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Holiday Miracles

By Elaine Viets

’Tis the season to endure poor service and the rigors of flying.

Recently, I was subjected to a baby wielding a wild sippy cup and a substandard restaurant meal. But I’m not complaining. I hope it’s the start of a trend.

Drinks All Around                                                          

The Southwest Airlines flight to Fort Lauderdale was crowded. I tried not to sigh when a young mom plopped her baby in the seat in front of me, then stuffed the overhead bin with enough gear for an Arctic expedition.    

It was only a two-and-a-half hour flight. My mother never carried all that junk and I turned out . . . Well, maybe I’m not a sterling example of adulthood, but I thought this mom overdid the packing.

I wasn’t the only one. I heard stifled groans from my fellow passengers. The baby was about fifteen months with a dandelion fluff of hair, chubby cheeks and a high-pitched shriek like a creature on the Discovery Channel.

The kid was armed with a sippy cup, and not the fancy leak-proof kind, either.

"Yii!" yelled the tot and tossed her sippy cup. It landed on my shoe, splattering milk.

"I am so sorry," the harried mom said.

I wiped the milk off my shoe and forced a smile. There was sympathetic eye-rolling from my fellow passengers.

 "Yeee-reeeek!" squealed the kid. My fellow passengers exchanged grumpy glares.

Out to Lunch                                             

After a long day of writing, I have lunch at Seasons 52, a restaurant chain that serves fresh, low-cal food. Every item, from appetizers to desserts, are 475 calories or less. They don’t taste like a microwaved cardboard box, the way most diet food does. I think Seasons’ citrus salmon salad with organic greens beats Jenny Craig any day.

I stopped by for a late lunch and ordered the grilled turkey skewer with orzo salad. The server who brought it said, "Those veggies look over-cooked. The green peppers shouldn't be black on the edges."

"They're fine," I said. My standard for sending food back to the kitchen is: Is this worse than what I make? The answer to that question is rarely yes, so I almost never send things back.

"The food is okay," I said.

"It is not," the server said.

It wasn’t bad. I liked the slightly singed peppers. The tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and turkey were fine. I was munching away when the manager appeared.

"I hear your lunch was overcooked," he said.

"It's edible," I said.

"We don't do edible," he said. "We make the best food possible. Lunch is on me."

As the plane took off, the baby howled. The altitude changes seemed to hurt her delicate ears. Her screams hurt my not-so-delicate ones.

I envied the child. If I could get away with it, I’d shriek and scream from takeoff to landing. I don’t like being sealed in a metal tube with several hundred scowling, coughing strangers, hurling through the skies at 600 miles an hour.

The plane leveled off and the captain turned off the seatbelt sign. The flight attendant started taking drink orders.

"Scree!" screamed the darling child. Harried Mom pulled drink coupons out of her purse and handed them out to the suffering passengers in the neighboring rows.

"You don’t have to do that," I said.

"Yes, I do," she said. "You have to put up with my baby."

Amazing. Most parents believe every burp their offspring makes is music to us all.

"Heee-yaw!" yelped the kid as we cheerfully sucked down our drinks.

For the rest of the flight, I slept like a baby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crime--It's Been Around Forever

by guest blogger Kathryn Johnson

Certain things in life simply don’t change. Have you ever noticed that? Holidays are stressful. My cats will never fail to try to scale the Christmas tree (with disastrous results). And people become emotionally unhinged, at nearly any time of year, and resort to killing each other. Crime is a bitter fact of life. As far back in history as we reach, we can find evidence of it.

In fact, scientists have found the remains of early man in various places around the world, and sometimes the skeleton reveals an unnatural cause of death related to a bullet, battle axe, or torture. Written accounts by witnesses tell us of brutal murders and just as brutal punishments. As an author I’m naturally drawn to such information because, let’s face it, these terrible endings to a life make for very dramatic, though grim, material for a book.  And so, when I was working on my historical novel, The Gentleman Poet: A Novel of Love, Danger, and “The Tempest”, I naturally looked for research that would provide these life-altering scenes for my story set in the 1609.

