David Payne, A Better Man Than I

A few months ago, I did a post (entitled "I'm Falling out of Love") about how I'd read a new book by one of my favorite authors and hated it. I wrote really really mean things about the book, so mean that I'm not even linking to the post, and wondered "What if stupid Wando Passo has ruined David Payne for me forever? What if I've fallen out of love?" I clicked "Publish Post" and thought no more of David Payne.

Until my friend Meaghan, who I work with at a bookstore during the summers and who had scheduled David Payne for a book signing, forwarded me an email he'd sent to her that said (I'm paraphrasing here) "Are you the Megan of the By & By blog? If so, we should probably cancel the event. PS I'm sorry you didn't like the book." (David Payne probably doesn't say 'PS,' but I do.) Poor Meaghan straightened things out with Mr. Payne, but she did have to admit that the Megan of the By & By blog was one of her seasonal employees (since I had mentioned both her and her bookstore in the post) and apologize for my being such a shrieking hateful harpy.

Although I would have liked Mr. Payne to sign my tattered copies of his four other books, I thought it best not to attend the signing event a few weeks ago. Meaghan said it had gone well, and that, I thought, was that. Not so.

When I reported for my first day of work this morning a smiling Meaghan held out a copy of Back to Wando Passo and said, "David Payne left you a present." Confused and contrite, I said, "But I already have a copy. . .and I didn't even like it." "Look inside," she responded, almost giggling. So I looked inside, where I found this inscription:

To Megan --

Anything we can do to rekindle the spark?

David Payne

And that is what saved David Payne for me.