The Reading: guest blog by Jon Obermeyer

I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody, or what to say to someone who is dying. They don't teach you how to be famous--Neil Gaiman.

I.

They schedule the reading for early Friday evening, in a small North Carolina town where you used to live, an hour away; Friday the 13th as it happens. There will be a small musical program, and then the focus will be on you, the headliner.

This reading, while welcome, messes with your Friday routine. You pack a cardboard box  with thirty copies of your latest novel. You go to the bank to get one-dollar bills, in case people want to buy the book and only have a twenty-dollar bill. If you sold each copy for $20, instead of $16, your life would be easier. You wouldn't have to make change all the time.

You stop work on your current manuscript around 3 p.m., shower, get dressed, and make a snack in the kitchen. It's only an hour away but there will be Friday afternoon traffic to navigate. There are always a lot of trucks on that highway you recall, gravel trucks and tractor trailer semis bound for Wal-Mart.

The drive north is quite lovely, here in early April. The red buds are out, and some dogwoods. The city landscape of bright, gaudy strip malls and impervious surface turns to countryside. The farms, meadows and ponds are a welcome change from your suburban environs at home. You pass an expansive solar energy field and remember when it was just a handful of experimental panels, a patchwork of mirros on the sloping cow pasture.

Overall, you are feeling good about things and you are productive; make that prolific. You have no end of ideas for future projects. Your novel is selling well and you are getting decent reviews. It's also leading to interest from agents and publishers in your next book.

Your self-funded book tour of the lower forty-eight states last summer helped, the power of a grassroots movement, hosted by independent bookstores. A local bookclub in Hillsborough hosted you in January: they baked a cake in the shape of an elephant (one of the main characters in the novel) and the group presented you with an elephant-themed blank journal at the end of the evening: sweet and completely disarming.

II.

This reading is sponsored by a small community college. Your former staff and colleagues greet you warmly. A student (deputized) carries your cardboard box of novels for sale into the room where you will read. His oxford dress shirt is untucked in the back you notice. All the student ambassadors are wearing oxford dress shirts, with khaki trousers, the school logo embroidered on the left side of the dress shirt.

The room where you will read is smalll and windowless, set up with rows of yellow chairs with padded seats and backs. The lighting is fluorescent; not your favorite. At least they have a podium, black polished metal. It resembles a high-tech music stand.

There's an event in the next room, a student acapella group. The talent level is delightful. You recognize the popular tune; they are transforming it with this arrangement. In the Bible Belt you're going to find an endless depth of exceptional singers and harmonizers; thank the churches for that one. The other room is packed with parents and siblings of the performers. You recognize the new college president in the front row; you haven't met her but you've heard good things.

The performance ends and there are refreshments: punch and Chilean grapes and cheddar cheese cubes.

Several women drift into your room and take seats in the middle rows, avoiding the front. A dean from the college introduces you. The college publicist wanders in and takes two photos for posterity. You never see the college president that evening.

The reading goes well. You read two short chapter excerpts, so that the audience gets a feeling for two of the main characters, including the elephant. One woman has brought her ten-year-old daughter, who is in a colorful pink and purple dress and wearing an oversized hair bow. You remember her as an infant, and read the elephant chapter straight to her, as if it's a bedtime story.

The Q&A is surprisingly evoloved. This is a literate community, when they make the effort. You sell two copies of the novel and the deputized student carries the near-full box of novels back to your car.

III.

Four people on a Friday night is a shame. You sense the college didn't quite promote you enough. They could have at least made it mandatory for English majors.

You are an author with fifteen books, national journal publications, awards, and a small following in Denmark and the Netherlands, environmentalists mostly.

Seen another way, an audience of four is a blessing. There's an intimacy and a connection about it. Your friend's daughter might become a writer, find her voice, because of this evening. People who didn't make it, at least knew you were in town.

IV.

At a stoplight, you run into a former colleague froom the biology department. He is in a bright-yellow basketball jersey that says "Teachers" and apologizes for missing your reading; Friday night intramural play and he is their star rebounder.

You drive by your old house at dusk. The front door is painted purple. They've removed your roses. You remember the sunroom in back, where you wrote your second book, a collection of essays. This town, a minor Mayberry, came at a good time in your life. Your daughter finished high school and you got her off into a decent college without any drama or tragedy.

The drive back on the highway is restorative. There's a classic car show in the vast parking lot in front of the bowling alley. The solar farm panels are now silver-blue, reflecting twilight. The roadside ponds appear dark and bottomless.

The good news here is that you'll be home earlier than you thought, and refreshed from the getaway to the northern edge of the state. There's time to make a cup of tea and write for a few hours. The next book beckons.

Jon Obermeyer can, and does, write about almost anything, including writing. Poet, novelist, short story writer, memoirist, Mr. Obermeyer lives and works in Durham, NC. He's a regular contributor to the IFSF bookblog.