Love Sold Separately Read online

  Bright lights, big trouble...

  Dana Barry has nothing against rules. She just knows they’re meant to be bent. So it’s no wonder the single, twentysomething actress loses her day job. Now her life is a mess...that is, until she hears the Shopping Channel is auditioning. Relying on her knack for knowing what makes people tick, she lands a gig on air. But before she can say office politics, Dana is caught in the biggest drama of her life. The star host—a diva who terrorized the entire staff—is found dead. Dana knows the prime suspect is innocent. The heat is on, and Dana thinks she’s ready for it...until she tangles with the tall, dark and smoldering detective in charge. It’s more fuel than she needs right now as she’s trying to launch her career. But Dana’s never been afraid to take chances...even when a single spark could ignite everything.

  Praise for Love Sold Separately

  “Witty, clever and full of original characters, it kept me up reading way past my bedtime! A great romp of a read.”

  —Candace Bushnell, New York Times bestselling author of Sex and the City and Is There Still Sex in the City?

  “An absolute delight... Meister has created a complex and comic main character who pitches cool fashion (as well as some hideous designs) on a cable TV shopping network...all the while maintaining her smarts and satirical eye. What fun!”

  —Susan Isaacs, New York Times bestselling author of Compromising Positions and Takes One to Know One

  “Completely charming! Wise, hilarious, and with a determined heroine you will instantly adore, the oh-so-talented Ellen Meister brings her special chemistry to this shopping-and-the-city delight.”

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, nationally bestselling and award-winning author of The Murder List

  “A clever cocktail of mystery and laugh-out-loud humor with the perfect twist of romance. Great fun guaranteed.”

  —Tami Hoag, New York Times bestselling author of The Boy

  Praise for the other novels of Ellen Meister

  “A quick, charming read that will delight Parker fans and stoke the curiosity of those unfamiliar with her great wit.”

  —Library Journal on Dorothy Parker Drank Here

  “Magical fun.”

  —Booklist on Dorothy Parker Drank Here

  “Meister reveals the pathos behind the pith... Classic Parker zingers sprinkled throughout the novel add sparkle.”

  —Washington Post on Farewell, Dorothy Parker

  “What bliss to be in the company of a reimaged Dorothy Parker.... Meister’s wonderful novel delivers the wit, ingenuity and elegiac sass worthy of the Algonquin Table’s most quoted member.”

  —Elinor Lipman on Farewell, Dorothy Parker

  Ellen Meister is the author of five novels, including Dorothy Parker Drank Here; Farewell, Dorothy Parker; and The Smart One. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal blog, Huffington Post, Daily Beast and more. Visit her at ellenmeister.com.

  Also by Ellen Meister

  Dorothy Parker Drank Here

  Farewell, Dorothy Parker

  The Other Life

  The Smart One

  Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA

  Love Sold Separately

  Ellen Meister

  This one’s for my sisters—

  Andrea, Barbara, Donna, Melissa, Rozanne

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Dana Barry took another long pull on her joint, gulped the smoke and held it. She needed this. Twenty-nine was too old to be out of work with no prospects and an agent who hadn’t sent her on an audition in six months. And it was definitely too old to get fired by a barely postpubescent boss because of her attitude. But damn it, working at the pop culture clothing store had been driving her crazy. Every customer was worse than the last. There were just so many teenagers with a Steven Universe T-shirt and an infected nose ring a person could take.

  “C’mon, Lucas,” she had pleaded with her boss. “You hired me to be edgy. The kids like when I push them around.”

  “I hired you to ring the fucking cash register,” he had said.

  It was no use, of course. And once again, she was unemployed. Thank God for the residuals from those Olive Garden commercials she shot last year. But even that was barely enough to cover her student loans plus the rent on her pocket-sized Manhattan apartment, and would run out soon.

  Dana exhaled and rested her joint on the ashtray, then picked up her wineglass and took a sip. It was a California cabernet, dry and rich. She let it rest on her tongue for a moment, enjoying the plumminess. She took a few more sips and went back to her joint.

  By the time she realized that she had been lying there long enough to find constellations in the sand pattern of her ceiling, Dana’s stress had dissolved. To hell with that job.

  The bass beat from her headphones reached deep inside her body and she let herself merge into it. It was a song she had listened to dozens of times, but she became aware of a buzzing in the background. How had she never noticed that before? The buzzing stopped and started again. This went on and on in an endless, eternal loop. It was pleasant at first, but then the sound became faster and more acute. Dana’s eyes closed and opened, and she realized the buzzing wasn’t part of the music. It was her intercom.

  She pulled off her headphones, floated across the room and pressed the talk button. “Who’s there?” she asked, her own voice startling her. She wondered if she sounded as stoned as she felt.

