"Look! I got accepted! Jerry showed Diane the letter and contract promising to include a play he'd submitted in their catalogue. They were at Jerry's on this particular weekend. They'd purchased a new printer for Diane and were to install her old one to his computer before preparing chapter samples and query letters for another large mailing to publishers.

"Yay bang! Yay for you!" Diane responded with absolute delight, quietly containing her competitive spirit. "I'm so happy for you!"

A few weeks later Diane, to her own reckoning, caught up with Jerry. "Hey, My Sweet Man, you're not the only one published." She let the momentum build, demanding he ask, but unable to allow it. "My story won! I'm going to read it for the radio - Tales from the South."

"Yay for you!" Jerry shouted, wondering why his story didn't win.

Each to themselves, they kept score. First place, second, third and honorable mentions all counted for imaginary points made as in competitive sports, though the comparisons were always unspoken. Every story contest was a competition. What was fair game for open warfare, were the more mundane, less emotionally straining statistics such as word count and numbers of submissions. They also compared the numbers and general quality of rejections. - "Oh yeah? Well my rejection was personally written, not a form letter." "Oh yeah? Well how many post card rejections do you have? Over a hundred, I bet." "A hundred an' nine. More'n you, I bet." And so the competition went.

"A great story," Diane said after reading Jerry's latest. "What is it, fifty, sixty thousand words?"

"Forty-eight, nine," Jerry said. "A novella."

"Can you expand it?"

Jerry sighed at Diane's most frequent comment. "Every time I try, those are the words you cut, remember? Take out everything that doesn't advance the story."

"I know. I hate that most published authors break all their own rules."

"With impunity."

The next weekend Diane handed over her edited copy of Jerry's Daughters of Song, a tale set in the Old West.

Fanning the pages, Jerry checked for the blood, the dreaded red pen edits. "You declare war on commas?" he asked.

"Over six thousand of them!" Diane exclaimed. Almost forty per page. You must have been tired because it's like you took a breath after every prepositional phrase."

Jerry mentally performed the math. "A comma after every eight and a half words. Hmm. What's the limit?"

Diane laughed.

"Well, your RV book only had two generations and three ethnicities. And only three dogs, Jerry chided."

"And eighty-five thousand words,' Diane rebuffed.

"But ... but"

"No buts," Diane declared. "I'm done." Her way of changing the subject.

"But ..." Jerry overrode her chastening expression. "But I wanna murry you!"

They kissed, their confirmation that good natured competition held its place far behind mutual respect, support, and affection. And any chance for a laugh.

+++

"There," Jerry said, firmly slapping his pen atop his completed one-thousand-word story written entirely without the use of the letter 'e'.

"Not quite," Diane said, glancing over his shoulder.

"What?"

"Your very first word."

Chagrined, Jerry exed out the word 'the' from the title.

"Now done. That's ...." Jerry scanned the brochure for the list of contest submissions for an oncoming writers' conference. "Fifteen hundred and sixty bucks. Add it up. What'll we buy? Where will we go?"

"Not figuring I'll get any of it, huh? You're gonna win every first place reward?" Diane quipped.

Jerry smiled, then looked at the brochure again, popping up after a moment. Seven twenty-five. All the second places."

Diane smiled. "Don't spend it yet, Gorgeous."

Diane won ten dollars at the conference, but Jerry claimed that his two honorable mentions put them in a tie. Diane simply waved her check at him, silencing him. "Gorgeous," Diane repeated after a moment.


Jerry knew that that was one of Diane's tricks to change the subject. Gorgeous was not a word he could use about himself. First, he futilely explained, it was a girly word. Secondly, it just wasn't him. He would have been better served never mentioning his complaint. It became her moral equivalent to his frequent "I wanna murry you."

+++

"Jerry, I'm agented!" Diane exclaimed as Jerry entered Diane's home one Friday afternoon. "He's in L.A. is the downside. But Adam Skinner liked my submission and wants to try to sell it!"

"Yay! L. A.'s good! Better than New York City!" Jerry shouted, dropping his bag in order to hug and dance about with her, sharing Diane's joy. Joy multiplied manifold learning that her book was being published.

Fearful that his expression or demeanor might give away his reflexive envy, Jerry made a valiant effort to convince her of his heartfelt pride in her, his unwavering and unfailing pleasure at her success.

Diane knew better than to attempt to placate him with bland encouragements or platitudes. She also knew better than to promise to present his work to her new agent - an excellent way to sour a professional arrangement.

She stopped herself from consoling Jerry with comments and well wishes of his eventual discovery, of his own success. She understood all too well the difficulties and pure luck involved with getting published and that the best of manuscripts faced a Mount Everest battle. They'd been climbing that mountain together.

The weekend was more strained than any they'd spent together. More was left unsaid than spoken. She, ecstatic with joy, but attempting with every breath to constrain herself. And he, overjoyed for her, his competitive spirit simmering just below the surface.

