by Janette Rallison, Heather B. Moore, Luisa Perkins, Sarah M. Eden, Annette Lyon, Lisa Mangum
“We’ve been through this,” she began.
“But you haven’t ever listened,” Mark countered. She opened her mouth to protest, but he shook his head. “You once asked me why I keep chasing this crazy dream when I’m no closer to it now than I was six years ago.”
Dani cocked her head. This wasn’t the direction she’d expected the conversation to go.
Mark’s face was intent. “I wasn’t sure how to answer you then, but I spent all night thinking about it, and here’s the truth: Dreams aren’t worth chasing just for fame and fortune— and I know you said that you didn’t come here hoping to get rich or famous. But you forgot what about dance brings you joy. It’s the journey that matters as much as anything. I love music. You love dance. Artists— that’s simply who we are. It’s in our bones. And no, it’s not practical. And yes, it’s full of rejection and hard times and poverty too. But without those lows, we’d never get to soar in the amazing highs, either.”
A dawning of understanding came over Dani. “Like when we first busked in the park.” She’d found the joy of dance again in those few moments. Pure, unadulterated joy that had had nothing to do with what a casting director was looking for.
“We’re two of a kind, Dani. You understand me. I understand you. Don’t say it’s not true, because it is. And in more ways than other artists understand each other. We have something special— something that can grow and become…”
“Become what?” Dani whispered the words. A tiny seed of hope was sprouting inside her, but fear threatened to quash it.
“Become something amazing.” Mark took her hand and caressed the top with his thumb. “I’m not ready to give you up. And I think you’re not really ready to go back home, either.”
She looked up at the fifth floor, where she’d spent so many nights. “But it’s so hard.”
“I know,” he said.
“What if neither of us ever makes it?” Dani didn’t realize until the words were out of her mouth that she’d almost agreed to stay. The idea was growing larger in her mind.
“Then we’ll take turns waiting tables and working as cashiers and taking tickets. Maybe we can start up a wedding DJ company to pay the bills between auditions. And we can go to the park and spend days busking just to buy a couple of amazing hot dogs and tickets to a play. I don’t know all the answers, but I have to believe that we’ll figure them out along the way if we give us a shot. Even if we work out but the music and dance don’t— that would be worth it. And I can’t help but think that no matter how miserable all of the hard parts will be, they’ll be easier if you’re there going through them with me.”
Dani imagined coming off a horrible audition, knowing that Mark would be there to hold her and kiss her, then make her laugh, and make sure she had a raspberry smoothie. So much better than sitting on my bed with a pint of ice cream. Maybe she could face rejection for longer— a lot longer— if he was with her the whole way. She threaded the fingers of both hands through his and stepped closer. “I don’t think we ever did see the African collection, did we?”
Mark’s mouth slowly curved in to a wide smile, and his eyes lit up. “Or the Costume Institute, either.”
“Hmm. Weren’t you going to take me to Chinatown? I think we’ve got a lot of things you still have to make good on, and that’ll take a long time. Months, probably. Maybe years.” She was unable to maintain the banter when her insides were ready to burst.
He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Years.”
Annette Lyon is a Whitney Award winner, a two-time recipient of Utah’s Best in State medal for fiction, and a Silver Quill recipient from the League of Utah Writers, as well as a cum laude graduate from Brigham Young University with a degree in English. She writes historical fiction, romance, and women’s fiction, and has also published several nonfiction titles, including a grammar guide and a coauthored book on being productive and reaching your goals. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor.
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&
Lisa Mangum
“Are you sticky yet?” Devon asked.
“Excuse me?” I looked up from the computer screen, but my fingers kept typing, finishing the last sentence of the last rejection letter I had to send today. We wish you the best in finding the right home for your manuscript— fifty rejection letters in thirty minutes; a personal best— Sincerely, Baker Publishing House.
Devon scrubbed his hair from his forehead, the ends spiked from the specially ordered coconut-scented gel he used. I wondered if he was still using the bottle I bought him for Christmas, or if he’d picked up another one from the Village by now. With the stuff costing $17.99 an ounce, I hoped he hadn’t splurged and used it all at once.
“Sticky,” he said again. He sighed and leaned against the doorjamb of my office. “I hate summer in Manhattan. Everything is so… sticky.” He examined his fingernails, his mouth turned down in distaste.
“Then leave,” I said. My email alert chimed: fifteen new messages. I scanned the names. Nothing from Monica. Yet. But something was coming. It had to be. I’d been in charge of the office since Monday, and I couldn’t imagine my boss not contacting me to see how the week had gone.
It had been an hour since I’d checked my phone, forty-four minutes since I’d checked my IM feed, and thirty-nine minutes since I’d checked my text messages. I wanted to believe the extended silence was a sign of her trust, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of a shoe hovering nearby, waiting to drop.
“Are you even listening to me?” Devon sighed again.
