When I first discovered romances, I was embarrassed by the obvious suggestions of sex on the cover, and of course by the graphic depictions inside. Like any teenager, I didn’t want my parents to know that I knew anything about the subject, and sneaked my reads only when they surely wouldn’t see. But by the time I was about seventeen, maybe a junior or senior in high school, I’d come out of the closet. I’d accompanied my dad to a local bookstore to pick up a special order he’d placed, and when it came time for him to pay, I slid a copy of Her Royal Bodyguard onto the counter, casually murmuring, ‘I didn’t bring my wallet. Can you buy this now and I’ll pay you back when we get home?’
He’d picked it up and held it between two fingers as though it were roadkill. The expression on his face indicated he found it about as appetizing. A moment later, he laughed. ‘Bettina, come now. Put this awful thing back wherever you found it and select something worthwhile. I promised your mother we’d be home in twenty minutes – we don’t have time to play around anymore.’
I persisted and he bought the book, if only to leave the store as soon as possible. When he mentioned my purchase at the dinner table that night, he sounded confused. ‘You don’t actually read those things, do you?’ he asked, his face scrunched up as though he was trying to understand.
‘Yes,’ I said simply, my voice not revealing the embarrassment I felt.
My mother dropped her fork and it clattered on the plate. ‘You do not.’ It sounded like she hoped it would be true if she stated it forcefully enough. ‘You can’t possibly.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ I sang in a halfhearted attempt to lighten the mood. ‘And so do fifty million other people, Mom. They’re relaxing and interesting. I mean, there’s agony, ecstasy, and a happy ending – who could ask for more?’ I knew all the facts and figures, and there was no denying they were impressive. The two thousand romances published each year create a $1.5 billion industry. Two-fifths of American women buy at least one romance a year. More than one-third of all popular fiction sold each year are romances. A Shakespearean scholar (and Columbia professor) had recently admitted she’d authored dozens of romances. Why should I be ashamed?
What I didn’t tell my parents then – or explain to Will or Simon now – was how much I loved romances. Escape was part of it, of course, but life wasn’t so miserable that I had to revert to a fantasy world. It was inspirational to read about two gorgeous people who overcame all obstacles to be together, who loved each other so much that they always found a way to make it work. The sex scenes were a bonus, but more than that, the books always ended happily, offering such optimism that I couldn’t keep myself from starting another immediately. They were predictable, dependable, entertaining, and most of all, they depicted love affairs that I could not deny – no matter how much feminism or political correctness or women’s empowerment my parents could throw at me – I desperately wanted more than anything in the world. I was conditioned to compare every single date in my life to The Ideal. I couldn’t help it. I wanted the fairy tale. Which, needless to say, does not describe Cameron, or most New York liaisons between men and women. But I wouldn’t stop hoping – not yet.
Was I about to explain this to Simon? Clearly not. Which is why I laughed and made some self-deprecating remark like ‘I just can’t handle the real stuff’ whenever someone asked why I read the books.
‘Oh, whatever.’ I laughed lightly, not making eye contact with Will or Simon. ‘It’s a silly little thing I got into as a kid and haven’t quite given up yet.’
Will found this understatement particularly hysterical. ‘Silly little thing? Bette, darling, you belong to a book club whose sole mission is to examine and more deeply appreciate your selected genre?’ he howled.
This much was true. Until the book group, no one in my life had understood. Not my parents, my uncle, my friends in high school or college. Penelope merely shook her head every time she spotted one in my apartment (which, by the way, wasn’t hard, considering I had over four hundred of them stashed in boxes, closets, under-bed bins, and occasionally – when the cover wasn’t too embarrassing – on shelves). I knew the facts said that whole armies of women read them, but it was only two years ago that I’d met Courtney at a midtown Barnes & Noble. I’d just left work and was reaching for a romance from the circular wire rack when I heard a girl’s voice behind me.
‘You’re not alone, you know,’ it said.
