Page 65 of The Perfect Rom-Com

“—your subplots. Actually, Party Girls in the USA didn’t seem to have a subplot at all.”

I drop a couple more. Somebody stop this poor word-vomiting woman.

“I just, I mean, it’s obvious”—she throws a hand out wide—“The Seven-Year Holiday is just worlds above. I mean, Party Girls in the USA was fine, but when you really look at them side by side . . . clearly your talent has grown exponentially. So would you say, maybe, you have some tips for the rest of us? You know, maybe just . . . some insight”—she gives a strangled laugh—“into what you’d recommend to skip the Party Girl stage of writing and get straight to The Seven-Year Holiday? For us newbies?”

The room is entirely silent. The woman herself looks like a blueberry, her cheeks so inflamed and swollen it looks like she’s about to cry pink tears of humiliation and stress. She clutches the lanyard she has on over her shirt with about thirty book-related pins tacked on. Her skirt, featuring colorful watercolor books, quakes at her knees.

I drop the rest of the napkins on the floor, move them around a little, and scoop the whole soggy mess in my arms. It’s time to get off this stage before I jump in to relieve this poor, panicked soul.

I step off to the sanctuary of the side of the stage, dump the load of napkins in the bin, and give Jack a look that screams a sarcastic, “Isn’t it just so wonderful I was here to pick that up?”

But his eyes are glued to his phone. He looks lost in thought with brows furrowed as he scans something on his phone and hastily begins typing a response.

His phone rings and he picks up as he’s wheeling himself toward the outside doors. “Hey. Well, I know I’m annoying you, but I wanted to finish the conversation—”

I belatedly realize that the room is still silent as I turn back to the scene before me.

There is Amelia, looking at the woman with that vulture-on-a-branch-waiting-for-you-to-die expression. I’ve seen that look on her plenty of times. Behind closed doors. Away from the public.

But here?

I take a deep breath, feeling both anguish for the woman but also a sense of justice. “See?!” I want to cry as I throw out my arms. “See who she really is?”

But then, like a pebble dropped into a pond, there is a ripple of movement and Amelia’s face clears. She smiles. Nods, as though she knows and agrees with exactly what the woman was trying to say.

“What tip would I give to help you”—her voice wobbles almost indiscernibly—“skip the Party Girl stage and go straight on to the good stuff? Well, that’s a good question. And if I told you, I suppose I’d have to kill you.”

She starts laughing, a high, utterly innocent laugh, and the room joins in because what could possibly be more delightful than your favorite author pretending to be mad and then pronouncing murder on anyone who dares to compete with her?

“No, no, but in all seriousness,” she adds, not sounding remotely serious as she raises her champagne, “hire a ghostwriter.”

She continues to laugh. They continue to laugh with her.

“They’re a dime a dozen.” She breaks off to continue with more laughter and takes a long sip of her champagne with a smile. The tension in the room has exploded like a popped balloon, the audience members even happier than before at this comedian who isn’t just brilliant with her writing but can joke.

But as she lowers her glass, in the midst of a distracted hum of conversation around the room, her blue eyes lock on the woman with the lanyard. And between the two of them, a little silent signal is passed as Amelia’s smile slips from her face. A tweak of her lips. A look that somehow says, “But seriously, mess with me, and I’ll make your life a living nightmare.”

The woman’s face goes white as a sheet and she turns, gathers up her purse and books, and rushes out the door.

And then Amelia does something that surprises me. Her eyes slither my way and she smiles. She knows. Knows I alone was watching the interaction all along.

Wordlessly she raises her glass as if to say, “Well? It’s empty. Do something about it.”

My nostrils flare.

And nobody sees it. Nobody sees the extent of her evil like this, those little manipulations that would scare the living daylights out of psychologists in their easy chairs. She’s just stringing me along. Getting her vengeance for that woman’s comment. Trying to push me back in my place.

And ruffling my feathers without having to so much as say a word.

Penny looks at me with a frantic look of “Are you going to fill it? Somebody needs to fill it!”

The overeager bookstore owner is now looking at me, a little frown forming a crease between her brows as if to say, “What is this PA doing? Stop just standing there and fill it!”

I take a step forward, my chest pinched tight as I bring the bottle over, pour the champagne in.

Yes. Here I am.

Another person moves to the front of the queue and asks her what the inspiration for the book was, and several people subtly roll their eyes at the unoriginal question. It seems that there is some sort of game going on at these events. People are racking their brains to get in line, feeling some sort of group pressure to make their question unique. Witty. Memorable. Proving how well-read they are by making it painfully intricate and well-researched. Cross-referencing multiple books. I don’t know if this is some new trend or has been this way all along, but more than one person in line has their book flipped open to a page and roughly a hundred rainbow-colored tabs highlighting pages. They come prepared.