Lone Star Legend

by Gwendolyn Zepeda

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Acclaimed children’s book author and short story writer Gwendolyn Zepeda introduces a witty, intelligent heroine in Lone Star Legend. Sandy Saavedra is proud to be a journalist for a website called LatinoNow. But when her beloved company is bought out by a gossip-heavy media conglomerate, she’s afraid her journalism career is over. That is, until she befriends an old hermit living in nowhereville, Texas, and realizes the best scoop can sometimes come from unexpected sources.

Release date: January 7, 2010

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

Blog entry from My Modern TragiComedy, Wednesday, March 8

It was a sunny September afternoon, the first day of school at Lorenzo de Zavala Senior High School, East Austin, 1997, and
I was on top of the world. It was my sophomore year, and yet I’d already been made Assistant Editor of The Monthly Bugle,
our school paper. I was sitting at my new desk—which was actually just a table, but closer to the teacher’s desk than the
table where I’d sat the day before—licking my teeth. Not only was I Assistant Editor, but I’d had my braces removed the week
before, so I was literally sitting pretty. Prettier, I guess. Well—at least less nerdy-looking than before.


Aaron Lieberstat, our best boy reporter, walked up and asked me how my summer had been. I’d always thought Aaron was kind
of cute, but had never spoken to him outside of academic discussions on student council elections or the merits of various
brands of glue sticks.


“You got rid of your braces,” he told me, a nervous smile lighting his freckle-rimmed lips. “It’s nice. Your face is very
symmetrical now.”


How romantic, I remember thinking, to be complimented by a boy who knew such big words.

From there we segued into a conversation about our plans for the paper. I was looking forward to trying some new features
and formatting that would finally bring our publication into the (very late) twentieth century. Aaron was excited about a
photo essay he wanted to do on the Chess Club’s annual tournament. We were in Nerd Heaven.


Ten minutes after the tardy bell rang, Mr. Jenkins, our beloved editor-slash-teacher, still hadn’t put in an appearance. My
classmates and I set to work without him. Whereas other students, given that opportunity, would’ve cut class or set about
destroying school property, we newspaper staff students were single-minded in our scholastic dedication.


I’d fired up my trusty IBM Selectric Word Processor and was already typing up the first draft of a story when the Assistant
Principal showed up with Coach Taylor, a woman for whom a broken tibia had long ago ended the dream of a professional cheerleading
career.


“Kids, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr. Jenkins won’t be back this year. He had some family issues and went to teach
at a school in North Carolina. Coach Taylor here will be your new editor. Coach Taylor, here you go.”


His words rang in my ears, for those few moments and for the entire school year that followed. For they signaled the end of
my budding success as an editrix. Coach Taylor ushered in a new era at our paper, an era filled with sports scores, jock profiles,
and cheer, cheer, cheerleaders.


We entered Nerd Hell, and in junior year I switched my Newspaper elective for its distant, genetically inferior cousin, Yearbook.

It wasn’t until college that I’d attain journalistic nirvana again. As you all know, I’ve been working at a very respectable
online publication since my second senior year at the University. (And no, I’m still not going to tell you which one.) But
that, I fear, is about to end. We’ve just had a visit from our own Coach Taylor, and it looks like the writing’s on the wall.


Love,

Miss TragiComic Texas

Thursday morning, Sandy Saavedra sat in front of her former editor’s desk, in his Longhorn-orange tweed visitor’s chair. Two
faces faced her. Frida Kahlo with her monkey and her iconic bad eyebrows, from the yellowing print in its cheap frame on the
yellowing wall. Below that, Angelica Villanueva O’Sullivan—the face of Levy Media, owners of the hippest, the hottest, and
the meanest news sites online.


Sandy couldn’t look at Angelica, whose blond hair, cream suit, and gold jewelry shone too bright in the room full of plywood.
So she looked at Frida instead, or else down at the desk, where Angelica’s corporate-length French-manicured claws rested
on a piece of Sandy’s work. Sandy’s own bitten nails clutched a brand-new contract.


“The key is page views. Keep it short, keep it sharp, keep it clickable,” Angelica was saying. It sounded like an ad, like a woman reading lines about a smart, cute, and very expensive car. That’s
how the new editor talked, Sandy realized. Everything she said was like a sales pitch to someone much richer.


Over to their right, through the window, a parking garage gleamed in the already-starting spring heat. It wasn’t the very
best view for an editor’s office, but above the garage’s top level, only a few blocks away, you could see floating the dome
of the Texas State Capitol building, another iconic ugly woman standing right on top. Sandy felt this stone goddess watching
as Angelica sat there and said those ad words. Words that meant the end of the best writing job Sandy had ever scored. Well,
the only real writing job she’d ever scored, not counting all those tech writing contracts.