I’d turned around to see a pretty girl about my age with a heart-shaped face and naturally pink lips. She looked like a china doll with ringlets reminiscent of Nelly’s from Little House on the Prairie, and her other features were so delicate they looked like they might crack at any moment.
‘Excuse me? Are you talking to me?’ I asked, quickly covering my copy of Every Woman’s Fantasy with an oversized English-Greek dictionary that resided nearby.
She nodded and moved in closer to whisper, ‘I’m just saying, you don’t have to be embarrassed any longer. There are others.’
‘Who said I’m embarrassed?’ I asked.
She peered down at my now-shielded book and raised an eyebrow. ‘Look, my name’s Courtney and I’m hooked on them, too. I’ve got a college degree and a real job and I’m not afraid to admit that I love these goddamn books. There’s a whole group of us, you know. We meet once or twice a month to talk about them, have a few drinks, convince each other that it’s okay to do what we do. It’s part book club and part therapy session.’ She rooted through her Tod’s shoulder bag and found a crumpled receipt. She uncapped a Montblanc pen with her teeth and scrawled an address in SoHo and an email address.
‘Our next meeting is this Monday night. Come. I’ve included my email address if you have any questions, but there’s not much to know. We’re reading this’ – she discreetly flashed a copy of Who Wants to Marry a Heartthrob? – ‘and we’d love to have you.’
Perhaps it’s a sign of true addiction that I actually showed up at a stranger’s apartment a week later. I soon learned that Courtney had been right. Each of the other girls was smart and cool and interesting in her own way, and each loved romances. Except for one set of twin sisters, none of the women were friends or colleagues from the outside; all had stumbled upon the group in much the same way I had. I was surprised and somewhat delighted to see that I was the only one who was out about my habit: not one of the other girls had yet revealed to husbands or girlfriends or parents the real content of their book club. In the two years since I’d joined, only one had admitted her reading preferences to her boyfriend. The ridicule she endured from him was life-changing; she eventually broke up with him after realizing that no man who truly loved her (like a hero in a romance novel, it was implied) could ever mock her so mercilessly for something she enjoyed. We’d seen each other through new jobs and weddings and even one lawsuit, yet if we’d run into one another on the street or at a party, there’d be nothing more than a curt hello and a knowing look. After missing last week’s meeting, I’d been looking forward to tonight’s session all week, and I was not about to let Will ruin it for me.
Simon, Will, and I piled immediately into a car, but when we pulled up to the restaurant at Eighty-eighth and Second, we were clearly not the first to arrive.
‘Brace yourselves!’ Simon managed to hiss just before Elaine waddled over.
‘You’re late!’ she barked, pointing to the back room, where a few people had gathered. ‘Go deal with your people, I’ll bring you back your drinks.’
I followed them to the back room of the casual but legendary restaurant and looked around. Books covered every square patch of wall space and competed only with framed and autographed photographs of what seemed like every author who’d published in the twentieth century. The woody and familiar ambience might just feel like a regular neighborhood joint had I not been able to recognize the handful of people who’d already clustered around the table set for twenty: Alan Dershowitz, Tina Brown, Tucker Carlson, Dominick Dunne, and Barbara Walters. A waitress handed me a premixed di
rty martini and I began slurping at it immediately, downing the last drop just as the table filled completely with an eclectic group culled primarily from the media and politics.
Will was offering a toast for Charlie Rose, whose new book we were all gathered to celebrate, when the only other woman under forty leaned over and said, ‘How’d you get roped into this one?’
‘Niece of Will, given no choice.’
She laughed softly and placed her hand on my lap, which made me very nervous until I realized she was trying to discreetly shake my hand. ‘I’m Kelly. I put together this little dinner party for your uncle, so I guess I’m sort of obligated to be here, too.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I whispered back. ‘I’m Bette. I was just sitting at their apartment earlier and somehow ended up here. It seems like a very nice dinner, though.’
