Announcing "The Call" Week!

The Buzz Girls are having a theme week, telling our “The Call” stories. And since Marley is having some technical difficulties today, I’m going first, and she’ll slide in for me tomorrow.

My story is unusual, to say the least, and the only way I can start it is on the day before, Thursday, June 12, 2005...

I was a nervous wreck. Krista Marino at Random House had made an offer on Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress, but my agent, Nadia Cornier, had to close loops with some other interested parties first. After having waited so long to sell a book, I was beset with worries that “something would go wrong” and suddenly no one would want it (let alone my dream publisher, Random House).

I had been driving myself and Nadia crazy. So I announced at breakfast that I was going to see “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” at the local theater to keep myself busy.

Which was where an employee from son’s school found me hours later. My 11 year-old had had a serious playground accident, and they needed my permission for hospital treatment. How thankful I was that I made that breakfast announcement, and even in his blinding pain, he was able to remember and tell them where to find me!

Fast-forward many hours. He had emergency surgery to reconnect his arm...and at midnight, I was feeding him ice cream in a hospital room, just so thankful it had been his arm--and not his back or his neck. He slept fitfully that night, and the alarm on his intravenous fluid drip kept going off, requiring me to stay awake for constant adjustments. I was grateful when dawn broke, to have the previous day behind me.

At 8:00 am, my cell phone rang. I thought it was family. Instead it was Nadia. The deal with Krista Marino at Random House had been sealed.

I stood there, looking at my son, trying to get my brain to process. I was thrilled. Sort of. Kind of. I mean--I was! But what, just yesterday, had me jumping out of my skin, now seemed...surreal.

All I could think about was him. What would his summer be like in a cast? Would be make it to his 6th grade promotion? Would he be able to play his beloved baseball again?

So fast-forward another 10 hours. We’re home, with assurances from the doctor that he’ll make a complete recovery. I’ve had a nap, am feeling human again. And it hits me...OMIGOD, I sold my book!!!

I go for the bottle of champagne that I’d been (hopefully, wishfully) keeping in the back of the fridge. I pop the cork and open my mouth, and start doing the NBA Championship Thing.


Laughing, crying, slurping, guzzling. Like a crazy person. One blissfully happy and grateful mother and published author crazy person.

Tina

www.tinaferraro.com
Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress, March, 2007
How to Hook a Hottie, Spring, 2008