Like You Read About

This book is dedicated to my husband, who is my “Dan”.  The story is very loosely based on how we ended up together in our own happily ever after.  Many of the romantic gestures and lines in the email correspondence between Cora and Dan are pulled straight from emails my husband and I shared during our first months of dating.  He has always encouraged whatever hair-brained scheme I imagine and even bought me the laptop I wrote this book on as a present for my birthday.  Right now, he’s sitting next to me watching sports, and although we’ve given up on the weekly paper he still gives me the perfect weekend almost every single time.

I also want to thank my beautiful daughter Rebecca, who always loves Mom no matter what, even when I
have got my nose stuck in a book, or as is the latest phase, writing a book.

My SO girls,
Chelle, Allie, Marion, Jess, Toby, Sally-Anne, Ren…  You ladies rock, I don’t care how far apart we live you are the best, most loving and supportive friends a woman could ever have, we’ll always be sisters in our hearts if not by blood.

My Beta readers, especially Jen, who helped
me refine Cora and Dan into a couple you’d actually want to read about.  My editor Tanya, you are
*THE*
Word Maid.   And all the other self-published authors who blazed their own trail and still found plenty of people who wanted to read their books, may I be so lucky.

And finally K, it’s been more than 6 years, but I still miss you as much now as I did then, and I still forget I can’t pick up the phone and call you to talk Buffy, although these days we’d probably be talking True Blood.  You knew, nearly from the start, that
he’d marry me, you were always so much smarter than the rest of us…

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1

Wednesday, January 9, 2008, Dedham, MA

The alarm goes off with the sounds of No Doubt's
Spiderwebs waking her from her slumber.

Cora reaches over and slaps the snooze button on her
alarm, nine more minutes, just nine more minutes.  Five-thirty comes awfully early, and another restless night makes it seem that much earlier.  She floats back into that realm between awake and asleep, her mind drifting back to dreams of climbing up spider webs chasing something.

Although dawn has barely broken, Howie Day croons his song Collide through her alarm on the nightstand
.

She reaches to slap the snooze again when it dawns on her, today is Wednesday, the second Wednesday of the month
. And that means today she gets to see him.  Snoozing is no longer an option, humming along she stretches under the covers. Mmmm tangled up with him, a far preferable way to start the morning than getting out of bed on a cold January morning and heading to the gym.  Hell, with a full size bed you kind of have to tangle to fit, right.  Okay, focus Cora, today is the monthly meeting; today she gets to sit across the big boardroom table, across from him, Dan, Daniel Santagata.  In her entire work schedule, this is the one bright beacon of the month. 

She hops out of bed, throws on a sports bra and her workout gear and grabs her gym bag.  Then she stops halfway down the hall, it’s
that
Wednesday, the gray slacks and black sweater in the bag to change into after a workout and shower on the way to the office just won’t do.  How did she not remember this last night when she was packing the bag?

Opening the
closet, she stares at the choices.  A suit, far too stuffy, a dress, none of those will do, they are all either too casual or WAY to dressy for the office.  What says “professional, casual elegance and you know you really want to ask me out, kiss me good night, have some hot sweaty monkey sex and live happily ever after with me”?  It
is
a lot of pressure to put on one outfit, isn’t it?  In the end, she settles on a red twinset and a navy wool skirt with a small red pattern, matching red flats and replaces her plain serviceable white cotton bra and panties with a red lace bra and matching underwear and garters with nude stockings.  This was it, the outfit, the armor underneath. This was the one that would finally give her the confidence to do something more than smile, nod and say hello at the end of the meeting.  Yeah, way too much to ask from clothes.

Buzzing with anticipation she heads for the backdoor, iPod in hand and a sense of purpose.  Making it to the company workout facility in record
time, she is pleased to find a parking spot right out front.  Sliding her access card, she smiles a cheerful good morning at the desk attendant, locks away her bag and heads to the gym.  Ninety minutes later, she’s run through the weight machines, spent forty-five minutes on the elliptical rocking out, and is covered in sweat. She grabs a shower, blow-dries her hair and even a puts on a little makeup, it is
that
Wednesday after all.

