Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,59

I'd never heard such incredibly symphonic screams before.

We riveted our attention on the baptistry. Jackie stared down at me in exasperation. "Let me guess. Seeing that our whole group is inside there, I suppose you're gonna want to check it out. Right?"

Chapter 9

We raced down the path, bounded up the three stone steps of the baptistry, and flew through a door that was only slightly less tall than the space shuttle. "Biglietti?" a uniformed ticket-taker inquired as we entered the short foyer. "BIGLIETTI! BIGLIETTI!" she screamed after us as we tore past.

The interior of the building was a vast empty space encased in stone. I saw no frescoes, no statues, no chairs, no nothing. What I did see were people frozen in place, staring in shocked silence at the two women who were standing by the spa-sized baptismal font in the center of the room, swinging their damson leather shoulder bags at each other.

"You bitch!" screamed Marla. "I should have known you'd buy something just like mine! You can't stand not to copy me! First, it's my books. Now it's my shoulder bag!" WHAM! She connected with Gillian's thigh.

Looked like the divas had finally run into each other.

"Copy you? COPY YOU!" THWWWWACK! Gillian delivered a blow to Marla's shoulder, driving her back. "The only similarity between your books and mine are the punctuation marks!"

"You used my first love scene in Barbarian's Bride almost word for word in your stupid cowboy island book!"

I sincerely hoped the cowboy had been more fortunate than George and escaped the encounter with his front teeth intact.

"You're accusing me of plagiarism?" Gillian shrieked. "Honey, if I'm going to commit plagiarism, I can do a whole hell of a lot better than stealing scenes from some unpolished, unprofessional, unimaginative hack like you!"

"I have half a mind to sue your ass off!" Marla raged, her voice mimicking the tonal brilliance of a really good sound system.

"That's exactly why you can't write!" Gillian's voice echoed in surround sound. "You only have half a mind!"

SWOOSH swoosh swoosh! They swung their pocketbooks over their heads. WHUMP! The bags thumped together in midair like boxing gloves.

"Ladies." Elbowing his way through the crush of paralyzed onlookers, Duncan reached the center of the room and inserted his commanding presence between the divas and their dueling shoulder bags. "Enough."

The women dangled their bags by their shoulder straps, looking as if they were contemplating sneak attacks. Oh, God.

"Protect your boys, son!" Dick Teig warned. "You might want to have children someday."

"Copycat!" yelled Marla.

"Drudge!" Gillian spat.

"Lickspittle!"

"Muckmouth!"

As the screaming continued, I listened to the demeaning barrage of insults reverberating off these sacred walls, feeling shock and awe at what I was hearing from the world's two most famous romance divas.

Boy, Giovanna was right. The acoustics in this place were incredible. They sounded even better on the inside than they did from the outside!

Forty-five minutes later, with the divas banished to opposite ends of the group, Duncan's manhood intact, and Giovanna's tour ended, I sat cross-legged on the grass outside the baptistry, wishing I knew yoga and trying to regroup.

"Mind if I join you?" Gabriel Fox sauntered in my direction and when I gave him a nod, he stretched out on the lawn in front of me. "After what you've witnessed these last two days, you mustn't think much of the people who work in publishing. But I'd like you to know, we're not all like that."

"Like what?"

"Like Marla Michaels and Gillian Jones. We're not all raving lunatics. Most of us actually enjoy working with each other the majority of time, but competition seems to bring out the worst in some people."

"I noticed."

"In Gillian's and Marla's case, it's because of the Irmas."

"Excuse me?"

"The Irma Award. The highest honor you can receive in the romance industry. They both have nine at the moment, and they're vying to be the first to reach ten, at which point they'll be retired from competition and be inducted into the Romance Hall of Fame. But look at what they've become. The stress is eating them up. And this tour has pushed them over the edge. Philip was crazy to expect them to give up their writing secrets to the masses. You heard them yesterday. They don't want new authors to come along and knock them off their million-dollar pedestals. Each wants to be top dog forever."

I smoothed my hand over the grass, looking him square in the eye. "They must be relieved they don't have to worry about Cassandra and Jeannette then."

"We never should