I wasn’t disappointed. It seems that you can’t place a group of people on a deserted island for any length of time and expect them to behave! (Surprisingly, Survivor, that popular TV reality show, got it right. Folks just can’t get along!) Sure enough—there I was ensconced in the stately Elizabethan reading room at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and I ran across murder. I was perusing William Strachey’s account of the wreck of the ship on which he was traveling from England to Jamestown, Virginia. The Sea Venture sailed smack into a hurricane and nearly sank but, luckily for all 150 on board, she ran aground on coral shoals off the coast of what we now know was Bermuda. Everyone managed to get safely to shore on the deserted island, and before long two villages were temporarily constructed and plans begun to build a new ship to take them the rest of the way to the New World. Unfortunately, the process took 9 months, and during that time nerves wore thin.

The account tells of mutiny, religious differences that resulted in everything from refusal to dine with the other side to violent altercations, threats against the lives of the captain and new governor, drunkenness, strikes against the work and a murder. In Strachey’s journal, he mentions two men, one of whom struck the other man with the blade of a shovel beneath the left ear, causing his death. It was rumored the altercation resulted from a dispute over a woman. (Like I said, things never change!) How could I not use such a wonderfully crafted murder scene to inspire one of the plot lines of my story about this 17^th century adventure that inspired Shakespeare to write “The Tempest”?

I’m not sure what this teaches us. The universal truth, that human beings are capable of and often willing to take the life of another of their species, has provided rich fodder for fiction of all kinds.

But no genre of fiction has benefited more from our natural inclination to solve our problems with violence than crime fiction and mysteries. Where would we writers be without a good murder now and again?

Kathryn Johnson’s novel, The Gentleman Poet is available through all book stores as well as electronically. She teaches at The Writer’s Center in Washington, D.C. and mentors other writers through www.writebyyou.com, an author’s editorial and coaching service.

What things in life always give you warm fuzzies and make you feel comforted?

Kleenex sponsored a prompt question on Typepad, and it wasn't too far off of what I've been thinking about this week, so I'll pass it along. The question is: What things in life always give you warm fuzzies and make you feel comforted?

The answer for most people who visit the Femmes site would probably be "books." Books are always a great comfort, especially well-read books. For years, every time I'd feel jangled and overwhelmed, I'd grab "Pride and Prejudice." It didn't make any difference where I started reading. It was the rhythm of Austen's writing, her acute and minute observations, the certainty that scandal can be forgiven and wrongs can be explained.

Things that give me warm fuzzies? Of course, our dogs. They're literally fuzzy, and though sometimes I suspect them of plotting to make me crazy, I know that's my imagination. I write dialog for them and say it out loud, and I'm extremely glad there's no one to hear me be so ridiculous. (I love cats, too, but we can't have them . . . lest you think I'm feline-averse.) But the animals that live with us give me lots of pleasure, and there's a warmth in my heart when I watch them sprawling in the sun on a pretty day.

What else makes me comforted? Hot drinks, and especially hot chocolate. Of course, chocolate in any form is really comforting, but hot chocolate on a cold day . . . can't be beat.

We've had a very up and down year at my house. My husband's father died. My mother died. We had other family challenges. So it's been a time of seeking the aforementioned comfort and warm fuzzies. I've become aware, as I grow older, of the simple pleasures of a morning routine, the security of my own bed, the relaxing pastime of an accustomed chore.

Maybe, as I grow older, I cherish the simple times more. This is beginning to sound like a Hallmark ad, but it's true.

Books are still number one, though. I'll bet you all have a favorite, one that you turn to again and again. If it's not "Pride and Prejudice," what is your drug of choice?

Charlaine

TypePad Conversations » Answer this question!

Femmes at Crime Bake, Femmes on the airwaves

by Dana

Last weekend that several of the Femmes Fatales got in touch with their other-worldly sides. Toni, Hank, and I attended the Ninth Annual New England Crime Bake (attended, heck! Toni was on the committee and helped plan the weekend). The guest of honor was our own Charlaine, who basically ran a clinic on how to GoH: she was smart, funny, and gracious (but you knew that already).

