Another Cheesy Romance Novel (standard:drama, 4656 words)
Author: Kinslayer	Added: Oct 07 2003	Views/Reads: 5613/2734	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is FINALLY the complete version of "As a Reminder." I use complete very loosely because its far from finished but it does have an ending.

Another Cheesy Romance Novel 

I watched her walk up the stairs and into her apartment. She was
beautiful. The lights came on and the blinds slide open. Her coat lay 
across the couch and she let down her hair. Dark brown curls cascaded 
over bare shoulders and down to her breasts. This, coupled with the 
fact that her tight black dress revealed delicious pale skin made it 
the perfect picture. 

The shutter clicked as shot after shot was taken. The woman in the
apartment next to mine looked this way, so I set down my camera. Did 
she see me? She walked over to the window. As it turned out she wasn't 
looking at me at all, but instead her cat. 

She had her perfect little life, perfect little apartment and perfect
little cat. There was no room for me; I had complicated her life 
enough. My apartment was small, and smelled of fixer, but it was across 
from hers. I remember the day we met... 

I was an editor for a well-known publishing firm. I would sit while
authors and journalists would hand me their work to revise. I liked the 
journalists; they understood writing had rules. But I wished every 
filthy author that passed through my door had been killed. They would 
excuse their poor writing as “creative choices.” There was no reasoning 
with them, especially Mr. Mark Thatcher. 

That was his real name, he wrote under a nom de plume. Mark was the
worst kind of fiction writer, a romance novelist. Writing the kind of 
stories that would make you sick, the kind of stories with titles like 
“Whisper Soft” and “Cold November.” We would bicker for hours over his 
poor use of syntax and it would always end with me yelling that he was 
a fool but the story would remain unchanged. 

One day, after a long afternoon of arguing with Mr. Thatcher, I left the
office to find that the clouds opened up and sent a million tiny drops 
of water plummeting to earth. I was hailing a cab when a beautiful 
young woman approached me. 

“Would you mind splitting cab fare?” She asked. 

Of course I was more then willing, she looked stunning in that light
blue leisure suit, holding up a folded newspaper to protect her hair 
from the rain. 

When the cab approached I held the door open, allowing myself to view
her bending over to enter the car. She told the cabbie she was headed 
to the north end of town and although I lived in the opposite 
direction, I lied, saying that I lived that way too. I was nervous and 
could feel anxiety setting in until she started the conversation. 

“What do you do?” 

“Do?” I was confused. 

“For a living?” 

“I'm an editor.” 

“Oh!” she said, “For which paper?” It was a long ride to where she
lived, almost twenty minutes. The entire time I explained that I was 
not a journalist, but a publicist. We talked about the finer points of 
correct English grammar and when we arrived in front of her apartment I 
realized that I had not been given a name. 

“I'm sorry, your name is...” 

“Holly Coddle.” She replied and gave me one of those smiles that would
melt your heart. 

“Have a good evening Ms. Coddle.” I said as she exited the car. 

“Call me Holly.” As she got up to leave, I watched a book fall from her
purse to the ground and splash into a puddle. I saw the cover; 
“Moonlight” was the title. The author was none other then Robert Judge, 
Mark Thatcher's pseudonym. I had worked on that book. 


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