The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman (19 page)

My dad said, “All you have me do in this novel is sleep and lust after Fleur. I seem to be a cross between Rip Van Winkle and Woody Allen.”

I’m sure Ashley wouldn’t like the way she’s portrayed either, but I’m not letting her read it. We haven’t spoken to each other since New Year’s Eve, and I like it that way.

Anyway, being a writer is hard. Now I have to go through the book again and decide which of the revisions to integrate into the text and which to drop.

I know even as I write this that I won’t include all this retching in the novel. Reality is not appropriate to the genre. I just read a couple of Harlequins, and I’ve got to edit out some of the reality in this novel as it is. I’ll have to cut Midgely and the cancer (he died three weeks ago). I won’t say anything about Richard receiving an early acceptance into the University of Minnesota’s American Studies Program with a full fellowship, while I have applied to Columbia and do not expect to be turned down. Even if Richard and I marry down the line and have 2.5 children—a real possibility—I need to find out first who Kate Bjorkman is.

I’ll end the novel with a happy epilogue that romance readers will adore. I promised them a happy ending, after all. And it’s mostly true.

For the past several nights, I’ve been reading this romance novel I’ve written to Richard, on the phone. Mostly he laughs and says the book is a riot.

“This is no laughing matter,” I say. “This is the story of our romance. This is serious business!”

“Right,” he says. “In that case”—and he lowers his voice—“I just want to say how much I’d like to gather the soft curves of your body and mold them to the contours of my lean body.”

“Now you’re talking,” I say. “And I want to bury my face against the corded muscles of your chest.”

“You’re much too tall for that,” he says. “You’ll have to bury your face in my nose, Amazon woman.”

“Well,” I say. “That sends the passion pounding through my heart, chest, and head.”

“Seriously,” he says. And I wonder what delicious thing he might say to me that isn’t a cliché. “You ought to try having the book published.”

Bingo!

“It doesn’t have an ending,” I say. “Category romances need a committed ending.”

He snorts. “The heroine is a bit of a flake, but I know the hero is committed to her. His greedy mouth wants to open her lips and plunder the warm moistness within.”

We break up laughing.

“See you in a few days, Kate.”

“See you,” I say.

I’m going to San Francisco over spring break. If this were one of those really sensual novels, Richard and I would hole up in a hotel room for a week, but I began the novel as a virgin and will end it as a virgin. I’m staying with his parents, Caroline and Roy. Richard and I will eat dim sum in Chinatown and I will try the duck feet, which Richard says are delicious once you get past the
idea
of duck feet. We will also eat Ghirardelli chocolates, take the boat to Alcatraz, explore the wharf, dance at the Top of the Mark, and ride the trolley to Golden Gate Park.

Later, maybe we’ll marry and have a girl named Fleur and a boy named Chuck. Maybe not. One thing I know is that there will always be something to laugh about, and laughter, as it turns out, is the best aphrodisiac of all.