There were two highlights in particular, for me, in addition to hanging with my fellow Femmes. One was the screening of an episode of “True Blood” (Season 2, Episode 9 “I Will Rise Up”), after which Charlaine answered questions about her books and the series. One of my favorite moments in Charlaine's Sookie series, it is always a treat to hear about Charlaine's creative process and the transition of her work to the large screen. 

The other was the Red and Black Vampire Ball on Saturday night. This was a costume party, and everyone got into the spirit of the occasion A few pictures:

On the right, Hank and Jonathan make a ghoulish and elegant couple.     

On the left (L to R:  Dana, Charlaine, and Toni).  Toni and Charlaine looked lovely, as always.  Why yes, my hair is purple. I went as my vampire, Claudia Steuben, from “The Night Things Changed.”

This was followed shortly by another, virtual convocation of several Femmes. The audiobook version of Wolfsbane and Mistletoe was just released, with stories by Charlaine, Toni, Donna, and myself. I have just started listening to the collection (we're rationing them, one per dark winter night). I'll admit: this is my first work to have found its way to audio and it was a little strange, at first. I don't usually go back to a book or story, once it's completed, and hearing my words being read by a different (and male) voice took a few minutes to get used to. But the actor doing the reading got into the character of Gerry and the world of the story, both real-life Salem, Massachusetts, and my Fangborn world. I really appreciate the terrific job he did!

Do you listen to audio books?  What's your favorite?  Or do you have a favorite book-to-screen adaptation?

Announcing two new contests

by Donna Andrews

I realize that some of my readers were a bit put out when they got to the end of Stork Raving Mad and learned that I wasn't going to tell them whether Meg's twins were girls, boys, or a mixed set. For anyone who was vexed--sorry about that!  I didn't realize how much not knowing would bother people.

But I did have a couple of reasons for not telling.  One is that, evil person that I am, I like cliffhangers.  Another is that at the time I finished the book, I hadn't quite decided on the twins' genders and I wanted to keep my options open.

And the third reason is that I planned all along to have a Name the Twins contest.

You don't actually get to pick the names, mind you.  But if you can guess what I've decided to call the new arrivals, you will win a signed copy of The Real Macaw, my next book--in which they make their first appearance.

I'll give away up to three books, so if a whole lot of people guess correctly, the earliest entries will win.  If no one guesses both names correctly, the prizes will go to the first three people who guess at least one name.  If no one guesses either name . . . I'll enlist my fellow Femmes Fatales to help me figure out some way to give away those books.  Maybe a random drawing. We'll figure it out.

You can enter not just once but up to three times, if you have three brilliant ideas about what I might have called the babies.

And there will be clues!  In fact, I'll share two clues and a hint right now.  The hint?  I have twin six-year-old nephews.  If I write what I know . . .

And the clues.
1.    Both names were among the top 1000 names in 2009, the most recent year for which the Social Security Administration releases its list of baby names.  And I don't mean lingering down at the bottom of the list with the creative spellings.
2.    Meg and Michael took the names from their family tree.  Which doesn't help much for the twin they named after someone on Michael's side, since we haven't seen too many of them, but anyone who's been reading the series has probably met the namesake for the other twin.

I'll post a few more clues between now and when the contest ends--which will probably be sometime in March when my publisher makes the Advanced Readers Copies available.  Watch this blog and my website for an official ending date when I know it.

The other contest is an ongoing one: a Name the Book contest.  I'm always on the lookout for good titles--which in this case means a title that includes a pun or play on words and at least one bird. I'll be posting the entries on my website, so if you send in a bird title, be sure to let me know if it's okay to give your name (full or just first name and last initial) or whether I should keep your entry anonymous.

To enter either contest?  Just email me: [email protected]

And thanks in advance for entering.

Donna

Nighttime Blues

by Kris Neri

Sleep and I have long had a contentious relationship. I know it’s a natural and normal process that other people take to easily. They fall into bed, let their heads sink into their pillows and just drift away. I passionately envy every one of them. I have to sneak up on sleep, catching a small window of opportunity or it dodges me for hours. Melatonin is sometimes involved.

