Saturday's Series Spotlight: Draig by Lisa Dawn Wadler

Author: Lisa Dawn Wadler

Series: Draig #1-2

Genre: Time Travel Romance

Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing

The Draig's Woman #1
Summary:

Rescuing the man tied to a tree seemed like a rational decision. Claire is a smart, capable bookkeeper who happens to work at a martial arts academy. She has no idea the door she walked through to save the bound man would leave her trapped in 13th century Scotland. She is unable to regret the night of passion shared with Ian, even though it happened with the threat of death just outside the door. She pretends to be content with Ian’s friendship, knowing his people must come first. Compelled by honor and tormented by desire, is being his woman, while he marries another, enough?

Ian, Laird of the Draig Clan, is a man trapped by fate. Forced by necessity to marry a woman he has never met, her dowry is essential to save his clan. However, he is in love with the woman who saved his life and then spent one night in his arms. Duty prevents Ian from being able to marry Claire as custom, honor, and his heart demand. Drawn to her, believing they share the same desires and dreams in life, he finally offers her the only option available, a place by his side and in his bed.

Claire and Ian are bound together in love and then ripped apart by deception and a plot to destroy the Draig clan. Facing the final battle alone and unarmed, Claire saves them all. The ultimate challenge is forgiving Ian for sending her away.

Time of the Draig #2

Summary:

In an attempt to save the world from destruction, physicist Major Samantha Sykes opens a door in time. Her plan to travel into the past to change the future has unexpected consequences. Trapped in 11th century Scotland, her mission is complicated by the love she never knew she was seeking.

Laird Faolan of the Draig clan has one desire: to claim the woman who fell through time and make her his. He will do everything in his power to convince Samantha that she belongs with him for all time.

Opening the door in time brings Samantha and Faolan together. Fate, destiny, and responsibility are at odds. The forces that brought them together may be their undoing.

Will their love survive Samantha’s journey back to her world to save time, or will the centuries that stretch between them tear them apart?

The Draig's Woman #1

Claire closed her eyes. “No, Ian.” Scooting back away from him, she sat up, forcing his body to give her space as her shaking hands tried to put her gown in order. “We should have never . . . this should have never happened. I need to go.” She rose to her feet only to nd him blocking her way. He wrapped his arms around her.

Ian spoke with the passion burning within in him. “Please, Claire, hear me. There is a way. You and I were meant to be together. Dinna deny that you feel it, too. ‘Tis nay only passion that binds us, it runs far deeper for us both.”

Not wanting to hear what he had to say, yet unable to move away, her head rested against Ian’s chest. Claire pleaded with him. “Please don’t do this. We both know what you need to do.”

Holding her tightly, Ian responded, “Aye, we do. But we can still be together.” Claire stiffened at the words. “Hear me before you assume. There are many in my position that have wed solely for gain. These men have done as needed, as I will do. Yet they have also kept what they wished to have, the woman who stirs their heart. I am trying to ask you to be this, the woman who is with me because of the love between us. We can build a life this way. It would be us together every day and every night. You would be mine.”

Ian’s words were barely spoken before Claire pushed him away. “You are asking me to be your . . . your . . .?”

Ian retorted quickly, “Dinna speak the word you reach for. It would never be that way between us.” His hands reached for her but were left with only air.

Backing away from his reach, she knew what he meant. Claire also knew that it was wrong in so many ways. How does he not see it? How does he not see the root of it? A strange yet welcome feeling of calm passed over her as she saw what Ian was missing. She willed herself to speak. “You don’t get it do you?”

Ian tried to close the gap between them only to have Claire back away. Ian stopped moving. “What I see is a way for us to be together.”

Claire laughed even as the tears began to fall. “You’ve never ever met her, this Mairi. What if . . . Ian? What if she is someone you could be happy with? You don’t even know.”

“It does nay matter who she is or what she offers, ‘tis obligation and no more.” Ian replied as his gaze searched her face.

She heard her voice from so far away. “But you don’t know. It could be a good marriage. I will not be in the middle of something that could be.” Claire’s sobs clouded her words. “I can’t take that risk, and I won’t. If you could be happy, I would only be in the way. Eventually things between us would change.”

