The other day on my run, I saw an SUV, with two women in it, stopped at a stop sign so, as I usually do, under such circumstances, I asked if I could give them a letter about my book. The driver, who looked to be in her thirties, expressed some mild interest. I saw that she had begun reading my letter right there, so I waited to answer any questions she might have.
The woman – I’ll call her Suzan – read the first few lines and grew very excited. “Oh, I can’t believe it!” she said, in an accent that was unmistakably Polish. “You’re the writer that my sister Sophie told me about meeting. And, wow, here I’ve run into you!”
Meeting someone who’s already read my book is always exciting. Just this morning a woman told me that, at a dinner party, she had discussed receiving my flier with a friend, and they had both decided to buy the book the next day. But I had never seen quite as enthusiastic a response as I got from Suzan. She asked if I would talk to her some more, and proceeded to pull the car over to the side of the road.
She asked if I would come to her house some time to talk to her friends, and, since I don’t pass up an opportunity to tell people about my book, I said that I would be happy to. Then she asked if I would come to some Polish holiday celebration at the Polish church in town, and I said I would be happy to do that as well.
Then her phone rang, and it was her sister Sophie. Suzan told her, excitedly, about meeting me, right there on Hope Street and inviting me to her house and the church celebration. While they talked, I got a chance to practice my Polish on the other woman in the car.
When Suzan got off the phone, she informed me that she had made a mistake. The writer that her sister had told her about was someone else who had also written a book about his WW II experiences in Poland. Then they got back in the car and drove off. I haven’t heard from them since.