“Yeah, yeah, Manhattan. Hot. Sticky. You hate it.” I spun in my chair, neatly grabbing a red pen, a stack of paper, and my phone all with the same hand. “Have you heard from the Fergusons yet? Danielle said John was going to call back about some revisions—”
My chair swung and almost completed the circle, but stopped as Devon grabbed the armrests and leaned closer to me. I could smell the coconut hair gel and the citrus from his aftershave. Honestly, did the man think he was going to a tropical island somewhere?
With his skin tanned to the perfect caramel hue, he could have been.
“Lucy,” he said, his voice low, his eyes intent on mine.
“Devon,” I replied, setting the manuscript on my lap and leaning forward to close the distance between us. I couldn’t help it. My crush on him had started last fall, during my first week at Baker, and when he asked me out for the first time, I nearly tripped over myself to say yes.
Almost before I knew it, Devon and I had become office friends, then after-hours friends, then dating friends, then exclusive friends. In the beginning, we talked all the time, and we explored the city together.
And then Christmas happened. And Unmarked hit #1 on the New York Times list. And I got a promotion, which transformed my internship into a permanent position.
Starting the New Year, I’d thought my life couldn’t get any better.
I was right. Somehow, as the year slid into summer, it’d gotten worse. Devon and I still dated, but it was different. He was still suave and professional, but we talked less, and he wasn’t interested in exploring the city anymore. At times I felt his distance and wondered if I’d done something wrong. Other times, his arrogance was more than I could handle.
I suspected the expiration date on our relationship was inevitable, but I didn’t want to be the one to make the first move to end it.
Still, when I felt his muscles beneath the pull of his shirt, his breath on the side of my neck, I wondered if maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe there was still something worth preserving here.
He countered my move, blocking access to the desk with his body. “Luce. Put your work away.”
“I can’t.” The phone rang again, shrill and demanding. I glanced at the flashing red light.
“You can.” Devon’s voice dropped even lower, as though we were sharing a pillow together, or a secret. “I gave Everett the afternoon off—”
“What? He was supposed to show me his cover designs for Highland Park today—”
“—and Monica is in California on a business trip—”
“—Monica is probably the one calling—”
“And you are altogether too beautiful a woman to be locked inside a hot, sticky office like this on a Friday night. Let down your beautiful blonde hair for once, and let me show those exquisite brown eyes something special.”
I swallowed, unable to stop the blush creeping into my cheeks. I curled my fingers tighter around the cell phone. I wavered, nearly succumbing to Devon’s charm. But, no. Monica had left me in charge of the office. I needed to stay in charge. Which meant I needed to stay here.
But if I was in charge, why didn’t I feel like it?
Devon slid his palms up the armrests, closing the distance between us even more.
I could see the line of his collarbone through the open neck of his shirt. The slight sheen of sweat only accentuated the curve of his body. “Come with me.”
The phone stopped ringing, and the silence that remained sounded loud in my ears.
He leaned down, his nose brushing my cheek. His hand found mine and closed around my cell phone. He pulled it away from me the moment it buzzed with an incoming text.
“Come play with me tonight, Lucy,” he breathed into the hollow behind my ear.
“Devon, don’t.” I hated how unsteady my voice sounded. “Give me back my phone.”
He shook his head and dropped the phone on the side of my desk next to him. If I reached for it, I’d put myself closer to him. So sneaky. I was tired of his games. He seemed to be playing more of them lately, and they were starting to wear on my nerves.
The heat I’d felt building between us evaporated.
“Devon.”
“Lucy,” he countered. I could hear the smile in his voice. He thought he’d won. Again.
Two could play at this game.
I slipped my arms around his neck. Stretching up, I whispered in his ear, “Not tonight, honey, I have to get my work done.”
My cheek was pressed against his, so I felt the frown that crossed his face. His shoulders tightened, and he jerked back as though I’d burned him. Like a switch had been flipped, he went from charming to bitter. He pulled out of my embrace and glared down at me. “I was trying to be nice.”
I sighed and rolled my shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension that seemed to accompany all of my conversations with Devon of late. “I know you don’t like it when I say no, but it’s just… Tonight isn’t good for me.” I took a deep breath. “I need some time—”
“You need a night out. But if you’d rather stay here…” His eyes swept my desk— buried under stacks of paper— with a look of disbelief.
“I’d rather get my work done so that when Monica returns, she’ll know she was right to trust me with the house in her absence.”
Devon gave a quiet laugh, mean and small. “I hate to tell you that you’re out of your depth, sweetheart, but you are. Don’t you know that?” He pointedly didn’t look at the flashing red light on my desk phone, or at my buzzing cell, dutifully collecting incoming messages, or at the stacks of colored Post-it Notes that littered my desk, half of which had my boss’s name scribbled on them. “Last year, you were her intern. Now you think, what? That you’re her heir?”
I folded my arms across my chest, protecting that hidden place where I stashed my fear. What if Devon was right? Was if I was still a nobody, pretending to be somebody? “I found Unmarked in the slush pile. That has to count for something.”
