Dear Reader Column 09-20-07

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Dear Reader,

I'm on vacation for two weeks and some of my friends have graciously offered to write a guest column for me. Today's column is written by bestselling author Barbara Bretton. She's written so many books that I've lost count. Her latest is Just Like Heaven, which coincidentally is being featured in our Romance Book Club this week.

Barbara is a good friend that I've never met in person. She must be just a little bitty thing, because I don't know how she could find the time to eat between writing books, blogs, newsletters, knitting (she made Baby Paul, my grandson, a blanket and sweater) and she loves to hear from readers, and she answers her mail. Barbara wrote a guest column for me last year, too, and she said that it was one of her "happiest writing experiences". Hundreds of readers wrote to her and she answered each and every email. So don't be shy about writing. Send your email to Suzanne@emailbookclub.com We'll see that she gets your email.

Thanks for helping me out again this year, Barbara.--Gratefully, Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

Let me tell you what happens when a writer who grew up devouring Nancy Drew mysteries comes face to face with a mystery of her own.

It was an average Friday morning. I was planning to meet a friend for lunch in a few hours so my hair was pinned up in gigantic bright red Velcro rollers when I heard the rumble of the UPS truck and the happy thud of a package being left on the doorstep.

I opened the door a fraction and peeked out to see what the driver had left behind. A Gone With The Wind Collector's Plate! (Go ahead. Laugh. I don't blame you. We all have our secrets.) I wanted to pop outside and grab my plate but I heard my mother's voice loudly inside my head, "Never go out with your hair in rollers, Barbara, or a bolt of lightning will strike you dead." Okay, maybe she didn't put it quite that way but her meaning was clear: life as I knew it would definitely screech to a halt if I ventured outside in rollers. Funny how some things stick with you over the years. There I was, a woman in her forties, and I couldn't have stepped outside with rollers in my hair if the house was on fire.

But no problem. I'd bring the plate inside before I left for my lunch date. We live in a sleepy small town in central New Jersey where the biggest item on the police blotter that year was the case of the missing ceramic frog that had mysteriously disappeared from a neighbor's lawn.

Two hours later, minus the rollers, I'm ready to leave. I open the front door to get my plate and you guessed it: my plate is gone. I peer behind the azaleas. I poke around the rhododendrons. No sign of my GWTW plate anywhere so I did what any other outraged citizen in our small town would do under the circumstances: I called the police. (To think I'd grown up in New York City where you wouldn't call the police unless you heard gunfire!)

Five minutes later two squad cars, lights flashing, pulled up in front of my house. That GWTW plate-stealing thief won't know what hit him, I think as the cops walk toward me.

Cop 1: "You lost a plate, ma'am?"

Me: "Yes."

Cop 1: "What kind of plate?"

Me: (embarrassed) "A GWTW collector's plate."

Cop 2: "What did the plate look like?"

Me: "I don't know. It was still in the box."

Cop 1: "How did you know the plate was out here?"

Me: (growing even more embarrassed by the second) "I peeked outside the door after the UPS guy left and saw it."

Cop 1: (locking eyes with his associate) "You looked outside, you saw the plate, and you left it there?"

Me: "Yes."

Cop 2: "Why did you leave it there, ma'am?"

Me: (wishing I was invisible) "My hair was in rollers."

I'll spare you the rest. How they managed to keep straight faces is beyond me, but they did. They questioned my neighbors. They inspected every inch of my property. They did everything but dust for prints. (An oversight, in my opinion.) Finally they assigned me a case number and said they'd be in touch.

Cut to Monday morning. Like I said, I grew up reading Nancy Drew books and this was a mystery I intended to solve or know the reason why. I spent the weekend listing clues and conjuring up various scenarios that involved cat burglars and aging Clark Gable groupies. I'm waiting on the front step when the big brown UPS truck rumbles to a stop. Our regular driver jumps out and hands me a box with a Gone With The Wind plate in it. Huh?

It turned out a substitute driver had delivered on Friday, and because our houses are numbered strangely, the sub decided he had misdelivered the plate. He retrieved it from my step then returned it to the distribution center where our regular driver found it that morning, safe and sound.

Ten minutes later, our Small Town Police Department marked Case #1A78895 "Closed."

You'll be glad to hear Nancy Drew has since retired.

Happy vacation, Suzanne!

Barbara Bretton

Visit Barbara's website: http://www.barbarabretton.com/letter.shtml If you'd like to send Barbara an email, send it to Suzanne@emailbookclub.com and I'll see that she gets it.

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Comments

[Suzanne Eller]

I love this story! I am moving from the country (privacy) where I can slip outside in any condition, to the city where neighbors will have a porch-side view of my back-side if I don't cover it up. : ) I love this blog.