Roll with the Punches (3 page)

Frowning at her yarn, Marian said, "No, no. Rhonda’s not desperate. A desperate woman would have kept Peter or Josh or—"

"People!" I said.

"Sam," George said, deadpan.

"Yeah, Rhonda." Jackie shook her head. "Those science lab losers—Salami Sam and Peter Pan—with their heads lost in test tubes? Girl. You can do better."

"Wasn't Josh a tuba player?" George said, waggling horn-playing fingers, the pinky ring twinkling outrageously.

"George," I snarled, "is this payback for that comment I made last week about your scene reminding me of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode?"

George grinned.

Jackie said, "Tubes, tuba, whatever. Our Rhonda's an independent woman who deserves a real relationship, with real limousine-and-flower, multiple-karat romance, not that graduate student moped-and-ramen stuff. Living in some old garage—"

"With some pimply guy gambling away all her savings," George stage-whispered.

Ooh. That one stung.

"Marian? Can't we give her any pointers?” George went on. “She can't pick a decent guy to save her life."

"Enough, George!" Of all the nights for this group to start in on me. As the baby of my family, I had endured plenty of teasing in my life, but tonight, to win James, I needed to project Grace Kelly, not Paris Hilton.

Marian came to my aid. "Like George knows anything about love. Check his latest love scene, people." She shuffled her papers, adjusted her bifocals, and read: "
He took an armload of her outfield, looked meaningfully down toward his home plate and said, 'Babe, I think your batter's up.'
"

Snorts and snickers bounced off Jackie's new chandeliers. Yvette's lips puckered. How haphazard of us.

Marian poured tea. "So who else wrote something this week?"

"Not me." Jackie nudged me. "But Rhonda, back to your new long-lunch hottie. How big is his bat? Can I use him for my next hero? Pitcher, catcher, pirate or man about town?"

Yvette smiled up from my book. "Our little Rhonda's a pirate's treasure?"

I had to endure patronizing from Yvette now? "Look, there is no he." I looked to James for support, but the traitor was cozily reading my book over Yvette's shoulder. I narrowed my eyes at Jackie. "Hey. Has anyone tried the new George Bonner and Jackie Shawn Memorial Tollway yet?"

Grins all around.

I sighed. "Okay. Fine. My long lunches have all been spent in Sports of Call, looking for ska-sheets.”

Crap. I'd almost said
skates
. I was skirting disaster here. This group knew James played street hockey and roller hockey. What they didn’t know was that I had recently run across my old inline skates from high school, when Harley and I had practiced speed skating against my brothers, who had competed statewide. We’d been good. Now, I'd started doing some outdoor skating practice to fight flab, and it was a blast, just wicked fun. It would be even more fun when James and I went rollerblading at Venice Beach, my dream date. But Venice Beach was a drive. The roller rink was closer, so at Sports of Call, I'd just splurged on a gorgeous new pair of quad roller skates, which were slower but maneuvered better for indoor skating. If this bunch found out about my skating practice or my new skates, they'd kid both James and me to death and surely wreck my chances with him.

“Yeah, sheets,” I said, decisively.

"Sheets for
him
? Scarlet silk or black satin?" Jackie drawled, mistaking my blush for an admission of guilt.

"Us library nerds sleep on parchment," I said. "Uh. Care to read some pages, George?"

"Rhonda, you don't go to Sports of Call for sheets," Marian said.

I checked my watch. "Look, if no one else wrote anything new, I'll see ya." I rose and started to push past Jackie, who blocked my way.

"But you might go there to visit a boyfriend," Jackie trilled. "Is he that guy at the ski counter? Or a mountain climber? No. I know. A surfer. Smoking hot in a Speedo with washboard abs. With your lifesaving skills, Rhonda, you could administer CPR daily.”

George sang under his breath, "
Help me, Rhonda.”

Jackie chimed in. “
Help, help me …”

“
Rhonda!”
they all yelled at the tops of their lungs. My lips could have pressed pennies as the whole group broke into a bawdy Beach Boys cacophony, even James joining in, completely off-key. Only Yvette stayed mum, frown lines deepening in her forehead as she kept reading my magnum opus.

Oh, to hell with my short skirt. I hoisted a knee to crawl right over Jackie just as Yvette broke in, in piercing tones. "Excuse me! Sit down, Rhonda! This is exactly why this group needs a leader.”

