Last night I went to another laugh-a-thon courtesy of Jill Soloway, Maggie Rowe, Sarah Thyre and friends. After the readings of book excerpts and essays, Jill signed more of her books. Socializing over free wine I was reminded of Steve Martin's book signing for Shopgirl - when it first came out, before it was a flicker of a flick. I was working at Neiman Marcus in what seemed like year 100 because I was SO OVER IT! I was pretty much over retail from the get go but dammit if Saks and Neimans didn't keep asking me back and raising the ante. Until I decided I couldn't DO WINDOWS ANYMORE and went for a job in Studio Services which was at least dealing with entertainment folk and less back breaking. After a year, they decided they couldn't afford that budget anymore and moved me to Cosmetics. Back-stabbing bitches on commission! If I hadn't broken myself over and over with years of schlepping mannequins and Christmas trees, I might have taken my display job back which was once again being offered. No, it was just time for me to once and for all find my way out of the corporate bulldookie.
So, it was one glamorous evening during my last months at Neimans that Steve Martin made an appearance to sign his new novella - they planted him right in the front of the cosmetics department. There was a line around my bay for two hours and there was nothing else to do but watch. I was a huge Steve Martin fan, certainly the biggest one in that department - did I mention back stabbing bitches on commission? And lest we forget - this book was about a girl who worked at a deadend job at NEIMAN MARCUS! (Not Saks, as it is in the movie - obviously Saks was dying to recover from the Winona incident and outbid or begged the moviemakers for the location change.)
I noticed that he was giving some folks some extra time and extra inscriptions so I was not going to listen to the silly security who kept telling everybody to keep it moving and just tell him your name, let him sign it and thank him, thank you very kindly. I waited till the line died down - nearly the end of the day, came out from behind the Bobbi Brown counter and walked right up to the stanchions and velvet rope. He looked up at me as I placed the book on his table (set with a lovely $100 flower arrangement that at one time would have been my job to order.)
"Who to?" he asked. He already started to write "For" as I smiled big and said "Future Ex Shopgirl." He squinted at me and asked, "what?" I was stunned into stundom. What do you mean, what? It appeared he heard me, but didn't understand me. Like I had given myself a superhero name or something. In this nano second that lasted a lifetime I thought - you wrote the book! What else does future ex shopgirl mean? I stuttered something about, "ya know, when I get out of this place...uh Nora - it's Nora." So, having already written an "S" possibly for "shopgirl" but unwilling to write "shopgirl" he scribbled "Nora" - OVER THE 'S'. And then his signature. Barely a smile when he handed it back. I looked at it. It looked like it said "For SNora, Steve Martin".
Another disappointing day as a shopgirl - now an ex shopgirl, now a not-so-huge Steve Martin fan.