Dear Cordelia

Harlequin Superromance
August, 2005
ISBN 0-373-71291-X
 

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Excerpt

Dear Cordelia,
            Freud had it all wrong. He should have asked:
            What do men want? Why is it that saying the “L” word practically gives men hives? Why does the merest hint of the word commitment catapult men into flight? Why will a man relentlessly pursue a woman, only to change his mind about her once she yields to his advances? I’m beginning to believe men think of women as they do fishing trips. Catch and release. Thank goodness it’s January—the lakes are frozen over just like my heart.
          Shivering in Chicago

Dear Shivering,
           Things could be worse. You could still be dating a commitment-phobe. At least now you’re free to find the right guy. In the famous words of Mae West, “A woman has to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one.” Don’t give up yet. Cordy predicts that if you let the ice in your heart melt a little, you’ll soon land the keeper you’ve been looking for.
           Cordelia
 

Chapter One

Liza Dunnigan flipped through the papers in her inbox and grimaced at the work that lay ahead of her. An article on 20 different easy-to-make tortilla treats, a story featuring Superbowl menus guaranteed to score a touchdown, and a third piece, tentatively titled, “Waffle Mania.” Ughhh.

Seven years of quick easy dishes and happy holiday entertaining and cool low-carb cooking and blah, blah, blah. Enough! She’d been working in the same job at the Chicago Sentinel since the day she’d graduated college—the small, private girl’s school her parents had insisted she attend when she’d really wanted to go to the University of Wisconsin with its wild parties and blue jeans and Big Ten football games. Instead, it had been sherry with the Dean, charcoal blazers, plaid skirts and discussions of Thomas Hardy.

Well, no more.

She glanced up as one of her food section co-workers slid into the chair next to her desk. Kristin Coulter, every man’s dream woman—tall, thin, blond, blue-eyed. She wore clothing effortlessly, making everything she put on look like a Vogue cover. Good thing she was as nice a person as was ever born. Because it kind of made her hard to despise.

” You look different today,” Kristin said.

Liza looked down at herself. “Plain navy suit. White cotton blouse. Low-heeled pumps. I don’t think so.” She reached behind her back to give a quick re-roll to the waistband of her skirt. Kristin probably never had to roll up her waistband to make her skirt length fashionable. Probably because Kristin had the good sense to buy new clothes when styles changed. Liza was a bit taken aback that such a thought popped into her mind. Until this moment, she’d always considered Kristin’s attention to fashion a frivolous waste of money.

” Not your clothes,” Kristin was saying. “Your face. Seven years together in the food section and I can tell these things. You’re hiding something.”

Liza grinned.

” I knew it! What is it?”

She glanced at her watch with its slim, black leather band. How very mundane. “In half an hour I’m going upstairs for an interview—”

” You’re leaving the food section?” Kristin gaped at her.

A tiny thrill ran through Liza at the fact her announcement came as such a shock. Kristin’s reaction was reinforcement of just how predictable she’d become. It was definitely time to put her new plan into action. As of today, her motto was throw caution to the wind.

Kristin leaned forward and waggled a finger at her. “This has something to do with Greg, doesn’t it?”

Jeez. “No. It’s about me. I’m twenty-nine years old, in a rut twenty feet deep and a mile wide.”

Kristin pushed herself up, put her hands on her hips and faced Liza, eyes twinkling. “It’s about Greg.”

Liza exhaled in defeat. “Fine. If it makes you feel better, I admit Greg is the catalyst. But all he did was open my eyes. When he called me ‘practical and predictable,’ it made me realize just how boring I really am.”

” Honey, that was months ago. Just because he dumped you doesn’t mean he’s right. The world could use a few more practical people.”

” Let it be someone other than me. I am changing my life.”

” Because of Greg.”

” No. Because of me. All my life I’ve followed the rules, taken the safe route even when I didn’t want to. And what has it gotten me? Don’t answer that. It’s too late for sales pitches about yesterday’s life. I’ve thought about this for months. It is time to shake things up. I’m going after the kind of job I’ve always wanted, the kind of job I should have applied for years ago.”

” You’re leaving the food section,” Kristin repeated, almost dumbfounded.

