Tales of a Drama Queen

by Lee Nichols

Overview

APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT
Name: Elle Medina
Marital Status: I'm separated from my fiancé.
Occupation: He was a highly paid attorney.
Employment History: You mean mine? Technically I haven't exactly worked before. But I'm motivated and I work well with others. Most others. Usually.
Career Goals: I thought I was happy with Louis, but now I'm not sure. Ever since he dumped me for some floozy, I've been thinking I should find out what I'm good at and pursue it in a formal job-type way.
Salary Requirements: I need my own apartment (currently staying on friend's sofa) and a car. And I've always wanted a dog. Oh, and I definitely need a shopping trip.

Elle Medina must be qualified for something other than shopping and causing trouble, but when she moves to Santa Barbara after the end of her engagement, what she's suited for isn't clear. Bartender? Private eye? Phone psychic? It seems like everything she tries ends in humiliation or legal action—or both. Her best friend is getting sick of her, her new boyfriend's a con artist and her creditors are on her trail. So why is this the happiest Elle's been in years?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459246409
Publisher:	Red Dress Ink
Publication date:	06/15/2012
Sold by:	HARLEQUIN
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	284,682
File size:	1 MB

Read an Excerpt

Tales Of A Drama Queen

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By Lee Nichols

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-373-25063-0

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Chapter One

SEBASTIAN, MAESENEER AND BRONSON

August 21, 2004

Re: Our Recent Luncheon

Ms. Eleanor Medina:

I regret to inform you that I was not released from the hospital until yesterday. The injuries were severe and, as you no doubt recall, I have never been a good healer.

Dr. Armitage offered the opinion that the sugar, at the time of impact, was heated to approximately 370° F. Mr. Maeseneer, Esq., was kind enough to suggest that I initiate legal proceedings against the restaurant, pastry chef and, of course, yourself. However, as you know, I would miss the Gratinee de Coquille St. Jacques. And, as I am well aware of the state of your finances, expecting remuneration would be more than foolhardy.

Elle, please understand that I do not regret the six long years we spent together. You are a very special person, with a great deal of vivacity, and as one chapter ends another is sure to begin. Although, if you will allow advice from a fond ex-fiance, you might learn to curb your temper.

Sincerely,

Louis M. Ferris

Louis M. Ferris, Esquire

P.S. It has come to my attention that, during your somewhat disordered departure, you must have inadvertently removed my stamp collection with your belongings. Please return ASAP.

LMF: je

1665 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036 [phone]

I got the fancy cheese grater from Williams-Sonoma. I got the obscenely fat, three-wicked candle his sister gave us. I got the cut-out New Yorker cartoons, saved against a rainy day for eventual decipherment. I even got the instant ear thermometer (I never get sick, but I knew he would miss it).

All was taken in manner of the break-up scene in The Jerk, where a drunk Steve Martin stumbles out the door, pants around his ankles, grabbing whatever catches his eye. Was proud at the time that I shrieked like a harridan for his sister's handwritten instructions about burning the candle, then deeply disappointed to read simply: "Burn no longer than one hour. Enjoy!" Have been preoccupied on flight to Santa Barbara wondering what happens if I burn longer. Explosion? Toxic fumes?

For the first time, I drink real Bloody Marys on the plane, not virgins. Concern over Death Candle melts away in cloud of drunken amiability. I delight my neighbor, a genteel old lady wearing a Laura Ashley frock, with details of my breakup with Louis. Her eyebrows beetle when I call the Iowan floozy a scheming slut. Could she be from Iowa? I assure her I don't think all floozies from Iowa are scheming sluts.

Am pleasantly surprised when old lady says there are extra seats in back, smiles kindly, and leaves in a waft of grand-motherly perfume. I scoot to the window seat and lay my head against the cold plastic wall.

Start to cry as I fall asleep to thoughts of my big, expensive, perfect wedding. And my small, cheap, flawed future.

I wake when the plane touches ground. There's a scattering of applause, and for a euphoric moment I think it's for me.

