It was meant to be... [a tutorial on author signings]

So this is what happened today on the way to the forum. As I drove to the school, my phone rang. Hello? Nope it wasn't Carmelo this time though he had left a message at 7:00 AM wondering why I never work. And YES he does reside in the same time zone as I do. Nope, this time is was my friend L. Names have been shortened to protect the innocent [by that I mean guilty].

"K", she says happily,
"Yes," I reply.
"How would you like to go to the Davis Reads author night? Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Higgins Clark are going to be there."
"Sure", I said. Though honestly I'm not sure why as I had only ever read 2 books by Mary, one was not even a mystery and none by her daughter. But isn't it always fun to 'meet' a celebrity?

So it was set. L, T and I set off to the exciting book night. As it turned out Mary is quite funny. Seems she has always loved a good mystery. As we were standing in line T mentioned she had never read any of either authors books. I said, Well they are like Nancy Drew for adults. And guess what? Mary loves Nancy Drew. She also loved to scare people. She was the girl at sleep overs that turned off all the lights, turned on a flashlight and told all the girls to get under a blanket for a scary story. 20 minutes later all the girls were laying shaking in their beds and Mary was off in dreamland. (OK so I embellished that last part, but she really did love to tell a scary story.) In one book she put the murderer under the victims bed. The editor tried to get her to move him to the closet, pointing out that the girl would certainly have heard or seen him. Her reply was, no, no, he has to be under the bed. "It is every woman's worst fear, or greatest hope, to have a man under her bed". After the laughter died down she was equally as charming with the rest of her questions. One bit of wisdom she left was the greatest gift you can give a child is a good education. For that, she received a rousing ovation. Her daughter, Carol, attested to the fact that she did indeed value education extremely high.

Carol too was witty and fun to listen too. In fact, as it turns out, while she writes mysteries too, they aren't the stay up all night because your heart is pounding out of your chest type stories as much as they are the stay up all night laughing your head off type stories. I had never read any of her books, but after listening to her talk I wanted to. She told one story of a man who had written her a letter in hopes of becoming her butler. Problem was she lived in a one room studio apartment..not much room to buttle with. This man however, was nothing if not determined. When Carol's mother remarried, he noticed an article in people magazine that mentioned her new husbands last name. He went through he trouble of looking up Carol's new siblings and dropping them a call to explain that he would be a good butler, he had gone to school to become one and he was very disappointed that Carol had not contacted him about the position. The man was a wacko, but the idea of butler school was intriguing to Carol so when in London she called up the most renown butler school in the city to see if she could pay to audit some classes for research for her book. The angry school owner accused her of just trying to steal his ideas and hung up on her. It was then, she said, that she took her mother's advice to heart. "If anyone is mean to you make them the victim in your next story." I can't wait to read how she offs the butler school administrator.

As we walked out of the hall, L asked if we wanted to stand in line for autographs. L especially wanted to get a book signed for her good friend who due to an unfortunate accident that left her quite painful on the sitting end of things was unable to attend. We decided that was a worthy cause and heck, its a once in a lifetime opportunity right? Problem was we had no books. Problem solved when we found the on location book purveyors. 10 minutes later we set off to stand in line.

The line was long. I mean REALLY REALLY long. At least 200 strong perhaps and it moved like tortoises in molasses. In short, it didn't move. T had been saving us a place, but had nary moved an inch in our absence. As we wasted away in line we discussed the virtues of line budging. It just isn't done by proper people. L is a second grade teacher and confirmed that it is the height of injustice in the 7 year old world to cut in front of people. We decided why waste our time standing in line when we were hungry. We headed out to eat with the intention of returning to the much shorter line with full bellies. Good plan in theory, only problem was when we returned, the line was even LONGER. Discouragement set in as we debated the fate of our Tuesday evening. It was decided that if nothing else we should visit the little ladies room. On our way past the signing table L spotted a long lost relative of sorts and scurried up to meet her. She was next in line to have her books signed. L tried to jokingly cut in line but the pseudo relative would have nothing of it. However, as she left L still stood by the table. L asked the facilitator if she thought Ms Clark would sign a special note for her friend who wasn't able to attend. She said, of course, she would be happy to...all she needed to do was write out the phrase on this sticky note and hand it with the book to the author. As L wrote out the words,' "Bummed" you couldn't make it', she realized no one had really noticed her blatant line merging. Buoyed by the apparent apathy of nearby line standers she also got two others books signed. T and I stood off to the side determinedly looking like we did not know L. But soon, L had a spot for my book to be signed too.






And that is how it came to be that a once shy, small town, rule breakin', hilarity makin' second grade teacher helped me get a book signed by a famous author.

So any bets on whether the next victim is a second grade teacher???