Anyone who works with The Fixer must read, a lot. Homework of the book variety is de rigueur. When we first meet, in her best “psychic, intuitive, whatever her mystery” way she tells me I must go to Bruges and write a romance novel. Whaaa?
She says I must read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. And a host of other romance novels, all of which I believed I had my fill as an inexperienced, wildly imaginative teenager. Not so much it seems. Is this part of my lessons to stoke some sort of fire? I read most of what she suggests. Perhaps, the very size puts me off from Outlander.
And, it’s another book about time travel. She made me read some others about time travel as well. Is she preparing me for something? At 627 pages in the large edition, it seems much to swallow with so much other work to do.
When The Fixer stuck it in my holiday package, there is no going back. Middle Chicken reads the back cover and exclaims, “This sounds amazing. How is it?”
“Ugh. It’s time travel. Blah, blah, blah,” say I.
Part of the reason the book is assigned to me is the author, Diana Gabaldon, lives here in my beloved Scottsdale. I know right? Another assignment is to meet her. Just a small feat—meet a women who sits atop the New York Times bestseller list and now has a cable television show based on her books.
Haven’t seen the show because I don’t want to spoil the story which now absorbs me, but also because my cable bill is already out of hand. Thank you Cox—really, is this necessary? Who the hell uses a home phone anyway? Each time I complain the rep says that’s where the Internet comes from. Pfft. Imagine if we could add $14.95 to every invoice of every client every month into perpetuity. Good racket, non?
Call it laziness, a deep distaste for Star Wars and tomes that could break a toe, I should have started long ago. Now I wish for someone named Jamie to call me “Sassenach,” with an “ack” sounding brogue. Squee. And lay me down in the ferny grass of the Scottish lowlands. And, for once, the heroine is not the virgin. The guy is—surprise!
My first thought is no thank you very much but one forgets the eagerness of young men with strength, stamina and a willingness to please. Lucky Claire. And then today I spy the trailer. It appears out of nowhere on my feed. Claire and Jamie now have faces; beautiful, lovely faces. And “Sassenach” does indeed roll off his tongue in a thick, lovely song.
The phrase itself is not meant as a compliment but from his lips is melodious and sensuously private between the lovers. I begin to acknowledge the author’s woven magic; the reason for my study and the wisdom, again, of the witch who inhabits my training. Damn her—does she know everything?
So, Diana Gabaldon, how about lunch?
The Duchess Diaries 