&n
bsp; Books?
It took a moment, but then…
Oh, good lord! Seriously?
“When I started here on Wednesday,” Clara went on, “I was, like, ‘Wait, I know her from somewhere!’ and then I was, like, ‘She’s Jillian Ashley!’”
Behind her mask, Sally’s lips were tightly pressed together.
Of course we’d get an intern who’s a lesbian and of course she saw my interview.
Sally had learned that a woman didn’t even need to be a subscriber to Amy’s podcast to have seen the interview. It was now just out there…out in the ether of the internet, completely unattached to Amy’s website, an unstoppable force that was reaching audiences far and wide, all because Amy had scored a rare in-person interview with Jillian Ashley.
Well, with Sally pretending to be Jillian Ashley.
“Thanks,” Sally managed to say. “I’m glad you like my books.”
“Like them? I love them! You and Suzanne Collins are my favorite writers.”
Sally chuckled. Max should get a kick out of learning that for at least one person, his books are right up there with The Hunger Games.
“I know it’s probably completely unprofessional,” Clara continued, “but would you…?” And she held out a book and a Sharpie.
It was the paperback version of The Fordham Road Fling. Sally had a copy of it herself, buying it after first reading the novel on her Kindle. Sally had never so much as opened the book. When it arrived from Amazon, she had wanted to keep it pristine, untouched, in mint condition. Each re-reading of Fordham Road that she had done—and so far, she was up to six times doing that—had been done using her Oasis.
“Sure, no problem,” Sally muttered, taking the book and Sharpie from Clara.
Wait. How did writers do this? Did they autograph the cover or one of the pages inside? She hurriedly tried to remember a movie or a TV show or something showing a writer autographing a book and for some reason a scene from some movie starring John Cusack popped into her head. She remembered that he opened the books fans gave him to sign. So she did that. The first page displayed the title and “by Jillian Ashley” and so that seemed as good a place as any.
Crap!
Don’t authors usually write something other than their names? Like, a personal message? Something witty?
Sally’s mouth went dry. She didn’t know anything witty to write! And she’d only known Clara all of two days! That certainly wasn’t long enough to jot down something personal.
Suddenly, it came to her and she wrote To Clara, a future star in the world of graphic arts!
Not witty, perhaps, but certainly personal and encouraging!
Then another problem presented itself. Looking up at Clara, she asked, “Do you want me to sign it with my real name or as Jillian Ashley?”
“As Jillian, please!” Clara said. “No! Wait! Can you sign it as Jillian and then put your real name in parentheses underneath it? That would be so cool!”
“Sure,” Sally answered and then was faced with yet another problem; one she never thought she’d ever have in her entire life, even if she lived to be one-hundred: On the fly, and with someone watching her, she had to come up with a convincing signature using a different name. Somehow, she managed to scrawl a glyph-like signature that looked like it had a J, what might be two Ls and the first three letters of the name Ashley, but only if you squinted just right. In truth, it was illegible, but then again, isn’t that what most signatures are?
“There you are,” Sally said, handing the book back to Clara, who read the inscription and then clutched the book to her chest.
“Thank you so much! You’re the best! God, I can’t believe I got to meet you! And now I get to work with you too!”
“Well…um…just keep reading!” Sally said because it sounded like an authorly thing to say.
Fortunately, Clara left her alone then and Sally took a big slug of her freshly-brewed coffee, figuring that that was probably the weirdest thing that would happen to her today.
***
She was wrong.