I grew up in a small town in the far southwestern corner of New York State, four hundred and fifty miles away from Manhattan. In third grade, I decided to become an author when I grew up. In ninth grade, I decided I needed to move to New York City to do so.

I’ve always been an ambitious, hyper-organized planner—a curse or blessing, depending on how you look at it. It served me well at 21, when I landed an entry level with a major New York publishing house, where I intended to learn the industry from behind the scenes. I had started sending out resumes and going on corporate interviews as a college senior, flying from Buffalo to Newark on the defunct People’s Express Airline, with my dubious yet supportive parents footing the $29 (really!) each way fares every couple of weeks.

When I landed the job with Macmillan, all I cared about was that I’d reached the key milestone in my master plan: the move to New York. It wasn’t until my first day at work that reality hit me: apparently, I was a secretary in the textbook marketing division—about as far from my imagined door-opening editorial career as a waitressing job would have been, and a lot less lucrative.

Disillusioned, yet not about to go crawling home to western New York, I gamely learned to make photocopies, format memos, and fill out town car vouchers for the bosses. I used up all five of my sick days within the first few months on the job and blew my fifteen thousand dollar a year entry level salary on Salem Slim Lights, Bombay Sapphire and tonics, chimichangas, and nightclub covers (none of which have been on my social agenda in a few decades now).

The four other secretaries in my bay—Carol, Rose, Ann and Susan—became my first post-college girlfriends. My career at Macmillan lasted just six months, but our bond continues to this day.
My father, a conservative Capricorn banker, panicked when I left a full-time job with benefits to work instead for a temp agency, but I assured him it was all part of the plan and that I would be fine. I was right about that--I eventually freelanced my way into the fulltime women’s fiction editorial career that ultimately launched me to my published author goal.

That short-lived stint at Macmillan was a major turning point and yet, oddly, I rarely think about it. My first corporate job is relegated to the far reaches of memory’s attic, alongside calculus formulas and Flock of Seagulls lyrics.

The other day, however, Macmillan unexpectedly came rushing back in the most bizarre full circle way.
My husband and I and our children had to catch an early international flight from JFK, so we decided to leave from a midtown hotel rather than our suburban home. When I made a reservation via the Marriott website, I thought the hotel’s address—866 Third Avenue—seemed familiar. But since I frequently dine in that neighborhood (love PJ Clarkes and Solera) and my longtime publisher, Kensington, was until recently just a block away—I figured that must be why 866 Third rang a bell.

It didn’t dawn on me until I walked into the lobby that this was precisely where Macmillan had been located; the building had been turned into a hotel. Shell-shocked, I rode the familiar elevators past my former low floor and set up camp in a suite on the seventeenth. With the release of LIVE TO TELL, my new thriller from Harper, just days away, I had quite a few loose ends to tie up. I did a telephone interview, confirmed several upcoming appearances, and approved a press release about the book’s starred review in Publishers Weekly. I received a call from the television producer who’s optioned one of my book series, then zipped down to my agent’s office to pick up a royalties check.