The Slippery Year by Melanie Gideon

Author:Melanie Gideon [Gideon, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-27304-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

I wish I could tell you what we discussed: that it was a lively conversation, that I was triumphant in inspiring my audience, that an audience that filled more than the first four rows of chairs was there to hear it. Instead I was in my own private hell, listening through the skimpy walls to the hundreds of people in Salon A roaring with laughter and clapping wildly. I cursed myself for being such a fool. Could my B team status be any clearer? Sure, the B was tarted up with Salon, but it was B all the same. Halfway through the panel a group of women wandered into our room, and my heart lifted. Here finally was the crowd: a little late, maybe there was a long line in the ladies’ room? But very quickly these women realized they had mistaken Salon B for Salon A and hightailed it out of there.

Should I tell you about the further humiliation of the book signing, where all the authors sit in one room behind desks with piles of their books in front of them, pens in hand? Should I tell you about my nonexistent line and the painfully long lines for ZZ, Sara and Andrew who were laughing it up with their fans? Fans that my loyal media escort, Joanne, was doing her best to steal away and send over to me.

“She wrote an amazing children’s book. It’s about a boy whose face is burned off in a fire,” she told them.

“We’re here for Luis Alberto Urrea,” they said.

“It sounds a little dark,” they said.

“Is it illustrated?” they asked.

“Sure, there’s illustrations. A really neat one of a boy going up in flames,” I heard Joanne lie to some woman.

“You can stop now,” I said to Joanne. “Your escorting services are no longer needed.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you want me to tell you this amazing thing that Andy said?”

“Andy who?”

“Andrew Sean Greer.”

“People call him Andy?”

“Well, his friends do,” said Joanne.

I didn’t need Joanne to tell me what Andy said because I could imagine it. He probably said something along the lines of how he couldn’t believe this was happening to him. How it all felt so surreal and out of his control and all he could do was go along for the ride. How all his life he had sat on the bench and now this quirky, eloquent, breathtaking book about a man who ages in reverse had brought him here, where he sat on a stage speaking to hundreds of people whose faces were lit up like astronauts who had just seen the earth from outer space for the first time.

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