After throwing her gym gear in the trunk and popping across the street to the café for a cup of
tea, she heads into her office, determined to concentrate on work, and not think about Daniel’s whiskey brown eyes and sweet smile.

Two years, that is
the twenty-fourth second Wednesday of the month company meeting where she has sat across the table from him and wondered what his story was.  Two years of sneaking peeks, two years of looking away the nanosecond he might have noticed she was looking his way.  You simply do not ask people at work about someone else unless you want them to gossip and the last thing Cora wanted was anyone gossiping about how the shy, formerly fat, now just chubby accountant is making mooneyes over the IT guy.  It was bad enough she always felt like they were snickering behind her back about her weight. Allegedly, when you grow up and get a job the workplace isn’t supposed to be like to social caste system of middle school but it sure as hell feels like it sometimes.

Boston
Pharmaceuticals had about a dozen drug patents for blood pressure, cholesterol, asthma, and diabetes drugs and manufactures generics for some local chain pharmacies in the New England area.  They weren’t huge, certainly not Pfizer, but the company did all right and treated their employees well, and their campus in Brookline was an easy commute.  They had a Starbucks nearby, places to eat lunch, green-space, an onsite fitness center, daycare center and free parking. For any company those would be great perks, for something just outside of Boston—they were even better.

As much as Mr. J wanted this to be a “family” company it still felt like middle school, some people never grow up.

Two years ago, she was a different woman though, one hundred pounds heavier, quiet and shy.  Two years of counting points, weighing in and working out and she is just about at that place where she’s almost comfortable with her body.  As the pounds shed her confidence grew, she actually talks at meetings, socializes with the Friday night drinks crew. Okay, she’s gone five times, but that’s five times more than she’d gone in the first five years she’s worked here, and she smiles back at anyone who smiles her way.

T
oday, the first meeting of the new year, they’ve all been back to work for a week now after our Christmas break, and are settling back in to the swing of things.  Cora spends her morning pouring over spreadsheets, trying to decide how she’s going to present the decisions made for the budget increases to upgrade the HR system, cover the increase to the company contribution to employee health care, and give IT the money they need to upgrade security and some seriously aging computers. She’s pretty sure that the computer, Jim from HR used is run by a hamster on a wheel.

Three of the five departments who asked for money are getting
it; the other two will likely be pissed. 

Cora could not justify giving sales more money, she knew that it took money to make money but they already had quite the budget allocation and giv
ing them more money for expense account lunches, which half those girls didn’t even eat was a waste of money better spent.  As for graphics, they got the bulk of the surplus funds last year and have had a huge overhaul already, and besides, their budget request and proposal sucked.  Cora was not going to waste money on people who simply could not take time to put effort in to something important.

Alas, concentrating isn’t working today, the numbers swim together, pe
rfectly well thought ideas from the end of the day on Tuesday have vanished, like fog after sun-up.  Instead, she’s doodling at the corner of the spreadsheet she’s supposed to be making copies of for the one o'clock meeting. 

“Crap!” she curses loud enough for
Kaelyn on the other side of her cubicle wall to hear.

Instantly a dialogue box pops up on her screen:

             
Kaelyn
- What’s wrong?

Cora
- Nothing, just doodled on my freshly printed copy of the budget increase report for today’s meeting

Kaelyn
- Daydreaming again?  Anything in particular? Or should I say anyone? ;-)

Cora
- Blargh, I refuse to answer that question and you know better than to use the company server to ask me shit like that

Kaelyn
- Oh please, it’s not like ‘Dreamy’ sits and reads everyone’s chat logs, Cora

Cora
- I stand by my initial blargh, stop being a lazy bitch and walk around the cube farm if you want to talk with me

Cora closes the chat window and sends the report to the printer again. 
Kaelyn follows her in to the printer/copy room and corners her.

“So, are you going to say something today?  Do something besides make
mooneyes at him while he’s looking the other way?  Your outfit is perfect, you are wearing make-up
and
jewelry and you blow dried and styled your hair after the gym.  You must have a plan, right? So spill…” Kaelyn says in an overly dramatic hushed tone.