“This is good,” Angelica said, flipping through a file with Sandy’s byline—her real name, Dominga Saavedra—neatly stickered
to the tab. She pulled out the piece that Sandy recognized as the last article she’d turned in to Oscar. It was about suspected
kickbacks between politicians and prominent local Latinos, the one that Sandy had researched and rewritten for months, and
she could see that it’d been edited all over, all in purple ink.


“This is good,” Angelica said again, “but it could be even better. You could make six whole posts from these two pages. For example…” She indicated a paragraph about restaurant
inspector bribes. It was circled and someone had written a new subheader in the margin: WHO’S UP FOR MARGARITAS AND RAT TOSTADAS?


“You know, something like that. But sharper and wittier, hopefully.” Angelica handed the pages over the desk. Sandy took them
with reluctance, and read.


The paragraph of accusations that she’d worked so hard to make subtle and ethical? Now blared WHAT PAID FOR HENRY LOPEZ JR’S
TRIP TO THAILAND? YOUR TAXES! Then several paragraphs of crossed-out lines. Then her most prized story detail, the leaked
e-mail between Congressman Jimmy Diaz and his secretary, was captioned WHAT’S NEXT? JIMMY D SEX TAPE ON FACESPACE?


As she read over Angelica’s bubbly cursive, dismay bloomed inside Sandy like a small toy capsule that becomes a spongy monster
in water. She couldn’t say anything. But she kept thinking, This is how they do it. This is the way they make excuses before they lay you off.


“You’re very talented, Sandy,” Angelica said. “I’ve read a lot about you, and I know you’ve worked hard to get here. Your
writing is good, well researched, and you have a subtle, sophisticated wit.”


Angelica’s flattery stood in stark contrast to the purple words she’d splattered on Sandy’s pages. If the writing was good,
Sandy wondered, why did this woman want her to change it so drastically?


Angelica leaned back in Oscar’s chair and struck a thoughtful pose. “I think, with just a few changes, you can give me what
we need for the new site. You can look at our sister sites for inspiration and mimic their style. And I think you’ll find
it easier than what Oscar had you doing.”


Sandy didn’t see how that was possible. Writing articles for Oscar had been the most natural thing in the world for her, just
like writing book reports at school had been. She couldn’t think of an easier job, or a job that she’d ever enjoyed more.
And now here was this Angelica woman, taking it away from her.


Angelica went on. “If you can deliver the kinds of posts we need, you’ll be one of our staff writers. As such, you’ll turn
in twelve posts, minimum, per day. They don’t have to be long. The shorter the better, in fact. This”—she indicated the poor
butchered article in Sandy’s hands—“would already be half a day’s work for you. You’re ahead of the game. Use these as part
of your audition samples. Write a few more—shorter, sharper, and edgier—and e-mail them to me by Sunday at six. We’ll go from
there.” Her smile, pageant-y and full of well-crafted veneer, wasn’t as comforting as she probably imagined it was. Angelica
stood suddenly and, just like that, was herding Sandy to the door.


“Remember, Sandy: Nacho Papi is ‘Not Yo’ Papi’s Web Site.’ It’s new, it’s savvy, and it’s readable. And it’s going to make its staff famous. Do your best so you can be a part of it.”


Sandy cringed. Just the name of it—Nacho Papi’s Web Site Dot Com—made her nervous. She was a reporter, not a pun-writing entertainment blogger. She couldn’t
even begin to write what Angelica was asking for. Nor could she imagine how it would make her famous. In fact, she didn’t
even know if she wanted to be famous. She wasn’t the fame-seeking type. She didn’t even have her photo on LatinoNow’s virtual masthead.


She was going to get fired, she suddenly knew. Laid off. Have all future submissions rejected in one fell swoop.

Angelica gave Sandy’s arm a brief, sharp squeeze, and then Sandy was ejected to LatinoNow’s—no, Nacho Papi’s shared office
space. She stumbled toward her desk like a reality-show contestant emerging from a dignity-draining obstacle course.


Behind Sandy, Angelica called out George’s name, presumably planning to disillusion him next. George gave Sandy a smarmy smile
as he sauntered into their new boss’s office.


Sandy stood silently, clutching her mangled prose and feeling just as scribbled on. She looked around the old LatinoNow offices
for what was most likely the last time. The nervous, sad, or unreadable faces of her part-time co-workers looked back at her.


Sandy looked at Lori, Francisco, Carolina, and the others with a lump forming in her throat. She was going to miss them.

Sandy and Daniel were at Samurai Noodles again because Daniel was trying to go vegan, again, and Samurai had tofu in all shapes
and sizes. But then he’d ordered the pepper ahi instead, and now Sandy watched him scrape all the pepper off each raw tuna
slice while she told him what’d happened with Angelica that afternoon.


