Read Online Mom's the Word by Marilynn Griffith - Free Book Online Page A

what’s with the hair? You know I sent out all those postcards with your locks, right? We talked about this. You have to stick with the image people know. Build the brand.”
    Fallon flopped down on their new leather couch. She kicked off her shoes as though she’d lived there longer than they had. “One thing at a time, baby. First, I have to answer Handsome here. Let’s see now—” she fumbled in her bag “—how did I end up here? The company sent me some amended schedule talking about I was supposed to be going to Miami or somewhere by myself and that you had moved to Florida and they were considering matching me up with another publicist.”
    Dyanne hung her head. They didn’t, she thought, knowing they had. She’d told everyone that they could still handle the department and contact her online if needed during her vacation, but the one thing they shouldn’t try to deal with was Fallon Gray.
    â€œUh-huh. They did, girl. I can see what you’re thinking all over your face. Anyway, this little white girl called me—Heather or something—and she was talking just as crazy as you please.
    â€œSweet thing, just confused. Real confused. Talking about how I wasn’t doing the historically black college tour or signing at the Essence bookstores and they were cutting back and when would I be available to rethink my brand—”
    The room started to spin. If Dyanne had been pregnant, she definitely would have had to lie down. This was beyond crazy. She tried to think, to remember where she’d put her phone, but Neal was on top of it, shoving her new PDA into her hands. She tapped away, thumbs flying while Fallon continued.
    â€œSo you know me, baby. I called Steve.”
    The tapping stopped. Steve Chaise, publisher and CEO of Wallace Shelton Books, did not take phone calls. He took messages. Fallon Gray did not leave messages. The only way out of that call was a conflict, the thing Dyanne dreaded most of all. She was known throughout the company as being one who smoothed things out. Now she’d be swirling in this mess for months.
    Still, she knew better than to try and correct Fallon on making the call or the woman would whip out her phone and call Mr. Chaise again. Nobody but Fallon’s mama, now long dead, had ever succeeded in telling her what to do. The uncanny thing was that Fallon was usually right in the end. Still, this call thing couldn’t have gone well. Dyanne cleared her throat.
    â€œAnd what did Mr.—Steve say?”
    Fallon rubbed her head, front to back, back to front, just like Neal did when he woke in the morning. Without those earrings, she looked a lot like Mr. Jennings, a math teacher Dyanne had in third grade. What a mess. Yet somehow when Fallon opened her mouth, nobody noticed what she looked like. Neal, however, kept staring at the author’s head as if he was digging it or something. Men. They’re intrigued by anything different, but it won’t keep them. In the end, they wanted their women painfully the same.
    Not that Fallon tried to keep a man. For all her flirting, Dr. Gray ran guys off after a month or two. She said after loving hard and true one good time, everything else was just something to do. Dyanne hated to admit it, but it was true.
    â€œI don’t remember everything Steve and I said. We laughed a lot and made some plans for me to fly in for lunch with him after the tour—”
    â€œLaughed?” In all her years of working for him, Dyanne had never seen Mr. Chaise laugh. The one smile she’d thought she’d seen had turned out to be indigestion. If there was ever a driven person, it was him. Before now, she would have thought he only would have laughed if some bestselling business book suggested it—one he’d published, of course.
    â€œGirl, yeah. Steve is something else, old dog. If he wasn’t him and I wasn’t me, I swear I’d have me a piece of