Free Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg Page A

she has come off so strangely she can't even kid around. They think she's odd, they don't like her, and they are disappointed. They have set aside time to come here, and for what? This is the talk that would let them get to know the author?
    Helen stands there, increasingly dry-mouthed, then says, “I'm sorry. I don't know what you want of me.” She feels very close to tears. She shifts her weight, looks down again at her useless notes. She looks out at the crowd and a great weariness comes over her. She thinks for a moment about simply walking offstage, but then says, “I don't see how you can get to know a person from a lecture. I guess I think if you want to know an author, you should read her books. Because that's the part … That's the personal part, even if it isn't real. You know? That thing you try to get at, so you can …
    “I'm afraid that's all I can say. Unless there are any more questions. Or comments. Anyone have anything they'd like to say? About anything?”
    No one does.
    “Well, then … Thank you.” Helen moves off the stage to a light smattering of applause, the sound of which is easily overwhelmed by the low murmur of conversation.
    Doris McCann is standing backstage, a tight smile frozen on her face. She offers Helen a white envelope. Her payment.
    “That's all right,” Helen says. “I'm so sorry. I haven't been feeling well.”
    “I'm sorry to hear that,” Doris says, but her tone says, Then why didn't you call and cancel?
    Helen starts to explain, then does not. Why say this has never happened before when that might only make her hostess feel worse? There is nothing to say; the damage is done. It's like a disastrous first date: Midge once went out with the captain of the football team in high school and farted as she was getting into his car, him behind her gallantly holding the door open—and that was the end of that . Doris will tell Helen's lecture agent about this performance, or lack thereof, how could she not? Why should she not? Helen's track record, which thus far has been so good, will be spoiled.
    Doris offers the check again. “Go ahead and take it. We did sign a contract. You did appear. Maybe you could just sign some books?”
    “Of course.”
    “Well, then …” Doris puts the envelope into the outside pocket of Helen's purse. “Let's go and do that.”
    They go back into the auditorium, where there are four people in line, and the last one asks Helen quietly, “Are you all right?”
    “Thank you for asking,” Helen says. “I'll be fine.”
    After the room empties, Doris says. “Well, I'll buy one. Could you sign it to my mother? Her name is Phyllis. She liked you.”
    She seems not to notice the slip: liked .
    Helen pulls out her pen, signs the book, and hands it to Doris. “Thank you. I hope she enjoys it.”
    “Oh, sure,” Doris says. She scratches her ear. Smiles.
    “Again, I apologize for—”
    “It's all right. These things happen.”
    “You know, I wonder if—Maybe I could try again another time.” She'll share with them the story about telling her father as a little girl that she was going to be a writer someday and how at first he had laughed but then had said, “I believe you.” She'll explain how important it is to have someone believe in you, how important it is to nourish dreams, especially your own. She'll tell them that she used to pull books behind her in a wagon when she played outside, they were her favorite toy, and that all one summer, after her parents made her turn out the light, she read under her covers by fireflies in a jar. She'll talk about the time she was twelve years old and got so sunburned she couldn't wear clothes and had to lie in bed with only a sheet over her for four days and it was then that she read Gone with the Wind for the first time. And then she went on to read it eight more times. Oh, she can think of a lot of things to say, now! That the impetus for one of her best-loved novels was a sentence in a conversation