Jerry attended Diane's book signings and appearances, at least as much as his schedule allowed. The first, as is the case for most firsts, was awkward and less than idyllic. Diane was nervous throughout the event, self-conscious that people considered her signature to be of any value. She felt like she did when she was a bridesmaid at her cousin's wedding years past, everyone telling her how grown up she looked and how pretty she was.

The last party Jerry escorted her to, hosted by her agent for all his clients and attended by national book reviewers, Jerry swore would be his last. It was difficult enough to stand back, silently watching the famous author glow, smiling, laughing, rubbing shoulders with the industry Golden Ones. Cut off so many times during her attempts to introduce him, Jerry saved her, and himself, the embarrassment by holding to the outskirts at every social function.

At that last party, Jerry spotted David Montale, an author he'd heard speak at a writers' conference in Little Rock. Feeling a false sense of familiarity, Jerry approached him. As he began to introduce himself, Montale merely turned and walked away. Must be preoccupied, Jerry consoled himself, though the impression of rejection and dismissal overwhelmed him. Standing in the middle of the room, Jerry identified Rob Carlton, one of his and Diane's favorite authors.

Jerry felt the fool, a hanger-on, a leach clinging to a host's underbelly. Diane was the star. He was the child gripping her skirt hem. His envy was fast turning to jealousy. And he despised himself for it.

With every step, every move toward the hapless Rob Carlton, Jerry told himself to stop, to turn away, to walk back to the corner and hide under the potted Ficus tree. Stop! He commanded himself, but his feet refused. Don't do it! he futilely ordered. Like an alcoholic at a complimentary bar he seemed on autopilot, rudderless. He could not stop himself from approaching Carlton, knowing that he would totally embarrass himself, and maybe injure Diane in the doing. Standing squarely in front of Carlton, blinking wildly, his mouth agape like a drunken idiot, Jerry leaped into a blathering, overly loud pitch, bypassing any sort of mature introduction or conversation.

"Uh, huh," Carlton said politely, sipping at his drink that could have been a cocktail or ice water. "Uh, huh."

Stopping mid-thought, mid-sentence, Jerry finally got a grip on himself, slamming his teeth together. "I'm sorry, Mister Carlton. You've been very kind," he said quietly. Without even a glance to Diane, Jerry went to the restroom, and after a moment, left the party. Since they'd taken a cab, he knew that Diane would get home fine.

How could he do that? How could he be so stupid, so out of control? Celebrities went to social events and depend on security from idiots like him. And Carlton was an author, not a publisher or agent! What was the matter with him? Would Diane ever forgive him? Jerry was distraught. Compounding his distress, Security wouldn't let him wait at Diane's L. A. apartment door. Even though they'd recognized him, policy was policy. He spent the night between an all-night diner and a nearby neighborhood park, demurely knocking on Diane's door the next morning.

Diane apologized for not giving Jerry a key. Neither brought up the previous evening, both fully conscious of the faux pas, neither willing to refry the beans.

+++

"Honey," Diane said into her iPhone that next Monday. Jerry answered the call with a degree of trepidation. It was extremely unusual for her to call during the week, let alone during business hours. "We're going to New York! Can you get free the second week of next month? I'm on Good Morning, America! I really need you to go with me, Jerry."

Of course, he could. And present himself the smiling, supportive, significant other. He would sing her praises to all who asked. Though he was seldom asked, her limelight extending beneath only her own feet.

Jerry watched as Diane grew into her fame. Her beauty and poise became radiant. Her wardrobe and accessories matched her presence. She adapted to the paparazzi like a seasoned pro. She had arrived, her success complete and secure.

The next event found Jerry too busy, as did the next after that. He attended fewer and fewer of her functions. Weekend visits when she was in the state virtually stopped. At first for logical reasons, then wandering off to the trivial, or for no given reason at all.

Diane was busy, either writing or with visitors and calls. Her moments spent missing Jerry were always interrupted. Sometimes she wondered at his explanations, while at others she gave no thought to them, too excited and concerned with her own plans. At the back of her mind was Jerry's embarrassment of having to lie, accepting his no reason at all as preferable.

+++

Jerry continued to submit queries to publishers and agents, contest submissions, and anything and everything he could find to launch his own career in professional writing. His occasional, though less frequent honorable mentions, were laughable compared to Diane's success, her grand slam home run followed by hit after hit. A strike-out king did not rub shoulders, or mingle with anyone. He felt cut.

Jerry's writing began to reflect his depressed spirit. Though not one to drink, his writing performance, as well as writing discipline, reflected the behavior of a drunk on a fast-descending spiral. One day he flopped to his bed, his writing pad fell to the floor. His latest entry descriptive of his life: See Dick meet Jane. See Jane walk away.