"Sure, hon."

Tina and Marnie walked into the kitchen, leaving Joe staring at the photo shrine and shaking his head. In the kitchen, Tina deftly produced a gla.s.s and filled it with ice-cold water from a pitcher. "Here you go. You're looking so good. And the books are doing well."

Marnie managed to finish her water without choking. "Yes. Thank you."

"We're so proud of you, dear. James and I talk about you all the time. It's like you're our own daughter."

"Which is kind of gross, given mine and Joe's romantic history...never mind. You're very good for my ego. What I don't get is, neither of you like the romance genre. But you can't wait for my books."

"They're about good men falling in love with good women and having good s.e.x. It's nice to know you're so normal." Tina gave her a pat.

"Uh...thank you?" This woman, she thought, was insane. Nice, but nuts.

"I don't mean to be a b.u.t.tinsky, but have you ever thought about settling down? Maybe what you need is right in front of your face. And Joe needs you...this phase...it can't last. He'll get over it soon."

Marnie stared at Joe's mother, startled, and there was a long silence while she thought about what Tina just said. Then she took a deep breath and spelled it out for the woman, as tactfully as she could.

Explained a truth she herself had spent years facing.

"You 'get over' the chicken pox. Not this. If you're hanging onto this hope that he'll come home one night and present you with a wife and two-point-three children...well...you're really kidding yourself."

Tina took Marnie's empty water gla.s.s from her and rinsed it out, too thoroughly. She couldn't look at Marnie; instead, she concentrated on scrubbing the already-clean water gla.s.s.

"Haven't you ever thought about trying again?" she asked wistfully.

"I'm crazy about your son. But we're better as friends...we knew that when we were seventeen. We were each other's first. And that's always going to be special. But we can't go back."

"You don't date much. And you and my son are always together, it seems. That's why I thought-"

Marnie spoke the hated, bitter truth, mouthed the worst words in language. "We're just friends.

Once, I thought..."

Unfortunately-or not, depending on how you looked at it-James entered the kitchen right then.

He went straight to the fridge and began rooting around for a snack. "Thought what?"

"That her new book is much better than the last one," Tina lied smoothly. "What was it? Pa.s.sion's Sweet Fever?"

"No," James said thoughtfully, "I think it was Pirate's Lady."

"It was Sweetest Desire," Marnie corrected. "And thanks. But Tina, I could publish my grocery list and you'd rave about the pathos I evoked with my superb characterization."

The doorbell rang, surprising them all. James straightened up from the fridge. "Are we expecting anyone else?"

Puzzled, Tina shook her head and headed for the living room. Marnie chewed her lower lip, dreading what was coming. "Joe said something about his date meeting us here."

James turned toward her so sharply his hip slammed into the corner of the fridge. "He's bringing a date? When he's going out with you?"

"He likes me to meet them," she explained, knowing she sounded lame, but helpless to stop. "The men he likes. He values my-he's not going out with me per se. We're just friends." Ugh! Having to mouth the hated phrase twice in two minutes. Worse, she could have cried at the crestfallen look on James' face.

"I thought...something else," he said stiffly, and abruptly stalked out of the kitchen. Marnie trailed after him unhappily.

In the living room, Tina was greeting Joe's date, Curtis something-or-other, and the reception was bit chilly, to put it mildly.

"So nice to meet one of Joe's little friends."

Marnie had to smother a laugh. Curtis, shaking Tina's hand, was clearly a bit taken aback, but rallied gamely. "So nice to be one of Joe's little friends."

Dead silence, which Marnie broke. She could hear the false note of cheer in her voice, and hated it, but what else was there to do? Stay in the living room and stare at each other? Watch Joe lose his temper again at his parents' refusal to accept him for who he was?

But, by staying in love with him for this long, wasn't she guilty of the same thing?

She put that thought out of her mind in a hurry. "We'd better get going, you guys. I don't want to miss sitting in the theater for half an hour with nothing to do."

"Goodbye, honey. It was just wonderful to see you again. Are you coming over for dinner this Friday?" Tina's invitation held all the warmth she had withheld from Curtis.

Marnie stole a glance at a tight-lipped Joe, at the silent Curtis. "I'll let you know."

CHAPTER SEVEN .

The three of them-Marnie, Joe, and Curtis-didn't have a lot to say in the car, but once at the theater, Joe laid it all out for Curtis.

"My parents are in total denial about my life," he said, clearly aggrieved. "And they adore the monster over there."

Marnie smirked. "That's Ms. Monster to you, buster."

"We dated in high school-if you can picture that without barfing-"

"Lord knows I can't."

"And my parents were pretty annoyed when I broke up with her-"

"Ennhh ! Thank you for playing, but the correct response is, when she broke up with me".

He shot an irritated glance at her. "When we came to a mutual parting of the ways, and I came out of the closet."