” Cross your fingers,” Liza said airily. “There’s an opening upstairs for an investigative reporter and I’m going for it. With any luck, I’ll soon be saying goodbye meatballs and hello mystery.”

#

Forty-five minutes later she was seated across a large beat-up metal desk from Bill Klein, managing editor, a paunchy and wrinkled middle-aged man who looked like he had left investigative reporting behind years ago. While his desktop was virtually empty, fat manilla files and stacks of paper covered almost every other flat surface in the room. Behind him, fish burbled and swam across his black computer screen.

He hadn’t cracked a smile since the interview began, hadn’t seemed impressed by her resume. And now, it was painfully clear as she watched his bald head bent over her portfolio of sample articles, that he wasn’t impressed by her writing either.

” You’ve been with the food section for seven years,” he said in a monotone. “Tell me about that.”

Liza cleared her throat. The job-hunting book she’d read said to sell yourself, make your experience match the skills needed for the job. Food—investigative reporting. Now there was a match if she’d ever seen one.

” I get story ideas from almost anywhere. I might read something that will inspire a concept for a series. Or a meal in a restaurant will trigger an idea. Then my first step is—” she paused for emphasis “—research and investigation. I’ll look into the history of a certain dish or the uses of a particular spice. I dig in, search to find the truth and expose it to—”

A loud screech from the interoffice buzzer on his telephone stopped her mid-sentence.

Mr. Klein sighed and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

Liza shifted in her seat so she could look through the glass wall behind her at the newsroom, awash in activity. She could picture herself there, phone squeezed between shoulder and ear as she typed the finishing touches of a gripping exposé into the computer. Her heart beat a little faster. This was where the action was, the excitement, the pulse of the newspaper. She had to get this job. She just had to. This was about as far from predictable as you could get.

After a long pause, Klein said, “You tell him the deadline is nine o’clock. If he’s not finished by then, the story doesn’t go in. It’s not a big enough scoop to hold the presses. Got that? And Mary, hold my calls, I’m doing an interview right now.”

He banged the phone onto the base and shook his head. “Sorry. We’re using a freelancer until we can fill this position. The guy doesn’t understand the meaning of the word deadline.”

Liza nodded. “I’ve never missed a deadline in the food section. I’d bring that same conscientiousness to investigative reporting. A reporter needs to know when the story is finished. I guess it’s sort of an intuitive thing.” An intuitive thing? Oh, please, she needed to learn when to quit talking.

He raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, does this intuition thing help out when you can’t get anyone to confirm information on the record that someone has slipped you off the record?”

A thrill of excitement rushed through her. Never once in all her years on the food section had anyone ever had to go off the record to answer her questions. Off the record. The very thought made her all the more determined to get the job. She sat up straighter.

” I guess…intuition would help me choose just the right persuasive argument to get the original source to go on the record. Or even help me decide whether I can push that person to give me names of people to contact who could confirm the information.”

She leaned forward and felt the waistband at the back of her skirt unroll a bit. “Mr. Klein, I think I could do a good job for you and I’d do whatever needs to be done to—make sure I do just that.” Babbling, babbling.

He drew a long slow breath and sat back in his chair. “I’m sure you work hard—”

” And I can even work harder—”

” But this isn’t an entry level job. You’ve no experience in this type of journalism. And you’re used to the pace of the food section—we’ve got tight deadlines. We’ll get breaking news late in the afternoon and you’d have to investigate it and submit your story in a few hours.”

He closed her portfolio and shoved it gently toward her.

” I can do that. If you look at the back of my portfolio there are some stories I wrote for my college newspaper. They’re much more investigative. I didn’t start writing about food until I graduated.” Her words tumbled out in a desperate rush. “My goal was always to write about something more meaningful, something more important to life than food.” She felt her dream slip away with her prattling. “Not that food isn’t important to life…”

” I need someone who can hit the ground running. I’m sorry.” He stood, signaling the interview’s end.

Liza stared at him dumbly. It was over? Her one chance to break out, change her life, prove to herself that she wasn’t so predictable after all? Defeated, she lifted her portfolio off his desk and stood to shake his hand.

