A Perfect Day (11 page)

The man put the book back down and walked off. A minute later another woman stopped at the table. “Could you tell me where the restrooms are?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know. I don’t work here.”

She squinted at the placard behind me. “Oh. Sorry.”

I was glad when Anne returned. As the hour ended, Becky returned. She knew better than to ask how it had gone. I hadn’t sold a single book.

“There’s a basketball game tonight,” she said. “I don’t know why the publishers don’t check these things first.” Her excuse was almost ridiculous, but she was being kind and I appreciated it all the same.

“Well, I need some books,” Anne said. “One for my mother and sister.”

“You don’t need to do this,” I said.

“Yes, I do,” she countered cheerfully, “my mother would kill me if I didn’t get a signed copy.”

 

On the way back to the hotel I had a lot to think about.

“So this is what a book signing is like,” I said.

“Sometimes,” Anne replied. “Welcome to the trenches. Sometimes it even happens to best-selling authors.”

Anne dropped me off at the front of the hotel and we arranged another five-thirty pickup. In my room I undressed and lay back in bed glad that the day was over. Then I called Allyson. She spoke in a tired, hushed voice.

“Did I wake you?”

“Almost. Carson’s in bed with me. We had a rough day. Carson fell off the jungle gym at school and cut her lip.”

“Is she okay?”

“She had to get three stitches. That wasn’t fun. She kept crying for Daddy.”

I frowned. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for her.”

“It’s not your fault. How did your day go?”

“Almost as fun as Carson’s. The television anchor bushwhacked me. Then no one came to my book signing. No, one woman came. But she was looking for the restrooms. It was humiliating.”

Allyson groaned. “I’m so sorry. Did you sell any books?”

“My escort bought two. And I thought this was supposed to be glamorous.” I yawned. “I have another early flight tomorrow.”

“You sound tired. Where are you tomorrow?”

“Oklahoma. I’ll call from there.”

“Okay. You’ll do better tomorrow. Hang in there. I love you.”

“I love you too. Give Carson a kiss for me.”

I hung up the phone. Four weeks suddenly seemed like an eternity.

I
began collecting the plastic room keys from the hotels I stayed at, which gives an idea of just how exciting my life was. The next week was more of the same, though the attendance at my signings grew by three or four people each time. By the time I hit Seattle, there were nearly twenty people waiting for me. For a while I actually had a line. Unfortunately the bookstore had ordered the wrong books by mistake. I had just sat down to dinner with my escort when Camille called.

“Where are you?”

“Seattle.”

“How did your signing go?”

“About twenty people came.”

“That’s progress.”

“The bad news is that they didn’t have any books.”

“What do you mean?”

“The bookstore confused me with another author. They had stacks of books from some mystery writer named Robert M. Carlan.”

“I’ll scream at your publisher in the morning.”

“It’s not their fault. It was the bookstore manager. He already apologized.”

“I’ll still call them. They should have followed through.” She hesitated and I could tell she had more news.

“So what’s up?”

“I spoke this afternoon with United Casting. They don’t think the movie deal is going to fly.”

“Why is that?”

“Hollywood isn’t keen on books for movies right now. Especially with all the special-effect block-busters dominating the screens. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I have an offer for a television movie of the week. So you’ll get at least a week of major promotion when it airs.”

I considered the proposition.

“I know it’s not what you wanted. Believe me, I wanted a feature deal as much as you, but this isn’t bad. The network will put at least a half million dollars into promotion. And you’re guaranteed to have major star power.”

“Like who?”

“The last piece I sold them starred Glenn Close.”

“That’s impressive. Do you think it’s the right thing to do right now? Or should we wait?”

“If we wait we might lose it. I think we need to move on this. Arcadia’s been tracking numbers. Your sales have been a little lower than they expected. They’re not worried, not yet at least, but booksellers tend to have a short attention span. If it takes longer to get your book off the ground than we planned, then this will give bookstores a reason to not return your book.”

“You’re the agent. You do what you think is right.”

“I always do.”

I hung up the phone disappointed. As ridiculous as it now seemed, I realized that somewhere in my mind I had already constructed a fantasy of myself at the movie premiere, walking up a red carpet flanked by movie stars and accompanied by the sporadic camera pops of the paparazzi. I went back to eating my dinner.

I
t was late Saturday morning, and while I was in the air somewhere over South Dakota, Carson turned off the cartoons and wandered through the house looking for her mother. She found Allyson on our bed looking at a large leather book. The morning sun glanced through the window in a beam that divided the bed in half.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Carson asked.

Allyson looked up and smiled. “My Life Book.”

Carson’s nose wrinkled. “Can I look?”

Allyson patted the bed next to her. “Sure. Come on up.”

Carson climbed up on the white, embroidered bedcover then crawled on her elbows until she was shoulder to shoulder with Allyson. She pointed at the first picture she saw: a photograph of a little girl on a horse. “Who’s that?”

“That’s me.”

Carson started laughing. “No. You’re old.”

“I used to be a little girl like you.”

“When?”

Allyson touched Carson’s nose. “When I was a little girl like you.”

Carson pointed at the man next to her in the picture. He was standing in front of the horse holding the horse’s reins. He was a tall man and was wearing a cowboy hat. “Is that a real cowboy?”

“That’s my daddy.”

“You have a daddy?”

