Monday, March 15
Dear Author, Thanks for the opportunity to view your work, unfortunately it doesn’t work for us.
Lynn Smith, Knight Publishing
Hi, I’m Heather Lynn Lucas. Five years after bowing to a ‘follow your passion’ voice, I left the Sisters of Perpetual Mercy and, a first novel, Behind Cloistered Walls, submitted to a publisher, here we are sitting at my desk looking at the email reply you just read. What else is new except to say, optimistic (some say delusional), a second novel started, I’ve toyed with self-publishing, but am still holding out for a ‘big fish’ pub.
So you’ll know, to pay the rent, buy food, etcetera, I’m a producer of TV commercials for Golden Triangle Advertising Agency, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. H.L. Lucas my nom de plume, I just whizzed past my 25th trip around our personal star, the sun. As to my entry onto what many call “now” or more aptly, the Looney Tunes playing out daily on planet Earth, today my birthday, occasionally comes to mind Shakespeare’s soothsayer death message to Julius Caesar: “Beware the Ides of March.”
Anyway…. Shucks … the morning scooted along to 8:45, no matter how you slice it, I’ll be late for work.
I call Golden Triangle. After two rings, Ms. Lindsay answers: “It’s a golden morning in Pittsburgh, this is Golden Triangle Adverting.”
“Hi … this is Heather.”
“Heather, where are you, dear?”
I hate lies, but little white ones I decided long ago are okay if they don’t harm anybody or anything, so I say, “I’d tell you a little white one but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try.”
“Flat tire.”
“Dear me.”
She says Teddy (my boss) is in, do I want to speak to him?
“No that’s okay, be in as soon as I can get the tire changed.”
“Oh my, are you going to change it yourself?”
“Guess so.”
“Don’t you belong to Triple A?”
“No but I’ve been thinking of double A?”
Nothing from Lindsay, then, “Double A?”
“Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m on step two, hoping a higher power can restore sanity.”
“Oh, I….”
“Just joking, I’ll change the tire, be in around 10:00.”
“Well okay, I’ll advise Teddy.”
I press end, turn, take five steps and my cell phone begins its tinny rendition of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”. I look at caller ID. Yep, Teddy. I answer. “Hello, Ted.”
“’Uts up?” (That’s Pittsburghese for what’s up).
I say, “Oh, hi, I was just telling….”
“I ‘erd.” (I heard)
“I’ll be a little….”
“Whenever are yinz gowen to git rid of that whoreible piece of soreage?”
Whoreible piece of soreage! He’s referring to my beloved yellow (faded somewhat), two door, let’s say vintage (ten years new, 98,000 miles), fresh off my dad’s used car lot, a gift when I went off to college many moons ago, Volkswagen.
“Hey, Luke (for Lucas, he calls me that), ya still there?”
“Yes Ted, still here, should be in around 10:00.”
“Oakel-Doakel (okee dookee). Don’t ferget that Sears location shoot, safternoon, yinz ready fer it?”
“Of course.”
“Buy yinz lunch?” (Buy you lunch?)
Quick, think of something.
Teddy: “Yinz dere?” (You there?)
“Oh Ted, I feel guilty about being late, and I have to get ready for the Sears shoot … I think I’ll skip lunch today, maybe tomorrow.”
“Oakel-Doakel.”
“Thanks, bye.”
Feeling a bit guilty for fibbing about the flat tire, thinking, it’s for a greater good—literature, the arts, posterity—somebody yawns Right, and I head for the tub (no shower, more later).