It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but this was the only time she could catch Daniel that day, between his
freshman comp English classes. Nonetheless, a steady stream of hipsters, tourists, and homeless people walked down South Congress,
providing constantly shifting scenery for Sandy to focus on as she told her tale. Her tofu noodles sat cold on her plate.


“So you turned in your resignation?” Daniel said when she was done.

“No, I didn’t resign. I told Lori I was leaving to investigate another story, and then I called you. Why, do you think I should resign? Before even trying to pass the audition?”


Daniel snorted. It would have been an unattractive sound, but he made it while flinging his long black bangs back from his
forehead, like a smug but beautiful horse, and Sandy could never be annoyed when he flung his head like that.


“I can’t even believe she’s making you audition,” he said. “You, with your credentials? You were an honors journalism student.
You shouldn’t have to beg for that kind of job.”


He took a bite of his scraped red tuna and made a face before going on. “If you want my honest opinion, you never should’ve
taken that job to begin with. You belong at a real newspaper, not some ‘online journalism’ racket. I keep telling you, Sandy,
you’re better than that. You should take a year off, actually, and finish your novel.”


Sandy cleared her throat in order to remind Daniel, not for the first time, that she couldn’t afford to stop working for a
year. He should have known that. It’d taken her six years to work her way through a B.A., while he went on to graduate school
and her friends went on to full-time jobs in the real world. And now she had student loans to repay. There was no such thing
as “taking a year off” in Sandy’s world.


But Daniel went on. “So, now this pseudo–news organization is formally turning into a gossip blog. And you’re worried that
you aren’t good enough to write for a gossip blog? Seriously, Sandy, ask yourself: Why would you even want to ruin your reputation
by writing for this site, anyway?”


Sandy picked at the sticky ramen on her plate. “It isn’t a gossip blog. It’s a news and entertainment site.”

He snorted again. “That’s an oxymoron.”

She knew what he expected her to say: “You’re right, Daniel. I’m too good for that job. I’m quitting right now.” That’s what
she would have done in the past—agreed with him immediately. But she couldn’t say with a straight face that she was too good
for this job. She was fresh out of college, practically, with only a year and a half of experience under her belt. And that
experience was at Latino-Now, a site that had gone under despite all her hard work. Nacho Papi and its sister sites may not
have been “real” journalism, but they were making real money.


Somehow, Daniel telling her she was too good didn’t convince her. And the way he described her situation made her not want
to give the answer he expected.


In her mind, she was framing the argument “What if this turns out to be a big opportunity for me?” But the door chimes tinkled
behind her, and his attention wavered.


“Mr. Thomas! Daniel!” cooed a whole flock of female freshmen who’d obviously wandered over between classes. Sandy watched
her boyfriend flip his long bangs off his glasses in response and sit up a little straighter against the red vinyl of their
booth. She felt herself become temporarily invisible. Like the super-powered girlfriend of the much more super guy.


It should have annoyed Sandy, the way this always happened. Daniel’s female students—or any of his students, actually—showed
up and then she ceased to exist. But what could she expect? He was their hero. Their demi-god, almost. He was handsome and
smart, and he was a published author. He was, in short, everything they aspired to be. And Sandy was his girlfriend, the role
that so many of his female students, and probably some of the male ones, too, would have killed to play. So she sat still
and let them have their moment in the sun, basking in Daniel’s company.


This little group—the chubby girl, the gawky girl, the kind-of-cute-but-very-annoying girl—posed questions about essays and
readings. Daniel answered them with dry jokes and they giggled like middle-schoolers. They may as well have had big pink hearts
flashing above their heads. Sandy couldn’t blame them, could she? She’d fallen for Daniel in just the same way, two years
before, in the poetry class they’d taken together.


While he graced the young women with his attention, Sandy took the opportunity to gather her thoughts. Her arguments, really.
For some reason she felt a need to argue. To play devil’s advocate, as it were.


Daniel dismissed the young women with a benevolent air, and she popped back into existence. By then she’d come up with a few
points to make about Nacho Papi’s Web Site and the possibility that she might end up writing material that was edgy and entertaining
but still literary. Before she could get into it, though, Daniel pulled out his tattered briefcase.


“Listen, Sandy—sorry, but I have to get back to my office soon. Can you… Would you mind looking at something for me really
quickly?”


Sandy bit back her words, momentarily annoyed. But then Daniel flipped his hair back again and she nodded. He wanted to show
her a new poem, she knew. And she was one of the very few people Daniel trusted to read his new poetry. He was working on
a book-length collection for his thesis, and she’d read everything he’d written for it so far.