The group ignored her, singing even louder.

Yvette yelled, "Has anyone read the new Reynard Jackson book,
Memory Wars
?"

Jackson was a reclusive genius who had rocketed to the bestseller list three years before, with four new titles out per year since then. His whereabouts were a state secret. His work was slick, predictable, shallow, uneven, and unaccountably beloved by millions of readers.

I sat down and squinched my eyes shut. If I didn't look at the group, maybe they'd all stop bawling at me to get her out of their hearts.

Over their cackles and bawls, Yvette shrilled, "People! This is disturbing. I read constantly for my job, but this is really bad." She pointed at my manuscript like it was rat droppings.

"Could we get a muzzle for her?" I said to Jackie, who elbowed me hard.

The room sullenly quieted down. This woman was such a wet blanket.

Yvette smiled in triumph. "You see, I've already read this exact story. Last week. In a published work. The chubby strawberry-blond main character here?" She held up my manuscript. "Well, Reynard Jackson's latest protagonist is a chubby strawberry-blond—"

"Oh, strawberry-blond characters are a dime a dozen," George said, still feeling his oats. "And Rhonda always writes 'em chubby … Takes one to know—Ouch!"

Marian of the steel-toed pumps smiled.

Yvette slammed my manuscript down on the table. "But wait. Jackson's strawberry-blonde neuroscientist, Dr. Amelia Steele, discovers a memory serum that will cure not only her great aunt's Alzheimer's, but also her handsome, shell-shocked army captain with amnesia who can only be saved by knowing the truth about his dark past.”

I looked up, my stomach sinking.

She went on. "Dr. Steele and Captain Russell Bonner work against an evil drug company, Sinbad Pharmaceuticals. It sells expensive anti-Alzheimer's drugs and will stop at nothing to keep Dr. Steele's permanent cure for the disease off the market. The heroes nearly get killed in the process of saving old people's memories everywhere.”

Silence in the room.

Jackie looked sick. "Oh, my God. If you change the names, that's Rhonda's book!"

A longer silence fell, during which my world tilted and a trap door opened under my feet.

"What the hell?" I yelled, shooting up from the table to challenge her. "What are you talking about?" Jackie put a hand on my arm, but I shook it off. "Ms. Winkler, this is just mean. You've said nothing but nasty things about everyone here all night."

Yvette looked stunned.

Marian said, "Ms. Winkler. We respect your ability as an editor, but you can't be right. We've watched Rhonda develop her plot and characters over several months.”

Yvette, leaning back toward James, said the unthinkable. "Since the beginning?"

Carb gluttony in the room had stopped. Sympathy? Or relief that it wasn't them? Horror stories of plagiarized manuscripts ran rife among writers.

I turned purple and grabbed Yvette's arm. "Where is this book? Let me see it!"

Jackie put her arms around my waist and pulled me off Yvette, who ran behind James and hid.

"Now calm down, Rhonda. When did Rhonda join us, Marian? Last summer?" George said.

"In December, right before James," I said, smoke curling out of my ears. Jackie kept hold of my skirt to keep me in check.

George frowned. "Yeah. Rhonda had her first draft done already, and I introduced her to my daughter's friend in neurobiology at UCI to help her with the science terms.”

"Stop talking about me in third person!" I yelled. "I'm not a baby. Show me this other book! NOW!"

Yvette shrugged. "I didn't buy it—I skimmed it in the bookstore."

Marian ventured, "Ms. Winkler. Rhonda's protagonists are
Lieutenant
Russ
Boone
and a
plump
redhead
, Dr.
Amanda
Steale,
who nearly get axed by
Eastern
Drugs.

Jackie added, "Whose
grandmother
is sick."

Yvette rolled her eyes. "Don't quibble. The two books are too close, although Mr. Jackson's version is, in my opinion, miles better written than yours. Put the same plot in more capable hands …"

I wrenched away from Jackie and launched myself at Yvette, but James caught me by the arms and pulled me into his lap, becoming my living straitjacket. In other circumstances, my body would have melted right into his like a cat in a cushion, but now I fought him in a blind panic, seeing only months of my hard work, my first winning series idea after years of trial and error, my soul-felt hope for a place in publishing, washed down the sewer in a freak flash flood.

