Book Signing and a Girl with a Dream

March 22, 2025. Barnes and Noble in Ventura. My heart beat a little faster when I read the big, bold cardboard sign that read: “Meet the Author” at a store where I’d bought books for at least ten years.

I’d usually stop at the counter, buy coffee and an oatmeal cookie, then head to the table with the latest bestseller, hoping to find a title that would scream to me in book language: Do I have a story to tell! Pick me! You won’t be able to put my story down for days! Don’t walk away!

But on this day, when I walked into the store with the heavenly whiff of coffee and saw a big, fat, delicious oatmeal cookies on display, the feeling was different.

I was the author of the books stacked in neat piles on a table.

I’d spent forty-one years writing a story so deep in my heart it felt part of me and who I was. The story about my life with John “Jigsaw” St. John was now stacked on a table waiting for my signature. Customers chit-chatted like today was just another day.

It wasn’t.

Earlier that morning, I’d looked through my closet wondering what I should wear for this breakthrough moment? Casual? T-shirt and slacks? Or dressy? Simple shirtwaist and flats?  

In the midst of a decision about what to wear, I shut my eyes and felt very alone.

I felt Jigsaw beside me. I talked to him. He talked to me.   

What should we wear for this magical moment we’ve both been waiting for? Wear your detective outfit – suit and tie. Or your fishing outfit that might have a whiff of salmon eggs. Miss Panic! Wear the black and white dress you wore to Worthen’s wedding.

I didn’t have time to think about what to wear. I had books to sign and people to meet.

What brought the most joy was listening to reader’s stories. But there was one that stood out.

A mother brought a shy, young girl to the table and told me her daughter wanted to be a writer more than anything. Today she was going to meet an author who’d just written her first book.

I saw myself in that young girl dreaming someday I would hold my book in my hands. Words I’d written. Feelings I’d felt. Dreams I’d had. I would have made the transition from writer to author.

When I signed her book, she stared at me writing her name. That was the moment I knew we were connected. A young girl and a much older woman connected by our passion for books. She knew and I knew my book was written for her and every other writer with a dream.

Her mother took a photo of us, side by side with my arm around her. Both of us beaming.

I told her I believed in her and that one day she would be the one signing her book for another writer who had achieved her dream of putting words on the page that will connect with another writer who put their words on a page and the dreams of all of us would be connected by books.

I don’t remember what I wrote. What I do remember is her mother told me she had never seen her daughter so happy. Why? Now she knows her dream will come true.