Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
“Hi,” a young woman crowding the table says.
“Hi,” I say back.
“You signed one of your ARCs for my friend Marina yesterday.
“Oh, yes. The one who sounds like she has a complicated backstory.”
“You don’t even wanna know. But, I read a couple of pages. You’re really good.”
“Thank you so much.”
“I’ve never been to Vegas before.”
“Me neither,” I confide. “Where are you from?”
“Cleveland,” she says. “So, could you sign a copy for me? Make it out to Marie?”
I grab up a Sharpie to sign and that’s when I realize…
I’m almost out of books. ARCs. They’re almost all gone.
I brought boxes and boxes and boxes of books and people took them.
They took them. Because they wanted them, or because they heard good things about what I had written, or… whatever. But they took them. Because I made something that they want. Or, at least, that they are curious about. And I made all that happen all by myself.
That’s something that my mom and dad never did.
They worked for other people their whole careers, writing what other people told them to write or what they got paid to, and me… I wrote the thing I love writing and people want it.
That’s cool.
Is it the exact thing I originally intended? No, maybe not. But am I proud of it? Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. Because I still did it. All by myself. And I’m proud of that. What’s happening here is because I took a chance. In fact, everything that’s happened to me this week is because I took a chance. On myself.
I don’t need a duke on a white stallion (or any other shade for that matter) to ride in and save me. I can do it myself.
I knew that. Of course I knew that. But knowing a thing and feeling it is very different. And maybe that’s what this sensation is. I feel that I can make it all happen for myself. Hell, maybe I will just publish the original copy of Filling the Gap as well. I don’t need permission. I can do what I want. And then… let the chips fall where they may!
“Cynthia?” Marie from Cleveland says.
“Sorry.” I chuckle. “Got distracted.” I bend down, sign the copy of Filling the Gap, “To Marie,” and hand it back. And as I do, I think again…
But is it possible that I accidentally gave away the one copy? I should really figure out—
“Can I get a picture?” Marie from Cleveland asks.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
She hands Britney her phone, stands beside me, and Britney memorializes the moment between the two of us.
“Thanks!” Marie beams and heads off.
“You’re almost out of books,” Britney confirms.
“I was noticing. Hey, have you seen the one?”
“Which one?”
“The one with the white cover? Black lettering. The one.”
“No. Is it missing?”
“Yeah.”
There is silence as both of us think about it. But the silence is short-lived because then…
“Can you make one out to Wendy?” says a small woman with nice teeth whose name, I assume is, Wendy.
“Yes, absolutely,” I tell her, as I pick up one of the remaining copies I have at the table and grab the Sharpie. And as I’m writing Wendy’s name into the front cover, I turn to Britney and with an assuredness I’m almost certain I mean, say, “I’m sure it’ll turn up.”
At three o’clock in the afternoon, as the signing day is nearing its end and the annual Sin With Us convention run by SS and her brother Steve is winding to a close, Raylen Star, aka Leslie Munch…
… finally wakes up.
The skeletons of fallen soldiers with names like Jack Daniel and Jim Beam lay scattered around her on the rumpled duvet, drained of all that once made them vibrant and whole. Now all that remain are the transparent shells of their former selves.
Leslie moans and throws her arm over her face to try to mute the offending rays that pierce the veil of the drawn curtains in her west-facing hotel room as the summer sun drops lower in the desert sky. Forgetting, unfortunately, that she has a broken nose, a swollen eye, and a suspiciously twanging tooth that might well be the portent of a pending root canal.
“Fuck me!” she shouts as her forearm strikes her various cranio-facial wounds.
Sitting up, she wrestles with how to make the pain stop. She instinctively begins to rub at the bruised area, but that, obviously, makes everything oh, so much worse. So, she stands and begins simply shaking her hands and vibrating in place, trying not to sneeze, because the stinging pain inside her nasal cavity has the faintest hint of a tickle as well and if she were to sneeze… well, that isn’t something any reasonable person would want.
And even though Leslie Munch, by all known evidence, is not a reasonable person, it isn’t something she wants either.