A Girl With a Sword

the ocean of notions

The bookstore job paid off yesterday. Oh boy, yes it did.

I was at the main info desk checking some books on the computer when one of the guys I work with comes up to me carrying a huge pile of books. I thought he was going to tell me to take them away and shelve them, but instead he told me to go upstairs and grab all the copies of Shalimar the Clown, the new Salman Rushdie book, because "He's coming in to sign them." I just looked at him, "Salman Rushdie? Here?? Now?!?" I couldn't believe it. I knew people like Neil Gaiman and Johnny Depp had a habit of frequenting Emily's bookstore, and Laura met pretty much everybody who's anybody in the cool, hip, social commentary field last weekend, but these kinds of things never happen to me.

I ran upstairs and grabbed the fifty million copies of Shalimar from the back room and ran back down--and there he was. Now you have to understand, Salman Rushdie has been a hero to me for as long as I've known who he is (escaped from Iran . . . price on his head . . . The Satanic Verses). My family has a tape of Haroun and the Sea of Stories that we still listen to every time we go on long trips. So talking to Mr. Rushdie was a crazy experience, and that didn't help my coordination when I was trying to hand him the books to sign.

We didn't exchange very many words, I was just doing my bookstore clerk job. But he sounded just like he did on the Haroun tape. It was a like a character from a favorite story deciding to show up in my life. I refused to be a gushing fan, though. Laura said, after meeting David Brooks this weekend, that he would be a great person to sit down and have dinner with. I'd like to spend an afternoon talking to Salman Rushdie. But I think just the fact that I met him will last me for awhile.