I was dreaming about trying on clothes in an endless, utopian version of the Better Dresses department of my childhood department store. The dressing room is large and shell-pink, filled with Donna Karans, Armanis, Guccis, Diors and pre-Stella-McCartney-bail Chloes. Everything I put on makes my body look like Halle Berry's. When did I get such a perfect ass? I can't stop turning and admiring it in the mirror. Like an old Labrador lying down for a nap, I turn and admire, turn and admire, searching for the best of all possible views.

Reaching for the price tag on a Missoni sheath, I can't quite make out the numbers. I ask the manager (who, oddly, is my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Bott) to help me. He says, "You never were a good reader, Elle," presents me with a gold Neiman Marcus credit card (not Robinson's after all) and says, "Take it all, you gorgeous thing." The beautiful young salespeople applaud.

I open my eyes, smiling modestly, to find a middle-aged couple across the aisle clapping. Because the plane landed. As if a safe landing is more important than a perfect ass in a Missoni.

I straighten in my seat, a crick in my neck, cranky from my nap. Doesn't help that shopping orgasm was all a dream. And that my feet have swollen to the size of pineapples, and won't slip back into my boots, forcing me to leave them unzipped.

I peer out the mini-window at the Santa Barbara airport. Looks like a Spanish hacienda. I've only been home once since college and the hacienda makes me feel nostalgic and young again - can't wait to impress my friends and family with all the brilliant things I learned at Georgetown, plus tales of my fabulous attorney fiance and high-society Washington lifestyle. Cheered, I wander down the stairs toward the tarmac, half-expecting the whir and flash of paparazzi cameras.

It's all wrong. I'm blinded by runway lights, suffocated by fresh air, struck with sick-making vertigo. I clutch the stair-railing as I'm ambushed by the truth: I'm no longer twenty-one, all I recall from Georgetown is my relief at having graduated, my family doesn't live here anymore, my fabulous fiance dumped me for an Iowan floozy, I never had a lifestyle - and now I don't even have a life.

I start crying again, and the grandmotherly old lady lays a gentle hand on my arm and brushes past, muttering "move it, you feeble lush."

Resolve in future to keep my airborne Marys virginal.

I've lined up my seventh suitcase (of thirteen, but some are quite small) in the baggage claim tent, when Maya bounces up. She's as cute as she was in high school, with a short tousle of blond curls, huge green eyes and a petite teenage body that belies her twenty-six years. She's my opposite. I'm taller, with long dark corkscrew hair, and more curvy than petite.

She smiles at me, and I feel dirty, tangled, big and miserable. She sees my unzipped boots and unstable expression and opens her arms. I fall into them, weeping.

"Oh, Elle." She giggles. "You're just the same!"

(Continues...)

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Editorial Reviews

What's a pampered 20-something to do when her rich fianc goes on a business trip and comes back married to someone else? That's the dilemma facing Elle Medina in Nichols's delightfully silly, vivacious debut. True to type, the novel begins with a self-absorbed, ill-starred narrator with a case of logorrhea-yet it's actually funny. Clever lines tumble over one another as Elle quits D.C. for Santa Barbara, Calif., where she must find a job, a car, an apartment and a man. Getting the car isn't too hard, despite her gargantuan credit card debt, and the apartment is affordable, even if it's a converted trolley. Finding a job spotting shoplifters is easy, too. So it's too bad about the hottie who pretended he was stealing, sued and got her fired-and what about that architect who keeps catching Elle at her worst moments? Misadventures pile on misadventures, and Elle's haplessness begins to grate-that is, until she finds success as a phone psychic and starts growing up. Best friends, difficult parents, a bad boy and a good one-the necessary ingredients-are here, plus a clever plot, an over-the-top climax and a grab-a-hankie-even-though-it's-happy side-story about Elle's adoption of a mangy boxer named Scab. Agent, Nancy Coffey. (July) Forecast: This good-natured, irrepressible fairy tale is better than a box of bonbons; Shopaholic fans may have a new heroine. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly