Amarillo by Suppertime

Melanie (she's Louise, the decisive one with the gun) has a book signing this weekend in Amarillo. Amarillo, Texas. Reportedly now one of the top 5 places to live and work, according to some smartass friend of mine who is, of course, from Amarillo and who of course doesn't live there, although he of course has bought some property there anyway.

Melly and I met in Amarillo, when we were juniors at Amarillo High School. I was the new girl with the super-long hair. She played violin in the orchestra and had lots of cute guy friends, including the gay guys. (I know - gay in Amarillo - they all live elsewhere now though there was a super-cool gay bar there, Mary's.) We didn't have a class together until senior year, though, when we both were assigned to Mr. Huber's AP English class, which forthwith changed both of our lives. Mr. Huber, it turns out, was the kind of "o captain my captain" teacher who could engage you in reading things you were too young to understand by tapping things in your brain that HE could understand. Several of us in that class were on the verge of teenage implosion, on a daily basis, and he helped us by treating us like adults. Most of us ended up as writers - probably because we already were that in his class, in some proto-intellectual form. Heh.

He'd already have given me a B minus on this entry for bad grammar, but he might have bonused me for some of the bigger words. He also taught vocabulary. I'm now editing my erroneous commas. &%$@!

Anyway Melly and I became pals in that class. My first memory is of her snapping her pencil in two and throwing it across the room in Mr. Huber's class. He took it well, and I was impressed with her pluck. I was too much of a rule-follower and people-pleaser to do anything like that. That's why I get to be Thelma.

We weren't in touch after graduation much. My family moved away (again), we went off to our separate in-state colleges and maybe saw each other at the lame 5-year reunion at somebody's apartment complex in Arlington. Years after that we finally reconnected - at a concert. I was the low act on the totem pole at a Colorado festival billing Julian Lennon and Soul Asylum. I'm up there in my Tommy Hilfiger swag, trying to rock at 4 pm, and I hear this "Trishy-baby!" from somewhere up front. I look out. "It's swell Mel Wells!" I hoot from the microphone.

Somehow somebody with some sense hauled her backstage afterward (which was a large asphalt parking lot), and we sat on the floor between the bunks of my rented tour bus and caught up. She was married, had finished a novel and was looking for a publisher. I was married, had finished my second record and was happily surviving the chaos of constant touring. A week later I had a copy of her first manuscript, and a week after THAT we'd booked our first writers' trip. "Don't come up here to goof off," she'd warned me. "This is WORK."

After that, the story takes some pretty providential turns. If you're in Amarillo this Saturday and you happen to wander in to Barnes and Noble, you can catch the latest chapter from Melanie herself, live and in person. By the way, I love the word "suppertime." I learned it from Melly. She never says "dinner."

Melanie Wells My Soul to Keep Book Signing

Barnes & Noble

Westgate Mall

2415 Soncy Road

Amarillo, TX

(806)352-2300

Saturday, February 23, 2008

7:00 p.m.