Ian stepped closer. “Claire, she will never be you. You are everything to me. Dinna you see? In all ways I treat you as my own. You sit at my right at every meal. ‘Tis my dagger you use to cut your meat, the dagger that marks me as laird. ‘Tis your company I seek each day and every night. You wear the best I have to offer. I heed your council in all matters. We spend our evenings together before the re sharing and enjoying one another. I love you, Claire, and I ken that you love me.”

“And somehow that isn’t enough.” With all of the pain and anguish carried in her, Claire cried out, “It would kill me, Ian. She is going to be your wife. I know full well she will give you a family, the heirs you need. It would kill me to be waiting for you, knowing you were with her. Even if you despise her, it would tear me up inside.” Ian’s brow wrinkled as he absorbed her words, and she saw her meaning take hold. “I’m not that person, Ian. I can’t be that person. And if you love me, you won’t ask me to live like that.” Not waiting for more, afraid he would try to change her mind and that she would let him, Claire grabbed her skirts in hand and finally ran.

Time of the Draig #2

Faolan turned in the chair before the fire and stared at her with cold, dark eyes. Even bathed only in shadows from the fire, she could see that the warm chocolate gaze she remembered from the afternoon had been replaced by hurt and anger. Like a coward, she looked away and noticed the flames from the fire. The logs held the same pattern as the ones that burned in her hearth. Even hurt, he had left her the gift and made sure she was comfortable.

Samantha closed the door without facing the exit. Her hand held out the branch. “I wanted to thank you for this and for every other item you left on my pillow. It was only tonight I realized they were from you.” She stumbled through an apology. “Every single one made me smile.”

Still Faolan only stared, so she continued, “You left the hall today before I was finished. While it’s true that the safety of the men has to come first, that had no bearing on what almost happened between you and me. There is no way I would or could ever think about, I mean I wouldn’t . . . From the moment we rode onto your lands, my men have been safe. I’ve known that. So you and I have had nothing to do with them.”

Faolan looked away from her, and Samantha saw the dagger in his hands. Not held in threat, but his concentration seemed focused on the metal. He nally spoke while his hands toyed with the weapon. “What would have happened earlier if we had nay been disturbed?”

Samantha felt the sadness in her voice for what had been lost. “We would have had a perfect afternoon.”

Faolan rose to his feet and placed the dagger on the table. While he made no move to walk, he turned to face her. “I would have claimed you as my own. I would have kept you in that meadow until you agreed to enter my gates as my wife.”

“Then we would be there arguing, which ends the idea of a perfect afternoon.”

Her humor had no place in the confrontation, and she knew it as soon as the comment left her mouth. Faolan marched to stand in front of her. “Why is it more preferable for me to use you for quick pleasure than to ask you to stand by my side for all time?” He demanded.

The eyes that glared held no warmth and threatened to pierce the little control she still had. Boomer was right; Faolan deserved the truth, and she hated it.

Her hand reached up to touch his face, and Faolan stepped backward out of her reach. Tears pricked at the rejection. She mustered her courage. “I don’t have all of time to offer you.” Samantha told him everything she had explained to Boomer and finished with, “There is virtually no probability that I will return.”

The withheld tears fell when horror crossed his features. In the last few days, she had cried more than she had in the last five years. The emotions brought to the surface by involvement in life brought joy and pain. Unfortunately, the night before her would bring the strongest pain. Love had no place in her limited time, and she knew it.

“You are amazing and wonderful, and if I could be with you, I would without any hesitation. I can’t do that to you. Find a woman who will be here and love her.” Her words choked on a sob. “I know that your family is essential to making the future better. Continue this line and know that I wished I could have been here with you.”

Samantha wiped the tears with the sleeve of her gown, though more fell to take the place of ones erased. She added, “I’m close to finding my way back. I can feel it.” She paused to clear her throat. “In the morning, I’ll start to finish what I began five years ago. I only ask that the men can stay here if they choose. Only Boomer comes with me.”

Without a word, Faolan closed the short distance and pulled Samantha hard against his chest. Her face buried in the warmth of his chest as she cried and let out the anguish of goodbye. His hand held her braid while the other soothed her back, and she savored the last embrace.

When her sobs slowed, Faolan said, “I go with you.”

Her head shook. “You missed the part where your line needs to continue, and that means you stay here.” She left out that there was no way she would bring him into the misery left in her time.