"Hey," James tried for levity, while keeping a painful grip on my wrists. "Remember Rhonda's professor character named Dr. Robert Einstein who studied gravity? Bet he's not in Jackson's book.”

Through gritted teeth, I snarled at Yvette, "How could someone else publish a book that close to mine?"

"Nearly identical, but important differences," Yvette said. "Jackson's superior writing shines through, and his book is already climbing the bestseller list." She moved in front of me and gave me a hard look. "What I want to know is how
you
explain such glaring similarities in plot, dialogue and action between your book and Reynard's, including the ditzy strawberry blonde?"

"She's my best character yet!" I roared up from James's lap and Yvette skittered back against Jackie’s china cabinet. "And that's
my
book flying off the shelves!" My hands flew up and hit Jackie's chandelier
,
sending it spinning and the lights dancing. "Those are
my
fans! He's getting
my
big shot!"

The air thickened and grayed as James stood and blocked me from getting at Yvette.

"Great minds think alike," Jackie finally said. "They say there are only so many good plots in the world, and we're bound to repeat them. You can still publish it with another—"

Yvette said from the corner, "Not that thing," and she pointed at my leprous manuscript. "It looks like one of Reynard's early drafts. No editor or agent will buy it as original material."

Heat blazed up my face and I pounded the table. "You think I stole
my own
book," Pound, pound, pound.
"From Reynard Jackson? How could I have managed that if his book just came out? This group just said—"

Yvette shrugged. "You've only been with them a few months. You joined with a manuscript. Which you could have updated monthly from someone else's hacked computer. Hackers can do amazing things these days.”

The air got positively viscous. I could hardly breathe.

"Bull hockey!" James slammed his own fist on the table with a wide grin. "Rhonda's impossibly inept with computers. I should know. I've fixed hers enough times. So let's just squelch that whole idea from the start.”

My hero.

Yvette said to him, "Do you have her backup disk with all the drafts on it to convince me it's hers?"

"Convince
YOU
?" I bellowed.

Everyone froze as wisps of smoke coiled off my head. They'd all seen my worn-out punching bag at home. I seethed, itching to really bump that pink sweater past the coach's bench into eternity.

My cell phone vibrated in my purse.

After a long moment, I hissed, "Not that it's your business, but my computer crashed in September and soon after, I lost my backup flash drive." I snagged the purse and squeezed past Jackie out the door, glad of a reason for escape.

My father's voice answered as I stomped around Jackie's front yard under a starless sky. "Rhonda? Been trying to find you all day. Had to call your sister in Australia for your phone number. Your mother's in the hospital."

I stopped. "Dad, why? What happened?" My stomach, already tensed up like a basketball, started pounding down court.

"She's at UCI Medical Center. You gotta come help me, Rhonda."

"But what happened, Dad? Dad? Dad?"

The phone went dead and echoes of that stupid song rang in my head.

"Should we call anyone else?" James asked, weaving his Toyota Corolla through traffic between Jackie's house in downtown Orange and the hospital. He had insisted on driving so I could frantically dial my cell phone.

"I'm not sure." I gulped air and finally reached the hospital receptionist, who said Mom was in a regular room, not the ICU. Good. I asked to be connected to her room phone, and the line was busy. Better. My mental pictures of Mom comatose and white changed to pictures of Mom chatting on the phone with a bandaged appendage. I held for the floor nurse.

We turned a corner fast, and there was a gasp behind me. Yvette. Her ride was late. Jackie had gone to Dad's house on Acorn Street in Anaheim to check if Dad was still there, and Marian's fancy new red Corvette held only her and George. So the deluded, insectoid editor now cowered in James's back seat, making little strangled noises every time the car careened around a turn. Now that I knew Mom wasn't dying, I considered asking James to stop at a bookstore on the way to the hospital to prove Yvette wrong about my book. But it could probably wait a day. My mother needed me. So I pretended Yvette was a large pink bug back there and enjoyed her unease.

The hospital receptionist told me the nurse was busy. I should call back in a few minutes.

"Did you call your sister?" James said.

"Monica's off scuba-diving in Australia." I chewed a fingernail. My older sister had left the country a month before to live in Australia with her oceanographer husband and two small children. "She left me her new cell phone, with four messages on it that I have no idea how to retrieve. I need her password." I redialed my parents' house in Anaheim. No answer.