"But hunks sell books," LaDonna insisted between bites.
"Do they?" Kit was breaking her pizza slice into tiny pieces with fork and knife. "Sure, Fabio was a twelve-day wonder, but will anyone pull down the attention and the money the first and most famous male cover model did?"
"Even if they don't match his take, so what?" LaDonna answered. "The Incredible Hunk contest is a big chance for these guys. Most are models who wanna be actors, or actors who wanna be models. Not only is there a little barbell money in cover modeling, but the hunk contest itself is fodder for tabloid TV, so whoever is named Incredible Hunk gets a lot of exposure."
"I guess." Kit rolled her eyes at the unconscious double entendre. "Possible calendars, game show appearances, film jobs, syndicated TV show parts, maybe even a stab at the America's most famous houseguest/hostile witness title."
"Ooh, what a great idea!" Lori's eyes were shining to match her glossy hair. "Kato as an IH
contestant."
"Which one do you have in mind?" Vivian asked in an indifferent drawl. "The dude or the dog?"
Temple wanted the talk back on track. "Is that kind of media exposure worth killing for?"
That stilled knives and forks and mouths. Kit leaned close to mouth dramatically: "Motive Number One: Model Competition."
"Fame and fortune is always a worthy motive," Vivian said.
"So a rival hunk could have killed Cheyenne?"
"Sure." LaDonna shrugged. "Except one dead dude wouldn't guarantee another the title. The judging is honest, as far as I know."
"There are early favorites," Vivian objected. "You know that, LaDonna. You've seen the guys chat up the convention-goers. Prince Charmings by the pack. They charm them, then sweep them off their feet--"
"Is that what it's called?" Temple interjected. "Charming?"
"Temple was 'swept' by Fabrizio in the registration line," Kit explained.
"That Fabrizio." Lori sounded disgusted. "The original Mr. Unoriginal. He comes on as all muscle-man, but he only picks up the petite women. What a wimp! Fabio should sue."
"What makes Fabio king of the Prince Charmings?" Temple asked.
"He was the first romance cover model to emerge as a personality in his own right. Then he won the first cover-hunk contest, parlaying it into international celebrity," Susan pointed out. "Is his career so different from what Arnold Schwarzenegger or any other muscle man since and before Johnny Weissmuller did? Only nowadays, a media muscleman can have his own profitable 900 line, his romantic music cassettes, etcetera, ad nauseum. Thanks to romance novels selling forty-nine percent of all paperback book titles, he can be marketed directly to women without making a single Hollywood film."
"Whoa!" Temple's attention had really caught fire. "Forty-nine percent of all paperback books? Does that include nonfiction?"
"You bet." LaDonna crumpled her paper napkin into a lump like a bloody tomato and threw it onto the empty pizza platter.
"Why aren't you all rich then? Or are you?"
Amid hoots of laughter, Kit leaned close to whisper: "Motive Number Two: the Woman Scorned."
"Many are called, but few are chosen," Vivian quoted acidly. "Women writing romances have always been the most exploited group in publishing. Our royalty percentages are often lower than those of other writers. Sometimes our very pen names are not our own to take to another publisher. We have been production-line workers expected to toil forever for minor rewards. And, of course, as the icing on our very plain cake, we get no respect for what we do. Romance novels are just silly women nattering on, especially embarrassing when we write about sex without using the clinical, unemotional prose male writers have institutionalized since Hemingway was immortalized, to make men feel good about being afraid to feel anything."
She paused to catch an indignant breath. "The earth moved.' Really captures the moment, doesn't it, ladies? Hell, Hemingway was just too uncertain of his masculinity to convey more than terse little nothings about sex."
"My land o' Dixie!" Kit fanned a hand before her face, a swooning southern belle in intonation as well as gesture. "Our little Vivian is shorely all fired up about that most unsuitable topic!"
"Kit's got it," Susan said. "What really makes the male-oriented world of publishing and criticism uneasy about romances is that they present a female quest in female terms. Every young girl who enters the dating game perceives that it's one she can lose terribly. She bears the greatest consequences of sexual activity: pregnancy and loss of reputation, ergo self-esteem. How can she learn to be sexual without being betrayed by her body and the society that demands such an impossible role of her?
Virginal but desirable. Sexuality without experience. Eternal love discovered without trial and error."
"Too true," Temple said.
"And now," Vivian put in, "romance novels are the focus of national media attention, and do we get a more enlightened, less sexist, revised view of their underlying issues? No, we get swooning features on cover hunks, which makes our work look even less socially relevant."
LaDonna put down her ice tea with emphasis. "What's even worse, and what drives me nuts, is that quarter-of-a-million deal Fabrizio made to 'write' a series of books. Makes it look like there's nothing to writing a romance. And we all know who's really writing those Fabrizio books--an underpaid, unsung female romance writer. I wonder how Sidney Sheldon would like it if the cover models for his heroines made oodles more money than he did. Wouldn't put up with it for a nanosecond."
"Celebrity authors have always been part of publishing," Kit interjected a little more coolly. "I saw an old book tie-in to Mary Pickford. Gypsy Rose Lee wrote a couple of ghosted mysteries decades ago, and we all know that some celebrity names on mystery and science fiction novels are fronts for the anonymous real writer who produces them."
"Those unsung writers get more ghostwriting than they do for their own books, or they wouldn't take on the work," Lori pointed out.
"And they'll continue getting less money for their work if publishers keep hiring the rich and famous as fronts instead of nurturing real writers' careers." Vivian sat back with an indignant whoosh of the padded vinyl banquette seat for punctuation.
"Oh, please!" LaDonna's eyes rolled over the tops of her half-glasses. "When have writers ever been nurtured? We have to fight for our books, our careers and our survival. If you wanted nurturing, you should have enrolled in kindergarten."
"So . . . who's angriest about the new prominence of cover hunks?" Temple asked.
A moment's silence while mental wheels turned.
"Sometimes even the biggies aren't too fond of the trend." Lori said. "I heard that Mary Ann Trenarry threatened to leave Bard Books when they signed up Fabrizio for all of her future and reissue covers."
"At her career stage, it doesn't matter what they put on her books."
"It does to her. She's been a vocal spokeswoman for the redeeming social value of romance novels, and of her books in particular. This Fabrizio deal has her chewing royalty statements."
"What about the husbands?" LaDonna asked suddenly.
"Huh?" everyone said.
"Temple asked who was angry about the cover hunks. What about the husbands who have to hear about the fantastic Fabrizio' and his ilk?"
"Whose husbands?" Kit wanted to know. "Readers' or writers'?"
"Both, I suppose," LaDonna said. "Maybe especially the husbands of prominent fans, the ones who organize the hunks' fan clubs. They sometimes get to work with them one on one. Most husbands aren't used to competing with perfect media models like women are."
"I did hear something." Lori looked both eager and reluctant.
"Tell us!" several urged.
"That's what we're here for," Vivian pointed out. "To pass secrets."
"And to keep them to ourselves." Lori fidgeted with her dark hair, twirling a long, straight tress on the instant roller of her forefinger. She sighed. "Remember that Ravenna Rivers went on that long book tour with the West Wind imprint's Homestead Man? I heard that afterwards she called him the 'Homestud Man.''