The deep inhale could be felt as could the resignation at the exhale, and Faolan didn’t argue. When he spoke, he offered, “Your men are home here.”

“I know,” she whispered against his chest.

Samantha offered no resistance when he lifted her chin and shifted her body to find her eyes. “While you said a great many things, I dinna hear the word impossible.”

“Please don’t.” At his sweet thought, another tear fell.

His lips brushed her forehead, and he replied, “Spend the last of your days as my wife.”

She closed her eyes at the request. Samantha whispered, “Then what? How long will you wait for me to return when you know I won’t? I can’t do that to you.”

Faolan’s thumb wiped the moisture from her cheek. “Then I vow nay to wait.”

Against her wishes, the chuckle left her throat. She opened her eyes and found warm ones on her. Samantha said, “It’s probably for the best if I say goodbye.”

Samantha knew it would happen. Faolan lifted her face enough to place his lips against hers. Every brush sent tingles through her body. As his tongue sought entry, she complied. It began soft and sweet and carried an air of innocence. Then he demanded more as he pulled her body against his and kissed her with no control.

Faolan pulled away abruptly, he whispered, “Give me this night.”

The smile broke free on her face. It shouldn’t have surprised her that goodbye didn’t work. Samantha placed her hands on his cheeks and felt the soft stubble that graced his face at the end of each day. Her rational mind knew it would only make leaving harder. Yet the side of her Faolan had brought to life wanted him, wanted to know what it felt like to be loved by such an amazing man. She nodded. “Just now, Faolan. It’s all I have to offer you.”

Author Bio:

Lisa began writing after reading yet another romance novel where the heroine needed a man to rescue her from physical harm. While a firm believer in the strong alpha-male hero in any story, she wondered what would happen if that hero met a woman who was able to take care of herself physically. Using her several years of Tae Kwon Do training and mixing in time travel, her multi-award winning debut novel, The Draig Series was born.

Lisa lives in the Chicago suburbs and is married to her high school sweetheart. They have two children and one very spoiled dog.

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The Draig's Woman #1

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Time of the Draig #2

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Friday's Film Adaption: Picadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse

Summary:
The fall brings four more antic novels from comic genius, P. G. Wodehouse. In Picadilly Jim (soon to be a major motion picture), Jimmy Crocker has a scandalous reputation on both sides of the Atlantic and must do an about-face to win back the woman of his dreams. Uneasy Money sees the hard-up Lord Dawlish off to America to make a fortune, while in Cocktail Time events turn on the fate of a filmscript. Spring Fever is a light-hearted comedy involving love and various complications.

The residence of Mr. Peter Pett, the well-known financier, on Riverside Drive is one of the leading eyesores of that breezy and expensive boulevard. As you pass by in your limousine, or while enjoying ten cents worth of fresh air on top of a green omnibus, it jumps out and bites at you. Architects, confronted with it, reel and throw up their hands defensively, and even the lay observer has a sense of shock. The place resembles in almost equal proportions a cathedral, a suburban villa, a hotel and a Chinese pagoda. Many of its windows are of stained glass, and above the porch stand two terra-cotta lions, considerably more repulsive even than the complacent animals which guard New York’s Public Library. It is a house which is impossible to overlook: and it was probably for this reason that Mrs. Pett insisted on her husband buying it, for she was a woman who liked to be noticed.

Through the rich interior of this mansion Mr. Pett, its nominal proprietor, was wandering like a lost spirit. The hour was about ten of a fine Sunday morning, but the Sabbath calm which was upon the house had not communicated itself to him. There was a look of exasperation on his usually patient face, and a muttered oath, picked up no doubt on the godless Stock Exchange, escaped his lips.

“Darn it!”

He was afflicted by a sense of the pathos of his position. It was not as if he demanded much from life. He asked but little here below. At that moment all that he wanted was a quiet spot where he might read his Sunday paper in solitary peace, and he could not find one. Intruders lurked behind every door. The place was congested.

