Hazelnuts and Yummy Mummies

I was at the edge of the SowenCon Author Alley in the main vendor hall when the drugs began to take hold. A guy in a black Batman tee shirt was frowning down at my books, clearly not liking what he saw. I’d nailed a smile to my face as I chatted about the plot of my first novel, but I knew I wasn’t connecting because his scowl deepened and deepened but he wasn’t walking away so I started babbling about the plot of the rest of the series while thinking,Oh god, why did I agree to do this?

You agreed to this because they offered you a free hotel room and you have to stay busy this weekend, my Inner Responsible Adult replied.On Halloween, you have to stay busy. You haveto, or you will think too many thoughts and end up in the bin again.

Keeping busy was good. But I wasn’t any kind of plausible saleswoman. Nobody was going to hire me to pitch jewelry or juicers. I became a writer in the first pea-picking place because I could only seem to gather my thoughts on paper; I constantly found myself tongue-tied whenever I had to meet new people. So why in the name of sweet candy corn was I working a table trying to talk up books I’d written precisely because I could never reliably form complete sentences except with a keyboard? Couldn’t I have chosen to stay busy doing something less painful, like competing in ghost pepper eating contests? Nude sandpaper surfing? Milking angry sharks?

In my mind, I heard my dead mother’s voice: “Life is a grand comedy, dear; just do your best.”

I suddenly felt too hot despite the chilly diesel-stinky October draft from the loading dock in back and my head felt floaty and puffy like a party balloon. And I wasn’t even sure what words were coming out of my mouth.Something something actionsomething adventuresomething award-winningsomething. Batfan’s face scrunched up more and more, getting impossibly wrinkled, and his nose squinched and flattened and inverted, his eyes shrunk tiny, black and beady and suddenly I was looking up at the head of an actual bat. A brown bat like the ones that roosted under the overpass near my mom’s house back in Missouri. Except fifty times as huge, because brown bats are itty-bitty and the Batfan had a noggin the size of a cantaloupe.

I trailed off, gaping at him.What. The. Actual. Fuck.

And then wondered:Did I say that out loud?

The bat gave me a weird, suspicious look and walked away without a screech.

Elaine, the SowenCon author liaison, came hurrying up, her tall pointy witch hat askew, her glittery blue satin dress swirling and glowing like galaxies. Her whole outfit seemed to have turned into a portal to another dimension. I felt as though I might fall right into it.

“Miss Bowen?” she said. By her expression, it wasn’t the first time sh