” Thank you for talking with me,” she said.

He pulled open the office door and stepped back to let her pass, then followed her out. For a brief heart-stopping moment she thought he wanted to talk with her further, then she realized his attention was focused on a young man heading across the newsroom in their direction.

” Are you getting anywhere on the interview with Dear Cordelia?” Mr. Klein asked when the reporter neared.

Liza hesitated, curious. Dear Cordelia, the advice columnist? She bent over a nearby drinking fountain, letting the water run over her lips, swallowing every now and then so it looked like she was actually taking a drink—a very long one. The back of her waistband unrolled a little more and she thought of Kristin who never had this problem.

” Nope,” came the reply. “Can’t get near her. What a recluse. Her publicist says she doesn’t want publicity. Just wants to be left alone to write her column and help people find true love. So what does she need a publicist for?

” True love for me would happen on the day she finally grants us an interview.”

” Well, at this rate, we won’t have it by Valentine’s Day… And you know I’ll be off for two weeks—”

” Yeah, yeah. Hell, let it rest until you’re back from your honeymoon.”

Still bent over the water fountain, Liza tipped her head slightly and watched Mr. Klein step back into his office. She straightened and dabbed at the water that trickled over her lower lip to her chin. Reaching one hand behind her back, she surreptitiously re-rolled her waistband so her skirt length was even all around.

So, he wanted an interview with Dear Cordelia, the purveyor of advice about romance and marriage, the author of the bestselling, Dear Cordelia’s Authoritative Guide to Finding Love and Keeping It.

Well, well. This certainly presented possibilities. The practical, predictable person would go back to her office and write a story on the many uses of the lowly tortilla. Right. And Mr. Klein had already made it clear she belonged in the food section—not in investigative reporting. Uh-huh. She knew where her place was, where her skills were valued.

Before she could second guess herself, she spun on her heel and marched back into his office. “Mr. Klein?”

He raised his head; surprise flickered across his face.

” I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation you just had…about Dear Cordelia?”

He stared at her, silent, and a heat wave of mortification rolled over her. She pushed forward.

” I love her column. I’ve been reading it for years.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

” What I’m trying to say is… I’d like to—I could—I mean—how about letting me try to get the interview for you?” The words rushed out of her, not at all professional like the book advised. “I could do it on spec, to show you my investigative abilities, while that other reporter is on vacation. If I don’t succeed, he can take over where I’ve left off.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, the first sign all morning that she’d made any type of impression on him at all. Great. He was going to laugh at her.

” What about your responsibilities for the food section?”

Oh. “Wellll…vacation,” she blurted out. “The new year just started. I could—I’ve got two weeks—I could take them off now to track down Dear Cordelia and get the interview.” She mentally winced. Showing desperation was a definite no-no in the job-hunting book.

He steepled his fingers. “I’ve been trying to get an interview with Dear Cordelia for ten years now. She’s never, by the way, given an interview to anyone anywhere. In all my years of reporting, this is the only story I never got. I’ve assigned a dozen reporters at various times to get an interview with Cordelia. And everyone has failed.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach.

” In other words, Liza Dunnigan, what makes you think you can succeed where nobody else could?”

Because this is the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done in my life and if I don’t try, then Greg is right about me. “Because I want this interview as much as you do,” she said. “Because if I succeed, we agree that you’ll hire me to fill the investigative reporter opening, which is really what I want.” Good lord, did she just say what she heard herself say?

A slow grin slid across his face. He threw back his head and laughed. “Kid, you just might have what it takes.”

” I know I can do it.” She gripped the handle of her portfolio tightly to keep her hands from shaking at the enormity of her lie. Any moment the ceiling was going to open and a lightning bolt would shoot down from above and take her out.

Close the sale, the book said. Ask for the job. “Do we have a deal?”

” Oh what the hell.” He reached a hand across the desk and she grasped it with her own. “Deal. Let’s go get the file so you can get up to speed on the first lady of the lovelorn, Dear Cordelia.”

Excerpted from Dear Cordelia by Pamela Ford
Harlequin Superromance
August 2005
ISBN 0-373-71291-X

More info   |   Order Book            
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