This sort of thing had been growing worse and worse ever since his marriage two years previously. There was a strong literary virus in Mrs. Pett’s system. She not only wrote voluminously herself–the name Nesta Ford Pett is familiar to all lovers of sensational fiction–but aimed at maintaining a salon. Starting, in pursuance of this aim, with a single specimen,–her nephew, Willie Partridge, who was working on a new explosive which would eventually revolutionise war–she had gradually added to her collections, until now she gave shelter beneath her terra-cotta roof to no fewer than six young and unrecognised geniuses. Six brilliant youths, mostly novelists who had not yet started and poets who were about to begin, cluttered up Mr. Pett’s rooms on this fair June morning, while he, clutching his Sunday paper, wandered about, finding, like the dove in Genesis, no rest. It was at such times that he was almost inclined to envy his wife’s first husband, a business friend of his named Elmer Ford, who had perished suddenly of an apoplectic seizure: and the pity which he generally felt for the deceased tended to shift its focus.

Marriage had certainly complicated life for Mr. Pett, as it frequently does for the man who waits fifty years before trying it. In addition to the geniuses, Mrs. Pett had brought with her to her new home her only son, Ogden, a fourteen-year-old boy of a singularly unloveable type. Years of grown-up society and the absence of anything approaching discipline had given him a precocity on which the earnest efforts of a series of private tutors had expended themselves in vain. They came, full of optimism and self-confidence, to retire after a brief interval, shattered by the boy’s stodgy resistance to education in any form or shape. To Mr. Pett, never at his ease with boys, Ogden Ford was a constant irritant. He disliked his stepson’s personality, and he more than suspected him of stealing his cigarettes. It was an additional annoyance that he was fully aware of the impossibility of ever catching him at it.

Mr. Pett resumed his journey. He had interrupted it for a moment to listen at the door of the morning-room, but, a remark in a high tenor voice about the essential Christianity of the poet Shelley filtering through the oak, he had moved on.

Silence from behind another door farther down the passage encouraged him to place his fingers on the handle, but a crashing chord from an unseen piano made him remove them swiftly. He roamed on, and a few minutes later the process of elimination had brought him to what was technically his own private library–a large, soothing room full of old books, of which his father had been a great collector. Mr. Pett did not read old books himself, but he liked to be among them, and it is proof of his pessimism that he had not tried the library first. To his depressed mind it had seemed hardly possible that there could be nobody there.

He stood outside the door, listening tensely. He could hear nothing. He went in, and for an instant experienced that ecstatic thrill which only comes to elderly gentlemen of solitary habit who in a house full of their juniors find themselves alone at last. Then a voice spoke, shattering his dream of solitude.

Film
A cartoonist pokes fun at his widowed father's future in-laws.

Release Date: August 14, 1936
Release Time: 95 minutes

Cast:
Robert Montgomery as James 'Piccadilly Jim' Crocker, Jr.
Frank Morgan as James Crocker/Count Olav Osric
Madge Evans as Ann Chester
Eric Blore as Bayliss
Robert Benchley as Bill Macon
Billie Burke as Eugenia Willis
Ralph Forbes as Lord Frederick 'Freddie' Priory
Cora Witherspoon as Nesta Pett
Aileen Pringle as Paducah Pomeroy
Grant Mitchell as Herbert Pett

Author Bio:
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by modern writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song "Bill" in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin - Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

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Release Day Blitz: Alpha Tango by EM Denning

Title: Alpha Tango

Author: EM Denning

Series: Studio Collection #1

Genre: Erotic Romance

Release Date: August 26, 2016

Publisher: Paper Gold Publishing

Summary:

Kevin promised his sister to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. This wouldn’t be so bad, but she’s also making him dance with her. There’s only one problem—Kevin can’t dance.

Determined to have the perfect day, Kevin’s sister signs him up for dancing lessons. His instructor, Ginger, thinks he bit off more than he could chew and offers him some private instruction after class. As his sister’s wedding approaches and his lessons come to an end, he soon learns the benefit of following Ginger’s lead.

“You’re late.” She looked around him, as if she were searching for someone. “And you have no partner.” Her words were clipped.

“I’m sorry.” Kevin found himself stumbling over the words. He crossed his arms in front of himself. “I’ll just stand over here and watch.” He took a step back but Ginger grabbed him by the arm and led him to the middle of the floor.

“Follow my lead,” Ginger said as she placed one of his hands on her shoulder and the other on her lower back. Her emerald eyes flashed him a stern look. “And try not to step on my toes. These shoes are new and expensive.”

“I’m new at this,” he admitted. His annoyance gave his voice a hard edge. “So don’t expect miracles.”

