In the café, I sold an “I Will Keep You Alive” to our first botanist and to our first resident of Montana, which, unfortunately gross-sale-wise, consisted of the same woman. But a pleasing encounter all the same.
And in the health club locker room, Adele sold one to first Israeli, a woman who’d tipped us to “A Touch Away” and to whom we’d recommended “Shregim.”
I also gave away two “Cheesesteak”s. The first was to a Mended Hearts chapter president in North Carolina after she’d said she’d buy an IWKYA and revealed that she’d grown up near the art museum. The second came about after a fellow beside the club pool remarked favorably upon my 1982-83 76ers “World Championship” t-shirt. When I told him I was from West Philly, he said his father’s claim to fame was, while pitching for Overbrook, giving up a “mammoth” home run to Reggie Jackson, which put his dad, though a couple years my junior, squarely within my book’s ideal demographic.
In other news…
1.) Speaking of MH chapter presidents, we have now e-mailed over 180 about our book – and received three replies, Two (from N.C. – see above – and Georgia) say they will buy it, and one (from Idaho) says he couldn’t open the attachment that describes it.
2.) And word-of-mouth-wise, a fellow with (and against) whom I’d played tennis and basketball over three decades but never shared intimacies, unless you count sitting nude in the same backyard hot tub, after finishing the book, reached out for a coffee over which we discussed life, death and relationships. About his reading experience, he said that, after resisting them at first, he’d enjoyed Adele’s portions more than mine. He’ been “touched” by her willingness to expose herself, the rawness of it, the fears exposed. She’d been, he said, “Very courageous.”