if you want to take off your top and serve the rest of this tequila, we won’t complain. But I will say that now you’re starting to sound like a degenerate.”

  “But it’s so unfair. If only someone had asked me I could have told them I wasn’t topless. Only the dancers were.” I always explained that to people, but no one ever believed me. They just stared at my breasts.

  “That has to be the worst of it, surely,” I said.

  And it pretty much was. The rest was about my relationship with Pete. How he’d been a quickly growing phenomenon who proceeded to waste his money on drugs and good times, and that while he’d been out partying, I’d been at home writing and climbing the lists.

  I grabbed the paper and studied it as best I could, considering the words were blurring. The article was the main feature on the local page, complete with pictures of Pete and me backstage at one of his concerts plus the cover of Dark Scoundrel, my fourth historical romance, the book that put me on the bestseller list.

  I cringed as it hit me that I’d been outed. No one at work was aware of my former life, and I couldn’t hazard a guess as to what my co-workers would think, especially my conventional boss. Facing him would be embarrassing, if not humiliating. I wondered if he would let me go; reputation meant everything in business. I pushed that thought out of my mind. I could only handle so much.

  I scanned the rest of the article. The last paragraph was about my present situation, and though it made the homeowners’ association sound like the bad guy, it also made me sound pathetic. I mean, was it possible for any female to be forced to marry someone for the manual labor he could provide and yet still be un-pathetic?

  I took another shot of tequila and tried to put together some words. “I sound patetic.” I sniffed, thinking one of us should be crying for me.

  “Patetic?” Mark repeated with a smile.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t see whas wrong wif the maids swiping the coocumbers,” Sue said, her slurred words somehow managing to sound miffed. “If there wasn’t enough dukes wif big peckers to go ’round …”

  I tried to laugh, but I choked instead. Sue, who also read historical romances, knew that all dukes were young, rich, handsome, and hung like stallions.

  Lord, how I wished I knew a duke.

  *****

  It was no surprise that I yearned for a good historical romance that night, and so I pulled out my dog-eared copy of Dark Scoundrel and read it straight through. Again.

  The next morning I forced myself out of bed after too little sleep. I’d been thinking about an idea for a new novel. Well, mostly I’d been thinking about the hero. I’ll admit my handsome neighbor might have had something to do with my train of thought. There were certain parts of him that were very intriguing. I won’t say which parts.

  I hadn’t heard from my agent, Rose Feldman, in a couple of months, so we were due to hook up. We stayed in touch just in case I managed to turn out a saleable manuscript. It wasn’t that I couldn’t write. I could write just fine—as well as I ever could anyway—but Rose couldn’t sell it. She said I’d lost the romance. Not a good thing to hear when you’re a romance writer.

  “Jane,” came Rose’s raspy voice from my speaker after my line connected with hers. I heard the inevitable click of her cigarette lighter. “I was just thinking about you,” she said.

  “Really?” Gee, how nice. She’d been thinking about me.

  There was a beat of silence then, “No, not really. I always say that when I hear from someone out of the blue. Makes them think we’re on the same wavelength. Like anybody’s ever on the same wavelength. They don’t usually call me on it, but since you asked … I know how you feel about being lied to.”

  Everyone knew how I felt about being lied to. I had ranted about it for weeks after learning the extent of Pete’s deceit. Fortunately, Rose had seemed to take it in stride, telling me it was fodder for writing. In my case that hadn’t proved true—so far.

  I decided to get straight to it. “I’ve got a plot for a new romance. And it’s got a great hero.”

  There was silence but for the sound of Rose blowing out her cigarette smoke.

  “A duke?”

  “Of course,” I said. “What’s a hero if not a duke? But this one is really special. He’s got a great character arc and a fantastic sense of humor.” I waited while Rose sucked in all the air between New York and Florida along with her nicotine fix.

  “Does he still have a penis at the end of the book?” she croaked out.

  I huffed. Mentally, of course. You make one little mistake in this business and they never let you forget it. Not that castrating the hero had been a mistake, at least not the way I’d written it.

  “I told you it proved their love transcended the physical.”

  “And I told you no one wants a hero without a penis, duke or not.”

  My hackles rose. I’d put a lot of thought into that hero. “Someone might have, if you’d sent the manuscript out to more than one editor.”

  “Jane, I didn’t need to send it to more than one editor. Thirty seconds after she finished reading it, the entire publishing world knew about it. They’re still laughing. You’re lucky everyone likes you, otherwise your name would be mud.”

  “Everyone likes me?” I was pleased enough that the offhand compliment soothed my hurt feelings. A little.

  “As a writer, not as a person. But no one’s gonna buy a hero without a penis, no matter what.”

  “Okay, I get it.” Honestly. How many times did I have to apologize?

  “Do you? Do you really? Because the next hero you wrote was impotent, and no one wants a hero who can’t get it up either.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, recalling the next book I’d submitted to her, which she subsequently shot down. “He wasn’t impotent with the heroine—just with everyone else. It was romantic.”

  “It was gross. Just write a regular hero. One with a penis that works the way it’s supposed to.”

  I mumbled something, I wasn’t sure what. I was wishing I hadn’t called.

  “Jane, this conversation tells me you’re still not ready to write romance. Go get laid.”

  “I don’t need to get laid.”

  Okay, maybe I did, but getting laid wouldn’t change my mind about men. Men were scum, but if I had to write them like they were Prince Charmings, I could. It was fiction, wasn’t it? And I was a prof
essional.

  Chapter 4

  My rash was driving me out of my mind, and so I looked up herpes online. I couldn’t tell if what I had resembled what I saw, but those pictures were scary enough to make me want to find out. I did a search for gynecologists within thirty miles. Considering that healthcare was a huge industry in Florida, I was surprised there weren’t that many to choose from.

  I struck out with the first five doctors I called, mainly because I refused to tell the receptionists about my problem. I was thinking I shouldn’t have to tell anyone but the doctor if I had a blistery rash that looked exactly like herpes. They were evidently thinking there was no way I was getting in to see the doctor unless I did. I had one phone number left on the list when I decided I’d better come clean.

  The receptionist got the words good morning out of her mouth, and my mouth took off.

  “I need to see the doctor,” I said, words tumbling out in a rush. “It’s an emergency. I’ve got this rash on my … you know, or maybe it’s blisters, I’m not sure. My friend Sue says it’s herpes, but how would I know? I mean, I’ve never had herpes, but it feels just like what they say it’s supposed to feel like, and I’m totally freaked. I wouldn’t ordinarily think I had herpes, but I had one-time sex with this hot guy who sounds like Javiar Bardem—okay, it was twice—and then he moved in across the street and since then he’s brought home two hundred women, so I’m really starting to worry that he has a bunch of sexually transmittable diseases. I’m sure the doctor is busy but this is an emergency—”