Free The Immaculate Deception by Sherry Silver Page A

from considering your work. If I did have the time to answer you personally, I would encourage you to buy my book, Writing the Wright Way. This would be a big step in your long and winding journey toward your dream.
     
    Regards,
    Juanita Wright
     
    Me thinks Juanita Wright is a tad bit full of herself. Her loss. Perhaps the other one had better news. I opened the second self-addressed stamped envelope. I removed my one-page query letter, along with the first page of my manuscript, which I had begun to slip in so they could get a feel for my voice. Scribbled on the query letter, in purple ink, gel pen probably, was Amateur .
    I moaned. My head throbbed over my left eyebrow and the pain zipped around to my right ear. This guy didn’t even bother to include a form letter. What, was my query and page one so repulsive that he had to eradicate them from his office? He couldn’t even shred them? I swiped the envelopes, rejection letters and birth certificate and stomped into the living room to my desk and filed them. I tallied up the two new query rejections. Eighty-seven down. Never lose hope, Donna . The one agent who believed in me was bound to come. And odds were, he or she was right around the next plot twist.
    Back in the kitchen, I swallowed two aspirins, washing them down with the diet soda. Daddy always told me that aspirin plus caffeine was the quickest headache cure. He was a great diagnosticator . One of his silly terms. Daddy always knew precisely what ailed me and would have me on the proper antibiotic before I saw our family doctor. Momma worked as a private duty nurse at the Washington Hospital Center, on their exclusive 6–D ward, where people of wealth went. Anyhow, they dispensed medicine in little brown pillboxes and she’d bring the leftovers home in her pocket. So we always had a bolus of antibiotics on hand.
    Daddy had always bragged about his pioneering organ transplant research. Too bad his patients had lost a dedicated physician when he lost his vision in the early seventies. And now I’d lost my daddy. A lump of mucus gagged my throat. I was so sick of crying.
    Loping out to the living room, I plopped down in the chair at the desk built into a niche in the corner. My Men Out of Uniform calendar screensaver was half-blue and frozen. Of course it had to be the lower half of the screen that was blue. My favorite, Mr. July, Firefighter Johnny , was cut off at his six-pack. I sequentially pressed the Ctrl, Alt and Del keys, holding them down. Nothing happened. I tried again. Zip. So I turned the power off and then back on. I had been surfing when Daddy had called last week and then I had rushed out, leaving the computer on.
    Yes, it booted fine. I clicked to check my email account. I was happy to see the little magnifying glass on the envelope icon. I was receiving mail. Just one message, from my roomie Ashley.
     
    SUBJECT: Are you okay?
     
    Donna,
     
    Where are you? What happened? Your boss Cynthia came by the house this morning. She was just “checking in”. I wasn’t dressed, so I talked to her through the door. I peeked out at her from the peephole in the front door and man, she looks mean. So I found out about the accident. BTW, the real purpose of her visit was to inform you to report back to work immediately.
     
    Your accident sounded horrific! I called the hospital and they said you’d been discharged, so I figured you must be okay. Post me ASAP and let me know if I can help with anything.
     
    Oh I stuck your mail on the shelf in the garage. Please don’t be mad at me for coming upstairs. Cynthia was ringing the bell incessantly and that song you have on your chimes was driving me nuts. I thought maybe you’d locked yourself out or something. I didn’t touch any of your stuff. By the way, your house is beautiful. How do you keep it so clean?
     
    We’re headed west, this leg of the tour starts in California and heads up through Oregon, Washington and into British Columbia, then