"Lunged out, is more like it. You could have thought about my needs, for once. How do you think it looked to people when you slept with me, then publicly stated-more than once-that you prefer men?

The cheerleaders made fun of me for weeks."

"Anyway. They won't see that we're just friends."

"Only friends."

"That there's no spark there."

"We're in a spark-free zone," she declared.

"And the thought of us ever getting back together is just extremely very stupid."

"An impossibility of nature." Somehow, this wasn't as much fun as it had been a few seconds ago.

"Never happen."

"But they refuse to see it," he continued to an enthralled Curtis. "Take tonight-perfectly innocent, right? Mar and I are going to see the new Sandra Bullock flick-"

"Love her," she agreed.

"-because going to the movies together is this totally innocent thing that we've done forever. And Mom and Dad had to paint it like some big romantic evening."

"When it's not big. And certainly not romantic," she added.

"Which is where I come in." Curtis didn't phrase it as a question, but he did raise his eyebrows.

"Eeeee...yeah," Joe said reluctantly. "And I'm sorry I put you on display like that. But rubbing their noses in it is the only way to make them see."

Marnie munched popcorn while Joe and Curtis talked, and realized she was as content as she could be while the man she loved was flirting with another man. Maybe it was the locale. She adored going to the movies.

The lights went down and she sat up straight. The familiar green "this preview has been approved for all audiences" logo came up; then the first preview unfolded. On the screen, Marnie could see a beautiful woman, dressed in 18 th century clothing. The movie announcer's dulcet baritone boomed through the speakers.

"She was a woman of n.o.ble blood. Untouched...innocent...with a terrible secret."

On screen, the woman of n.o.ble blood was standing on a beach gazing out to sea, looking pensive.

The scene shifted to a handsome, bearded man, shirtless and standing behind the wheel of a ship. A wave broke over the bow, drenching him. He threw his head back and laughed like a manly man.

"He was a rogue," the announcer intoned, "the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of royalty...and her only hope."

Marnie could feel the blood draining from her face. This was absolutely not happening. Absolutely not. No.

"From the author of Pa.s.sion's Sweet Caress and Flaming Surrender comes the movie based on the national best seller..."

She opened her mouth in a yowl. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaa-" She dropped her box of popcorn and jabbed an elbow into Joe's side. Joe was staring at the screen, his mouth open in delight.

"Maybe it's not your book."

"-aaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhh-"

"For G.o.d's sakes, Mar. Breathe or your going to pa.s.s out on this disgusting floor."

"The breathtaking saga of Shyla and Marcus, brought to the big screen. Their pa.s.sion..."

Onscreen, Shyla belted Marcus across the mouth. "You cad!"

"Their pleasure..."

The scene shifted, and now Shyla looked ecstatic. By contrast, Marnie thought she might vomit soon. This wasn't happening. It wasn't happening!

Okay, it was. She'd known the movie was going into production. It had been her decision to sell the film rights three years ago, after all. Her reasoning had been simple: it was a bad book (one of many), so what did she care if they made a bad movie out of it?

Only she did care.

"The only thing more unthinkable than being together...was being torn apart."

"You call that unthinkable?" Marnie shrieked at the screen. "This can't be happening. I thought I was safe here!"

"Take me, Marcus," Shyla breathed, fumbling with one of the several hundred b.u.t.tons on her dress.

"Take me as only you can...make me a woman."

"Shut up, you ninny!" There were several "shhhhhhhh"s around her, but Marnie ignored them all.

"Your name used to be Ramona! And you never wore dresses that low cut in any of my ma.n.u.scripts!"

"Love's Eternal Caress...experience it at a theater this fall."

"Not f.u.c.king likely!" She sat up straight, her despair gone and replaced with a new resolution.

"That's it. I'm taking steps. This can't be allowed."

Joe looked thoughtful, his arm up to the elbow in his popcorn bucket. "Guess you shouldn't have let your agent sell the movie rights, huh?"

"Just because I sold the movie rights doesn't mean they actually had to make a movie out of it!"

"You sound just like Anne Rice, complaining when Tom Cruise got cast as Lestat. You didn't hesitate to cash the check, I can't help but remember."

"You're so lucky!" Curtis gasped, staring at her, dazzled.

She stood slowly. "I've been a victim long enough. Persecuted wherever I go. And I'm not going to whine quietly about it anymore!" She shook a fist at the screen, ignoring the muted shushes around her from her fellow movie-goers. "As G.o.d is my witness...as G.o.d is my witness! If I have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill...I'll never write romance novels again!"

The music from the preview swelled around her. A box of Sno Caps. .h.i.t her on the back of the head.

That was all right, the way she was feeling. That was just fine.

CHAPTER EIGHT .

Staring at the bizarrely dressed mannequins, Joe asked, "Tell me again why we're at Macy's?"

"You know why," Marnie replied shortly.