Pushing his barely touched plastic plate aside, he removed a worn Moleskine from his briefcase, opened it to the designated
place, and turned it to face Sandy. The inky, scratchy piece on the page was titled “She Walks into Obscurity.” Sandy eagerly
pulled the book closer while Daniel, unable to stand watching anyone read his work, went to the cashier and paid for their
lunch-slash-dinner.


Marching, obstinate, she fades from me and

I, disconsolate, am touched/not touched

By she who is maybe nothing more

Than a mask? shell? a shade of what

Once seemed indispensable, now just

Indistinguishable, a thousand pretty faces

Marching onward.

And I am touched/not touched by

Myself, I walk alone, into aching hills of

Inscrutable lonely horizons

Daniel returned from the register and fell into his seat heavily. “So? What do you think? I mean, not your opinion of the
piece, itself, because it isn’t ready for that, yet. But any, you know, anything you notice that’s worth further development…”


“I know,” she said. He meant that he wanted only positive feedback. That was all he ever wanted. Like all the other writers
she knew, Daniel was sensitive to criticism. He was more sensitive than most, in fact. Which was strange, considering that
he was also the most successful writer she knew, and the most literary. But Sandy always worded her critiques very carefully.
She didn’t want him to stop trusting her with his work.


“It’s good,” she said. “Very…” She searched for a comment she hadn’t already recently used. “… lyrical.” She paused, then
went ahead and asked what she couldn’t help but wonder. “This isn’t about us, is it? About me?”


“Sandy.” His sigh was obviously exasperated, even though he tried to hide it. He took the notebook from her, packed it away,
and made motions as if he might run out the door at any moment. “Come on. You know I don’t write about any specific person
or situation. You know I work in metaphor, in allegory….”


“Right, right,” she said. “Well, then I only have one other comment. I’m not sure it’s the kind of feedback you want yet,
but it seems kind of important.”


He waved impatiently for Sandy to go on.

“There’s a line in there about touching yourself.”

“What? No, there isn’t.” He stood up, then, and made as if to help her out of the booth with abrupt, unnecessary chivalry.

Sandy grabbed her bag, but kept talking. “I think there is. Something like ‘I am touched or not touched, by myself’? You want
to be careful with that. You don’t want it to sound like—”


“Okay,” he said, cutting Sandy off, turning his back on her and heading for the exit. “Thanks, sweetie. I appreciate it. Come
on. I have to get going.”


As he walked Sandy to her car, she asked if she’d see him later. It was Friday night, after all. Date night, as she’d heard
it called.


“I don’t know. Can I get back to you on that? I have a late department meeting and then two classes’ worth of essays to slog
through. Maybe you can come over and help me grade? Or we could have a beer with the gang at the Fat Man, if you really want
to go out.”


“Hmm. Maybe.” She left it at that and, with a quick, bumpy kiss, they parted.

She was almost relieved, to tell the truth. She wasn’t in the mood to grade Daniel’s papers or listen to his friends wax poetic
about their own poetry. Plus, she had a lot to think about. So maybe it was just as well that she did her own thing that night.


Sandy read the comment from the stranger on her laptop, on her coffee table, in her garage apartment. It was a stranger she
kind of knew, actually, one who read her blog—her online journal—every week. Each week strangers like Sunny B and Moan-a Lisa
commented on Sandy’s virtual messages-in-a-bottle, and reading their comments made her smile. It was comforting to know that
someone understood you and empathized, even if you’d never met that someone in real life.


When Sandy had first told Daniel she was considering starting a blog, a year ago now, his immediate response was “Why? Only
untalented, attention-starved teenagers write blogs.” By that time she’d already posted a few entries under her pseudonym
that she’d been prepared to show him if he took an interest. But obviously he didn’t, so she said nothing more about it.


Sandy had told her best friends Veronica and Jane about it, too, of course. But she’d sworn them to secrecy, so the blog was
practically anonymous. Sandy was pretty sure her friends had forgotten about it, or had lost the link. They never left comments
on it or said anything about its contents to Sandy on the phone. So it was, for all intents and purposes, completely safe.
It was nothing more than a way for Sandy to get stuff off her chest and to keep her writing skills sharp in the process.


Having read the only blog comment she’d gotten so far that day, Sandy stood and walked over to her closet to change into something
more comfortable. Spring had just started, which meant that the mornings were still cool but the afternoons were boiling hot.


Sandy felt a little guilty because she’d been home for an hour already and hadn’t done any work on the procedure manual she
was writing for QBS Systems or on her audition samples for Nacho Papi’s Web Site. But she couldn’t help it—the QBS stuff was
too boring, and just thinking about doing her Nacho Papi sampl. . .