Worry What?!

When I was a naïve scholar of thirty-two, I was asked to edit a romance novel for a well-loved author in the south. This being my very first romance novel—ever—to crack the covers of— let alone, read/edit—I propped myself up on a pile of pillows and set out into unchartered waters with wonder and awe by the soft glow of my book light. Astounded by hunks of burning love and heaving bosoms, sexual tension racketed up, and “goodness, how many pages can I read without violating my slumbering husband…” You can imagine my shock when totally unprepared I reached page 157, where upon I discovered the protagonist, Zoe, love goddess extraordinaire, perched on her sweet sized two buns. With one bronze leg slung over the other, her sultry upper body stretched out like cat woman so that her elbows rested on the edge of the table, her cleavage teased and beckoned, and that’s when it happened… she began to “worry a hair on her chin.”

Wha-uutt?! I yelled-whispered in the dead of night, rocketing forward from my reclining position. My sleeping husband thought we were being robbed and bounded out of the bed.

This gorgeous vixen of love did NOT worry a chin whisker. I’m all about fatal flaws and keeping our characters real, but this is why we have editors—why I was employed at that very moment. I tried to explain how the weight of the situation to James, but he was busy checking the front and back doors for intruders.

The manuscript was surprisingly good—characters, plot, pacing… I made several corrections and helpful points throughout. And yes, included was a polite editorial comment in the margin of page 157 suggesting that the author delete the “worrying of you know what” so as not to interrupt the descriptive flow of the protagonist’s irresistible beauty.

***

A decade later, I sit slumped over my computer, cheek resting in my palm while deep in scene development of my own novel, when my finger brushes a flaw on my face. My mind isn’t registering physical reality at all and mindlessly I rub my ring finger over it, over it again, over it again, doing exactly what mother told us never to do, “Don’t touch you face with your hands, you’ll get clogged pores.” Finally, my finger’s message reaches my brain, “We have a gate crasher,” and curiosity gets the best of me. I need a stretch break any way.

Leaning in close to the magnified 15x mirror with ungodly lighting, I see staring back at me a creature so vile it deserves its own name. Roger. At this magnification, Roger is nothing short of hideous. Roger is not hanging out with his cousins where he belongs. No, he’s had made a break for it, gone rogue, planted himself a daring half inch above and to the left of my upper lip. He’s built like a bouncer, solid. Rooted.

I flash back to my debut gig of editing of romance, and am very pleased for rescuing the lovely fantasy Zoe from such humiliating invasion.

Grabbing the tweezers, I grit my teeth. “This means war, little fella.” There will be no “worrying” of anything here. One quick yank and it was over. I sounded like the boss, but I shuddered a little. The women of my family sport ‘staches young men only dream of. Truth is, lest I laser or electrocute Roger, he and the rest of the multiplying lip clan will be with me the rest of my life, despite my best laid plans of refusing to speak of their existence, secretly waxing, tweezing and going to war with them on a weekly basis.

Let it be known: though I entrust my confession of this rude and unsightly imposition to you, my dears; Roger will never get a role in my romance novel. Nay, not even a cameo.