Free See Jane Date by Melissa Senate Page B

sketching out a first draft of Chapter One, based on what you said. You know, about starting at the present and letting the past unfold as required. Great idea, Janey. I think I’ve got some good stuff down on paper.”
    I leaned back against my smoky pillows. My hair reeked.
    The Gnat was a little too awake for me. How could she be so coherent and on top of things at six-thirty in the morning?
    â€œSo I’d really like you take a look before I flesh it all out,” Natasha added. “I mainly focused on why I signed the legal papers while you-know-who was practically inside me.”
    I cringed. That was just what I needed on a Monday morning following the Sunday morning I learned that my one and only serious boyfriend had gotten married: an earful on how Natasha had signed each letter of her name to the grinding motion of The Actor’s expert sexual strokes.
    I sat up and forced myself to focus. “Okay, so, um, it has to be later than ten, since that’s when our editorial meeting usually ends.”
    â€œTen’s great,” Natasha said. “See you later!”
    I hung up and fell back against the pillows.
    Was she allowed to call me at home? I’d have to set a few ground rules with the Gnat. She might have been a faux celebrity, but I didn’t work twenty-four/seven. I was about to date twenty-four/seven, but that was another story. Who did she think she was, anyway, calling me at home?
    This totally sucked. I couldn’t wallow in my misery with my family, and now I couldn’t even wallow at work. After all, I supposedly led a fabulous life, making a 100K a year with a boyfriend who owned a brownstone. That woman wouldn’t care that her ex-boyfriend had gotten married. In the bride’s hometown, no less.
    But the real Jane Gregg did. Very, very much. So much so that she’d lit an extra candle in St. Monica’s yesterday—to say goodbye to whatever lingering hope she’d unconsciously hung on to about Max realizing he’d made a mistake by dumping her.
    Eloise had insisted it wasn’t pathetic of me. It was closure, she’d said.
    â€œOh, oh, oh-oh” Squeak. Squeak. Squeeeeeeak. “Ohhhhhhhhhhh! Oh yeah!”
    I banged against the wall and covered my face with my smoky pillow.

Four
    â€œT he baby just pooped, everyone!” Gwen Welle announced from the speakerphone.
    Even when she was on maternity leave, I couldn’t escape her. She insisted on calling in for editorial meetings. Like anything important ever went on at these weekly wastes of time.
    Could you tell I was in a bad mood?
    The editorial staff of Posh Publishing had been in the conference room for half an hour, and all I’d learned was that a singer whose career had died in the eighties had signed on for a tell-all, as had a computer geek who insisted he’d been ruined by Bill Gates. Plus, our managing editor, Paulette Igerman, complained to Remke that Jeremy had changed the publication date of a book without alerting her. Paulette seemed to be the only woman alive immune to Jeremy’s charisma. I didn’t get it. Eloise was sure that Paulette was a lesbian.
    â€œMorgan, order in a Continental breakfast for Jane’s meeting with Nutley,” Remke said, tapping his pen on the agenda. “Keep it under twenty.”
    I smiled. Morgan glanced at me with contempt. So, I’d done it. I’d crossed that golden line with Remke. I was now too important to order a fruit plate, a platter of Danishes and a gallon of orange juice from the gourmet deli down the street for my own meeting with an author. Morgan had to order it for me. That was something.
    I felt Jeremy’s gaze pass over me for a moment. What did he think of me? I honestly didn’t know. I did know that he considered me hardworking. Gwen had offered that tidbit of praise from Jeremy in each of my performance reviews. And he seemed to think I had potential to be a good editor; he