|
HOW I MET NORA ROBERTS
AND
BECAME HER CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND
by Patricia
Gaffney
The time: October, 1987.
The place: a writer's conference in romantic New
Jersey. Specifically, the Hospitality Suite.
She stood out from the
others--cool, icy, elegant. Also blonde. Very
blonde. Could I approach her? Did I have the gall?
But I was nothing, nobody! I know--a drink first,
to fortify my nerves. Yeah, that's the ticket, a
nice glass of wine.
Sipping it, I checked out
the others in the crowded room. LaVyrle Spencer was
holding court in a corner. Kacey Michaels charmed
her fans by the window. There were others, the
famous and the not-so-famous, but I was too raw,
too new to recognize them. Anyway, I only had eyes
for Nora.
Suddenly there was a lull
in the stream of fans waiting to meet her--now was
my chance! No--too late, somebody was monopolizing
her already. Rats.
Another glass of wine,
then. To soothe my nerves.
"This your first time?"
some woman asked me, and I admitted it was. "Mine,
too." We chatted. "Let's have another one of
these," she suggested, "while we wait to meet
Nora."
O-kay by me.
The woman wrote
contemporaries, I wrote historicals. We told
secrets, admitted ambitions, shared dreams: we
bonded. We had another drink.
Hey...room's starting to
thin out. Where's everybody going? How'd it get to
be ten-thirty? Whoa--Nora's leaving! Quick, get
'er!
We got her. We spoke and
she responded. What did we say? What did SHE
say?
I have no idea. The rest
of the night, from about "Let's have another one of
these" on, is a blur.
And that's how I met Nora
Roberts and became her close personal
friend.
Which just goes to show
what a swell gal that Nora really is, because not
only did she talk to me the next day (tactfully
making no mention of my all but visible hangover),
she also remembered me six months later at yet
another conference and spoke to me AGAIN. (Okay,
the remembering part is not so special; I expect I
made myself pretty memorable. Say, I wonder who
that other woman was, the one with whom I bonded so
deeply. As far as I know, I've never seen her
since. Couldn't tell you her name if my life
depended on it.)
I can hardly believe it's
been ten years since that night in New Jersey.
During that time Nora and I have done 32 signings
together, attended 27 romance conferences, shared
two limos, eight planes, and 52 cabs, exchanged 308
faxes, 898 e-mails, and 2633 phone calls, bought
937 pairs of shoes (all for her), drunk a glass or
two of champagne, heh heh, eaten too many french
fries to count, ditto M&M's, commiserated,
congratulated, laughed, and cried. Mostly laughed.
I've never had a kinder, more generous friend.
Never knew anyone with more energy, and no one with
a greater capacity for living life to the fullest.
Nora's a
phenomenon--that's a given by now, everybody knows
it. What's not as well known is how little success
has changed her. Trust me--she's the same woman
today as the one who snickered tolerantly,
good-naturedly, at that tipsy, awestruck fool in
the Hospitality Suite. One of her best qualities is
that she doesn't take herself too seriously, which
is why she never does the Romance Goddess
thing--and why people are always saying after they
meet her, "Why, she's just a regular person!"
She is, she's just a
regular person. Who just happens to have written
about nine dozen books in her short life. (Really
short life--ask her how old she is. No, seriously,
ask her, she doesn't mind telling her age one bit.)
And I'm so glad I had that third (or so, but who's
counting) glass of wine, without which I might
never have worked up the nerve to meet her. And
then what would my life be? Empty; bereft;
soulless. Okay, that's a stretch, but a lot less
fun and interesting, that's for sure. But you know,
on further reflection, I realize she's actually NOT
the same person I met ten years ago. Something has
changed, and I leave it to others wiser than I to
decipher the significance of it, the true,
metaphysical, cosmic import.
She's not a blonde
anymore.
Click here
---->Pat's
Homepage!<---- Click here
And you'll enter
the wonderful, magical, and, yes, ZANY world of Pat
Gaffney!
ADWOFF > Newsletters > Edition
2 > How Gaff Met
Nora
|
