big breaths

I took a deep breath when the phone rang. I should have known it was going to be my agent. I would have been quite silly not to have known as I had to drive into town to take the call. ‘Rilly, darling..’ he began, ‘I’m here at the publishers, you’re on speaker dear’. This sounded very important. ‘I see Wife in the North has done breastfeeding on her blog, damn, she's good, and we think your blog needs more breasts in it, to give a more rounded picture, so to speak, so what do you think?’ I knew there was something, but I couldn't put my finger on it, then it came to me. ‘Just one snag', I said. 'Oh God, you're not pierced are you Rilly?!' exclaimed my agent. 'I haven’t got any nursing children’ I told him. ‘Hmm, that is a problem’, said my agent and another voice asked ‘Rilly, we really need breasts, this is Tim from marketing by the way, how quickly can you get a baby? What’s the lead time?’ As I tried to add nine months to the next time I could see myself having sex another voice came on the line. ‘Howdy Rilly, this is Hank in the New York office, listen, you really need to work with us on this one ma’am. In our polling, 64% of male college students and 97% of the soccer mom demographic answered yes to the question should Rilly Super get them out, as long she doesn’t do it at the Superbowl. Our American readers are counting on you Rill!’ I could see the point that London and New York were making, that such a personal and private mother-child intimate moment would naturally be expected to appear in the blog by my readers. Another voice, a woman, came on the line 'Konnichiwa, Rillysan, I am interpretor for Mr Nagashima in Tokyo office, Mr Nagashima ask can you write about your breasts being different sizes like Wife in North. Mr Nagashima say his wife very interested in this problem, In fact Mrs Nagashima have to wear padded kimono to match left with right and stop her walking round in circles.’ I'm not sure if they detected that my hesitancy was from a concern to keep my blog in the best possible taste. Tokyo came on the line again. ‘Mr Nagashima say, if no breast feeding in blog, readers not think it genuine account of family life but think probably all just made up to market book. Mr Nagashima have to go now, translation of latest wife in the north post in Japanese just arrived. Sayonara Rillysan’. New York came back on. ‘Gotta go too Rilly, gotta check the mock-up promotional Wife in the North barbeque apron. Be seein' ya!’ and he left me alone with my thoughts, my agent and the entire marketing department in London. ‘I’m not just making something up you know’ I warned them. ‘I’ll lose all credibility if Strife in the North isn’t totally truthful’ . There was a hushed murmering from the other end of the line ‘We know you’ll make the right decision Rilly darling’ said my agent and hung up. I didn’t think I could make up stories just to sell the book, just to keep people reading the blog. I would be deceiving people for whom total honesty was the very thing they most expected from me. This was just the story of an ordinary family, not Desperate Housewives meets Emmerdale. Suddenly as I examined my conscience, my deep ethical and moral contemplation was interrupted, and I could hear the baby crying…