She's Got Mail!. Colleen Collins

it, she scanned the pot, sugar and cream containers, and the collection of Hollywood mugs. Rosie felt a mild surge of guilt as she recalled that the James Dean cup still sat on her desk. Well, she’d return it later. For now, should she pick the mug with the movie title Singin’ in the Rain? No. There might be sunshine outside, but Ben looked as though he were having a rainy day. And he definitely didn’t look as though he wanted to sing. Nix that one.

      Blonde Venus? No. He’d visibly flinched when he’d glanced at that yesterday. My Fair Lady? Hmm. Some Like it Hot? Hot coffee. He’d like it. Yes!

      Rosie poured the steaming liquid into the cup, checking out its picture of Marilyn Monroe wearing some clingy dress and playing a ukulele. Did Benjamin Taylor like that kind of big-breasted, blond-bombshell type? An uncomfortable feeling skittered around Rosie’s stomach. Maybe she’d quaffed her nutri-quasi-Twinkie bar too quickly. Still staring at Marilyn’s red lips, fluffy blond hair and killer curves, Rosie realized the skittering wasn’t indigestion—it was…emotion.

      Jealousy?

      Impossible. So what if Benjamin Taylor is impossibly cute, even with that chicken-tuft hair and a swollen jaw, how can I possibly be jealous about a slugged lawyer and a dead movie star? Even as these thoughts tumbled through her mind, some internal voice offered an answer. Because Marilyn Monroe represents everything you aren’t—she’s sensual, sexy, and has a body that could stop a herd of stampeding cattle.

      Rosie put the pot aside and grabbed the My Fair Lady mug for herself. Audrey Hepburn—as Eliza Doolittle—wore an ill-fitting jacket, a wrinkled skirt and a smudge of soot on her nose. Is that how I look to men? Rosie tried to forget the clump of mud that had stuck to her forehead yesterday. She turned the mug and stared at another picture of Audrey Hepburn as the suave, refurbished Eliza Doolittle—an elegant, classy lady who eventually wooed her man.

      Rosie stared longingly at the image. Maybe if Mom hadn’t been so busy helping run a farm and raising five kids—four of them boys—I might have learned the secrets of being feminine and elegant. Rosie slid a glance at the receptionist, who was carefully outlining her lips with some sort of pink-leaded pencil. I could never draw a straight line, much less outline my mouth. I’d slip, skid off my top lip and end up drawing a big wobbly circle around my nose.

      As Rosie poured coffee into the My Fair Lady mug, a yearning filled her. A yearning to be a new Rosie. Not a lip-lining, movie-star Rosie. But an adventurous Rosie whose dreams were bigger than the gulch, bigger than Real Men magazine. Isn’t that what Boom Boom and Mr. Real had done? Escaped from humdrum to bongo drum?

      Picking up the mugs, Rosie grinned. Too bad there wasn’t a goddess named Boom Boom, who inspired women to bongo their way from a mediocre life to an exciting one. Rosie paused. Just as she stirred sugar and milk into her coffee, why couldn’t she also stir a little Boom Boom into her Athena?

      With an extra oomph to her step, Rosie strutted into Ben’s office.