“Don’t worry, I keep my expectations low when it comes to first timers.” Ginger took a step and Kevin immediately stomped on her foot. Her gaze flashed down to the scuff on her shoe, then up to his face. She took note of his cocky smirk and matched it with one of her own. “Okay, hot shot, you lead.”

Kevin froze. His hesitation didn’t go unnoticed.

“That’s what I thought.” Ginger squared her shoulders. “Now, follow me. Once you get the hang of the basics, you can lead.”

If Kevin were to write a list of the most horrible experiences of his life, ballroom dancing would have almost made it on there. The only thing stopping him from walking out of the studio and telling Camille to shove it was Ginger. She was all smiles and laughter, even when he stomped on her toes and scuffed her new shoes. Even though he never got the hang of the basics and ended up following her for the entire lesson, he loved touching her. She was light and agile, so fast on her feet. She reminded him of a ray of light, the way he could feel her warmth on his skin.

Kevin stuck around at the end of the lesson. He leaned against the wall and watched the other dancers filter out. Some stopped to pat him on the shoulder and tell him he did well. Others were honest and told him he’d eventually get the hang of it.

After Ginger had said goodbye to the last pair, she turned and eyed Kevin.

“So what brings you here anyway?”

“What?” Kevin grinned. “Can’t a guy broaden his horizons?”

“A guy like you?” Her gaze raked over his body and he bristled at her words.

A guy like him. What was that supposed to mean?

“There has to be a girl involved. Someone’s making you come here. Fiancée?”

Kevin laughed and shook his head. The thought of him with a fiancée made him both cringe and laugh. He’d dated a lot of women, called only a handful his girlfriend and had met exactly no one he’d want to spend anything resembling eternity with. “My sister is getting married. She’s making me dance with her at her reception.”

“At her wedding reception?” Ginger’s face melted into a look of concern. “When’s the wedding?”

“Six weeks.”

Ginger cringed. “No offence, Kevin, but I think you’re doomed.”

Author Bio:

E. M. Denning is a writer from British Columbia. She loves her family and her animals and anything cute and fuzzy. She was born a hopeless romantic and when she’s not writing romance, she’s probably reading it. She loves love.

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Dream Junkies by Anne-Marie Yerks

Title: Dream Junkies

Author: Anne-Marie Yerks

Genre: Adult Contemporary

Release Date: August 8, 2016

Summary:
Actresses in a Chicago comedy troupe, Daphne Corbett and Kristin Brewer share a stage as Jean and Jeanette, a pair of dim-witted legal secretaries upstaging the show’s headliners. When their performance attracts an ambitious entertainment agent from Manhattan, the girls move to New York with hopes of stardom and success. But the search for apartments and showbiz jobs takes them in different directions.

The shared journey leads them to understand that dreams are worth only as much as the struggle to achieve them and that the hardest part to play is yourself.

The Last Night
The Saturday before she left for New York, Daphne Corbett wrote her ex-boyfriend’s address on a Post-it note and boarded the Pink Line train to West Pilsen. From the CTA station, she walked down 18th Street to find the house where Alec was living with his new band, Saturn Box.

It was a sunny morning in late July and most of the shops hadn’t yet opened. At a corner liquor store, a group of men and a big dog were gathered around a cement stoop. A taxi cab pulled up and the driver tried to wave her over, but she shook her head and kept on going.

“Hey Miss,” one of the men called, blowing smoke from one side of his mouth, “can I ask you a question?”

Daphne ignored him and held her purse a little closer. This was the kind of neighborhood Alec liked because the big houses could be rented for cheap. Everyone could have a bedroom with plenty of the house left over for practice space and a common living area. Alex wasn’t onto mind the shabby people on the streets or the long trek downtown. He’d told her that he wasn’t home much anyway because his band was taking off.

She referred to the Post-it to locate the side street and turned. The house was halfway down the block, easy to find because of the spray-painted Saturn symbol on the side. Alec’s green Volvo station wagon was parked at the curb, loaded up with speakers and amps. Daphne remembered all the work they’d gone through finding the equipment at consignment shops and thrift stores. They’d had fun doing that.

A girl answered the door, a very thin girl with dishwater blonde hair and pierced eyebrows, wearing a greyish t-shirt. It had to be Lorene, the back-up singer. Alec had mentioned something about her the last time they’d talked.

