Caroline and Nina stood by, looking as useless as Lance felt. Finally, he stepped closer to Julia and said, "So she's got early drafts of your books. What's she gonna do, sell them on eBay?"
"Oh my god!" Julia yelled. Lance seriously thought she was going to pass out. He couldn't believe he'd actually made things worse.
"There are more than Julia James manuscripts in that box," Caroline said as she rubbed her sister's back while Julia sat on an ottoman, holding her head between her knees, trying to slow her breathing.
"There are Veronicas in that box?" Nina yelled, amazed, finally catching on to what Lance was missing. "You didn't burn the Veronicas?"
Julia's head popped up. The color had drained from her face, and crazy, static-empowered hairs circled around her head. "Not the first one." She sniffed. "It was the first thing I ever got published—ever. When Table for One made the bestseller lists, I knew there could be a scandal, but I couldn't... I should have, I know. And now ..."
Her head disappeared between her knees again, and Caroline kept rubbing her back in slow circles. Caroline was patient as she explained. "When Julia first moved to New York, she wasn't making very much money, and you know how proud she is. She wasn't going to ask for help so . . . well, for a while she was.
‘i . . ." Her voice trailed off. Lance expected her to say stripper or telemarketer, but then Julia straightened and finished. "Romance novelist."
"She could write at night and still work in the industry during the day," Caroline explained. "She used a pen name. The three of us are the only people in the whole state who know about it. Not even Mom and Dad know."
"Especially not Mom and Dad." Julia's voice came from between her knees.
"And the IRS," Caroline added, ever the tax attorney's wife. "Of course the IRS knew."
"Well, that's about to change," Nina said. "Crazy Myrtle is about to go pilfering through that box, and it won't take her long to figure it out."
The four of them stared at one another. Then Nina said, "We have to get it back. We've got to break in." Then she continued: "Lance is a man. He can help"—setting the women's movement back twenty-five years, at least to the days before Charlie's Angels.
"Nina, that's ridiculous," Caroline said.
"I told you," Nina said, as if she was holding a surefire answer to their prayers and Caroline was refusing to listen. "Lance can help."
"Whoa," Lance said. "I'm not committing any felonies until I see for myself exactly why the world will end if I don't help you three."
Caroline disappeared. When she came back, she was carrying a handful of worn paperbacks. "Here." She handed a book to Lance, and he took it. "That's the first one. That's the one Myrtle's got."
Lance looked at the small block of paper in his hands. It had a bright cover with a half-naked man and a bosomy woman in a tight embrace. He read the title: "Tomorrow's Temptation by Veronica White." Then he, looked down at the straight laced woman he'd come to know. "Hello, Veronica," he teased.
"Hey, category romance is big business" she said defensively. "I wasn't going into the slush pile. I was going to get published and get paid." She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin. "It was all about the math."
"Sure," Lance said, not trying to hide his doubts. "This looks very mathematical."
"I'll have you know that the majority of all popular fiction sales are in the romance genre, not to mention more than half of all the paperbacks," Julia stated. "There are over fifty million readers in North America alone!"
"Okay," Lance shot back. "So it's big business and you were good at it. Then what's the big deal?" he asked.
"The 'big deal,'" Julia said, "is that Veronica White sold something that Julia James tells women they don't need. This"—she snatched the book from his hands—"plus you"— she used the book to hit his shoulder—"equals hypocrite," she gestured to herself. Then she dropped into a chair and laid one arm dramatically over her eyes. Lance thought she looked like Juliet right after she swallowed the poison.
Lance walked to the remaining pile of books and selected one. He studied the paperback novel in his hands and said, "Veronica White. You made that up?"
"Yes," Caroline answered.
He turned to the back cover of the book and studied the black-and-white photograph of a timeless, ageless woman wearing a black turtleneck with stark black hair pulled tightly away from a classic face. If she hadn't been on the back of a book, he might have expected to find her on an ancient coin. "Who's the babe?"
"The babe"—Caroline laughed—"is Ro-Ro."
"No," he said, disbelieving.
Caroline took the paperback from him and studied it like a person staring at a family heirloom. "It's an old picture, taken when she was between husbands and going through a Bohemian phase."
Lance looked between the book and the woman who had written it. He saw the same strong features, the same graceful presence; the picture might have been of Ro-Ro, but the image, Lance decided, was all Julia. Then he remembered the dour old woman the graceful girl in the photo had become. What a waste.
Caroline went on. "We didn't think anyone would ever figure it out. When we found the picture, it looked so modern and she was so beautiful in it that we didn't even know it was her until she told us."
"So does she know?" Lance asked.
"Good gracious, no," Caroline said. "I can just see Miss Sycamore Hills putting her face on the back of a book. There'd be hell to pay."
"Are you kidding?" Nina asked. "She would love it."
"Deep down maybe," Caroline conceded.
"Deep down definitely," Nina said.
"No deep down about it," Julia said, sounding more confident than her sister and best friend combined. "She'd love it, and she'd Waft."
They sat in silence for a long time, each of them trying to find a magic solution, a time machine, an error-proof plan. After a while, Julia straightened and said, "Why am I panicking? I'll just go ask for it back. I'll offer to pay her if that's what it takes." She stood and began looking for her purse. "I don't know how much cash I've got, but—"