5/15/09

Day Four of our sojourn found us wending our way southward along the coast, through Maryland, around D.C., and into northern Virginia, to the day’s ultimate destination: the Border’s bookstore in Bailey’s Crossroads. No sooner had we arrived than a dental emergency brought on by a stick of gum (not to mention a childhood of relentless candy consumption) threatened to undermine, or at least delay, a tour now barely out of its infancy. Some quick phone calls (and chauffeuring) by Gilian, the bookstore’s events coordinator, saved the day and the signing went on as scheduled. And what a signing it was! The Borders at Bailey’s Crossroads has been the site of some of our more successful events in the past but this evening eclipsed them all. Loyal readers not only bought many copies of Cemetery Dance but also brought in armloads of our earlier books for signature. Afterwards we hosted brief tours of the bus for the Borders staff and a few our friends. Then, bidding Virginia goodbye, we retired to the rear of the bus for dry martinis and a screening of “Rififi”, an old French crime film. We arrived at the hotel on the stroke of midnight.

DJP