“… her trembling fingers reached for his member,” she read in clear, ringing tones.
I had a sudden flashback to Sharan Stone.
The guy in black with the floppy hair rubbed one hand on his knee and gave me a slow grin. His teeth were all filed into points.
I scooted my chair next to the lady with the knitting basket who had looked so disapprovingly at me over her red reading glasses as I entered. She rolled her eyes and sniffed at me, but her knitting needles poked comfortingly out of her bag. Just within reach, if I needed one.
The woman reading was very fond of her character’s member. That particular usage of the word just kills me. I mean—his member? I am a member of the World Wildlife Federation. For a while there, I was even a member of a book club. The use of that word to describe a man’s penis always, ALWAYS makes me laugh. So I sat with my fist pushed up against my mouth and endeavored to look studious.
The speaker finished her reading on what you might call a climactic high point, and then it was Knitting Lady’s turn.
She swished up to the podium at the front, and spent a little time fussing with the mic. After a scream of feedback, she settled into place.
“Now, my story is nothing like the OUTLANDER series,” she began. “It features a blonde young dentist named Carrie who travels back in time through a Scottish cave to meet Braveheart. She seduces him and brings him forward to the present day, and … well, just wait until you hear what they get up to next!”
Scary-tooth Floppy-hair Dude perked right up at the sound of the word “dentist,” and raised his eyebrows at me a couple of times. I decided not to look his way for the rest of the event.
“Ach, lassie,” intoned Knitting Lady from the podium, “let me show ye what a real Scotsman hides under his plaid.”
The readings carried on for more than an hour. Scary-tooth Floppy-hair Dude was the only person, aside from myself, who didn’t read to the group. Each excerpt was met by enthusiastic applause from the audience, and when one of the librarians came in near the end to say the doors were closing, she applauded the last reader, too. It clearly was a rousing success as an event.
I picked up my pack and was strategizing how to get out of the library without being followed by Scary-tooth Dude when Knitting Lady came over to stand beside me. She was carrying a coat and had donned an orange stocking cap with an enormous pompom.
“You’re new?” she asked.
I nodded. Scary-tooth Dude had jammed a black wool hat on his head and was nonchalantly leaning against the doorframe. “I’m just here for—for research purposes,” I said.
“Writing a book yourself, then?” she asked, her eyebrows drawing together. “We don’t hold with stealing ideas around here.”
I shook my head hurriedly. “No—no. Just uh—very interested in the OUTLANDER books,” I replied. “I was just at a Beauchamp’s Belles meeting in Philadelphia last week, and thought I’d come and check out your reading.”
Her frown relaxed and she shouldered her arm into the sleeve of a giant blue parka. “Oh my gosh—that group in Philadelphia are wonderful, aren’t they?”
I laughed, and it seemed to be all the answer she needed. She stuck out the hand that emerged from her parka sleeve. “Genesie Anderson,” she said. “We generally go for coffee after our readings. Care to join us? You can tell us about the latest from Philadelphia.”
“Oh, I’m not from …” I began, but then I realized Scary-tooth Dude had somehow managed to manifest himself right behind me.
“I’m heading uptown. Want to share a cab?” he whistled in my ear.
“Uh—no thanks. Going for coffee with the ladies,” I said, and hurried out the door after Genesie.
Maybe if the coffee shop had still been open, things would have been all right. I’d just like to clarify right from the start here that I only had one glass of wine. It was a cheap Merlot (half price for ladies’ night) and I only drank it to be polite.
Twenty minutes after the library doors closed, we were gathered around a small table in the hotel bar across the street, next to the coffee shop.
Did I mention nothing good happens in hotel bars? But the place didn’t smell too badly of stale beer and was fairly deserted apart from our small group, so I wasn’t too worried. What could go wrong?
The Lady of the Members who had been the first to read, and whose real name turned out to be Marlene, ordered an Irish coffee. I picked the wine, because it was on sale. Another woman whose name I have forgotten asked for a regular coffee, black, which made me inwardly cranky, because I hadn’t thought of it before ordering the wine. I mean, I’d made my escape from Scary-tooth Dude, and I just needed to stall for a few minutes to ensure he was really gone before heading back to the hostel. Coffee would have been perfect. AND cheaper. But the server disappeared before I could change my order.