“Is Alec here?”

The girl assessed Daphne’s flowered skirt and white sandals with watery blue eyes.

“I think so.” Lorene stood aside and motioned toward the staircase.

In one of the upstairs rooms, Daphne found Alec and his guitar in an upstairs room,
stretched out on a ratty orange couch, writing in the composition book spread in his lap. It was the same composition book he’d used for song lyrics ever since she’d met him. His handwriting was so small it would take him a month to fill a page, so small that he probably could use that one notebook the rest of his life. Alec’s soul was in that book, she knew. It was in there even more than in his music.

“What brings you out here?” He sat up to make space on the couch, and she sat down. The curtains hanging in the window behind them were a pair that Daphne had brought when they used to live together in Wicker Park. In those days, they had struggled to survive on their tiny paychecks and a good yard sale find was gold.

She took a breath. “I’m moving to New York. On Monday.”

Alec lit a cigarette and took a drag, eyes focused across the room at some equipment arranged in a semi-circle: a sheet music stand, a sax, and a keyboard.

He smoothed his bangs. “What for?”

Daphne told him about the agent who’d come to the comedy club and the audition for the sitcom. She gave all the details, the things that had happened over the past six months, more than what was necessary because she knew he would listen, that he still cared in a way that other people didn’t.

“So, you think this agent is for real?”

This was what everyone wanted to know. Her mother had asked the same question. Are you sure this is the real thing, Daphne? I mean, it’s a big deal to pack up your whole life and move away . . .

“Pavia is definitely for real.”

“Did you sign a contract?”

“Sort of,” she told him. “Just for representation. Kristin has a role on the show, but I don’t.

Not yet. I’m going to do some modeling until they call me in.”

“What’s this sitcom called?” Alec took another puff and then crushed the cigarette into the ashtray.

“Streethearts. It’s about Chicago even though it’s filmed in New York. The idea is that the people who work in the little shops on the street get to know each other and fall in love and have affairs and misunderstandings. Typical kind of thing.” She didn’t tell him how much she had wanted to be on the show and how disappointed she was with the second-string position. But he probably knew.

“What about your sculpture? I thought you were going to set up a workshop someday.”

When she first began college, she had pictured herself alone in an art studio, digging her hands in the clay and wood-firing her work in an open field. But even after five years of classes and a senior show, she’d yet to sell a single piece. The fact there were galleries everywhere— even little ones that would take a chance on someone new—was another reason she was going to New York. She couldn’t take all the sculptures with her—there wasn’t enough space—but she had a nice set of slides that her new step-father and her mother had financed as a graduation gift.

“I’m not giving up on the idea, but I don’t know where it can go. The art world is so artificial. The money goes to the wrong place.” She was fighting the tired trend, the urban refuge type thing done a million times over that everyone couldn’t seem to get enough of: Virgin Mary statuettes glued onto banged up car doors, iron fencing worked into sex positions, bottles filled with plastic fruit floating in tea.

“You think acting isn’t artificial?” he asked. “Just take a look at the posters downtown, Daph. It’s the most artificial world there is. It will suck everything pure out of you and spit it back out in plastic.”

“Rock and roll is artificial, too,” she pointed out. “Those guitars you smash onstage are from the Salvation Army.”

“Come on, get real. You don’t even have a job in New York. Sorry to tell you this, but dreams aren’t edible. And they don’t pay bills. At least you have a job here, something a lot of people would like to do. And it makes people laugh. Why give it up for nothing?”

She didn’t tell that she had already given it up. She and Kristin had quit Side Stitches the week before. Downstairs, a dog began to bark. Then another dog. Then another.

“Lorene has three mutts,” Alec said. He stood up and tucked the cigarette pack into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “She feeds them on the top of the kitchen table. Supposedly it’s demoralizing for them to eat from bowls on the floor. If I don’t get down there, she’ll give them my leftover meatloaf.”

They walked downstairs and stopped at the doorway. The sun was dancing over the tops of the cars in the streets. The flowers in the beds were pale and tired, burning into August.

“Send me a postcard,” he said.

“From Manhattan?” she asked.

“I don’t know. From anywhere. Surprise me. I’ll send you one too.”

