(for a LOT more information on publishing, please visit my alternate website as www.selfpublishingsite.com)
A SYNOPSIS IS A SELLING TOOL FOR AGENTS. YOU MUST GIVE A BRIEF, BUT THOROUGH, SUMMARY OF YOUR BOOK. DON'T BE CUTE AND SAY, TO SEE HOW IT ENDS YOU MUST READ THE MANUSCRIPT.)
Satin Doll
Regina Harris has it all, or so anyone who met her as a 26-year-old one would think. She is articulate, witty, a magna cum laude graduate, and has a successful career as a freelance writer. Successful enough to wear Gucci shoes, and rent a nice apartment in a classy neighborhood in New York City. But what people don’t know is how hard Regina struggled to become successful.
Her mother died when she was 13, leaving her to fend for herself and her infant niece, who was abandoned by her crack-addict sister. She quit school to find a job, but when she found no one would hire a 13-year-old who said she as 18, but looked 11, she turned to shoplifting to pay the bills. Later, she found she could make even more money by "hanging out" with drug dealers willing to pay a pretty penny for the privilege of having a "pretty young thing" on their arm as they enjoyed the Harlem nightlife.
It’s only after Regina is shot, and her drug-dealing companion is killed, that she realizes that she has to get out of the life.
But unlike many people who make it out of the ghetto, Regina’s heart, if not her address, remains in Harlem and the life she’s left behind. When she tells a relative she’s considering buying a red car the man shakes his head in disgust and says, "You can take the Nigger out of Harlem, but you can’t take the Harlem out the Nigger." She’s revolted by the words, but she decides not to buy a car after all. She still hangs out with "her girls," childhood friends, Yvonne, Pudding and Tamika. It’s while partying with them at a swanky Harlem nightclub that she meets, Charles Whitfield, a 26-year-old snobbish young man originally from Philadelphia but attending Columbia University Law School. Charles, who is with two friends, makes it plain that he looks down on Regina and her friends, and considers them nothing more than gold-digging street-women. He tries to snub them intellectually, but Regina – quick-witted as well as intelligent – turns the tables and then walks out on him, leaving him astonished, embarrassed and in love.
He tries to pursue Regina, begging her friends to tell him how to contact the young woman. Yvonne, the closest of Regina’s friends, telephones Regina to tell her that Charles has even offered her money to reveal Regina’s whereabouts. Yvonne who is dating Robert, one of Charles’ friends, convinces Regina to give Charles a chance, and the foursome meet at a club for drinks.
Charles apologizes for his behavior at their previous meeting. When he finds out that Regina graduated from Temple University, lives on the Upper West Side, and is a successful free-lance writer, he assumes that she comes from a monied background. He tells that he could not believe that he mistook her for the street-women that her girlfriends obviously are. Charles reveals to Regina that he comes from an upper middle-class Philadelphia family, and is wary of street women who only see people of his class as tickets out of the ghetto. He tells Regina he knows based on her intelligence and the lady-like manner in which she carries herself, that she is not one of those women – those promiscuous foul-mouthed street women – who go through life looking for a way to get over on others.
His words enrage, Regina, but instead of striking out at him, she accompanies him to his apartment and seduces him, making sure to give him a performance that will make the fact that she has been in bed with many men inescapable. A performance she knows will make him crave more. When he falls asleep she departs, but not before emptying his wallet, his watch and his jewelry and placing them in the shower, and pulling the shower curtain, so that he wakes-up thinking she robbed him, then realizes she’s played a mind-game on him.
He once again hounds her friends, but again they refuse to give him any information about Regina. Finally, they run into each other at a party given by the Sunday Magazine editor at The New York Times. She lashes out at him for stereotyping people, and says the fact that she was born poor in Harlem and did her share of street-running does not preclude her from being intelligent and sensitive. And the fact that she had been with many men did not stop her from being a lady. Charles begs for yet another chance, and the two start dating.
Both are quick-witted and quick-tempered and they argue as much as they make love, but the arguments only heighten their desire for each other. They fall deeply in love.
Regina, is at first, reluctant to speak about her past, but eventually opens up to Charles about some of the horrible things she’s been through in order to survive. Charles is shocked, but instead of recoiling from Regina, he draws closer. It’s about time, he said, that she had someone to depend on, instead of having everyone else depend on her. It’s about time, he said, that she’s with a man who wants more than her body. Regina doesn’t admit it, even to herself, but she can’t believe that someone like someone like Charles would want someone with her background. They become engaged.
Then Yvonne finds out that Robert is married, and lashes out at Regina, thinking Regina knew all along. The two have known each other since elementary school and Yvonne’s rejection hurts Regina, but then she becomes appalled at Yvonne’s decision to continue seeing Robert.
After she and Charles marry, he decides to forgo his law career and run for congressional office when a new district – inhabited predominantly by African-Americans – is created in Philadelphia. His opponent, Richard Davis, is a white man in his early thirties whose father and grandfather were both city politicians. He doesn’t take Charles – who is only 28 – seriously until it’s too late. Davis accidentally stumbles on a little information about Regina’s background, and begins to circulate rumors that Charles is married to a former shop-lifter who partied with Harlem dope-dealers and gangsters. Robert, who is Charles’ campaign manager, decides to put his own spin on it, and Regina is horrified when she hears Charles’ mother give a campaign speech in which she praises her son for not turning his back on a woman because of her background, but instead encouraging her to go to school and make something of herself. Regina angrily confronts Charles, reminding him that she had turned her life around before she met him, but he pooh-poohs the situation, saying that Regina is over-reacting. Charles wins the Democratic nomination by a whisper.
