The Party
My publisher, Booktrope, suggests a book signing party for Caramel and Magnolias, similar to what we did for Riversong. I agree, of course. But I don’t want to do it. I was hoping to avoid it with my second book. However, the clever and hardworking team at Booktrope wanted me to do it, and as is my policy, I say yes, no matter what they ask of me. I’m not the smartest person in the room, but the secret to my success is that I surround myself with people who are, and get out of their way.
And Booktrope has given me the opportunity to write fulltime. This was my dream. This is a great gift. One I do not take for granted.
So I agree to a party. I buy a new dress – a task that sacrifices a whole afternoon of writing – anyone who knows me understands how much I hate shopping and how much I love writing.
Katherine Sears and Heather Ludviksson of Booktrope.
And secretly, I dread the party.
But my Bestie plans the whole thing. She texts me one day about flowers – purple flowers to match the book cover.
There are flowers, I ask, from my desk, where I’m pounding out words.
Oh, yes, we have to have flowers, she replies.
When I was a child I was painfully shy, hating it when strangers gazed at me, hiding behind my father in the grocery store, as if that kept people from seeing me.
Now I’m a writer. I reveal my deepest longings and observations in the pages of my fiction and my essays here on this blog. But in person I am still that little girl, hating it when people look at me.
My little girl, Emerson, is six. When our church asked her if she wanted to be in the Christmas Pageant, she immediately said, no. “I don’t want people looking at me.”
I know the feeling. I have a whole weekend where people are going to look at me. But I have my new dress, I tell myself. That will help.
My two writer friends, Jesse James Freeman and Janelle Jensen, arrive on Thursday to stay with me. We stay up late into the night talking and laughing. In the morning, I make waffles for them and my little girls. As hot syrup melts butter on perfect, fluffy waffles, they eat, and we laugh. Later, when my girls come home from school, Emerson practices her spelling words with Janelle. At the table, Jesse and Ella agree that her latest drawing could go in one of his books.
My two worlds merge – mommy and writer.
Friday afternoon we take our guests to the Mongolian Grill across the street from our house. We laugh some more, especially because Jesse goes on a bit about how he would eat there every day if he lived here. Then we take them out to see the Cascade Mountains and Snoqualmie Falls. Jesse takes video of the Falls. I’m happy because he gets it – I live in a special place. Janelle is so sweet to my girls it makes my throat ache.
Then my girls have to go to their dad’s for the weekend. Despite the way my house is unusually full, I feel that now familiar sadness when they leave.
The day of the party comes. Despite my new dress, I’m jittery. I wish my hair looked better. My feet hurt in the high heel shoes I never wear. My stomach is doing flip-flops.
Jesse vacuums my rug. People are coming back to the house after the party and there’s lint on my brown carpets. Get upstairs and get pretty, he says. Bestselling authors shouldn’t have to vacuum. (Imagine this said from a very tall man with a Texas accent). I laugh again and do as he says.
The party is packed, friends a steady stream to my signing table. I forget my nervousness. I look around the room. All these people are here to support me. I don’t know why or how I’m so lucky, but I don’t question it, I am merely grateful. Three hours escape and it’s already time to go home.
My house is full of love. We eat tacos. We laugh some more.
I drop Jesse and Janelle at the airport on Sunday. Driving home, my heart aching slightly from the sweetness of these friendships, I think of this life I’ve made for myself. I’m a writer. A working writer. It was my dream and it’s unfolding before me, not as I thought it would, but perhaps better, surely the way it’s supposed to. It’s brought me new friends and new experiences I never thought possible.
My house feels empty upon my return; my daughters won’t be home until the evening and I miss my friends. I can smell Janelle’s perfume and Jesse’s cologne, still lingering like the memories of the weekend. Emerson’s favorite stuffed animal is on the kitchen table, her gaze directed towards the door – both of us waiting for our girl to come home. Ella’s picture is on the refrigerator, waiting for Jesse’s story. My books are stacked in boxes at the top of the stairs. All of this is my life. My perfect, flawed, beautiful life.
That afternoon, I try to write but I’m exhausted. Instead I curl up on my couch and watch the clouds move across the sky. My memories of the weekend will not be the number of books sold or what number we were on the bestseller list that day.
No, it will be love that I remember: Jesse making my daughters laugh, my Bestie arranging the flowers at the party just so, Janelle snapping photos, people I love devouring my waffles at my kitchen table, our house full of people eating tacos, Katherine and Heather’s arms around me at the party.
At the end of that Sunday, my girls come home, filling my house with their energy and needs and wants and soft arms around my neck and I missed you so much, Mommy. And, I remember why I work so hard, why I dream so big. It is for them. It is for love. Always.
