Celebrity

I went to my Monday lunch buffet on Tuesday this week. After chatting for a moment with the hostess, I proceeded to find a booth. I was just putting down my things when Natalie, my friend and favorite server, caught sight of me.

"Hi, Beth," she greeted as she passed by me. Natalie is like the proverbial object in motion. She never stops.

I laid my jacket over my purse, responded, "Hey, Natalie," then began turning toward the drink station. I only made it halfway through my turn when Natalie whizzed past me from another direction.

She announced, "I want you to meet somebody. Come over here for a minute." Fortunately, I was just about to move to get my drink. Instead, I followed Natalie.

"This lady over here has heard of your book," Natalie told me as she walked.

"Really??" I asked in amazement. My books are both self-published and I am pretty sure I know the names of most of the people who have purchased the one I consider to be a real "book." (This would be The Disposable Noble Wife [clickable link], which is a fictional account based upon my own life. Navigating Marital Abandonment [another clickable link] is a short "self-help" that has sold a handful of copies to anonymous readers.) What are the odds I would hear of one of my own books by word-of-mouth?

Natalie introduced me to the woman at her table, then walked away. A pretty, black woman in her thirties with long hair she wore a jewel stud beside her left eye.

"So, how did you hear of my book?" I asked.

She gestured, "Natalie."

"Oh," I droned. "Great. How am I going to get out of this quickly?" I thought as an uncomfortable tightness in my stomach reminded me that I had skipped breakfast.

The woman must have seen the disappointment in my face because she immediately added, "But I have a friend who read it and she told me about it, too."

This piqued my interest and we spoke for a few minutes. I left with a smile on my face, still amazed to have met someone who had heard of my book. I made a bee-line for Natalie. (She was paused to put dirty dishes in the bus station.) I just could not figure out how the anonymous friend of this woman had got her hands on my book to read it, and flabbergasted that I had such luck as to come across a person she had told about it. Come to think of it, I am still in awe.

Natalie's response to my reaction was this, "Honey, you got to face it. You are a celebrity. You have no idea how many people's lives you are going to touch with your writing."

As Natalie spoke, all I could think was, "Yeah, a celebrity to everyone I know and a handful of others." It was about this time that I remembered my good friend, Holly Hartz, requested our local library purchase a copy of my book about a year ago.

""I suppose she might have checked it out from the library," I suggested.

"I didn't know your book was in a library!" Natalie exclaimed. I could not suppress a smile. For the big celebrity I am supposed to be, she seemed awfully surprised that my writing is in a library.

"My friend, Holly, asked the library to buy a copy last year and they did," I shrugged.

"That is my dream, Natalie," I added. "I don't really make any money off of library sales, but I want my book in libraries around the world. I want people to read what I wrote."

"That is a great idea! Think of the millions of people you will help that way!" My friend seemed impressed. She owns autographed copies of both of my books. She knows what is in them and how helpful they can be because of the change in her husband after he read one of them. Natalie is going to ask her local library to buy copies of my books.

That same night, my son called from Texas. A friend of his needed advice. I gave it freely, but after he got off the phone with me, I asked my son if he had ordered my book for his local library yet. He has not, but he said his friend would probably order it because I was so nice to help him with my advice. To me, this was the second promise (for lack of a better word) of the day for a library order of my books. I am very excited. Think of all the lives my writing might touch!

Now I am really on my way to "celebrity."