Read Online Come Dancing by Leslie Wells - Free Book Online

away, but it’s slow going.”
    “Well, keep at it. We can’t miss our call-to-print.” His gaze dropped to my chest, and I hunched my shoulders to slacken my blouse. “Tell you what. Why don’t I take you out for a drink Sunday? A reward for all the extra editing.”
    Ugh. He’d mentioned several times that his wife took their kids to her father’s Park Avenue townhouse for dinner on Sundays. “That’s my laundry night,” I said.
     
    Harvey’s schedule was packed with meetings on Tuesday, so he had no time to harass me. On his way out to his midday boozathon, he stopped by my desk.
    “I’m taking an agent to the Four Seasons,” he said, unfolding his sunglasses. “Don’t wait up.”
    I just rolled my eyes. After he left I browsed through the Post , my secret vice. I always kept it tucked inside the New York Times to avoid comment from my highbrow colleagues. An item on Page Six caught my eye; former sitcom actress Isabel Reed was up for a role in a new big-budget film after several years below the radar. The last line mentioned that she lived in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, and was working on a memoir.
    When I was growing up, Isabel Reed starred in my absolute favorite TV show about a schoolteacher who sang the lessons to her kids. I’d never missed an episode, and the theme song was wired into my subconscious. I wonder who her literary agent is … probably her book has already been sold . Harvey’s words echoed in my mind: Come up with your own ideas … Maybe it was worth spending ten minutes trying to track her down, once I got back from my own lunch date.
     
    Vicky and I always met at a diner halfway between our offices. Today she looked very professional in a conservative gray suit. “I have to get back to the office in an hour. We’re having a goodbye toast to Daphne at three,” she said as I slid into the booth.
    Vicky had introduced me to the editor-in-chief’s assistant at her company. “She’s leaving?”
    “Yes, it’s pretty horrible. Bill called her into his office and said that because she hasn’t acquired anything, she should start looking for a new job since he can’t promote her. But everything’s shut up tight as a bad clam with this recession. He’s already given her position to the sales director’s nephew, or else you could have tried out for it.”
    My stomach sank. “The minute there’s an opening, it always gets filled by someone with inside connections. I’ve been to three ‘informational interviews’ in the last six months, but the only information is that they aren’t hiring.” I tried to flag the waitress, but she ignored me and kept talking to the busboy.
    Vicky frowned. “I don’t see how they think you can just magically acquire a book if you don’t have an expense account to lunch the agents. That’s the way to get them to send you projects, right?”
    “That’s pretty much it. You’re supposed to talk yourself up during the meal. I feel so awful for Daphne. What is she going to do?” This was just the kind of fate I dreaded. It was entirely possible to grind away for years and then be told you’d reached a dead-end.
    “She’s moving back to St. Louis, where she’s from. She’s going to stay with her parents while she figures things out.”
    “God, that’s depressing. Sometimes it seems like I’ll never make it here. It’s so hard to get ahead.”
    “I know. If you stay an assistant for more than two years, you get typecast as just a secretary. And editorial seems worse than the other departments; I guess because there’s such a glut of you English majors,” Vicky commented.
    “If I don’t acquire a book soon, Harvey will probably fire me too,” I said glumly. I waved at the waitress again.
    “That’s not going to happen. He’d be lost without you to do all his work.” She glanced at the laminated menu. “So I hear you’re going to a party with Jack next Saturday.”
    “I was going to tell you if you hadn’t been too