I’ve heard that some problem sleepers go to sleep labs, so their difficulty might be analyzed. I can’t even imagine doing something like that. If I can’t always capture a night’s sleep in the comfortable privacy of my own bedroom, I sure couldn’t do it in the sterile environment of a lab with people peering out of two-way mirrors at me. The mere idea of having other people watch me try to get to sleep would be enough to guarantee I never would.

I know that noise is an issue for me. When we lived in Los Angeles, the poor air quality affected my   husband’s allergies and caused him to snore. We tried everything to stop it, antihistamines and decongestants, Breathe Rite strips, sprays of one kind or another. Still, most nights I had to shake him awake and get him to roll over, or go to sleep in another room. It also didn’t help that we lived on a corner, along a street that didn’t see that much traffic during the day, but which turned into a speedway at night. It was there that I learned that sleep and I were destined to share a bumpy ride.

Then we moved to Arizona, where the air is cleaner. My husband’s allergies virtually disappeared, and I rarely hear even the odd snort from him during the night, not to mention the ongoing snoring that once was the norm. Our neighborhood streets are also dark and deserted at night.

So I shouldn’t suffer from insomnia anymore, right? Wrong.

Along the way a little cocker spaniel entered our lives, that we named Annabelle after a character in my book, High Crimes on the Magical Plane. Guess what? That little dog nose snores so loudly, she sounds like a full discordant brass band. How can such a tiny nose produce such a racket?

She sleeps on a pet bed on the floor, on the other side of my nightstand, so I can’t reach out give her a shove the way I once did to my husband. Not without getting out of bed anyway, which isn’t conducive to staying asleep, either. I can’t shout, “Roll over!” the way I once did to him because dogs curl up when  they sleep — exactly what would “roll over” mean to her? I could kick her out of the room, of course; shut the door and make her sleep on the other side of it. But I’m too much of a softy to do that. Besides, I’d have to kick the cat out, too, and he doesn’t snore, so he doesn’t deserve to lose his bedroom chair.

Now she’s even started snoring during the day. She and our cat, Philly, like to stay with me when I write, so she’s almost always asleep in my study. You can’t imagine how much that sound irritates my nerves. Fingernails on a chalkboard sounds soothing by comparison. Not exactly conducive to creativity.

We have had a high pollen count in Northern Arizona this fall, and the dog, cat and I are all mainlining antihistamines. Amazingly, my husband seems unaffected — one small blessing. But Annabelle alone saws so much wood, we could sell it by the cord. Earplugs give me some relief from her daytime snoring, but not even industrial strength earplugs provide enough protection from the noise at night. 

So sleep and I remain at odds. Maybe I should send Annabelle to a sleep lab. Not because she can’t sleep — like all dogs, she goes out like a light. With her gone, though, I might actually sleep through the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stress? Just Say NO.

Guest Author Kate Carlisle

Thanks so much to Hank and the Femmes for having me here today!

KATE:  The third book in my Bibliophile Mysteries series, THE LIES THAT BIND, was released this week. Release week for every author is both exciting and stressful. Exciting because you finally get the story into readers’ hands, and stressful because getting the story into readers’ hands means it’s no longer in yours. On release week, the author is pretty much powerless.

 Turns out, powerlessness creates stress. I recently watched a documentary from National Geographic called Stress: Portrait of a Killer. In a study of baboon society which – it won’t surprise you – is very much like human society, researchers found that subordinate males have much higher levels of stress hormones than dominant males.

 The baboons’ stress isn’t being caused by the threat of physical danger so much as it was caused by the “social and psychological tumult invented by their own species,” according to researcher Robert Sapolsky. The dominant males torment their weaker brethren. These jerkwads use their 10 hours of free time each day to make someone else’s life miserable. The subordinate males are at the mercy of their cruel fate, and this helplessness creates chronic stress they cannot escape.

 (As if having a bright red butt isn’t stressful enough!)

 In a study of government employees in the UK, a similar link was discovered between stress and powerlessness. Low level civil servants exhibit much greater signs of stress than do their bosses. They are not in charge of their own fate, and this causes great anxiety.

