Thank You for Listening(11)

Once again, a panelist saved Sewanee from having to respond. “Well,” Mildred began, “I tell people the best thing one can do, if one thinks this job might suit, is to go into a windowless room and read a book aloud, stopping at every mistake and starting again at the top of the sentence. Do this for eight hours and see if you still think it’s the perfect job.”

The audience chuckled. Sewanee silently thanked Mildred for the reality check.

“Listenin’ to y’all has made me realize,” the girl continued–continued!–“narrating Romance’d be real neat.”

Sewanee’s morbid curiosity got the best of her, as if slowing to pass a car accident on the freeway. “Why?”

“Well, using my acting skills and all, I could bring hope to people?”

“How?”

“By–by what I just said? By audiobooking Romance? How great would it be to help the world know love will always find a way, it’ll all work out, that we can truly live happily ever after?”

Sewanee fortified herself and tried not to sound condescending. “That would be great, if it were true, but . . . probably best we leave it there.”

The girl made an adorable pouting face. “Sounds like somebody could use a little of that hope?”

Straw, meet camel’s back.

“I have hope. Real hope, not false hope. Romance novels are a wonderful escape, but–” Sewanee took only the smallest beat–certainly not long enough to consider the polity of what she was about to say–before continuing, “Look, you want to give people something, give them the truth. Level with them. Romance novels are not real life, love is not a God-given right, being an actress won’t make life better–in fact, it might make it worse–and happily ever after is bullshit.”

Someone was waving frantically at the back of the ballroom, a woman wearing a T-shirt with the convention’s logo on it and holding a clipboard. She tapped her wrist in a manner that struck Sewanee as vaudevillian. Which broke the spell.

She looked out into the silent crowd, what she’d said settling over the auditorium like suffocating ash from a volcano.

Shit.

She took a measured beat. “I heard someone say that earlier on the convention floor and I couldn’t believe it. I mean, what do we think? Is HEA a bunch of BS?”

“No!”

She’d recaptured them. “I’m sorry, I don’t think they heard you over in the snob pavilion! Is it bullshit?!”

A reverberating, room-filling response: “NO!!!” The audience clapped and cheered.

Another Blah-ism? Get the audience on your side.

Over the applause, Sewanee shouted, “Thanks, again, to our panel and remember we’ll be signing for the next hour at booth 2186! Have a great day!”

AS THEY ARRIVED at the end of the allotted hour, the activity at the signing booth slowed. Ron came over and gave Sewanee a hug, said he was off to the casino for a Scotch and soda and some Let It Ride. “You should get a drink, too,” he said, affable, lovable, wink-able Ron. Sewanee heartily agreed. Mildred stood, cracked her back, and patted Sewanee’s hand before leaving.

Alice, however, pulled Sewanee behind the curtains of the booth and looked her right in the eye when she said, “Swan.”

“I know.”

Alice exhaled and put a hand on her motherly hip. “You saved it, you did. But hon . . . everything okay?”

“Yeah, no!” Sewanee chirped. “It was just that girl, with that voice, thinking she could–”

Alice shook her head. “Not our job to tell her. She’ll be selling essential oils on Instagram or something within the month. But I don’t think she was the issue?”

“I mean . . .” Sewanee looked down, shook her head, and took a breath. “I’ve been . . . a little off. Lately.” She felt Alice peering at her.

“You know, I like Romance novels. And not just narrating them. Reading them.”

Sewanee glanced up.

“Ten years ago, when I was empty-nesting, I found out Bob was having an affair, and we were going to lose the house, and then my mom got sick, and then they found a lump . . .” Alice’s hand touched her chest, the top of her right breast. “More than anything else, I wanted to believe that there could still be a happily ever after for me. It was actually kind of religious.” Sewanee opened her mouth, but Alice continued, “Relax, I’m not getting weird.”

She took Sewanee’s hand. “You’re amazing. You’re talented and kind and you have shoveled a ton of shit in your young life and I don’t blame you for being cynical. But you don’t know how things are gonna go. And that cuts both ways, good and bad. So you just have to trust it’ll work out in the end.”

Sewanee searched for a wry, sarcastic comeback that would dismantle Alice’s argument. Something her father might say. But there wasn’t one.

So she said nothing.





Chapter Four


“The Makeover”

“LET’S SEE!” ADAKU CRIED, KNOCKING PERFUNCTORILY ON THE DOOR to the suite’s second bedroom before walking right in.

Sewanee stood in the middle of the room. She did an ironic twirl.

Adaku’s hands came to her mouth. “Swan,” she breathed through her fingers.