Reader's Diary #582- Abby Gaines: So, how did you two meet?

This Valentine's Day, I went looking for a romance. Which publisher do you associate with romance? Harlequin, of course. Harlequin, many people don't realize, is a Canadian company. According to its website, Harlequin is Canada's most successful publisher, publishing a whopping 130 million books in 2008, of which only 5% were sold in Canada. This may help explain why they have a line of romances set around the NASCAR circuit (I'm not kidding), but none based around hockey. Harlequin's success is sort of like our music scene, isn't it? We export the multi-platinum selling Celine Dion and keep the Tragically Hip for ourselves. By the way, there hasn't been a single Harlequin book reviewed in 3 years of the Canadian Book Challenge.

So, like very few Canadians have done before me, I went looking for love at Harlequin. Not looking for a long term commitment, but more of a quickie, I figured they must have at least one short story available online. They didn't. However, I did Google some of their authors. Almost all of them had webpages, and one of those, Abby Gaines, also offered up a couple short story freebies.

"So, how did you two meet?" is about a doctor at a gerontology ward who is bothered by a woman visitor who likes to ask his female patients how they'd met their husbands so many years ago. According to her, she's simply providing a service to these elderly ladies who want someone to talk to and reminisce. According to him, she's dredging up old memories and reminding them of death and loneliness. A man and a woman who initially don't click? Gee, I wonder where this is going.

Despite it's predictability, I didn't mind the story. Like most romances (both real and fictional), there has to be a moment of magic. People have been trying to discern between love and Love and LOVE and Love for ages and Gaines hints around about at least a couple of those. The doctor, obviously representing the more practical side of love, talks about love beyond that first hookup. That's where the work and genuine long lasting relationships are made. But the visitor's focus on that initial chemistry isn't without importance. True, most romances seems to put too much importance on the latter, but it's a magic you almost need to believe in when you're first falling in love. Facts can come later.

Incidentally, if you have a nice "how you met" story, you might be interested in this.

(Did you write a post for Short Story Monday? If so, please leave a link in the comments below.)