Temple immediately glanced to the end tables, but each one was protected by coasters.
"It's all under control, dear," Electra said beneath her breath, which smelled of. . . Johnny Walker Black. "Trust me. Would you like something?" She waggled her eyebrows at the bar.
"Not when I'm working," Temple said through her teeth, and under her breath as well. "Where did you get all this?"
"Restaurant. Van. Chef Song. The boys."
Boys? "Free, I hope?"
"Of course. You know they'd all do anything for you."
"I just wish it was something I knew about."
"I'll be right back," Electra said, slipping into the hall. "Go to it, girl!"
Temple pulled the light chair away from the desk beside the door. She put the heavy press kits on the desk, where they immediately slid into avalanche mode. She contained them as best she could, then smiled at her . . . guests.
"I'm impressed." The slender woman Temple had seen pointed out as megastar Misty Meadows nibbled cream cheese and caviar. "The network really knows how to put on the ritz."
Temple smiled broadly. Very broadly. She would say not one word that could be interpreted as misrepresentation. She shuffled press kits on her lap and beamed at the assembly.
"I'm sorry to be late, so much to do! And I just grabbed your press kits, so I'm afraid I haven't done my homework yet."
"No problem," said a heavyset woman in hot-pink linen, making inroads on three celery sticks and a radish. "We're used to improvising."
"We're also used to abuse." Another woman's voice came clear and challenging from the chartreuse-upholstered loveseat that Midnight Louie so liked to lounge upon, who knows with whom ... or what? "I hope you won't hand the on-camera personality a script that says we romance writers 'crank out' these bestsellers in an effort to 'put a little sexual fantasy' in our lackluster, overweight, middle-aged women's lives."
Temple's upraised hands fanned in a plea for peace. "I understand your problem, and hope to be part of the solution. In fact, that's my first question. About these so-called cover hunks ..."
They groaned as one, which was more than she had hoped for. While they tossed disparaging comments about current cover trends back and forth, Temple made a quick study of the press kits, matching photographs to the actual persons.
The lineup was: Sharon Rose on the chartreuse satin loveseat; Misty Meadows on the armchair.
The solemn woman in glasses beside Sharon Rose was the outspoken Mary Ann Trenarry, who had carried the banner against the cover-hunk trend, although she had said nothing significant yet.
Maybe she regretted her strong position, as Kit had suggested.
Temple glanced to her left, nearly jumping to see the immense purple mountain of Shannon Little capped by a tilted straw hat with several snowy white feathers, from beneath which the romance doyenne icily glared down at Temple. A glass plate of hors d'oeuvres in her lap was as mountainously heaped as her person. But Shannon kept silent because she was devouring the goodies with mechanical efficiency, too-tight rings glittering as her fingers moved delicately to and from her mouth.
Though she had to admit that Shannon Little was a Purple Presence, Temple found the other authors disappointingly ordinary. Misty Meadows, seen close up, was one of those monotoned women from a sixties youth who wore no makeup. They all looked as if a wire brush had scrubbed their faces of all vivacity, a look that made the drama of Misty Meadows's hip-length hair seem like a forgotten adolescent cause without a rebel to wear it.
Sharon Rose's pink floral blouse and A-line skirt would have caused Hester Polyester to drool with envy. Her housewive's bubble-perm was as crisp as her apparel, and she had accessorized the casual outfit with a heavy gold necklace and earrings dripping diamond chips. All her taste was obviously concentrated on her plate, which was modestly filled with one of everything on the trays. Mary Ann Trenarry, a well-preserved woman well into her sixties, wore an exquisitely tailored coral silk suit with a single strand of pearls.
Only one woman in the room qualified as what Temple would call a glamour girl. Ravenna Rivers, likely a pseudonym. The thirty-something (and-wouldn't-;you-like-to-know-exactly what?) woman perched on a Sheraton side chair, her short, narrow black skirt showing lots of expertly crossed, exposed and hosed legs ending in red Manolo Blahnik heels. A white linen jacket vulgarized her aggressively tanned skin, and its vee neckline dipped way below the cocktail-hour zone.
Unbelievably profuse, elbow-length blonde tendrils framed an angular face made up to Joan Collins standards. Temple expected to hear the theme-music of some late-night soap opera playing "Enter the Vixen."
Temple didn't need a convenient musical cue to recall that Ravenna Rivers was rumored to have cozied up with the Homestead Man on her recent book tour. Apparently, this urban she-devil named Ravenna Rivers wrote frontier historical romances full of home fires and patchwork quilts, would wonders never cease?
"How do you authors vote on the cover man question?" Temple began.
"My position is plain." Mary Ann Trenarry set her glass of club soda on a coaster and sat forward.
"I think the focus on male cover models distracts the public, and the publicity machine, from our books. Romance novels, when written by women--"
"Good point!" Misty Meadows interrupted, bouncing on her chair like a cheerleader. "Decades ago when books like ours were written by men like Thomas B. Costain, they were 'historical novels'
and considered serious fiction."
"Costain never wrote novels like ours," Shannon Little interrupted imperiously, so inflamed that she temporarily returned a bacon-wrapped chestnut to her plate. "Women put the sex in historical novels."
"What about Frank Yerby?" Misty Meadows asked with raised eyebrows.
The women rolled their eyes.
"Please, you're talking pulp fiction," said Mary Ann Trenarry. "As I was saying, when women revived the historical novel in the seventies, with the new wrinkle of a female point of view--and, admittedly, something really new, explicit sexual frankness--their books were classed as trash. The urge to merge in full color and detail was a sociological reaction to women becoming liberated enough to reclaim their own sexuality. The result was what always happens to what women do: the books were belittled and only the sexual content attracted attention. Ravenna, who else besides women romance writers are keeping the Western novel tradition alive in these days when Louis Lamour is that last big-name male Western writer, and he's dead?"
Ravenna Rivers uncrossed her knees high on the thigh. Then she recrossed them, angling them smartly in the opposite direction. Imagine that, Temple thought enviously, ambidextrous crossed legs!
No plate occupied Ravenna Rivers lap, what little there was of it, but a lowball glass on the table beside her brimmed with straight Scotch, the color ale-dark.
"That's true. The Western romance keeps frontier stories alive. But this whole debate is so boring; what sells, sells, and that's why romance novels are here, why we are here now, why cover hunks are hot." Having said her piece, she took a swig of her Scotch.
Temple had been swiftly scanning the press-kit materials during the debate.
"Men certainly are a much more visible presence on covers," she said, holding up a handful of paperback book cover flats, over half of them featuring a bare-chested man, period. "Isn't this Cheyenne, the one who was killed?"
Temple could have been holding up the queen of spades, the way all eyes riveted to the cover in question.
"That's him," Misty Meadows agreed. "He was getting lots of work. Isn't he on your latest, too, Sharon?"