Amy’s eyebrows rise. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” She grabs her phone and dictates a voice memo: “Consider lingerie guides. How the hell is a bra supposed to fit? How do you know what style of undies to buy? And do you have to wash each one by hand and hang them on the balcony to dry?”
“Um, hi. I know the answers to all of those,” I say, waving to offer my service.
“I know, but for now . . .” She sets down her phone, takes a breath, and declares, “Sex and Other Shiny Objects.”
I look to Lola for an explanation. “I don’t have my Amy translator on. Care to tell me what that means?”
Lola flicks her corkscrew curls off her shoulder. “It’s a book she’s working on. I’ll be doing the cover. It’s a sexy romantic comedy.”
“One of my regular authors is writing it, and I had this crazy idea,” Amy adds.
“As you do.”
“As I do,” she echoes, then pauses for dramatic effect. “To include a companion guide with it. A Don’t Try This at Home pamphlet, so to speak.”
“Don’t try romance at home?”
She waves her hand. “No. Of course they should try romance at home. Try it in the office. Try it on the subway. Romance is awesome. But we thought it would be fun to include top tips on how—and how not—to pull off some of the scenes that unfold in romance novels. How to rip off a shirt, how to tear off lingerie, how to disrobe on the staircase without falling on your face. I mean, that is capital H hard. How are they all so agile?”
“And you need someone to do what exactly? To write this pamphlet?”
“Yes. Someone daring, willing to try new things. Someone who can make it funny, tell a story. What should you try at home? What shouldn’t you try at home?”
Amy’s always been wildly inventive, and I’m thrilled she has an outlet for her ideas. Thrilled, too, that she’s invited me into her professional world. “Or how about when the hero pulls off the heroine’s dress in a split second?” I snap my fingers. “Voilà. One quick move, when I’ve had to practically can-opener myself out of some of my dresses. How is the hero just whisking it off her?”
“Yes! That’s what I want to explore. And all that panty ripping in books. There is so much of it. And in this one—Sex and Other Shiny Objects—the hero has a total thing for it. He’s obsessed with lingerie, and with taking it off her with his teeth. The heroine calls him the panty shredder.”
I clasp my hands to my cheeks, à la Edvard Munch’s The Scream. “The horror, the horror.” I drop my palms. “I was telling a customer this weekend to abstain from that or else she’d be buying out my whole store.”
“And that’s where you come in,” Amy says, her smile brightening.
“You want to buy out my whole store?”
She laughs, shaking her head. “No, but I was thinking perhaps you sometimes have inventory you can’t use for whatever reason. Overstock, or maybe damaged goods? Please say yes. It’ll help my idea so much!”
“Sure. Of course.” Now I see where she’s headed with this. “You can definitely use it to test all that panty shredding.”
Amy breathes a huge sigh of relief. “Thank you. That helps immensely, because we’re on an insane time crunch.”
“Problem number one solved. Now we just have to find someone who’ll write it,” Lola says as she lifts a mug of what looks like chai tea.
“Why doesn’t your author write it?” I ask.
“She’s busy with the novel itself,” Amy says, sighing heavily. “We want someone else to do the companion book. I’ve scrolled through my list of writers for hire to try to find someone else who has just the right sense of fun and daring.”
Someone else.
Those two words hover in the air, swirl around me like smoke wafting through a crisp night. They smell like possibilities. Like turning a corner, like putting yourself out there.
Like standing out.
“You need a writer?” I muse.
“Like a buckle needs a belt,” Amy says, sounding urgent.
“Someone to test these ideas?” The wheels are turning, the mental locomotive chugging out of the station and gaining speed.
“Yes. I need to work on finding the right person lickety-split. Because—deadlines!”
“Someone who maybe has done something similar before,” I posit, the train speeding headlong down the track.
“Sure. If that’s possible,” Amy says, tilting her head like a curious pup. “Do you know anyone? I would do it, but my boss wants someone who hasn’t read the story yet to test the scenes with fresh eyes and hands.”
Maybe it’s crazy, but maybe it’s not. Perhaps this is exactly what I need to make my blog shine again. To help my store stand out as one of a kind. And, honestly, for me to put myself out there.
Pictures of bras and panties are only so fascinating. The readers seemed to relish the stories behind them, and I did too.
I raise my hand, wiggling my fingers. “I can try it.”
Lola nearly drops her cup of chai and blinks at me, her mouth opening soundlessly.
Amy’s face has gone stony, my chatty friend uncharacteristically quiet.
I sit back on the couch and savor having rendered two friends, who work in publishing no less, speechless.
A few seconds later, Amy recovers, speaking slowly. “You’d do it?”
“Does that surprise you?”
She nods vigorously. “Yes. A thousand times yes. You stopped doing the blog posts. I know it was because of Gage, but since you haven’t picked it up again, I thought you were done with that type of writing?”
“It surprises me too,” I say, smiling. “But I’d like to do it.”
Her smile stretches around the earth. “It never occurred to me you’d want to. But, oh my stars and garters, you’d be freaking perfect.”
“I’m starting to post again tonight. I’m so excited to get back to it.” I take a beat. “And I’m going to start dating again. Today I planned to ask out the hot, nice yoga guy. But he wasn’t in class.”
Amy pumps a fist. “Yes! You’ve been looking for a new intro with him. This will be perfect.”
“‘Oh, hey, want to rip lingerie off me? I’ll be wearing a tiny thong underneath, though, so no worries —you won’t even see my lady parts. ’K? Thanks.’”
Lola’s tone goes serious. “Truth though—that’s kind of a perfect intro.”
“Seriously?” I lift a skeptical brow.
“Why not? It says you’re daring. It says you’re fun. It’s better than ‘Want to go out for coffee?’” Lola says in the blandest tone ever.
“It’s definitely a conversation starter, and an unconventional date,” I say.
Amy’s eyes shift from Lola to me. “You’ll do it?”
“As long as I can blog about it too.”
Amy thrusts her arms up in victory. “It’s like you can read my mind. That’s perfect. Blog to your heart’s content. My boss literally just asked me to find a writer who’d be willing to talk it up in advance, drive interest before the book’s release. In fact, the pamphlet can simply be a compilation of your blog posts, with a little tweaking or expanding. You teasing your work with some of these romance novel tropes in real life will actually help build buzz for the upcoming book. Win-win.” She takes a breath. “But you’re sure you don’t mind testing out these scenarios?”