The body, both human and baboon, reacts to psychological distress as though it’s in mortal danger. Our bodies turn on the exact same stress response for psychological danger as they do for physical danger. All nonessential systems shut down to allow the body to focus on survival.

 Those “nonessential” systems include things like our immune system and our memory. When we’re stressed, it’s difficult for our bodies to fight bacteria, making us more susceptible to everything from the common cold to the peptic ulcer.

 Chronic stress also changes our brain circuits, making us lose the capacity to remember things we need to. “Stress makes you stupid,” one researcher said.

 Where did I leave my keys? For that matter, where did I leave my car?

I can attest to that. On release week, I have a hard time thinking straight. By this week, I have written the best book I could possibly write. I spent months writing and polishing, tweaking and refining. My publisher did everything they could on their end, too, to make THE LIES THAT BIND successful. They created cover art to attract the reader’s eye, they promoted the book to booksellers and book clubs, they sent the ARC to reviewers, and they distributed THE LIES THAT BIND to stores across the country.

 Then the book is released, and there’s nothing we can do but hold our breath and wait. Oh, I can arrange book signings, promote my book on my website and Facebook page, and (obviously!) do a blog tour to help get the word out about my new book, but essentially, I am powerless.

 My heroine, Brooklyn Wainwright, is a rare book expert and a professional bookbinder. Most of the time, she works for herself, taking only the jobs she really wants. In THE LIES THAT BIND, she has accepted a job teaching a class at the Bay Area Book Arts Center, and her new boss is a real dominant baboon. Brooklyn is stressed, but someone else obviously has it worse. Because when Brooklyn’s new boss turns up dead, it’s clear that stress has driven someone to murder.

 How to fight stress: take charge of your destiny

 If powerlessness creates stress, then it stands to reason that the way to combat stress is to take charge of my destiny in whatever small ways I can. Although reader reaction to THE LIES THAT BIND is out of my hands, there are goals that I can set and accomplish. I can clean my house from top to bottom. (I don’t want to, but I can.) I can research my next book, as long as I take notes, what with that whole stress-related lack of memory thing. I can take a bookbinding class, and create something tangible.

 How do you fight stress? What do you do to relax? What are your hobbies? What are other small ways that I can take charge of my destiny when my new book hits the shelves?

(By the  way, I did recently take a fun bookbinding class.  I made the cute little keepsake book with a matching box that’s pictured here. On December 2, I’m going to give it away to a random member of my mailing list. For a chance to win, join the mailing list at www.katecarlisle.com. (US residents only))

The News Behind the News?

"Making her debut as a novelist, Herbert--reviewer, librarian, and authority on the mystery novel (The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing), brings all of her newspaper experience to bear in this neatly plotted tale of misdirection."

               Library Journal on Front Page Teaser

 

 

HANK: I've been a reporter for more than 30 years. And it never fails. As a general assignemnt reporter, sometimes I've covered a story for TV and later seen the same story in the newspper. And there's always something weird.

What's weird? Some element in MY story is different from the same thing in the newspaper story. Now, how can that be? We were at the same place, saw the same things, interviewed the same people.

Truth is: There's a whole decision process that happens. And sometimes it's about more than the facts.

Today, the brilliant and insightful Rosemary Herbert--also a veteran reporter--shines a light on the news. And you'll never look at your morning paper the same way. 

 

ROSEMARY HERBERT:  When you pick up your morning newspaper, you think you’re getting the truth. But what else is in that heady mix of headlines and reporting?

 

When I took a job at the Boston Herald some years ago, I expected that the newsroom would provide me with plenty of atmosphere and plot ideas for the mystery novel I had always dreamt of writing. I knew those elements alone would be gifts to the writer. But I did not anticipate the additional bounty that working in Boston’s competitive news business would bring me.

 As it turned out, scrutinizing the work done by Herald reporters and by competing staffers on the Boston Globe would become not just a source of fascination, but a fount of plot ideas and thematic elements. The more I worked on my mystery novel about an underdog, female reporter doggedly pursuing the truth about a missing mother, the more I realized that I wanted Front Page Teaser to become a conversation-starter about how the way we report and headline the news can skew the public’s perception of events.

