The Pink Ghetto Read Online Free PDF

box of nicotine patches. She took a moment to slap on a patch, waited a moment for the burn to begin, then turned back to me with an easy smile. “Great job on the test, by the way.”
    “Thanks. I really liked that story.”
    “Yeah, she’s a good author for us. I’ll give you more of her books, if you want.”
    “Terrific!” I could give them to Fleishman. Ever since my first interview, he’d been on a romance reading jag.
    “Mercedes told me all about you. She said you’re just what we need around here.”
    “Oh, well…” What she really needed was a Mighty Maid service.
    “She said you had worked with Sylvie Whatsawhosit and really were invaluable to her.”
    I just shrugged modestly.
    She squinted at me. “Sure you don’t feel like a cigarette?”
    I was pretty certain there was a hard and fast rule about not smoking on your job interview. It was probably up there with not showing up shit-faced drunk or wearing flip-flops. I shook my head.
    “Nicorette?” she asked, offering me a box.
    “No, I’m fine. Really.”
    “Wish I could say the same!” She sighed and popped a piece of gum into her mouth. “I guess I should tell you how we work around here. This little area here is referred to as the Pulse Pod.”
    “Pulse?” I asked.
    “I’m senior editor of the Pulse line.” She pointed to a shelf of books with identical red and white spines that were for the most part obscured by random piles of other books, souvenir ashtrays, and, inexplicably, a pair of beige suede boots. “It’s Candlelight’s line of medical romances. You know—doctors, nurses, paramedics. Even a phlebotomist or two.” I was going to laugh, but she didn’t give me a chance. “As far as staff goes, I’m the senior editor of the pod, and I’ve got an ed assist. Then there’s an assistant editor and an associate. Another person would be such a big help, I can’t tell you. I hope you don’t mind having a ton of work thrown at you all at once. You wouldn’t have much of a learning curve.”
    “Learning curves? Who needs ’em?” I joked.
    “Right. Well, what I could use is a vacation, but I doubt that’s coming anytime soon, unless it’s in a place with padded walls.”
    She went on to explain to me that Pulse Pod people worked on all sorts of books aside from medical romances. “We also work on Hearthsongs, Flames, MetroGirl, Historicals, and occasionally Divines.”
    She might have been speaking to me in a foreign tongue. I was lost. All I could think of when she said divine was the cross-dresser who starred in Lust in the Dust. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what she meant.
    She stopped. “Divine is Candlelight’s inspirational line. Those books are really hot right now. You might say preachers are the new vets. Vet heroes came into vogue a decade ago. And cops are always the rage.” She sighed. “We don’t do a lot of Divines in this pod, though. Mary Jo is pretty possessive of those. Have you met Mary Jo Mahoney?”
    I shook my head.
    “You will.” She inhaled on her pen. “Lucky bitch—she knows she’s sitting on the gold mine over there in the God Pod. It’s where the real growth is now.”
    I left the interview with mixed feelings. I couldn’t decide if the job looked like a great thing or a nightmare. When I got home hauling a totebag full of books, Fleishman was all over me. (Well, all over the totebag.)
    “More books? Yay!”
    I was beginning to worry about him. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
    “I called in sick.” When I leveled a stare at him, he smiled impishly. “I had to see how your interview turned out.”
    “It went fine.”
    “I’ll say—there’s a message from Kathy Leo on the machine.”
    I gasped and scrambled over to the phone. When I called Kathy, she announced, “I was calling to offer you the position of associate editor for Candlelight Books.”
    Associate? I gulped. Maybe I’d heard her wrong. “I thought…”
    She laughed. “I know. You could have