milly heller
book-signing
After Ginny Reiss’s reading, the crowd filed into the lobby of The City Arts Center for the book-signing. Claudia Parker stood in line and rehearsed what to say to Reiss. She wanted to be casual yet memorable, witty without trying too hard. She wanted, she realized, to sound like a Reiss heroine. The setting wasn’t inspiring: tee-shirt and food kiosks, fluorescent lights, overstuffed trashcans. Claudia had always imagined an exulted backdrop for her first time meeting Reiss, but this was the writer’s only stop in Cincinnati. A few elderly women on walkers hesitated outside the line. Claudia motioned them to break in front of her. They said, “No, you were here first.” She said, “Please, go ahead.” It went back and forth, complete with bowing and shall-we-dance hand gestures. Finally, they got in front. Their hair was gray, their skin worn, their expressions friendly. In other words, thought Claudia: me in thirty years.
One of the women turned to her. “Wasn’t Ginny Reiss wonderful?” she asked, beaming. “Yes, she was,” said Claudia, and added, “I mean no, not really,” wondering why she always had to agree with people before disagreeing with them. “I like her early stories better, when she was funny, but I bet she’s tired of hearing that, like Charlie Chaplin. Or Woody Allen.” She heard herself ramble. “Though I’m glad you liked it.”
“Very much.” The woman’s small face grew vehement. “Her characters’ points about foreign policy were invigorating.”
Claudia had thought, “Please stop,” as those points piled up. She didn’t need Reiss’s lectures; she needed her wisecracking women. She needed Linda from Sod All, who emerged from her divorce saying, “I may be unlucky in love, but I’m really, really lucky in hate.”
Still, Claudia knew writing fiction was hard. Last year she’d taken a night class in the subject. This was shortly after her husband left her for Stephanie, a sexy, brainy associate in his law firm. Claudia wrote many pages about a married lawyer whose mistress flunked out of law school. She didn’t change anyone’s names, though she took several inches from Rick’s height and added them to Stephanie’s waistline. She grew obsessed with the roots of words, leading to, “Stephanie put the fat in femme fatale,” and “Rick put the male in malevolent.” Her favorite? “Together they put the dull in adultery. Also, the duh.” Her teacher said she hadn’t earned the puns. Her classmates, all younger, said she’d body-shamed Stephanie.
#
The line sped up. A man with mutton-chops produced out of his backpack, as if performing a magic trick, six paperbacks for Reiss to sign. “Oh, no,” thought Claudia, “Reiss isn’t going to like that.” In one of her stories a writer grew so annoyed when given paperbacks to sign that she changed her handwriting from looping cursive to cramped print. “Good luck unloading these on e-bay,” muttered the writer, counting minutes until night’s end.
#
Claudia shifted her bag of hardcovers from one shoulder to the other. She decided she’d thank Reiss. On that lurid afternoon when Rick confessed his affair, Claudia sat stunned on their velvet couch as he stumbled through, “You are absolutely blameless,” and, “This is the last thing I wanted to happen.” He ended with, “I guess it’s good we couldn’t have children,” exactly what the husband in Misnestled said when leaving his wife, Allie. Claudia had so many Reiss stories drifting around her brain that Allie’s response, in a small voice, came out of her own mouth, “But… we had jokes. And now they’ll need years of counseling.”
Rick went from solemn to stricken, “Oh, Cloud, I’m really going to miss you.”
Claudia hadn’t been able to reread Misnestled since then but held it as a milestone: when she could sit strong and upright on that same couch, with a glass of wine—or champagne!—and read it straight through, she’d know she was over the divorce.
#
Claudia stepped up to the table. Reiss’s hair looked professionally blown-dry; her skin had no pores; her silk blouse was elegant, restrained. Claudia regretted the gauzy, droopy, hippie shirt and skirt she’d worn in empathy with Reiss’s heroines, who dressed like eternal grad students.
Claudia lifted her bag, poured out five volumes. “Hardcovers!” She blushed at how proud she sounded.
Reiss lifted her pen. “Your name?”
“Claudia. Spelled the usual way, hahaha.” Stop it, she told herself.
“Lovely name.”
“Thank you. My mom wanted it for each of my older sisters, but my dad never let her use it. Then I came along, and he gave up.” Was that too much? That was too much.
Reiss didn’t smile. She started signing the books.
Claudia said, in a rush, “Misnestled really helped me,” and relayed what happened when Rick left.
Reiss looked up. Something flickered behind her indifference, something intrigued, interested.
Claudia’s blood hummed.
Reiss said, “Misnestled is important to me, too.”
The fluorescent lights glowed cathedral.
Reiss’s voice grew richer. “Allie’s response is especially important. She says, ‘But… we had imaginary children. And now they’ll need years of counseling.’”
“What? Jokes, it’s jokes.”
“Imaginary children.”
“Jokes.”
“Gloria, it’s my story.”
“My name is Claudia!”
When Claudia got home, she settled on the velvet couch to read Reiss’s inscriptions. The signatures swerved from looping cursive to cramped print. Claudia reached for her laptop and began to write. She wrote about a woman, Gloria, whose favorite writer came to town. The writer sat there, counting the minutes, signing books without looking up, until Gloria ventured an insight about a favorite story. The writer sparkled. She said, “Finally, someone in this town who gets me,” and, “Please hang out with me tonight.” Also, “I love your shirt.” Gloria said, “No problem,” and, “That would be great.” Also, “I wear it all the time.” Her future gleamed; she glided through life; she put the glory in Gloria.
Milly Heller’s short fiction has appeared in Wordstock and The Double Dealer.