Regina, becomes a mother, but continues to pursue her own career, much to Charles’s dismay, bringing in more that $50,000 a year free-lancing to major publications such as People Magazine (her biggest client), Newsweek, Family Circle and Reader’s Digest. The Whitfield’s live in a large stone mansion in Chestnut Hill, a gift from his parents which is conveniently located in the new congressional district. During the closing days of Charles’ November election race, Regina receives a job offer from People Magazine.
The telephone rings one night shortly afterward while Charles and Regina are eating dinner at their Philadelphia home and a woman on the other end asks for Charles. Regina’s recognizes the voice as that of a woman who works in Charles’ Philadelphia field office. She has heard rumors that she and Charles are having an affair, but ignored the rumors until now. She didn’t think the woman -- a young society woman with no aspirations beyond becoming a trophy-wife -- was Charles type. But the attitude in the woman’s voice said suggests that the telephone call is more than just a business courtesy. Instead of giving Charles the telephone she tells the woman she has reached a wrong number. Charles suspects something is wrong, but before he can ask her what the telephone rings again and Regina again answers, announces wrong number and hangs up. The third time the telephone rings, Charles answers, and his brown face turns red as he listens for 30 seconds, then in quiet fury tells the woman that he will call her back another time. He looks at Regina’s face as he hangs up the telephone and realizes she knows. All he can say is he’s sorry. Regina leaves the room.
Regina is further devastated when she finds that Yvonne knew about Charles’ affair and did not tell her. The two women have an argument that almost leads to a fist-fight, but wind up patching up their differences and their friendship, when Yvonne’s mother is in a car accident. Regina, though, still faces a dilemma. She loves Charles and doesn’t want to leave him, but she doesn’t feel she can just stand by while he has an affair. He tells her that the affair is over, but she doesn’t believe him until Yvonne confirms it. Still, her marriage is strained, and Charles believes that Regina might leave him and take the job in New York. He tries to use his political influence to have the job offer withdrawn, but instead he manages to anger her biggest client, People Magazine, and they notify Regina that they will no longer run any of her articles.
An angry Regina confronts Charles and the two have a large row, ending in Regina driving to New York City the next morning to try and pacify her clients instead of campaigning with Charles as she had promised. When she gets back to Philadelphia she finds the locks changed, and after she manages to climb in a side window she finds that her clothes have disappeared from their bedroom. She calls Charles on his cellular telephone, and he tells her that he’s willing to give the marriage a chance, but it will have to be on his terms. No more talk about his affair with Angela. No more freelance writing. If this marriage is going to work, Regina has to be a trophy wife, he says.
Charles’ insolence angers Regina more than the affair. How dare he try to teach her a lesson after all he’s done to her? But instead of hanging up on him she agrees to meet with him at the house at 8:30 p.m. Then she calls Yvonne to get information about Angela, and finding that the woman is a member of a local health club, she rushes over to talk to her. She tells Angela that she realizes she has won, and Charles wants out of their marriage. Angela at first expresses doubt because Charles just ended their affair, but Regina convinces her he did so only said because she had threatened to ruin his political career. But now, she tells Angela, she realizes she can’t live with a man who she knows loves someone else. She also convinces Angela that she and Charles wants her to come over to the house that evening to discuss custody arrangements, and although Angela is still doubtful, she agrees to the meeting. Angela calls Charles’ office to speak to him, but Yvonne answers the telephone saying that Charles is not there, but that he has left a message for Angela asking him to meet him at his home that evening.
When Charles returns home, he finds Angela and Regina waiting for him. A screaming match ensues between Angela and Charles when he tells her to get out, and she tells him that she is there at his invitation. When Charles realizes Regina’s duplicity, he becomes even more enraged. Not only has she lied to Angela about him wanting out of the marriage, she also said that he has called Angela’s name out while making love to Regina -- another lie. Regina laughs at the two of them and says she doesn’t feel guilty about setting up the confrontation, and makes it plain she’s enjoying the show. When Angela understands that Regina has used her as a pawn, she verbally lashes out at Regina, and is surprised when Regina responds, not like a politician’s wife, but like a street woman from Harlem, threatening her with bodily harm. Angela storms out.
After Charles storms upstairs, Regina calls Yvonne and tells her about the dramatic scene that just played out in her living room. Later that evening Charles and Regina talk, and actually laugh about Regina’s deviousness, and for a moment it’s like all times. But Regina decides she has to leave. Too much has transpired between them. She moves back to New York City with her baby.
Six months later Regina and Charles meet in a Philadelphia restaurant to discuss a divorce agreement. Regina’s career is booming, and she tells Charles that she’s considering moving out of her small Harlem apartment and buying a brownstone, also in Harlem. They talk about their marriage, and Regina tells Charles she now realizes she married him for the wrong reasons. Although she loved him, the main reason she accepted his proposal, was because being the wife of a big-shot lawyer proved she was successful – that she overcame her dismal beginnings. While maintaining throughout adulthood that was not ashamed of her past, and she didn’t need to prove herself to anyone, she finally realized she was continually – though subconsciously – trying to prove herself to herself. She now realizes she doesn’t need validation of her life. She’s really an okay person, who might have done some bad things, but really an okay person. Despite their troubled marriage, Regina and Charles are still attracted to each other, and briefly consider spending the night together, but with a sigh Regina walks back to her shiny red Ford Mustang and heads home. Home to Harlem