  “Jeez, I thought you were dead,” said the woman on the other end. “I’ve been ringing for ten minutes. Let me up.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Megan, you idiot. Are you high?”

  “No, I’m low,” Dana said, which struck her as so profound she felt as if she had just ripped a hole in the cosmos. She leaned on the button that unlocked the outer door to her apartment building, and was still holding it when her bell rang.

  Dana opened the door and her best friend, Megan Silvestri, burst in wearing a cinnamon-colored suede jacket Dana hadn’t seen before. It was beautiful. So beautiful. Magnificently beautiful, like looking into the sun. And while Dana understood it was the weed that made it so intense, she believed the garment’s splendor was real. She just happened to be enlightened enough—at that particular transcendent moment—to fully appreciate the wonder of it.

  “I called your cell phone, like, twenty times,” Megan said, unzippi
ng her jacket.

  Dana ran her hand down the baby-soft fabric of her friend’s sleeve. “Is this new?”

  “Seventy-percent off at Saks.”

  “It’s what heaven would feel like if it were a side-zipper bomber jacket,” Dana purred, and pressed her cheek against her friend’s shoulder.

  “Shit, you’re wasted. You’d better get it together fast. There’s an open call audition across town and we have to get there by two.”

  Dana didn’t quite understand and looked deep into her friend’s chocolaty eyes for clues. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Shopping Channel,” Megan said. “They’re looking for new on-air personalities. We have less than an hour to get to their studio.”

  “Where’s their studio?”

  “West Side.”

  Dana was confused. “Of Manhattan?”

  “Yes,” Megan said, pronouncing the word as if it might be difficult to comprehend. “Now hurry.”

  Dana blinked, trying hard to focus. “I thought the Shopping Channel was in Pennsylvania.”

  “That’s QVC.”

  “No wait, Florida. Aren’t they in Florida?”

  “That’s the Home Shopping Network. This is the Shopping Channel. Very third tier and mostly fashion, but you’ve seen it plenty of times. Now take a shower and put on something pretty. I’ll make coffee.”

  Dana hesitated. “I’m auditioning for the Shopping Channel?” She felt about ten steps behind.

  “Yes, Dana. Yes. They need a new host.”

  “Like...one of those ladies who talks about earrings and shit for twenty minutes at a time?”

  “It’s perfect for you.”

  “What about you?” Dana asked.

  Megan folded her arms under her head-size breasts. “Forget about me. I’m done with auditions. Besides, they’re not looking for short, fat Italian girls.”

  “You’re not that short.”

  Megan gave her the finger.

  “I’m sorry,” Dana said. “I’m such an asshole when I’m stoned.”

  “I’ll forgive you if you get the gig.”

  Just one month earlier, Megan had announced that she was giving up on her acting career, but in the same breath offered to become Dana’s manager. She insisted that she believed in her friend’s talents, and was frustrated that Dana’s agent wasn’t getting her enough auditions. Megan’s enthusiasm was contagious, and Dana agreed. Since then, whenever Megan wasn’t at her job waiting tables at an Italian restaurant downtown, she was assiduously combing the listings in Backstage for the most suitable gigs. She was damned serious about the whole thing.

  Dana sighed and leaned against the wall. “I’m really stoned.”

  “Well, get un-stoned,” Megan said, pushing her friend toward the bathroom. “Cold shower, caffeine. You’ll manage.”

  Dana paused. She was having a hard time following the thread of the conversation. “Why am I doing this?” she asked as Megan shut the bathroom door after her.

  “Because you need to move out of this shithole. And you were born for this job.”

  “I was born for this job,” she said to her reflection, and then called out to her friend, “Why was I born for this job?”

  “Because you can describe the shit out of anything. You notice things on a molecular level. You’re pathological.”

  Dana picked up her hairbrush, held it toward the mirror and spoke in an ebullient TV hostess voice to her own wide-eyed face. In the bathroom mirror, her gray-green irises were almost the color of celery. “The Dana Brush by Conair has fine nylon bristles that won’t pull or tug,” she gushed. “You’ll notice that the tip of each one is carefully rounded for your comfort.” Dana ran her hand over the bristles, mesmerized by the way they bent and bounced back. “And they’re flexible,” she added, punching the word as if it were a new invention. “Plus, the unisex handle makes it—”

  “What are you doing in there?” Megan called.

  “Rehearsing!”

  “You don’t need to rehearse. Just shower!”

  As Dana stood beneath the velvety rushing water, the reality of her situation started to break through the fog. She really did need this job. Needed the hell out of it. And if she wasn’t so stoned and drunk she might even have half a chance at getting it.

  “Hurry!” Megan said as Dana toweled her hair.

  “I am hurrying.”