‘Honestly? Not really my scene, either, but I think it works for your uncle’s purpose. Good group of people, everyone who RSVP’d actually showed – which never happens – and Elaine held up everything on her end, as usual. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the outcome. Now if we can just keep them all from getting too drunk, I’ll say the evening was perfection.’
The group quickly polished off the first round of cocktails and was now tucking in to the salads that had appeared before them. ‘When you say you “put this on,” what does that mean, exactly?’ I asked more out of an effort to just say something rather than any genuine interest, but Kelly didn’t seem to notice.
‘I own a PR company,’ she said, sipping a glass of white wine. ‘We represent all sorts of clients – restaurants, hotels, boutiques, record labels, movie studios, individual celebrities – and we do what we can to increase their profile through media placements, product launches, stuff like that.’
‘And tonight? Who do you represent here? Will? I didn’t know he had a PR person.’
‘No, tonight I was hired by Charlie’s publisher to put together a dinner of media elites, those journalists who are recognizable in their own right. The publisher has internal PR people, of course, but they don’t always have the connections to put on something this specialized. That’s where I come in.’
‘Got it. So how do you know all these people?’
She just laughed. ‘I have an office full of people whose job it is to know everyone worth knowing. Thirty-five thousand names, actually, and we can get in touch with any one of them at any time. It’s what we do. Speaking of which, what do you do?’
Thankfully, before I could piece together some appropriate white lie, Elaine discreetly beckoned for Kelly from the doorway, and she scooted out of her chair and strolled to the front room. I turned my attention to Simon, who was seated on my left, before noticing that a photographer was subtly snapping photos without a flash from a crouching position in the corner.
I remembered the first media dinner Will had dragged me to, when I was fourteen and visiting from Poughkeepsie. We’d been at Elaine’s that night, too, also for a book party, and I’d asked Simon, ‘Is it weird that there’s someone taking pictures of us eating dinner?’
He’d chuckled. ‘Of course not, dear, that’s precisely why we’re all here. If there’s no photo in the party pages, did the party really happen? You can’t pay to get the kind of press he and his book will receive from tonight. That photographer is from New York magazine, if I remember correctly, and as soon as he leaves, another one will slip right in. At least, everyone hopes so.’
Will had begun teaching me that night how to talk to people. The key was to remember that no one cares what you do or think, so sit down and immediately begin asking questions to the person on your right. Ask anything, feign some sort of interest, and follow up any awkward silences with more questions about them. After years of instruction and practice I could manage a conversation with just about anyone, but I didn’t enjoy it that night any more than I had as a teenager, so I said my good-byes and ducked out after the salad course.
The book club meeting was at Alex’s apartment in the East Village. I jumped on the 6 train and scrolled through my iPod playlist until settling on ‘In My Dreams’ by REO Speedwagon. When I got off the train at Astor Place a very petite woman who resembled a school librarian literally body-checked me. I apologized for my role in the incident (being there) with a sincere ‘Excuse me,’ at which point she whipped around with the most contorted, demon-like face and screamed, ‘EXCUSE ME? MAYBE THAT WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU WALKED ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE SIDEWALK!’ and then walked away muttering profanities. Obviously she could use a few hours with The Very Bad Boy, I thought.
When I had walked the long six avenues east, I rang the bell at Alex’s building on Avenue C and began the dreadful climb. She claimed her studio was a sixth-floor walk-up, but considering a Chinese laundry occupied the ground floor and the numbers didn’t begin for one full flight up, it was technically seven floors off the ground. She was your stereotypical East Village artiste, with head-to-toe black clothes, ever-changing hair color, and a small facial piercing that appeared to rotate regularly from lip to nose to brow. An East Village artiste with a passionate dedication to romantic fiction for women. She obviously had the most to lose if any of her peers found out – a sort of artistic street cred, if you will – and so we all agreed to tell her neighbors, if asked, that we were there for a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting. ‘You’re more comfortable telling them you’re a sex addict than a romance reader?’ I’d asked when she’d given us the instructions. ‘Clearly!’ she’d answered without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Addiction is cool. All creative people are addicted to something.’ And so we did as she wished.