When they said goodbye at the front door, she caught a look in his eye, one that had never been directed at her before. Envy.

But that was normal, she thought, walking north to the bus stop. Most people would be a little envious of someone whose career is about to take off. She tossed the Post-it note into the trash at the Metra stop. As the train pulled away, she could somehow still see the note through the grate—a bright little square of neon orange that seemed to be saying Stop.

At home on Sunday, Daphne listed the things left to do. Most of the furniture would stay where it was. The new tenant, an incoming grad student at DePaul, had bought the couch, chairs, and dining set for a few hundred bucks. Her mattress would go to the curb. The floors needed a good sweep and the baseboards should be washed. The refrigerator was frightening. And she should find the smoke detector and hang it up in the hallway again. She’d removed it months ago because it kept going off when she dried her hair.

Everything was packed into boxes except for her sculptures. In the morning, she would cover them with plastic and use the blankets in the rental van as cushioning. For now they lined the wall in front of a window, their angled shadows stretched across the wood floor. This would be their final hours in the light for quite a while, Daphne thought, running a hand over her favorite—a piece she called “Panda.” It was her simplest work— a tall smooth cylinder with a fist print in the middle—and most recent (she had brought it home the week before). The only exhibition it’d get would be in the living room unless she could find a way to include it in the things she took to New York. She wondered if Kristin would be a picky roommate, or if she would be too busy to care.

The mail had brought a birthday card from her mother with a check tucked inside.

Sorry I can’t be with you! The honeymoon is wonderful! Be careful. Love, Mom.

The envelope was postmarked and stamped from Jamaica with her mother’s new name in the upper left-hand corner: Elizabeth Peepers. She’d just married a man named Al Peepers on a cruise ship.

Daphne folded the check into her wallet. After tonight, when she unloaded the kilns for the last time, she would be unemployed. Money would be tight for a while, she knew. Apartments in New York were beyond expensive. The first time she’d skimmed the classifieds in The Village Voice she thought it would be impossible to pay such prices. Pavia was the one who suggested that she and Kristin share for a while. That way all expenses were cut in half. Daphne was all for the idea, but she sensed that Kristin wasn’t completely sold. Then again, she hadn’t said “no” to it either.

Daphne called Kristen to make sure everything was set.

“I’m not even close to ready,” Kristin said. “Are you?”

“I’m packed, but I’ve got to get rid of some dirt and grime if I want my rent deposit back.”

Daphne considered the filth on the baseboards as Kristin went on.

“How much room will we have? I don’t think I can fit all my stuff into a car. Should we rent a van or something?”

“I thought you were getting us a van.” “I thought you were getting it.”

It was typical Kristin to forget something important like this, to assume that it would all fall into place without any effort on her part. Probably everything in her life had gone that way, Daphne thought. She had been spoiled by good looks, the perfect complexion, and long blonde waves—angelic features that contrasted with her on-the-brink sexuality. Everywhere she went people looked at her. Her boyfriends were the gullible, earnest types who fell into an obsessive love that drove them to seek her out twenty-four seven. Sometimes they appeared backstage after the show, eyes overloaded with longing and a kind of resignation beneath the yearning. They all knew that Kristin Brewer would cast them out with time, that they were mice in the claws of a cat who would play until the plaything became boring, then hunt for a new one. Maybe they didn’t, but they should have.

Daphne found a number for U-Haul.

Yes, Kristin could drive men crazy. She was much better at collecting suitors than she was at being an actress. Daphne was the one who had carried their show technically. Her minor at DePaul had been theatre arts and she considered herself professionally trained.

When she had auditioned for Side Stitches, a comedy troupe that performed in a popular downtown club, she’d beat out dozens of other girls for a spot. Kristin, who had come out of nowhere, was given the other role. Together, they created a blonde and brunette duo called Jane and Janette, the silly secretaries whose incompetence with calendar software was the chagrin of their stuffy executive bosses. It was one of the troupe’s most successful ongoing skits and it got their faces featured on color posters and TV ads even if it didn’t make much money. This was how Pavia found them.

In the beginning, Pavia seemed like a sweet lady who demanded respect in the same way a schoolteacher might. She was tiny, only a little over five feet, with tight spiral curls that made her look like a Raggedy Anne. Daphne would have described her as “cute” on first impression, but then she began to take note of the points and angles in the woman’s face, the way she clenched her teeth when she was even slightly impatient, the way her dark eyes would whip and judge and assign anything in sight to a proper caste.
But she could be warm and friendly, too.

