Read Online Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jennifer Weiner
Tags: Fiction
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profiling for next Sunday’s paper. In deference to her fame, and because we’d be lunching at the très chic Four Seasons, I took extra care with my clothes, struggling into both a panty girdle and control-top pantyhose. Once my midsection was secured, I pulled on my ice-blue skirt, ice-blue jacket with funky star-shaped buttons, the requisite chunky black loafers, uniform shoe of twentysomething would-be hipsters. I prayed for strength and composure, and for Bruce’s fingers to be broken in some bizarre industrial accident guaranteeing that he’d never write again. Then I called a cab, grabbed my notebook, and headed to the Four Seasons for lunch.
I cover Hollywood for the Philadelphia Examiner. This is not as easy as you’d think, because Hollywood is in California, and I, alas, am not.
Still, I persist. I write about trends, about gossip, the mating habits of stars and starlets. I do reviews, and even the occasional interview with the handful of celebrities who deign to stop by the East Coast on their promotional juggernauts.
I wandered into journalism after graduating from college with an English degree and no real plans. I wanted to write. Newspapers were one of the few places I could locate that would pay me to do it. So, the September after graduation, I was hired at a very small newspaper in central Pennsylvania. The average age of a reporter was twenty-two. Our combined years of professional experience were less than two years, and boy, did it show.
At the Central Valley Times, I covered five school districts, plus assorted fires, car crashes, and whatever features I could find time to churn out. For this I was paid the princely sum of $300 a week— enough to live on, just barely, if nothing went wrong. And of course, something was always going wrong.
Then there were the wedding announcements. The CVT was one of the last newspapers in the country that still ran, free of charge, lengthy descriptions of weddings— and, woe to me, of wedding dresses. Princess seams, alençon lace, French embroidery, illusion veils, beaded headpieces, gathered bustles… all of these were terms I found myself typing so often that I put them on a save-get key. Just one keystroke, and out would pop complete phrases: freshwater pearl embroidery, or ivory taffeta pouf.
One day I was wearily typing the wedding announcements and musing on the injustice of it all when I came across a word I couldn’t read. Many of our brides filled their forms in by hand. This particular bride had written in looping cursive, in purple ink, a word that looked like CFORM.
I carried the form over to Raji, another cub reporter. “What’s this say?”
He squinted at the purple. “C-FORM,” he read slowly. “Like MDOS, or something.”
“For a dress, though?”
Raji shrugged. He’d grown up in New York City, then attended Columbia Journalism School. The ways of Central Pennsylvanians were strange to him. I headed back to my desk; Raji went back to his dread chore, typing in a week’s worth of school lunch menus. “Tater Tot,” I heard him sigh. “Always, the Tater Tot.”
Which left me with C-FORM. Under “contact for questions” the bride had scribbled her home phone number. I picked up the phone, and dialed.
“Hello?” answered a cheerful-sounding woman.
“Hello,” I said, “this is Candace Shapiro calling from the Valley Times. I’m trying to reach Sandra Garry”
“This is Sandy,” chirped the woman.
“Hi, Sandy. Listen, I do the wedding announcements here, and I’m reading your form and there’s a word… C-FORM?”
“Seafoam,” she answered promptly. In the background I could hear a kid screaming, “Ma!” and what sounded like a soap opera on TV. “That’s the color of my dress.”
“Oh,” I said, “well, that’s what I needed to know, so thanks”
“Except, well, maybe… I mean, do you think people will know what seafoam is? Like, what do you think of when you think of seafoam?”
“Green?” I
I cover Hollywood for the Philadelphia Examiner. This is not as easy as you’d think, because Hollywood is in California, and I, alas, am not.
Still, I persist. I write about trends, about gossip, the mating habits of stars and starlets. I do reviews, and even the occasional interview with the handful of celebrities who deign to stop by the East Coast on their promotional juggernauts.
I wandered into journalism after graduating from college with an English degree and no real plans. I wanted to write. Newspapers were one of the few places I could locate that would pay me to do it. So, the September after graduation, I was hired at a very small newspaper in central Pennsylvania. The average age of a reporter was twenty-two. Our combined years of professional experience were less than two years, and boy, did it show.
At the Central Valley Times, I covered five school districts, plus assorted fires, car crashes, and whatever features I could find time to churn out. For this I was paid the princely sum of $300 a week— enough to live on, just barely, if nothing went wrong. And of course, something was always going wrong.
Then there were the wedding announcements. The CVT was one of the last newspapers in the country that still ran, free of charge, lengthy descriptions of weddings— and, woe to me, of wedding dresses. Princess seams, alençon lace, French embroidery, illusion veils, beaded headpieces, gathered bustles… all of these were terms I found myself typing so often that I put them on a save-get key. Just one keystroke, and out would pop complete phrases: freshwater pearl embroidery, or ivory taffeta pouf.
One day I was wearily typing the wedding announcements and musing on the injustice of it all when I came across a word I couldn’t read. Many of our brides filled their forms in by hand. This particular bride had written in looping cursive, in purple ink, a word that looked like CFORM.
I carried the form over to Raji, another cub reporter. “What’s this say?”
He squinted at the purple. “C-FORM,” he read slowly. “Like MDOS, or something.”
“For a dress, though?”
Raji shrugged. He’d grown up in New York City, then attended Columbia Journalism School. The ways of Central Pennsylvanians were strange to him. I headed back to my desk; Raji went back to his dread chore, typing in a week’s worth of school lunch menus. “Tater Tot,” I heard him sigh. “Always, the Tater Tot.”
Which left me with C-FORM. Under “contact for questions” the bride had scribbled her home phone number. I picked up the phone, and dialed.
“Hello?” answered a cheerful-sounding woman.
“Hello,” I said, “this is Candace Shapiro calling from the Valley Times. I’m trying to reach Sandra Garry”
“This is Sandy,” chirped the woman.
“Hi, Sandy. Listen, I do the wedding announcements here, and I’m reading your form and there’s a word… C-FORM?”
“Seafoam,” she answered promptly. In the background I could hear a kid screaming, “Ma!” and what sounded like a soap opera on TV. “That’s the color of my dress.”
“Oh,” I said, “well, that’s what I needed to know, so thanks”
“Except, well, maybe… I mean, do you think people will know what seafoam is? Like, what do you think of when you think of seafoam?”
“Green?” I
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