  Dana opened the medicine cabinet, took out her moisturizer, put it on the counter and stared back at the narrow shelves, zeroing in on the prescription bottle wedged between the Band-Aid Tough Strips and Secret Solid. It was Dexedrine, the ADHD medication her ex, Benjamin, took every morning. She had promised herself she would make him feel guilty as shit before returning it to him. But once he left—at her insistence—she never heard from Benjamin again.

  So now here she was, staring at the solution to her problem, and wondering if it was worth the risk.

  But was it a risk? She knew Dexedrine was a central nervous system stimulant used safely by millions of people. She also knew that it was addictive, and meant for people whose brain chemistry required the kick.

  Still, it wasn’t like a single pill would turn her into a speed freak. She’d done it once in college to help her pull an all-nighter, and nothing bad had happened. Hell, she’d even aced the paper she had stayed up to write.

  Dana took the bottle from the shelf, held it in her hand and stared at it. She needed to think. Not an easy task when she was this high. Still, she knew there was something else. Something relevant to this decision.

  Then she remembered. It had been a vow. When she took the pill in college, she had promised herself it would be just that once, to help her through an emergency.

  But this was an emergency, too, wasn’t it?

  Dana glanced at the door. The smart thing to do was to tell Megan to go away and just crawl back into bed. But then what? She didn’t even have a lousy job.

  It was all so confusing.

  “Coffee’s almost ready,” Megan called.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Dana said.

  “I swear to God if you don’t get your shit together and go on this audition I’ll never forgive you. And you’ll never forgive yourself, either. Remember what happened with the Yoplait commercial? Now get dressed.”

  The Yoplait spot was cast by Williams Mitchell Advertising, and Dana had been scheduled to read for it. She was a no show for the audition for reasons she couldn’t even remember, and later found out the client had seen her in a Liberty Mutual commercial and specifically asked for her. The part went to the odious Lisa Ann Whitney, who now had a supporting role on a hit Netflix series.

  Dana pressed down on the lid of the prescription bottle and twisted it open. Fuck Lisa Ann Whitney, she thought, and tipped a small white tablet into her hand. Just this once, she thought. And then never again. Dana ran the faucet, popped the pill into her mouth and used her hand to slurp a gulp of water.

  And then, as an afterthought, she tipped out one more pill to tuck into her purse, just in case.

  “Hallelujah and amen!” she said, and flipped her hair over her head to shake out the excess water. She put on a little makeup and emerged from the bathroom. She didn’t feel sober—not by a long shot—but knew that the drug would kick in soon, and she would feel like she could conquer anything.

  “You look better,” Megan said when she saw Dana scrubbed and confident.

  “I feel better,” Dana said, her back to Megan as she slipped the extra Dexedrine into her purse. She opened the accordion door to her closet. It was a tiny studio apartment, and getting dressed with company was, by necessity, a public affair.

  “That navy blue wraparound—” Megan began.

  “Too dark.”

  “Maybe something pseudo-thriftshop-retro-ironic-hipster-mismatch,” Megan
offered.

  Dana shook her head. “Those shopping channels don’t go for uptown chic or downtown cool.” She pulled a butterscotch-yellow sweater from her closet and held it in front of herself to show Megan. “They want Scarsdale PTA, but with a little edge. This is off-the-shoulder, so it’s perfect.”

  Megan studied the sweater, her lips tight in thought. “Belted?”

  “Why not?”

  Megan nodded with admiration. “Reminds me of something Kitty Todd would wear.”

  “Kitty who?”

  “The Shopping Channel’s golden girl,” Megan explained. “They call her the Pitch Queen. Outsells everyone. Viewers adore her.”

  Dana pulled on her sweater and tried to remember the nights she dozed off watching the station’s various pitches. “What does she look like?”

  Megan squinted, thinking. “Light brown hair, very pretty in an ex-sorority-girl kind of way.”

  “That narrows it down.”

  Megan struggled for more detail and shrugged.

  “Skinny hips and lots of eyeliner?” Dana asked.

  “That’s her.”

  Dana turned and went back into the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” Megan asked.

  “Putting on more makeup.”

  * * *

  Dana sipped the strong coffee as they walked across town to the audition. By the time they reached the address, the caffeine and the medication had combined to create rocket fuel, and she felt like she could run straight up the building’s brick wall. They got in line with the other women who were there for the audition.

  “Nervous?” Megan asked.

  “Not really. Not at all, actually. I’m feeling fine. Just hyper.”

  “Your hands are trembling.”

  “Damn,” Dana said, and shook them out. She still had excess energy to burn, so she ran in place and did a little hand dance.

  Megan stared, her brow tight. “Oh, no,” she said. “You’re not...” She paused and looked deep into her friend’s face. “Are you coked up or something?”