She's Got Mail!: She's Got Mail! / Forget Me? Not. Darlene Gardner

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СКАЧАТЬ STOPPED at the women’s bathroom down the hallway from Paige Leighton’s office. Slipping inside, she scrambled out of her splattered leggings and started to stuff them into her skirt pocket, then changed her mind. She didn’t want to look as though had a lump on her thigh—not in the elegant Paige Leighton’s inner sanctum. Rosie tossed the hose behind the trash can to retrieve later. I really should carry a purse instead of relying on pockets.

      She closed her eyes and told herself to relax, to breathe. Opening her eyes, she checked her reflection in the mirror. She had an eerie blueish glow, which she hoped was due to the fluorescent lights. Maybe her mother was right—maybe she should wear makeup.

      Poking at the chaos of curls that framed her face, she scrutinized her overall presence. To combat the blue and the anxiousness in her eyes, it was time to adopt a goddess. I’ll stick with Artemis. Goddess of the Hunt, Artemis always aimed for her target, knowing her arrows unerringly reached their mark.

      Like me, aiming to be Mr. Real.

      She didn’t have to strain any brain cells to know they wanted a man in the job. After all, it would be false advertising if the “A Real Man Answers Real Questions” column was written by a woman. But an interim Mr. Real would be a coup—an opportunity for her to escape the gulch and prove she could write. Otherwise, she’d be stuck proofing and copyediting until her brown curls grew gray, her last dying moment spent crossing out an errant comma.

      She checked her watch. Goddess time!

      A few moments later, Rosie passed Jerome, who smiled slyly at her as she walked into Paige’s office. He’d always made her uncomfortable the way he eyeballed women. Worse, she’d soon have to sit across from those eyeballs at lunch. That Focha-whatever place would probably cost Rosie a month’s worth of her favorite nutri-quasi Twinkie bars.

      Her footsteps slowed as she stepped onto the plush egg-white carpeting that cushioned the floor of the vast office. Paige, who could be a stand-in for Lauren Bacall, sat behind a metal-and-glass desk. Seeing Rosie, she pulled off her reading glasses and set them aside. Folding her hands in front of her, she smiled without crinkling her eyes. “Jerome told me you had something important to discuss. I have only a few minutes….”

      A few? Rosie dove in. “The ‘A Real Man Answers Real Questions’ column is currently without a columnist.”

      Paige blinked, then nodded, not one iota of emotion flickering across her powdered face. “And—?”

      “I would like the…opportunity to be the interim columnist until you find another Mr. Real.” Her brother the salesman always said to hit hard and hit fast when you wanted something. Well, thanks to Artemis, she’d just done that. Rosie eased in a slow breath, waiting for Paige’s reaction.

      “Rosie,” Paige began, elongating the O in Rosie. “Didn’t you have several previous ‘opportunities’?” One shapely eyebrow raised slightly, emphasizing the question in her voice.

      “Uh, yes.” Ugh. So even Paige Leighton, the managing editor high priestess, had heard about those first two writing assignments that Rosie had mangled.

      “I seem to recall,” Paige continued, “that Sophia Weston needed an article on ‘Women Who Need to Please’ and you wrote about…”

      Rosie cringed inwardly. Persephone, the goddess of the underworld who expresses a woman’s tendency toward passivity and a need to please. Rosie had thought, at the time, she was being brilliant. But Sophia Weston, senior features editor, was so irked, Rosie worried for two solid days that she would be the next goddess of the underworld for her rampant creativity. Rosie forced a smile. “I misinterpreted Ms. Weston’s guidelines.”

      Paige tapped one pink-polished nail against the glass desk. “And I believe there was another incident?”

      Incident? When had writing assignments become incidents? “Well, yes, there was a second, small writing assignment. Very small.” She debated whether to call it infinitesimal, but decided that might be pushing it. “Ad copy.”

      “Bridal ad, I believe.”

      Sheesh. Paige might be old enough to have dated Humphrey Bogart, but she had a young memory. What did she do? Binge on ginkgo biloba? “Yes,” Rosie admitted. “It was a bridal ad.”

      “One of our best advertisers, as I recall. Seemed they found a rather…unsightly typo?”

      “Hera,” Rosie admitted. She might as well hit hard and hit fast with the truth, too, and put a stop to this trip down memory lane. “I changed ‘Her beauty’ to ‘Hera beauty.”’

      “Right. Hera beauty. I remember now.” Paige leaned forward, her gray-blue eyes nearly matching her mauve earrings. “How did that happen?”

      Double ugh. Now she had to explain the “Hera Incident.” “I thought it would…enhance the ad to use the name Hera, the goddess of marriage.” And, oh boy, did she enhance it. Only because the head of sales had pacified the irate customer by offering free ad space for six months was Rosie able to keep her job.

      “Oh-h-h.”

      Rosie wondered if Paige always elongated her O’s.

      Paige tapped her fingernail again. “You seem to have a thing for goddesses.”

      If Rosie admitted that at this very moment she was Artemis, she could kiss off being Mr. Real. Instead, she offered a half smile, not wanting to explain how she had to be a goddess to survive her four brothers’ antics.

      “Mr. Real isn’t a goddess,” Paige said drolly.

      “No, he’s not.” But he’d make a great Athena.

      “And this is a job for a seasoned writer. Which you’re not. And for someone with a good track record. Which you don’t have.”

      Think Artemis. Be strong. “I am a seasoned writer,” Rosie began, hoping Paige Leighton didn’t hear the quaver in her voice. “I worked for two years on the high school newspaper, the last year as its editor. After that, I graduated from college with a degree in journalism. I worked on the town paper, starting as gofer and working my way up to copy editor, then reporter. That’s ten years of writing—if that’s not seasoned, I’d like to know what you view as bland.”

      That last comment sneaked out. This was Paige Leighton she was talking to. Rosie had to watch her tongue, something her mother had warned her of repeatedly.

      Rosie quickly pushed ahead. “And it’s true I made those four paws—” From the look on Paige’s face, Rosie knew she’d butchered that French term. Darn. Why did she attempt to speak French when at best she knew a few sentences in Spanish? Because Paige was cultured classy, and owned that summer home in Provence.

      “Four what?”

      “Mistakes,” Rosie explained softly, wishing she’d dated that high school foreign exchange student, Guillaume, when she’d had the chance. She might have learned a few key French phrases. But no. Competitive Rosie opted to beat him at tennis instead of getting to know him over dinner.

      “Oh.” Paige nodded slightly. “Faux pas.”

      “Right. That’s what I meant.” Now that she’d bludgeoned French, Rosie decided to go for the hard-core СКАЧАТЬ