 There were many things I loved about working for the Boston Herald. Among them, the start of each day stands out for me. Before settling down to writing, I loved to grab myself a mug of coffee and fresh copies of the Herald and Globe. I’d take them to my desk and scrutinize both newspapers to see how all decisions, great and small, affected the messages readers received from the different presentations of the same news.

 First, I’d look to see which news made their front page and which made ours. Then I’d take note of how much play each paper gave to the same news items. As for the reporting, how did the reporters spell out the same news? Was it with a first-person account? Or was it a straight narrative of facts peppered with short quotes from other kinds of sources? When both papers quoted the same source, how much context and how much of any particular statement was retained by each?

 For a writer, this kind of close and comparative reading of the news was hugely enlightening. It was no surprise to me that the placement of a story on the front page endowed it with more importance in the reader’s eyes than a story buried on page 19. But when it came to quoting sources, I had a discovery in store. That’s because, like most people, I generally expected that more context and a lengthier quote would add up to a more informative result. While that often holds true, I saw a remarkable number of cases where a quote cut to its core delivered a clearer message – and, one could argue, a more complete sense of the truth --- than was delivered in more verbiage. This was a real eye-opener for me.

 And then of course, there were those eye-catchers: the headlines. The contrast was often very striking here. While our competitor apparently prided itself on printing fact-filled headlines generally written in a measured tone and spelled out it smaller type, my paper was inclined to splash the news in fonts that were as large and bold as the attitude conveyed in them. And that attitude often mirrored the views of the readership the Herald called its own.

 For instance, when in 1996, a lumber truck dumped a load of two-by-fours onto the Central Artery at rush hour, both papers covered the story through lively man-and-woman-in-the street reactions to the traffic nightmare. But the Herald reflected frustrated commuters’ attitudes in its headline, declaring in big, bold type: “LUMBER JERK.” On other occasions, the Herald has used the front page to cheer on a home team, as was the case with the headline “JUST DO IT!”

 A closer look at headlines in any newspaper demonstrates how editorial attitudes may be displayed in them. At times of emergency, police personnel and firefighters deservedly become “heroes,” while during election time, the wording of headlines can color one paper’s coverage blue and tint another’s red.

 There’s a sense of fun at work in much headline wordplay. But as a Herald photographer who cruised the city for breaking overnight news once reminded me, sometimes fun is not the essence of the news. He brought me up short when, while I was perusing the contrasting headlines on a homicide report, I remarked, “We had more fun with that headline.” I was reacting to some word play and the splash of bold type the Herald had spilled on the story.

 But my colleague just froze and looked me straight in the eye. “These are people’s lives we’re writing about here,” he said. “Never forget that.”

 And I never shall. That’s why, as a newspaper junkie, mystery writer, and citizen, I believe it is vitally important for news consumers to get savvy about how the news is presented. That means getting a good laugh out of some wordplay, feeling glad when your own hopes for the home team are spelled out in big letters -- but when it comes to taking away information about important issues, never forgetting the editorial, political, and attitudinal stances of the media you turn to for your information. And this is not only important when it comes to evaluating the news you see headlined in bold type.

*****************************************

 Rosemary Herbert brings 10 years of newsroom experience as the Boston Herald’s book review editor to the writing of her first novel, Front Page Teaser: A Liz Higgins Mystery.

 Robert B. Parker likened this Boston-set mystery to “a shot of good whiskey,” and called Herbert “a compelling new voice” in the genre.

 Herbert is the Edgar Award-nominated editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing. She also edited a number of mystery anthologies for Oxford University Press, including two with the late Tony Hillerman: A New Omnibus of Crime (newly released in paperback) and The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories.

Tormenting the Boss

By Elaine Viets                                                                         

I love to torment bad bosses in my books. I’ve had so many. It’s fun to torture them – in fiction.

In my new mystery, "An Uplifting Murder," Josie Marcus’s boss, Harry the Horrible, is a Frankenstein creation constructed from bits of bad bosses I’ve endured.