“I think you girls have more talent than you realize,” she’d said to Daphne and Kristin that first night. And it was only a few days later that she’d given them both representation contracts and sent them to an audition for a network television pilot called Streethearts. The leading female role, a florist named Erica, was up for grabs.

“Now, both of you have a shot at this,” Pavia had said, leading them into the studio the day of the audition, her heels clicking on the tile. “The producers haven’t decided on a blonde or a brunette,” she paused and turned to them, her hand on the doorknob, “but they definitely want an emerging actress from Chicago. Make the most of that Midwestern drawl, the long O’s and A’s . . . don’t be ashamed of who you are.”

Daphne was a native of the Chicago area but had trained her accent away during drama school at DePaul. Kristin, who was from some small town in Wisconsin and had never taken acting lessons, had retained a farm girl nasal twang. When Daphne sat under the lights with the script and began reading the lines labeled ERICA, she was overly aware of the long O and A sounds and her accent sounded artificial. The casting people watched politely. They asked her a few questions and then told her she could leave.
Pavia called later with the news that Kristin had won the role. “But it’s not all bad,” she’d said to Daphne. “The producers actually liked you. They don’t think you’re right for Erica, but they might have a role if the show takes off the way they hope it will. Just come with us to New York. We’ll find something for you.”

Daphne had wanted to kick herself. How could she have flubbed the audition? Why had Pavia screwed her up by mentioning accents right before she went in? Or was it Kristin’s big boobs? That’s what they cared about, of course. And being blonde.

“Think about it,” Pavia said. “You won’t be able to do the comedy show with Kristin gone anyway.”

“They could find a replacement, ” Daphne said flatly.

“It wouldn’t be the same.”

Pavia was right. There was a certain magic that made people laugh and it didn’t grow on trees. Besides, what if a replacement actress upstaged her or tried to take over?

“OK,” she said. “I’ll go.”

Then began the flurry of to-do lists, packing, job-quitting, and the good-bye party for Side Stitches. The plan was that Pavia would drive them to Manhattan and they could stay in her neighbor’s sublet for exactly one week until they found their own place. Kristin signed up for the Actor’s Guild, and Daphne was ordered to put together a modeling portfolio. She didn’t have any pictures, though, so Pavia hired a photographer. Daphne had spent an afternoon and evening with him doing things like meditating on a park bench, standing on a train track, and leaning against a graffiti-splattered wall. A set of shots arrived in the mail the next week. Daphne thought they looked good, but Pavia said only that they were “passable.”

In the kitchen, Daphne took on her last task in Chicago, cleaning the refrigerator. For this chore she played her Les Miserables soundtrack and sang along, imagining the glory of Broadway lights. Soon she’d be in New York living alongside some of the most famous, rich, and talented people in the world. The future stretched out a long and lavish pathway brimming with unnamed experience.
If only there wasn’t this nagging feeling, this sense that all wasn’t as she wanted it to be.

She glimpsed at her reflection in the window as she rinsed a mound of moldy chicken salad from a bowl. Maybe she wasn’t a glittery blonde, but she was tall and slender with shiny chestnut hair and a pretty face. She had a brilliant smile, a college degree, and a great sense of humor. And she was dedicated to her dream in a way Kristin could never even begin to understand. Dragging the trash out to the alley, she took a mental snapshot of the back porch of the apartment where she lived, the noble oak that shaded the porch, the busy road out front. Back inside, she lowered herself onto the couch that was no longer hers and closed her eyes. She assured herself that, with time, the nagging feeling would go away.

Her cat Mario snuggled into the crook of her knee, and that was how they both fell asleep their last night in Chicago.

Author Bio:
Anne-Marie Yerks is a fiction writer, essayist and journalist from the Metropolitan Detroit area. Her essays have appeared in the online editions of "Good Housekeeping," "marie claire," "Country Living" and "Redbook." She has work forthcoming in "Modern Memoir" (Fiction Attic Press) and in "Recipes With A Story" (Blue Lobster Books). Her novel, Dream Junkies, will be published in 2016 by New Rivers Press. Find her on Twitter @amy1620.

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