Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

Seven displaced romance novel heroes. One matchmaker devoted to giving them Happily Ever After.

If you missed the first exciting installment, it can be found in reruns here.

(An upscale bar. Seven men wait in a private room under the supervision of the matchmaker. Six women in various stages of intoxication are throwing back shots at the bar. Five uncommonly attractive women, four with red hair, are chatting at a table in the corner.)

Mercedes: Hey, girl. I didn’t recognize you with the red hair.

Heather: It’s a wig. I couldn’t dye it again. It was snapping off at the roots from going platinum blonde last time.

The Other Heather: Somebody screwed up. Both our nametags say Heather.

Mercedes: Oh, nobody will notice. You think they’re reading your name when they look at your heaving bosom? I think my last cutesie nickname was the result of the hero having no clue what my name was for the entire book. Not that I can blame the guy. I can hardly remember myself, since the name changes as often as the hair color.

Heather: Why are you so bummed, chica?

Mercedes: Any one of you would have no problem pulling off Latina. My hair was red before the matchmaker made me dye it, I have a rash in places I’d rather not mention from this spray-on tan, and if the writer expects me to speak Spanish, she’s in for a rude awakening. The only word I remember from Sesame Street is agua.

Tiffany (raising her head from the table): Cerveza!

The Other Heather (pulling her iPhone from her voluminous skirts to check her blog feeds): At least you don’t have to wear a lung-crushing corset and drag around thirty pounds of skirt. It’s like being on the frickin’ Stairmaster 24/7.

Heather: Tsk, tsk. Is that any kind of language for a lady?

The Other Heather: Sorry. The bloody Stairmaster.

Jessica: Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but do you all know each other?

Mercedes (giving the new girl a critical once-over): You must be Molly’s replacement.

Heather: What happened to her, anyway?

The Other Heather: She’s with an unfeasibly tall Greek billionaire now.

Heather (wrinkling her nose, which has been lightly dusted with a cute smattering of fake freckles): Ugh. Those guys are as bad as sheiks. She’ll be back next week.

Mercedes: No, she got an epilogue. She’s contractually obligated to remain with him forever.

Tiffany (hoisting a half-consumed bottle of rum): A toast to forever!

Mercedes: It’s been so long since we’ve had a new girl, I’ve almost forgotten how to break one in. See, kiddo, at any given time, there are only five of us on the matchmaker’s heroine roster. Not a lot of variety, so she makes us change our hair and our clothes and our backgrounds until we meet the needs of the latest batch of hero wannabes. 

Heather: Once in a while, one of us gets to show some substance and gets a real happily ever after, but usually we end up right back here Friday nights.

The Other Heather: I came in a couple years ago to replace Samantha, who got fed up with the whole game and defected to urban fantasy. She’s too busy saving the world from some scourge or other to even have strong romantic elements.

Tiffany (hoisting an empty bottle of rum): A toast to Sammy!

Jessica (aghast): You’ve been looking for the right heroes for years?

Heather: It’s not so bad. We get along pretty well with each other, and it’s nice to catch up with the girls and trade war stories.

Tiffany: And the drinks are free!

The Other Heather: We have a lot in common. For instance, I bet you’re all alone in the world.

Jessica (thick-lashed amethyst eyes widening dramatically): You’re all orphans, too?

Mercedes: Yup, just like we’re all virgins. That earthshaking sex in our previous books? Never happened.

The Other Heather: Highly exaggerated, at least.

Heather: I’d much rather be a recycled virgin than one of those non-virgins who’s never had an orgasm. Would somebody please explain to me how a person gets through puberty without figuring out that trick? Kill all my relatives, force me into servitude for some grabby old perv, even give me a secret baby, and I’ll play along, but when you take away the O, you have gone too far.

Mercedes: I’d much rather be perpetually O-less than be a dishrag again. I wanted to beat one writer to death with the spine she stole from me. She kept it in a jar on her desk until she was done with galley edits.

(Their conversation is interrupted when an enormous, bare-chested Intergalactic Viking with flowing golden locks crashes through the ceiling and peers at each of the women, obviously confused.)

Heather: Wasn’t he your last hookup, chica?

Mercedes: Unfortunately.

The Other Heather: Nice fur pants.

Mercedes: He’s not wearing pants.

Jessica: Oh. So his pet naked mole rat is actually…

Mercedes: Unfortunately. Go away, Leif. 

Leif (doing a double take): What have you done to your fiery hair? Where are those freckles it took me 250 pages to uncover?

Mercedes: None of your beeswax. Like I told you last week, The End was no joke. I’m through with you, your medieval attitude toward the role of women, and your complete lack of ecological awareness. Honestly, jettisoning your garbage into space? Who do you think cleans that up?

Leif (resolutely crossing his arms over his rippling pectorals): I will not leave you. Even if you don’t want me, I will never leave you.

Mercedes: Great. I’ve always wanted a stalker. I’ll probably be leaving with another man in about half an hour, but don’t let that dampen your enthusiasm.

Heather (leaning over to check out the guys in the other room): At least there aren’t any shapeshifters this time. I have allergies.

Tiffany (pulling a fresh bottle from under the table): A toast to allergies!

The Other Heather (after glimpsing a lacy cravat and skintight pants): I know I agreed to the whole time-travel-in-the-name-of-love thing, but if I have to give up my hazelnut mocha frappuccino, he better be loaded in more ways than one.

Jessica (casting a nervous glance toward the rowdy group at the bar): I’m new at this heroine thing. What do you know about the writers?

Heather: I’ve worked with all of them before. That bunch is more interested in the guys. One of them more so than the others, if you catch my drift.

The Other Heather: If I ever hook up with a writer who gives me the attention I deserve, I’ll fall in love with her.

Tiffany: A toast to girl-on-girl—

Heather (gently extracting the bottle from Tiffany’s grasp): I think you’ve had enough, sweetie.

Mercedes (glowering at the Viking): You came all the way from a galaxy far, far away, from a thousand years in the future, just to stand next to me?

Leif: Yar!

Mercedes: Either Tiff’s booze fumes have pickled my brain, or that’s insanely romantic.

Heather: Hey, chica, I think this is your epilogue.

Mercedes: Needs major editing, but it’ll do for a first draft. Let’s hit the mall and get you some ostentatiously priced designer pants, my furry love, and then you can whisk me away on the Starship Drakkar.

Leif: I, ah, totaled the ship on landing.

Mercedes: Lucky for you, I’m a mechanical engineer for NASA in real life. When I’m done fixing it, it will not only run, it will be eco-friendly and garbage-powered. 

Joe Average (emerging from the side room just in time to see the Viking absconding with one of the heroines): Hey, that leaves only four girls for us!

(Another maniacal cackle erupts from the bar.)

Dante Dracovich: Cop, you will have my unfathomably large fortune and my eternal gratitude if you break a leg off that chair and stake me before this gets any worse.

Mitch Ruger: How could it possibly get any worse?

(A goat walks into the bar, accompanied by gleeful shrieks from the plastered writers.)

Matchmaker (snatching Tiffany’s bottle): Now I see why this show got canceled.

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