Page 11 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
When I walked into my room, my Olivetti glaredat me from the desk like a merciless judge. The aluminum wastebasket was, as always, overflowing with crumpled pages.
A wave of disgust rolled through me.
For a split second I considered chucking everything out the window—or worse, using that typewriter to type up a résumé. A threat so dark I’d never dare say it out loud.
But then… nothing.
There’s a little voice inside me—probably my left hemisphere, armed with a whip—that takes pleasure in watching me suffer. My brain is a sadistic professional, the kind that takes notes during torture. So, without thinking too much, I shrugged off my coat and bag, flung them onto the bed like I never wanted to see them again, and sat back down at the desk.
I slid a sheet of paper into the Olivetti’s roller with all the solemnity of someone about to perform a human sacrifice. Aligned the page, cracked my knuckles—hey, couldn’t hurt—and began to type:
Clare was an independent woman, but when she met Robert, something inside her heart shifted.
I clenched my jaw, ripped the page out with a grimace of pure nausea, crumpled it up like dirty Kleenex, and fed a new sheet into the machine.
Clare had never been in love, but the first time she saw Robert, her heart skipped a beat. At last, she understood the true meaning of “love at first sight.”
“Ugh.” This time I tore the page out with pure savagery, shredded it into confetti just to make sure no human being would ever lay eyes on it. Sometimes I pictured a sanitation worker digging through my trash, finding an opening like that, reading it aloud to his coworkers—then everyone bursting out laughing: “Oh my God, she actually wrote this! Listen: ‘Clare was an independent woman…’”
I was fairly certain even a garbage man could write a better rom-com opener.
I slid in another sheet. Stared at the keyboard. The letters. One by one. Rested my fingers on the keys with the reverence of a priestess awaiting divine illumination. Closed my eyes.
Waited.
Nothing. No sign from the spirit of Jane Austen. No paranormal vibrations. No benevolent possession.
With a sigh, I stood, spun in the middle of the room—no reason, or maybe because I was slowly losing my mind—and flopped onto the bed, flat onmy back.
I hadn’t even landed properly when Tess burst into my room like a medieval barbarian storming the gates of a cathedral.
“You’ll never guess what I discovered today!”
My face was buried in my hands, my soul in shambles, my dignity somewhere below basement level. “Tess, please. Not tonight. Unless you’ve secretly landed me a publishing contract, just… spare me.”
She didn’t even flinch. She strode to the center of the room, planted her feet apart like a samurai before battle, and hoisted up—two-handed—a book thick enough to double as a brick. The thing looked like a cursed grimoire forgotten in some attic, its hardback cover yellowed, the page edges curled from dampness—or maybe from sheer shame.
Stamped across the front in blinding hot-pink embossing, in utter defiance of good taste, stood the author and title:
How to Seduce a Doomed Artist
by Éloïse de Saint-Rouge
I looked at it with all the enthusiasm of someone staring at mold on a slice of bread. “What the hell is that?”
“Today at work I was a nightmare,” Tess declared. “Cranky and unbearable, like a cat with astomach ache. Anyone who asked me for a book recommendation, I sent straight to Goethe’sThe Sorrows of Young Werther—just to ruin their day. Some pushy mom wanted something ‘relaxing,’ so I pointed her to Proust’sIn Search of Lost Time.Because if you’re going to suffer, you might as well do it in style.”
I stared at her in horror. “Tess, are you insane? Proust—for a mom?”
“That woman asked me for ‘something relaxing’ while her kid was busy demolishing an entire Roald Dahl display. She had it coming.”
She paused theatrically, then continued in a grand, epic tone. “Anyway. Toward the end of my shift, while I was stacking chairs, my eyes fell on this little brass plaque that read:Self-Help.Obviously, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it. But it was the first time I… really saw it. You know what I mean? Like when you suddenly notice the guy you pass every morning at the coffee shop—and realize, months later, that he actually has an interesting face?”
“Yeah. And then you find out he’s married, lives in Chicago, and runs a motivational YouTube channel.”
“Exactly. But that sign just saidSelf-Help.And in that moment, it felt like a divine signal. Self-help. The words held dignity, determination, and just the right splash of desperation. Like: get up, stopwallowing, and for God’s sake, do something. So, driven by a mysterious force—or maybe just the urge to strangle Chad with a rubber band—I followed the call and walked in. The shelves were divided into neat little sections:Self-Esteem. Finances. Wellness & Fitness.And then, at the very back, against the wall, under a dusty sign with a vaguely porno vibe…Seduction.Dun-dun-dunnn!”
I buried my face in my hands. “Oh God… When I saw the title, I hoped—just for a second—that it was fiction. Maybe some trashy French period drama. But no. A practical manual. Please tell me you’re not taking it seriously.”
