10. Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again
10
Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again
Stepping into Campus Books feels like coming home. A sense of comfort doesn’t wash over me so much as absorb me into it. The smell of books and lemony wood polish that keeps the mahogany shelves, rails, walls, and floors at a high-gloss sheen surrounds me as soon as I’m through the doors. The sounds of chitchat and patrons. It’s an everyday paradise unto itself. This is a place books deserve to be. It’s a place I thought I did too.
The staff ushers customers into a lineup that snakes through the stacks, past the registers to a signing table set up on a small platform. The table is piled with By Midnight’s Stroke , the latest release by the Baroness von Snatched, current mother of the House of von Snatched.
As we take our place in line, I run my fingertips along the spines of the books on the shelves we pass.
Wanda and I score prime spots in the line beside the path to the signing table. The Baroness will need to pass right by us. We high-five.
I take in everything going on and mentally make notes. Corner Books is nowhere near this level. At least, not yet. There are about eight staff members, none of them Tru, keeping the customers flowing properly into lines or using handheld devices to cash them out. There are no posters, perhaps due to the sudden nature of the signing, but plenty of books are stacked around the store being rung up quickly. I grab one from a nearby table.
You can feel the anticipation crackling through everyone, the crowd getting pumped for the Baroness to arrive. It’s infectious and only part of that is because of the guest of honor. The other part is everyone here is excited to celebrate a singular thing, the birth of a new book.
“See,” Wanda says. “No one is paying attention to you.”
“As long as it stays that way.”
The crowd gasps. I turn toward the entrance and see a silhouette striking a pose outlined in the doorframe.
The Baroness steps inside. Her chestnut wig is teased and back-combed so it stands at least a foot off her head under a wide-brimmed hat adorned with feathers and a veil. There must be an enormous amount of spray in her hair because not a single strand dares move out of place. She makes a show of removing a pair of rhinestone cat-eye sunglasses and folding the arms. Her lipstick matches her harlot-red skirt suit perfectly. The plushest fur, dark as night, is draped over one shoulder, tails hanging to her knee.
She places her sunglasses inside her handbag before she undoes a button on her jacket to reveal a bustier encrusted with stones that match the jewelry dripping from her ears, neck, lapels, wrists, and fingers even though she’s wearing black gloves. Who wears rings over a glove? A baroness. She holds out her handbag for one of the assistants who trails behind her. Another one steps forward to place an ostrich-feather pen in her outstretched hand.
“She has arrived!” the Baroness shouts across the store.
The crowd erupts into cheers and adulation. Someone whistles from way in the back. Others quickly follow suit and begin hooting.
“She is life,” I squeal, leaning into Wanda.
The Baroness stands on the steps leading into the store, legs spread in a power stance, balancing on the thinnest, highest spiked heels imaginable. She places both hands on her hips, her jacket creating a ruffled bustle behind her.
“I think we can do a touch better with that entrance,” she says. “Let me get myself ready.” She cups each of her breasts and pushes them up with a devilish wink. The crowd cheers and whistles all over again. “Maestro, cue the music, and don’t skimp on the octane.” Like that, she’s out the door again. Her entourage positions themselves, heads down, in a V-shape in front of the doorway.
A fanfare sounds from the loudspeaker. The Baroness struts back into a mashup of Cher with Kim Petras. Icons. Stepping dramatically foot over foot as she advances, body swaying, lip-synch flawless, she parades into the store as if on a catwalk.
The crowd reacts twice as loudly as before. They jump up and down. Others snap photos. Some are screaming, “I love you!”
The Baroness stops to pose, holding out her hand adorned by her massive, sparkling rings or thrusting her hip and elongating an arm.
As she passes us, Wanda has her phone at the ready.
The Baroness stops and leans past her assistants between us. I stand there holding the backpack, the zipper undone, all the Baroness’s novels on display.
“My, my,” she says. “Someone likes to read. I bet you have a massive”—she pauses and winks a heavily shadowed lid at me—“vocabulary.”
I can feel myself blush. I want to come up with something witty to say back, but I know I won’t top her. She is in her element.
The Baroness snatches Wanda’s phone and snaps selfies with the two of us in the background. She gives pout, smile, duck lips, raised eyebrow, smirk, head tilt, shot after shot. For the final two pics, she leans in and plants a kiss on my cheek then Wanda’s. I look over at Wanda to see big red lips marking her cheek.
“Tuck that away now, gorgeous. Trust me, you’ll want to keep those,” the Baroness says.
Wanda grabs my arm. “You undersold how incredibly fabulous she is!”
I stand on tiptoe, snapping more photos, swept up with the rest of the crowd. “She is the moment! She’s every moment!”
We all watch, entranced, as the Baroness continues her way through the crowd, brushing her feather pen over audience members and taking more photos until she reaches her table. She smooths her outfit as she sits, then kicks her legs high in the air, and ever so slowly makes a show of fanning them to cross them. Her assistants place bottled water around her and begin opening books to the title page.
“Take that away,” the Baroness tells the nearest one. “Be a doll and get me the kind that effervesces.” The assistant goes running off in search of sparkling water as the Baroness continues, “Now that I’m sufficiently prepared, unleash my beautiful beasts upon me. Come, my pretties.”
The lineup moves slowly but there isn’t one complaint. Everyone is excitedly whispering to one another. The Baroness calls only a couple of people over at a time for what she refers to as an audience with her, greeting each reader and speaking to them while she signs, not rushing at all. You can tell she knows she’s there for them, answering questions, mugging for more photos, listening to their favorite parts of her books, or how her words affected them. This is as much about her putting on a show as it is about her readers’ experience meeting her. And she knows it.
Wanda and I inch closer to the front of the line. We’re only a few people from being called up when I catch sight of them. Two guys are standing apart, on the next floor up that overlooks the store. One is leaning forward, hands clasped in front of him. I can tell exactly who he is. I’d know him anywhere but especially across a crowded bookstore.
I freeze, glued to the spot, not moving or saying or doing anything. The line moves forward.
Wanda tells me something. I don’t catch it. Someone coughs behind us. I lock eyes with him and know he’s seen me too. He shouldn’t be here. He can’t be. He’s not scheduled.
Wanda follows my gaze. “Oh, crap. Truman.”
My bag of books drops to the floor.