Devon shook his head. “You still don’t get it.” He backed away and paused at the door. “Monica publishes the books. Everett designs them. I sell them. You— do what you’re told.” He turned on his heel and left without a backward glance.
I listened until I heard the front door close and lock, and then I buried my face in my hands to muffle a scream.
Here I’d thought there might be something worth preserving with Devon. Guess I’d thought wrong.
It wasn’t fair. I had worked hard, fought hard, to get the internship at Baker. I’d earned it. I’d wanted it more than anything I’d ever wanted before, and the first thing I did after getting my degree from NYU was to apply to every single publishing house I could find.
I’d told myself that I didn’t mind the late nights, the long hours, the endless paperwork, the lack of recognition and praise, because, for me, it was all about the books. The chance to work with words was a chance I couldn’t pass up.
And to have Devon, of all people, tell me that I wasn’t good at my job just because I wasn’t good at being his girlfriend?
I growled low in my throat and pushed my hands through my hair. The low afternoon sun pounded like a hammer against my back. When Monica first gave me this office, she warned me that a westward-facing window wasn’t ideal. I didn’t care; I had a window office in a publishing house. And I wasn’t going to let a jerk like Devon intimidate me out of it.
My cell phone buzzed again, and I grabbed it, barking out a sharp, “Hello.”
“Lucy?”
My heart spiked. Why, oh why didn’t I check the ID?
“Yes. Hi, Monica. Sorry, yes, I’m here.”
“You’ll have to speak up. We finally boarded Whittaker’s yacht, but I’m afraid the reception here is spotty at best. We’ve been going over ideas for his next project; several show promise.”
I could hear the snapping wind and the purr of a powerful engine in the background.
“How is California?” I asked.
“Bottled— the water and the blondes.”
“And Whittaker?”
“Effervescent with an undertone of malaise.”
I smiled. That was one of the reasons I loved working for Monica Baker: She had impeccable taste in vocabulary.
“And how is his yacht?”
Monica huffed a sigh— overindulgent— and I could imagine the specific way she would twist her wrist. Sometimes my boss didn’t need to use any words at all to say what was on her mind.
“I have the revisions on Whittaker’s contract for his next book ready for you to review when you return,” I reported. “And I’ve prepped the press release and left messages with—”
“Yes, yes,” Monica interrupted, “I’m sure your work will be sufficient. I need you to spearhead another project for me, however.”
Grabbing a pen, I uncapped it with my teeth and dropped the lid on my desk. I flipped over the closest piece of paper— Falling into Deep Water, page 256— and scratched circles with the pen until the ink started to flow.
“What do you need help with?”
“I need some wedding invitations printed.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Monica wasn’t dating anyone, as far as I knew. Then again, we weren’t exactly the sleepover-and-paint-our-fingernails-together kind of friends.
“And who is the lucky bride?” I asked, a hint of a smile in my voice.
“Why, you are, my dear. The invitations are for you.”
My pen stopped.
Ice filled my fingers, the cold spreading through me and across my back like wings. I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure it was working properly. “I’m sorry. I think you’re breaking up. I thought you said—”
“The invitations are for you,” Monica repeated, unruffled by my confusion.
“But… but I’m not… I mean I’m not engaged—” My dry mouth wasn’t helping me stammer out the words. I tried to laugh, but only managed a noise that s
ounded like a cough. I deliberately didn’t look at the wall separating my office from Devon’s.
“Of course you’re not. The invitations are part of the celebration party I’ve planned for the success of Unmarked. And you, as the one who found that prized diamond, will be attending, of course. Consider yourself the maid of honor, so to speak.”
The chill freezing my veins transformed into light, filling me with joy. I gripped my pen tighter in a hand that trembled.
Monica didn’t notice my silence. “Draft up copy for the invitations. I’ve scheduled the reception”— I could hear the quote marks in her voice and knew she meant “party”— “for two weeks from today at the Terrace Ballroom at the Roosevelt. I’ll be back in the office by then. Print a hundred and fifty invitations on the company account at Kinko’s and send them to everyone on our Gold List. Guest plus one.”
“Of course,” I whispered, scribbling as fast as I could. “I’m happy to. I know exactly what to do. Anything else?”
But the line had disconnected. I held my phone for a moment, staring at the screen.
This was it— what I’d been dreaming of from the moment I read the first page of Unmarked last year, the moment I knew— just knew— that I’d found something special. Something that would change my life.
I clicked my phone off and dropped it on my desk. I held page 256 of Falling into Deep Water with both hands, cradling it as if it were made of gold.
A laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I let it out with abandon.
I spun my chair toward the filing cabinet. Pulling out a drawer, I maneuvered my way past stacks of old manuscripts, dog-eared and festooned with sticky tabs, until I found my prize.
The original draft of Unmarked. The author, Whittaker Jules, had bucked tradition and mailed us a hard copy of the manuscript. Devon would have sent it back unopened, but one day, I started reading it at lunch. I finished it that evening, and it was on Monica’s desk the next morning. That was the beginning of everything.
