The Book Signing

An author runs into a ghost from his past at a book signing.

         The Book Signing

         I made it. After years of trying, a dozen failed books, and hundreds of unpopular short stories, I was represented by a literary agent. It had just taken giving up science fiction and writing a suspense/romance novel. It turns out that a man writing in that genre was rare enough to catch the agent’s interest. And then, after weeks of effort and endless promises about how much of my own time, effort, and money I would put into marketing the book, I had a publisher. I was a commercially published author.

         When asked what I do for a living, I never say writer, author, or even novelist. I say a commercially published author. Pretentious, I know, but the effort that I had exerted was far too much to allow myself to be lumped in with those who were self-published, or hybrid-published, or whatever was the latest name for vanity press.

         I was being paid for my book. Honestly, that is only sort of accurate. Part of my marketing strategy, to which I was contractually obligated, included my visiting a myriad of small mom and pop bookstores and negotiating with the store owners for a spot near the front door or on their featured shelf to try and get more eyeballs on the cover of my novel. You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you sure can sell one.

         All of the costs for this travel are out of my pocket and, if I add up the receipts against the royalty checks, I was in the red. Way in the red. But I was selling books. My agent told me that, after the first month, a few of the large brick-and-mortar chains had ordered hard copies. That was a big deal. It didn’t help me buy groceries right now, but being about ten pounds underweight and wearing slightly threadbare clothing gave me a starving artist vibe, which seemed to work for the brand.

         That is what led me to be sitting at a table in a small bookstore in Homewood, Alabama, with a pile of my books and a pen. I had high hopes for this one since I was within ten miles of where I was born and raised. My high school was one suburb over, and I had already dropped by and given free copies to two English teachers and the librarian, hoping they would start some word-of-mouth. There was a poster (which I had sent ahead) on the front door of the store, and I had personally paid for a targeted ad on Facebook about my book signing. All of the items on the marketing checklist were checked.

         In the movies, the book signing scene is played with a line of people waiting to get to the author. That was not my reality. No one was waiting at the table at 4:00 PM when my signing officially started, and I had sold somewhere around zero copies in my first forty-five minutes.

         But then I went on something of a run. A middle-aged woman came to my table and asked me about my book. That, of course, could kill an hour right there, but I reigned in those instincts and recited the back cover copy word-for-word. Then I repeated the hook. As I was talking, another woman wandered up and was waiting for a chance to speak with me.

         I had a line!

         Better yet, the first woman actually bought a copy. I looked down to sign it for her, and she headed off to the cashier. When I looked up, two women were standing in line! I gave my pitch to the next woman, to which she responded, “That’s really not my thing,” and wandered away, leaving me looking at the last woman in line, who was about my age, blonde, and somewhere between pretty and used-to-be-pretty.

         She was carrying a copy of my book that looked like it had been thumbed through.

         I looked up. “Hi.”

         She smiled and brushed a loose strand of hair from over her right eye and tucked it behind her ear. “I was wondering if you could sign my copy of your book.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the shop owner and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I bought it online.”

         It was now appropriate for me to look directly at her grey eyes. She was pretty in the Velma/Marianne kind of way rather than glamorous in the Daphne/Ginger kind of way. And there was something else about her that was nudging a memory.

         She seemed to notice the questioning look on my face. “Do you remember me?” Her smile faltered slightly.

         I was trying to place it. “I think so, but…” I remembered the eyes. “Kathryn Easton.”

         The smile rebloomed on her face. “Yes. We went to middle school and high school together.”

         I remembered.

         There was no one in line behind her, so she started down memory lane. “Do you keep in touch with anyone from school?”

         Why would I? I was still sort of stunned and thought about signing her book and thrusting it back at her but that wouldn’t make her go away. I looked from the book in her hand back up to her face. “You seem to have a different recollection of our relationship back then than I do.”

         This seemed to startle her. “Well, we didn’t run in the same circles.”

         “No, we didn’t. You ran with the popular kids, and the mean girls, and I ran with me, the dorky kid that everyone abused.”

         “It wasn’t that bad. Like, I sat next to you in Algebra class in ninth grade.”

         “You called me ‘greaseball’ because my mother only made me shower once a week.”

         “You should have showered more, no matter what your mother made you do.”

         “I figured that out. Thank you.”

         “Then I did you a favor.” She was definitely getting tense. This was not what she expected.

         “How much of a favor was it when you pretended to ask me to the Sadie Hawkins Dance for the entertainment of your mean-girl friends?”

         “Are you saying that I was a ‘mean-girl’?”

         “You were the leader of the mean-girls.” How could she not know this?

         That was when I noticed that, at the end of her left hand, another hand was attached. And that hand belonged to a girl of about ten, whom I could barely see behind the stack of books. I don’t know how I could have missed her before. This was Kathryn’s daughter, in front of whom I had just explained what a horrible person her mother was.

         Kathryn followed my gaze, and her voice became calm. “I guess I should thank you. You have provided me with an object lesson for my daughter to understand that the actions of our youth can follow us for our entire lives. I’m very sorry that I was mean to you in middle school.” She didn’t sound sorry.

         I really had nothing to say.

         But she did. “I read your book, and it sucked.”

         She then turned and started walking toward the door. Releasing her daughter’s grip, she held her hand behind the little girl’s head where she couldn’t see and shot me a bird. I have to admit that this act of pettiness made me smile. I also noticed that the hand contained no wedding ring.

         “Kathryn,” I called after her.

         She whirled at the front door with her voice raised to carry to the back of the room. The storeowner and the two patrons were studiously not noticing what was going on within a few feet of them. “What?!”

         “I’m in town for a couple of days. Are you free for dinner?”

         Her mouth dropped open for just a second, but she recovered quickly. “So, we can reminisce some more about what a b… bad person I was in high school?”

         “Something like that.”

         This confused her. It also confused me. What was I doing?

         She looked down at her daughter. “Angie’s with her father tonight. I can be free.” The other people in the store were no longer pretending not to notice. They were enthralled.

         “I’m done here at seven.”

         “I’ll meet you here. Dinner is on you.”

         “Literally or figuratively?”

         “That remains to be seen.”

         “I’m good with that.”

         She turned and left with what would probably be a very interesting conversation on the drive home with Angie.

         The woman who had told me my book was not her thing changed her mind and bought one, as did the other shopper in the store.

         Kathryn and I were married a little over a year later.