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Chick Wit:
Tour De Force
Lisa Scottoline By the time you read this, I'll be on book tour. I love touring, partly because it involves room service. And mostly because people who hate your books don't come to your signings. For the ones who come, it's a love fest, with free Tastykakes. But it was not always thus. I remember distinctly one rainy night at a bookstore in Jenkintown. The place was insanely crowded, and in the signing area were ten rows of white PVC chairs. But by five minutes before eight o'clock, none of the seats was filled. Uh oh. At eight o'clock, showtime, only one seat was occupied. An older woman sat in the middle of the front row. She had a halo of gray hair and a placid smile that reminded me of Aunt Bea, of Mayberry fame. I put on a brave face. If she was my only fan, I was going to give her the show of her life. So I stood in front of her and did my whole spiel, telling her about the background of the book, dropping in a few wacky family stories, and generally trying to be as entertaining as possible while she nodded and smiled. At the end of my talk, some twenty minutes later, I asked her if she had any questions. She replied, "Sodoifkj loswodod sksksoii." At least that's what it sounded like, though someone later told me it was Polish. I bought her a copy of my book. And that isn't even as pathetic as it gets. Another time, in a bookstore outside of Cleveland, I arrived early, so I took the time to introduce myself to the booksellers. Again there was a sea of PVC chairs in the middle of the store, or perhaps they had been shipped there empty from Jenkintown. By five of eight o'clock, no one was sitting in the chairs. I fled to the ladies room. By the time I came out, there were about seven people in the chairs, which is a quorum. So I began my spiel, scanning the faces. It took me about ten minutes to realize that they all looked familiar. Too familiar. They were the booksellers I had met earlier that night. When they had realized that nobody was coming to my signing, they had taken off their name tags and aprons, to pose as my fake audience. I bought them all books. Even stranger things happen on tour. I remember a time when I pulled into a small hotel in Lexington, Kentucky, at about ten o'clock. I checked in, but before I went to my room, I asked if I could order room service. The desk clerk looked at me like I was crazy. "There's no room service here after dark," she answered, and when I asked why, she told me that the hotel was haunted. "You're kidding, right?" "No. That's why people stay here. I saw the ghost myself and gave notice on the spot. This is my last week." I grabbed a cab and went cross-town to another hotel, where I still didn't sleep all night. But my favorite all-time tour story was what happened in Los Angeles. I trundled into my hotel room about eleven o'clock at night, exhausted and dragging my bag behind me. But when I opened the door, there was a naked man in the bed. Yowza. He was propped up on the pillow, happily watching TV. All I remember was that he was the hairiest person I had ever seen, and the room was super-heated to about 100°. Or maybe was my blood pressure, at the sight. I yelped, and he yelped, and the whole thing was like that scene in E.T., except with humans. I backed out of the room, hurried down the hall dragging my suitcase, and picked up the house phone for security. In short order, a burly guard came up and asked me to follow him back to the room, where he opened the door. The naked man was still watching TV in the tropics. Then the security guard turned to me and said, "I'll get this guy right out of here, then you can go in." At which point I grabbed a cab and went cross-town, again. God knows what wacky thing will happen this time around. If you get a second, come to one of my signings. If you like my column, you'll like my books. Writing is writing wherever you read it, and it's all about voice. And if you haven't been to a book signing before, I promise that you'll have fun. And if you speak Polish, all the better. © Lisa Scottoline 2008 |