The Romance Writer

The Romance Writer Lisa D. Chavez Iopened the file folder and began reading, my eyes skimming quickly over the words written in Katherine's loose and loopy scrawl:" "What about dinner," queried Evan, the handsome blonde lawyer who was Amber's boss. He leaned overAmber's desk sofar she could almostfeel the heat radiating offhis sculpted chest, beneath the thin cloth of his white shirt. His smile was hungry, predatory and brutal. Amber tossed her waist-length raven tresses over her shoulder tempestuously. "I think we'd be better offkeeping this relationship professional," she purred, trying to still the hard beating ofher heart. Evan traced one leanfinger over her high cheekbone. "And why would we want to do that?" he asked with a cruel sensuous smile. "Are you afraid of me, Amber? You, the hot-blooded wildcat?" She stood up abruptly, to put distance between them. "Not afraid. Just not interested . " Straightening her mini-skirt, she tried to appeared disinterested, but she had never been so moved by a man before. Her manicured hands trembled. Evan looked at her, his icy blue eyes roaming downfrom herfuriously blushing face to herfull breasts to her tiny waist. "We'll see about that, " he said, then turned and walked away. 1 I sighed. Drained my beer. Flipped through the pages in the file folder— nearly 20 of them. Jesus, I thought, is this reaUy worth ten bucks an hour? Does anyone read this crap? I riffled the yeUow pages with my fingers, wondering ifwhat I was reading was typical ofthe romance novel genre, or ifI was simply transcribing the strange and boring dreams of a young woman I'djust met—the woman who was paying me by the hour to help fulffll her fantasy ofwriting a romance novel. ? 1 This is a recreation; I did not keep any ofthe things I typed for Katherine. 49 50Fourth Genre That year, the year I left my first husband, I lived in a ramshackle log cabin on the backside of Chena Ridge, in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was summer, and while I had left him physicaUy, I hadn't quite left him emotionaUy or financiaUy so though I looked for a job, it was mostly in a desultory fashion. I spent most days reading, writing poems and writing in my journal, and I took long slow walks with my dog. I had just finished an MFA program in creative writing, and the habits ofbeing a student—long days ofreading and writing—did not fall away easily. My husband was still hoping for a reconcfliation , so he gave me money and didn't ask too much about what I was doing in Fairbanks, hoping that eventuaUy I'd work the restlessness out of system and come back to him. This story is only pardy about me, however. It is about me in the way diat any story told is about the teUer, even ifthe characters inhabiting the story are very different. It is about me in that it is a story out ofmy Ufe, and a story filtered through my eyes, my mind, my memory. It is a story about me in that what I know about Katherine, the woman who this is ostensibly about, also says something about my Ufe; I wouldn't have remembered her so many years later ifher situation did not have something to say about my own at that time. I met Katherine when I answered an ad in the Fairbanks Daily NewsMiner for an editor/typist. The ad simply asked for someone with typing and editing skills, and I immediately sent off a letter outUning my quafifications, knowing they were exceUent. I wondered about the ad—who could it be? A small press? I knew almost aU the Uterary types in Fairbanks, and couldn't imagine who would place such an ad, but eventuaUy I got a caU from a woman named Katherine, who told me that she wrote stories and novels, but she had no computer and wanted her work on disk, plus neither her typing skiUs nor her command ofgrammar and speUing were strong, and she needed help. She said she'd been pubUshed; she even claimed she had an...