“Horrible thing that happened to her,” he said, almost as a rote response. Which I’m sure it was. A town like this, where everyone knew everyone, it would be almost a ritual to mutter some kind of melancholy sentence in order to make sure you never got over the drama of it all. It would be the only drama that they had of this magnitude. They had to somehow stretch it out like a starved cow meant to feed hundreds of people.
I didn’t respond, just put the book back and walked further down, hoping he wouldn’t follow me. Which he fucking did.
“Sally wouldn’t give me your name, wouldn’t give anyone your name, it was all very secretive,” he continued, having recovered from his sad “talking about the dead girl” tone.
I gritted my teeth.
“I managed to extricate the detail that you were a rather well-known author,” he said. “And I consider myself somewhat of an expert of well-known and unknown authors. You wouldn’t grace me with the title of your first book, would you?”
That got me.
Firstly, when strangers extracted the fact I was a writer out of me—an act I considered akin to a dentist pulling out a tooth without narcotics—one of the first questions they asked, without fail was, “Have you written anything I might’ve read?”
Like what kind of absolute asshole must you have to be to ask a question like that.
You’re pretty much asking “are you famous enough for me to pretend to care about you and your books?”
If there wasn’t that question, it was endless others like they felt the fact you’re an author gives them some kind of odd carte blanche to your life.
So usually, when people didn’t recognize me—which was getting rarer and rarer, thanks to social media that this bookstore owner obviously didn’t have—and asked me what I did for a living, I got creative. Dolphin trainer. Social studies teacher. Sex worker. FBI agent. Whatever I felt like at the time.
All of those things came with less interrogation than the “author” title.
But this man’s question was the first I’d gotten. He didn’t want to know about me, per se, but my books.
“Skeletons of Sunshine,” I answered without even properly deciding to. He had appealed to my vanity over my art.
It was also then I decided he was interesting enough to warrant eye contact. Which was why I saw his eyes widen in shock and glee.
“You’re Magnolia Grace?” he asked, almost shouting.
I winced that I didn’t have the foresight to use a pen name. Even though it had been years, and millions of people asking that same question, I hated the way it sounded, the way it looked on the covers of my books.
It was too soft.
It seemed like I made it up. Like I’d researched the best combination of pastel-sounding names that would appeal to mass audiences.
I’m sure my mother did that research. On what would make me sound like the daughter she had always wanted. The one who wore florals, forgot feminism happened, and whose only purpose in life was to procure a husband.
Needless to say, we were both disappointed.
“The one and only,” I gritted out.
He clapped his hands. Like full-on, giddy school girl that the fucking quarterback asked to prom, or her pregnancy test was negative after letting that quarterback score a touchdown prom night.
Then he all but ran off.
I couldn’t be so lucky to have him hate my books and decide to leave me be. No, he returned quicker than I would’ve thought capable of a man his age, with an armful of books and a sickening smile.
I hated smiles. Seeing people happy.
It was so boring. Predictable.
I liked it when I saw people grimacing. Crying in the street. Fighting with their boyfriends in fancy restaurants. It was honest. Made me wonder about their lives. Who they were, what made them interesting.
Any idiot could smile.
“I wonder if you wouldn’t mind signing these?” he asked, gesturing with his eyes to the stack of books he was holding.
My books.
Every one I’d ever written, with some alternate covers, the rarer ones, ones I’d said yes to even though I’d hated, too timid to argue with my publishers. Needless to say, I rectified that as soon as my backbone turned to stone. Those books were worth thousands now.
Fuck.
I’d look like a total bitch if I said no. And while I didn’t mind seeming like a total bitch to fame chasers and the rest of the mouth breathers on planet earth, this was a reader. A real one. One that cared about the titles of my story rather than my social cache. I could see it now, with that slight maniac glint to his eye. There was a menace in him I could relate to.
“Sure,” I conceded.
The smile went higher and he set all the books down, retrieving a pen from his front pocket.
I stared at the well-worn covers on the table. They weren’t pristine, new prints. Some were ripped, others had coffee rings on them.
“I do apologize for the state of them,” he said quickly, noting my gaze. “These are my personal copies, some of them at least. I mainly sell secondhand books here, the odd new print of a must-read author like yourself. I do like collecting books, but also the stories of people that owned them.”
Fuck.
I was really beginning to like this guy.
“Who should I sign it to?” I asked instead of acknowledging anything he said.
“Charlie,” he replied quickly. “The newer copies just generic, if you don’t mind? I know a few of your hardcore readers would love to come in and purchase a few. In fact, I’m sure they’d be scrambling to offer me an organ or a firstborn once they find out it’s signed.”
I nodded, adding a couple of personal inscriptions to the well-worn copies. A lot of my readers had taken to having me “insult” them on a signed copy. I had no idea where this trend started. Maybe with some nitwit that was rude to me at a signing my publisher forced me to attend…before. I’d had a short temper that day, and had said something along the lines of “Jenna, you’re an asshole.” Instead of being insulted, she was charmed, posted the inscription on social media, and boom, some kind of movement was born.
My younger readers gagged over that shit.
I didn’t think Charlie or my older demographic would.
That’s what got me to the point I was currently at. I was somewhat of an anomaly. I didn’t have a narrow target audience. I wrote for the weirdos and sickos, sure. But a lot of mainstream people sucked up my work. Soccer moms. Sorority girls. Geeky guys. Jocks. Dads. Grandmothers.
My agent said it was because no one could really put a finger on who I was, and to a point—in this environment, at least—readers liked to identify somewhat with an author. Find something of themselves within them, even if it was through the characters they wrote.
So yeah, the world didn’t quite know who I was, so I was everyone.
It worked commercially.
Not so much psychologically.
“Say, you wouldn’t consider doing a local signing here?” Charlie’s voice interrupted my thoughts and my head snapped up. “I know you don’t do them anymore, but since it’s your new hometown, and I can tell you that it will be a packed event and a good place to meet—”
I slammed the last book shut to silence him.
“Not interested,” I said, my voice ice cold.