Chapter 5

Rachel was on her third cup of very strong morning coffee when the phone rang. After staring at the damn thing many times over the weekend, she finally gave up trying to mentally force the silent instrument to make a sound. She turned her full concentration on reading the final proof of her book. After checking the copy the publisher sent against her own, she discovered that several changes had been made. Nothing major, in fact the changes enhanced some of the characters and setting, but she should have been asked, or at least told, before anyone changed her words. She made a mental note to talk to the publisher about it the first chance she had. As it turned out, that chance came just after she picked up the phone.

“Rachel, it’s Sandra. I have Peter from Prelude Press on conference.”

“Hi, Rachel,” a man’s voice said. “We have all the papers ready and would like to set up a meeting this afternoon. Can you be in my office around three?”

Rachel checked the time. Ten . An hour to get dressed, two-hour drive to her apartment in the City, plenty of time to make it to the meeting.

“Sure, I can do that.”

“I’ll be there, too,” Sandra said. “Someone has to keep you guys honest.”

“Speaking of honest. Peter, do you know if anyone on your staff did some editing to the manuscript before you returned it to me?”

There was a short pause before he responded. “Not from my office, but I’ll check with the rest of the staff and see if there was any pre-editing done. We never edit unless we clear it with the author first, company policy. Why do you ask?”

“Uh...no reason,” Rachel felt a bit embarrassed by her question. “I’ll see you later,” She heard one click as Peter disconnected from the call.

“What was that all about?” Sandra was still on the line.

“Sandra, I’m not sure. Remember when I called you on Saturday and asked if you knew if anyone had edited the manuscript? You told me you’d ask Peter about it.”

“Sort of. It was a very hectic day. Why, what’s the problem?” Sandra was beginning to sound a little annoyed.

“There’s no problem, I guess. It’s just that after I compared the galleys to my files, I found a lot more changes to the text that I hadn’t written. Both you and Peter don’t think anyone at Prelude would do much more than simple proof reading edits, so unless I’m writing in my sleep, I have no idea who made these changes.”

“Are the changes bad?” Sandra sounded concerned.

“Well, no. They’re actually quite good, but that’s not the point. They’re not mine!”

“Look, Rachel,” relieved, Sandra’s voice was back to annoyance. “Whatever you or whoever did to the manuscript, Prelude wants it and that’s good enough for me. Take notes, you can make this a plot for your next book, a mystery novel if you like. Gotta run. My secretary will give you the address of Prelude. I’ll see you there.”

Rachel wrote down the address and hung up the phone. Agents. They were all the same. Their only interest was the contract and their percentage. She really couldn’t blame Sandra. She had worked very hard to find a publisher, and Rachel could understand how her success at signing with Prelude could overshadow her feelings about the integrity of Rachel’s work. The edits had not really been that obvious, so no one else who had read the original copy would probably have even noticed. But someone had tampered with her book, and sleepwriting notwithstanding, Rachel was determined to find out who that was.

Exactly as planned, Rachel was in her car and on her way to New York City by eleven. The last time she felt this excited was when she won a particularly difficult murder case, over three years ago. Mark and she celebrated her triumph all night and planned many more victory celebrations as their careers advanced. But now, Mark was gone, and Alex hadn’t called since Saturday afternoon. Her writing career was finally taking off. She wanted to share her success with someone and she wanted that someone to be Alex. But first, she needed to resolve their little misunderstanding. Rachel made a sharp u-turn and drove into the post office parking lot.

She entered the lobby and stood behind the wall just out of Alex’s view. There were several people in line, so she stayed hidden and observed him from a distance. He weighed a package for a customer, sold a few stamps and politely answered questions for the next two. She watched him work his magic on a particularly irritable woman who, after a few kind words accompanied by his disarming smile, left in a much better mood than when she arrived.

Rachel was impressed. She never really paid much attention to Alex at work before. He was just a guy who worked for the post office. But now that she knew him, Rachel noticed there was much more to Alex’s job than she first thought.

She looked around the lobby. It was neat, clean and very professionally laid out. It was hard to believe that when she first met him two years ago, the place was only a made-over country house. Alex had told her that, because of the increase in business, the Director of Postal Operations recommended to Washington that it was worth a few extra dollars to turn the quaint little building into a modern-day post office. Rachel had no doubt that the business boom was primarily due to Alex’s talent.

Rachel still felt bad about their fight and tried to think of something to do to make it up to him. She spotted a display containing various forms for reporting compliments and complaints. She took one out and put it into her pocket.

Alex had gone into the back to retrieve a package for the last customer in line. After he’d left, Rachel walked up to the counter.

“Hi,” She felt slightly apprehensive, but her fears melted in the warmth of his smile.

“Hi, yourself. Ya want to come back?” Alex opened the side door for her and she followed him behind the counter.

“Aren’t you violating a whole lot of regulations allowing me to infiltrate the inner postal sanctum during business hours?” She giggled slightly. She was a little nervous but felt very comfortable with him at the same time.

“This is the post office, not the army. They don’t court martial us for fraternizing with civilians,” he joked.

“How about the enemy?” Her voice was joking, but there was another question in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Rach.”

Rach? Nobody called her Rach, not even Mark, not even her parents!

“I should have called. I behaved like a real jerk and I’m sorry,” He was looking at her with his soft puppy-dog eyes. Hell, he could call her anything he wanted. “I can get out of here in an hour if you’d like to have lunch.”

“I would love that, but I can’t. I’m on my way to the City for a meeting with my agent and publisher.”

“Oh,” his tone was obviously disappointed. “Look, I’d really like to explain...”

“Me, too, Alex. I owe you a huge apology, too, but it’ll have to wait until I get back.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I would think so. I’m just going in for a quick meeting. I need to find out who made the edits on the book. I’ll spend the night at my place, and drive back first thing in the morning. Dinner tomorrow night, ok?”

“That would be great, and I agree, we do have a lot to talk about.” Especially about the edits in your book, he thought.

Alex tenderly brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. He was just about to kiss her when he heard the front door open. “Damn,” he whispered.

“I gotta go, anyway,” she sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Rachel forced her feet to take her out the back door before the rest of her body had a chance to convince her to stay.

Rachel was glad she decided to see Alex before she left. She was more than glad he apologized without any hesitation. Mark would have never admitted being wrong. If Rachel felt hurt, or annoyed by something he did, he would spend hours defending his actions. After a full day in court, the last thing she wanted to do was come home and try another case, especially when she was the defendant. The exercise was exhausting and after awhile, she would just give up and let him think he’d won. It was easier than continuing the cross examination in the bedroom.

In contrast, Alex reacted completely opposite. He had made no excuses, nor offered any lengthy defenses. He’d simply apologized, and that was enough for Rachel to forgive him. She didn’t need to know the reasons why he left, but if Alex was willing to tell her, she was more than willing to listen. He surprised her with his kindness and compassion and she knew exactly how she was going to repay him. Rachel reached into her pocket, took out the postal form, put it into her briefcase, and took out her tape recorder. As her car turned onto the Thruway, she began dictating a letter of appreciation to the Postmaster General of the United States on behalf of a certain postmaster in upstate New York. After all, she was a writer.