Harry wants Josie to mystery shop lingerie. He gets hopelessly tangled in his explanation – and his need to avoid a sexual harassment suit.

Here’s how the book opens:

 "You want me to take off what for this assignment?" Josie Marcus asked. She stared right in the red, ratlike eyes of her boss, Harry the Horrible. They jumped like gigged frogs.

"Uh, your top," Harry said. The manager of Suttin Services was completely clothed, except for the little bulges of hairy fat that escaped through his gaping shirt.

"Is that all?" Josie knew Harry wasn’t telling her everything. She had a ten-year-old daughter. Josie was an expert at ferreting out half-truths.                                                

Harry flinched. "And your bosom thingie," he said. "Your bra."              

"I’m supposed to strip naked for a mystery shopping job?" Josie clenched her hands to keep from punching her flabby boss.

Harry took one look at her eyes and grabbed the St. Louis phone book. He held it in front of him like a shield. Josie was only five foot six, but she was mad enough to deck the guy.

"Just your top half," he said. "And there are no men around. It’s all girls."

"Women," Josie said. "Grown women are not girls. Unless you want me to strip at a grade school."

"Okay, women," he said, quickly. "I need you for this job. All women wear bras. It’s no big deal. Especially for you."

Josie’s glare should have lasered every hair off his hide.

"I wasn’t getting personal," Harry said. "I meant that you – as a female person – are used to taking off your clothes in doctors’ offices and when you get your annual chest squashing."

"What’s that?" Josie asked.

"My mom gets them to make sure she doesn’t have cancer," Harry said.

"Those are called mammograms," Josie said. "My mother gets them, too." She tried to hide a smile. From what her mom said, Harry had given an accurate description of the procedure.

"Please, Josie. I’m not talking dirty. I just don’t know how to say it right." The big oaf was pleading now. He had the charm of an unkissed toad.

"You sure don’t," Josie said. She looked through his office door into the main room of Suttin Services. Dust motes danced in the early morning light, haloing the IT guy working on a computer. The sun gilded a muscular telephone repairman installing another inside line. None of the staff had arrived yet.

"There are two men in the office now," Josie said. "Take off your shirt and show them your chest." Josie would bet her next paycheck that his breasts were bigger than hers.

 Harry clutched the phone book to his chest, horrified as a maiden aunt propositioned by a randy priest.

"I couldn’t," he said. "That’s different."

"Why?" Josie said. "They’re strangers. And guys. You’ll never see them again. You’re a man. You can walk around at the pool without a shirt. I can’t."

"I’m the boss," Harry said, trying to cover himself with a shred of dignity.

"And I’m a peon. So I should go naked?"

"No," Harry said. "Can I back up and start again? I didn’t get off on the right foot. Desiree Lingerie, the fancy ladies’ underwear chain, wants you to mystery-shop their store at Plaza Venetia. They’ve had a complaint about one of their saleswomen. I mean persons. Did I say it right?"

"Saleswoman is correct," Josie said.                                              

"What I was trying to say is that every woman gets measured for a bra, so you’d be used to the process of undressing like that."

"Every woman with some bucks gets measured," Josie said. "The rest of us buy our bras off the rack at stores. Target doesn’t have bra fitters."

"Desiree Lingerie is more upscale than that," Harry said. "It’s for women only. It’s supposed to be a place where women feel comfortable with their bodies. They got a complaint that one of their saleswomen is making rude remarks about the size of the customers’ — "

Harry stopped while he mentally searched for the proper word. "Chests!" he finally said.

"What do I get paid for these insults?" Josie asked.

"You’ll make your usual fee," Harry said, "but there’s an extra benefit. You’d get to keep the bras and panties."

Now that was a bonus, Josie thought. She had a new boyfriend and lacy underwear was a frivolity she couldn’t afford.

   
                                                                      * * *

Here’s a bonus for you. Enter my Uplifting Contest to win a $100 gift certificate to the lingerie store or bookstore of your choice. Go to www.elaineviets.com and click on "contests."