The question surprised Allyson. She realized that she hadn’t spoken much of her father since Carson was old enough to comprehend.

“I used to. He was a really great daddy.” She rubbed Carson’s hair. “Do you know what his name is?”

“Daddy?”

“No. I call him that. But his name is Carson. That’s why we named you Carson.”

This made her smile. “Where is your daddy?” “He went to heaven.”

“Can he come see us?”

“I don’t know. But we can’t see him.”

“How come?”

“It’s just that way.”

“Is heaven like book tour?”

Allyson was surprised that Carson knew what a book tour was. Obviously she had been listening in to adult conversations. “I don’t think so. How come?”

“Because we can’t see Daddy either.”

“No. But Daddy will be coming home soon.”

“Will he be home in one hundred days?”

Allyson smiled. “He’ll be home a lot sooner than that. Do you miss him?”

She nodded. “Sometimes when I think about Daddy I feel sad. Do you miss your daddy too?”

Allyson turned to her and smiled, but her eyes moistened. “Every day, sweetheart. Every day.”

I
t was the third day of my second week on book tour, and if I had had illusions of the limousine and champagne lifestyle, they were mostly gone by now, replaced by fatigue and loneliness and the reality of the road. It was Wednesday night. It was two hours before my book signing and I was eating dinner with my escort, a pleasant man named Dick Brown, on the plaza in Kansas City, when Camille called me on my cell. “How are you doing?”

“I want to go home.”

“I know. How was your book signing yesterday?”

“Good. There were a couple dozen people there.”

“And they had the right book?”

“Oh, yeah. Someone got the message, because it was the first thing they said to me when I arrived.”

“Good. My tantrum was efficacious. Well, this should help lift your spirits. We just got news on the
New York Times
bestseller list.” She paused. “I feel like there should be a drum roll or something. Here it goes.
A Perfect Day
just hit the list at number fifteen. You are now and forevermore a
New York Times
bestselling author.”

“Yeah, baby!” I shouted.

“I’ll e-mail the list to you. Where are you headed now?”

“I have a book signing at Rainy Day Books.”

“Oh, one of the classic independents. By the way, Allyson says to remind you that you have a wife.”

“You talked to her today?”

“I talk to her almost every day.”

“About what?”

“Mostly you.”

“Great. I’ll call her right now and share the good news.”

“Talk to you later.”

Camille hung up and I dialed home. “Hey, Al.”

“Hi, honey.”

“I have some good news. We just hit the
New York Times
bestseller list. Number fifteen.”

She squealed. “Congratulations. Does that mean you can come home now?”

I laughed. “It doesn’t quite work that way.”

“I can hope. Here, someone wants to talk to you.”

I could hear the phone being fumbled, dropped, then breathed into.

“Daddy?”

“Hi, sister.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Kansas.”

“Where’s Kansas?”

“Far away.”

“Are you coming home?”

“Soon, honey.”

“It’s my violin show tomorrow. I wish you were here to take me.”

Her words lodged in my chest.

“So do I, honey. With all my heart.”

“Do you want to talk to Mommy?”

“Yes.” When Allyson was back on the phone, I said, “That hurt.”

“I know. She’s very sad that you’re missing her recital. She’s been missing you a lot lately. A few days ago she asked me if book tour was like heaven.”

“Not hardly. Why would she ask that?”

“She said because my daddy was in heaven and I never get to see him either.”

I groaned. “That
really
hurts.”

“I told her that you’d be home soon. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. She’s not the only girl who’s missing you. So by the way, when are you coming home?”

Allyson knew perfectly well, as she had it marked in big letters on our refrigerator. She was just twisting the blade. “You’re not making this easier.”

“You’re onto me.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Let me know how the recital goes.”

“I will. I’ll e-mail you some pictures. And congratulations on the list. I’m proud of you. Have a good night.”

“Good night, Al.”

O
ver the next week I could feel the change in the seasons. I bought a light jacket and wore it every night. Allyson said that the leaves in the Wasatch Mountains had all changed. It made me homesick. Autumn is my favorite time of the year in Salt Lake, when the nights turn chill and there’s a bite in the morning air. I never feel so alive as I do in autumn.

I could also feel changes in myself. Already I felt like a veteran of the road. I was no longer nervous doing radio and television interviews, and I was no longer surprised to find people at my book signings; rather I expected them. Air travel had lost its mystique, and the hub terminals had become all too familiar. But the biggest change I experienced was the deepest and most complex. Instead of missing my family more with time, as I’d expected, I found that I missed them less as I grew accustomed to a different world. I realized that going home would require its own adjustment.

Momentum for my book was growing. While the most obvious signs of progress were the increasing numbers of people at my book signings, there were more subtle indications as well. After I hit the bestseller lists, the bookstore managers and employees began asking to have books signed for them. My biggest signing of the week was in Oregon when I signed at Powell’s, an enormous independent in downtown Portland.

There were nearly fifty people waiting for me when I arrived. And there was family. Allyson had made a call to her aunt Denise, and she and a handful of her friends had driven more than four hours from Medford. While Allyson visited her aunt at least once a year, it had been a few years since I had seen her, and I was surprised at how much she had aged. She didn’t look like she felt too good, and she was unable to stand in line. Of course she didn’t have to. I went to her and we embraced. Her friends, two gray-haired ladies probably a few years younger than her, stood to each side staring at me in awe like I was Cary Grant.