She looked more punk than usual in a pair of rocker-chic leather pants and a classic faded CBGB T-shirt. She handed me a rum and Coke and I sat on her bed and watched her apply another six or so coats of mascara while we waited for the others. Janie and Jill were the first to arrive. They were fraternal twins in their early thirties; Jill was still in school, getting some sort of advanced degree in architecture, and Janie worked for an advertising agency. They’d fallen in love with Harlequins as little girls, when they would sneak-read their mom’s copies under the covers at night. Following closely behind them was Courtney, my original link to the group and an associate editor at Teen People who not only read every romance novel ever written but who just so happened to enjoy writing them as well; and finally, Vika, a half-Swedish, half-French import with an adorable accent and a coveted job as a kindergarten teacher at an Upper East Side private school. We were clearly a motley crew.
‘Anyone have any news before we dive in?’ Jill asked as the rest of us slurped down our drinks as swiftly as the syrupy-sweet liquid would allow. She always took charge and tried to keep us on track, an utterly useless gesture considering our meetings more closely resembled group therapy than any sort of literary exploration.
‘I quit my job,’ I announced merrily, holding up my red plastic Solo cup.
‘Cheers!’ they all called while clinking cups.
‘It’s about time you left that nightmare,’ Janie said.
Vika agreed. ‘Yes, yes, your boss will not be missed, of this I am sure?’ she asked in her sweet but odd accent.
‘No, that’s for sure, I won’t be missing Aaron.’
Courtney poured her second drink in ten minutes and said, ‘Yeah, but what are we going to do for a quote of the day now? Can someone forward them to you?’
At the second meeting I’d attended, I’d begun sharing the joy and wisdom of Aaron’s inspirational quotes with the entire group. After introductory remarks, I’d read the best one from the previous few weeks and we’d all crack up. Lately, the girls had begun coming prepared with their own anti-quotes, nasty or sarcastic or mean-spirited little epigrams that I might take back to the office and share with Aaron, if I were so inclined.
‘Which reminds me,’ I announced grandly, pulling a printout from my bag, ‘I received this one a mere three days before I left, and it’s one of my all-time favorites. It
says, “Teamwork: Simply stated, it is less me and more we.” That, my friends, is insightful.’
‘Wow.’ Janie sighed. ‘Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely going to try to figure out how to have less me and more we in my life.’
‘Me, too,’ said Alex. ‘That goes nicely with a little quote I recently stumbled upon. It’s from our friend Gore Vidal. “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”’
We all laughed until Janie interrupted with a rather shocking announcement. ‘Speaking of bosses … I, uh, I had an incident with mine.’
‘An incident?’ Jill asked. ‘You didn’t tell me anything!’
‘Well, it just happened last night. You were asleep when I got home, and I’m only seeing you for the first time now.’
‘I’d like you to explain the “incident,” please,’ Vika said with raised eyebrows.
‘We, uh, sort of hooked up,’ she said with a coy smile.
‘What?’ Jill was shrieking at this point, staring at her sister with a combination of horror and delight. ‘What happened?’
‘Well, he asked if I wanted to grab dinner after we pitched a new potential client. We went for sushi and then drinks. …’
‘And then?’ I prompted.
‘And then more drinks, and then the next thing I know, I’m naked on his couch.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Jill began to rock back and forth.
Janie looked at her. ‘Why are you so upset? It’s not such a big deal.’
‘Well, I just don’t think it’s going to do great things for your career,’ she replied.
‘Well then, you obviously don’t know how talented I can be in some areas, do you?’ Janie smiled wickedly.
‘Did you sleep with him?’ Alex asked. ‘Please say yes. That would really make my whole night. Investment banker Bette up and quits her job with no backup plan and you screw your boss? I’d feel like I was finally starting to have some influence around here.’